Untitled (14 page)

   Nikki waved a hand in dismissal. "I just felt so bad for you. What rotten luck. And I see the sheriff still hasn't let you reopen. Are you on for tomorrow?"

   "No, which is what we were just discussing when—"

   The door opened, the bell above it jingling. There stood Russ.

   Angelica gave Nikki a nudge. "Let me show you this marvelous new cake cookbook that just came in," she said and grabbed Nikki's arm, pulling her away, apparently willing to temporarily forget that Nikki competed for her customers.

   Russ didn't even seem to know they were there. He stepped forward. "Hi, Trish," he said shyly.

   "Hi," she answered.

   His eyes were drawn to the flowers still sitting on the sales counter. "Oh, good. They arrived okay."

   "Yes, thank you, they're lovely."

   "Like you."

   Their gazes held for a few long seconds, then Tricia turned to admire the flowers. She picked up the card. "I wondered about this. Did you mean it?"

   He studied the card in her hand for a moment, then his gaze met hers. "I'm pretty sure I did."

   "Pretty sure?" she asked.

   "That's about as definite as I can be right now. How about you?"

   "I'm not at all sure, but I'm willing to hang around to see if it happens."

   He took her hands and pulled her forward, pressing a gentle kiss against her lips before pulling away. "Can we try dinner again?"

   The thought made her throat constrict. "On one condition. No more tuna noodle casseroles—ever."

   "I think I could pull that off." He smiled, and tugged on her hand. "Get your coat. Let's go."

   She stood firm. "I can't. I promised Kimberly Peters I'd have dinner with her tonight." Disappointment shadowed his eyes for a few brief seconds, and then they flashed. "No," Tricia said resolutely, "you're not invited."

   "I didn't say a word," he protested.

   "No, but I could read the thought balloon over your head. You're still working on your story," she accused.

   "It's not much of a story until something breaks. Did you notice the Boston and Manchester TV vans have left town, although they might be back for the statue dedication on Saturday? Bob Kelly has sent press releases to half the East Coast news outlets."

   "Only half?"

   "He's still got another day," Russ added dryly. "When can I see you again?"

   "I'm not doing anything for lunch tomorrow."

   "I was thinking more along the lines of dinner, remember. How about Saturday?"

   "Saturday's fine."

   The corners of his mouth lifted. "And then maybe . . ."

   "Maybe what?"

   "We could . . . become friends all over again."

   She felt the edges of the card still clutched in her hand.
Love, Russ.

   Out the corner of her eye, Tricia noticed Nikki and Angelica peeking around a bookshelf, eavesdropping. She cleared her throat, and they disappeared. Turning her attention back to Russ, she said, "Saturday night it is."

   "No," Kimberly said, barely looking up from the laminated menu she consulted. She ran her finger down the list of appetizers. "I haven't had a cigarette in two days, and I'm starved." She looked up. "You did say I was your guest, didn't you?"

   She quit smoking? Obviously she wasn't stressed about the death of her aunt. "Of course."

   A nasty little smile twisted Kimberly's lips. "So what was it you wanted to know about dear Aunt Zoë?"

   So much for small talk. And Tricia wasn't sure she was ready to discuss what she knew—or at least thought she knew. "Several people I've spoken to wondered about your aunt's unsold novels." Not the truth, but not a total lie, either.

   Again Kimberly looked up from her menu, her expression darkening. "Unsold?"

   "It's a known fact that the first efforts of most authors usually aren't up to publishing standards. And for Zoë to burst out of the gates and not only win
the
major mystery award and hit best-sellerdom, she had to have a few 'practice' or trunk novels squirreled away. You know, things that she never thought would appear in print."

   Kimberly ran her tongue across her lower lip. "Not that I'm aware of."

   "But you were her assistant. Didn't she confide in you about her early work? Her dreams and plans for her future work?"

   Before Kimberly could answer, Eugenia, the perky blonde, college-age night waitress, approached the table. "Good evening, ladies. What can I get you to drink?"

   "I'll have a glass of the house red," Tricia said, noticing Eugenia had added a pierced brow to her already pierced nose and ears.

   "Me, too," Kimberly echoed.

   Eugenia nodded. "I'll be back to take your orders in a few minutes."

   Tricia waited until she was out of earshot before speaking again. "The unsold books," she prompted.

   Kimberly's attention was again focused on the menu. "I'd have to search her files. She may have left something in one of the file cabinets. She did most of her work in the Carolina house these past few years. Maybe I'll check when I get back home."

   "You don't consider Stoneham your home?"

   Kimberly looked up sharply. "This dump? Not on your life. I hate the winters. And besides, who can you meet here?"

   If it was husband material Kimberly was talking about, Tricia had to agree. Most of the booksellers were married, and as Lois Kerr had pointed out, the majority of young people in the village seemed to move to Boston, Portland, or New York as soon as they could escape. "When will you be going home?"

   "When I can find the gas money. All Zoë's accounts have been frozen until probate is complete. I'm not her executor," she reminded Tricia. "She didn't trust me enough for that."

   "Who
is
her executor?"

   "Until recently, it was her agent. Now it's some lawyer. At least he's given me permission to stay in either of the houses until they're sold. But it makes more sense to close up this one as soon as possible, since that's what she wanted. I never intend to live in, let alone visit, Stoneham ever again."

   Why had Zoë changed executors? Did she have a fallingout with her agent? He'd sounded eager to attend the memorial service. She shook the thought away. If nothing else, it would look good for him to be there. But whom did he want to look good for?

   Eugenia returned with their wine, and soon held her pen over her pad, ready to write. "All set to order?"

   Kimberly nodded. "I'll have the twice-baked potato ap

petizer, French onion soup, the chicken pot pie with a side of mashed potatoes, and a slice of the cherry pie. Oh, and a Diet Coke."

   Tricia folded her menu, wondering how someone as thin as Kimberly could eat such great quantities of food. She sighed. "I'll have the Cobb salad plate with peppercorn dressing on the side. Thanks, Eugenia."

   Eugenia collected the menus, nodded, and headed for the kitchen.

   Tricia addressed Kimberly once more. "At the signing, you made a big point of reminding your aunt about taking her medication. Why?"

   Kimberly shrugged. "The old girl was diabetic. She'd been known to keel over if her sugar dropped. We hadn't had dinner that night—just ran out of time. I'd gotten so I could pretty much gauge when she was going to need another insulin shot."

   That sounded reasonable. Tricia thought about the big question that had weighed heavy on her mind. Despite Stella's warning, she decided to test Kimberly. "Your aunt told my customers she was done with the Jess and Addie series. Had she started another?"

   Kimberly hesitated. "No. Like Margaret Mitchell and Harper Lee, my aunt only had one set of characters whose stories she cared to tell. Only in her case, instead of just one novel, it came out in a five-book arc."

   "I've been talking with a number of people around the village. Some people find it hard to believe Zoë actually wrote the Jess and Addie mystery series."

   Kimberly raised an eyebrow but said nothing, her expression bland.

   Tricia decided to try a different approach. "You wouldn't want to tell me why you were so angry at your aunt the night of her death, would you?"

   "For just that day, or do you want the full ten-year list?"

   "Just that day will do," Tricia said.

   Kimberly leaned forward, resting her arms on the table. "My aunt was very wealthy, but you wouldn't know it to see the way we've lived."

   "But she had two houses."

   "Two cheap houses. I worked my ass off on this book tour, but she couldn't—or wouldn't—acknowledge it. Good press? Oh, that was from the publisher—not from the interviews I lined up for her, or the coaching I gave her. She didn't like to fly. Who drove her ten thousand miles in the last two months?"

   "Why didn't you leave?"

   Kimberly hesitated. "Let's just say I had my reasons. But I was quickly running out of them. In fact, just before we came to your store, I told her I was ready to walk. She called my bluff, but not before dangling another carrot in front of me."

   "And that carrot was?"

   Eugenia chose that moment to set the appetizer in front of Kimberly, who plunged her fork into it with zeal.

   "Would you like the soup with your entrée?" the waitress asked.

   Kimberly shook her head, already wolfing down a bite. "Bring it now, thanks."

   Eugenia shot Tricia a look that asked "What gives?" but Tricia could only shrug. She looked back at Kimberly. "Sure thing," she said, and headed back for the kitchen.

   "What did Zoë offer you to keep you from leaving?" Tricia asked.

   Kimberly shoveled in another forkful of potato before she set down her fork. She took a sip of her wine. "That's none of your business. But I'll be honest with you about one thing, Tricia. I'm broke. Flat busted. There's no food in Zoë's house, and I have no idea how I'm going to manage. I've even contemplated snagging one of those pesky geese roaming the village and roasting it. That would probably feed me for a week." She gave a half-hearted laugh, but soon sobered. "Until probate is settled, I've got a roof over my head but no income. This food," she pointed at her plate, "will have to last me a few days. After that . . ." Her mouth trembled, and her desperation was nearly palpable. "I don't know what I'll do."

   Tricia resisted the temptation to reach out and comfort Kimberly, who probably wouldn't have appreciated it anyway. Kimberly's despair wasn't grief for her aunt—more for her own circumstances. And what could Zoë have possibly offered to keep her in a situation she found so miserable?

   "What about the manuscripts? Can you tell me about them?" Tricia asked.

   "What do you expect me to say?"

   
That Zoë didn't write them!
she wanted to scream. Instead, Tricia struggled to keep her voice level. "What was Zoë's writing process? Did she write them on a typewriter or a computer—or even longhand?"

   Kimberly stabbed her potato with her fork, and exhaled a long, slow breath. Evidently that question had hit a nerve. "I believe the original manuscripts were written on an old manual typewriter. I wasn't around when they were actually typed, so I can't be sure."

   "Are you saying all the manuscripts were written before you came to live with your aunt?"

   Again, Kimberly hesitated. "I was seventeen years old when I came to live with Zoë. My parents had just died. I'd never been close to my aunt, and I didn't much care about her or her hobbies. I didn't become interested in the books until my sophomore year in college, when I changed my major from humanities to English lit. One of our assignments was to read the first
Forever
book." She paused, and took a breath. "It changed my life. Those characters were so beautifully drawn, they inspired me. And that's when I first thought that I might want to write a book, too."

   Tricia raised an eyebrow, surprised at Kimberly's candor. "Go on," she encouraged.

   "Zoë was delighted I took an interest. She hired me during vacations to key in her manuscripts, read over her contracts, and help with publicity. It got her publisher off her back, and it was a great way for me to learn about the publishing industry. In some ways we actually became a team."

   "But there was always a bit of animosity between you?"

   Kimberly's gaze dipped, and she scraped cheese and flesh from the potato skin. "Zoë was a really private person. There was a lot she never wanted to talk about, things she didn't want to reveal, even to me. She'd be pissed to know I'm talking to you about her."

   But that didn't answer Tricia's question, and she got the feeling they could dance around the subject for days and Kimberly wouldn't reveal what it was that Zoë had kept hidden all these years. She swallowed, abandoning that line of inquiry. "Tell me about those threatening letters Zoë received that you mentioned the other day."

   Kimberly sobered, and then let out a resigned breath. "I only found out about it a few weeks ago, when a new batch of them came in. Apparently, she'd been getting them off and on for years."

   "What made you think the blackmailer could be here in Stoneham?"

   "Most of the letters were postmarked from Milford or Nashua."

   "Did Zoë worry about them? Is that why she finally put the house here in Stoneham up for sale?"

   "No. She blew them off as from a crank. Authors get a lot of oddball fan mail and solicitations. Someone always wants you to look at a manuscript or to give them your literary agent's name. Zoë hadn't been back to Stoneham in over a year, and she was tired of paying for utilities and for someone to look in on the house now and then."