PAINS AND PENALTIES (A GEEKS AND THINGS MYSTERY) Copyright © 2016 by Sarah Biglow.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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For information contact; www.sarah-biglow.com

Edited by Ken Marrow, M.A.

Cover Design by: Ana Grigoriu

Published by Sarah Biglow: March 2016

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Read an Excerpt from FORGIVE AND FORGET (Geeks and Things #2)

Also By This Author

About The Author

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CHAPTER ONE

Kalina Greystone was standing behind the counter bent over a tablet double checking inventory when her nephew, AJ, appeared in the doorway to what used to be the stockroom, a box of comics in his arms. She was converting it into a gaming space and mini theater. "This was all that was left, Aunt K."

Setting the tablet aside, she gave him a grateful smile. "I'll take those."

He handed the box over and she settled it below the counter on the top shelf. It contained all of the unclaimed new arrivals for her customers. It still amazed her that she could call them her customers. She had no doubt they'd be in soon enough to claim their comic fix. AJ peered at the tablet and pointed to the paper file sitting next to it. "What are you doing?"

"Going digital. Your grandpa kept paper ledgers of everyone's orders and what we had in stock. I just finished transferring everything to the tablet so we can move some of the old files to your mom's basement." She motioned to the counter space that had until three months ago housed a clumsy, old-fashioned cash register. "And thanks to Square, we can do all of our business on the tablet, too. Send e-receipts, the whole thing."

"Damn, you really are going high tech. Guess that fancy MBA really paid off."

"Don't swear." She nudged his shoulder. "We still have a cash drawer, obviously, but it will be easier to reconcile at the end of the day."

AJ stepped behind the counter and pulled her into an unexpected hug. She returned the gesture if a little awkwardly. "What was that for?"

He shrugged one shoulder and didn't meet her gaze. "Nothing. Just missed you is all. Mom's glad you're back. Even if she doesn't say it."

"I missed you guys, too." Kalina often wondered if the relatively small age difference—18 years—between her and AJ made him see her as more of a friend than an authority figure. Still, she couldn't deny she liked hanging out with him. "And I know she's happy she didn't have to take over the business. Now go make sure we have everything ready for the booth at the fair."

Before they could continue their conversation, the front door opened and the tiny bell tinkled to announce the customer's entrance. AJ disappeared back through the game room and Kalina turned to greet the first patron of the day. Usually Saturdays were busy, especially in the morning, but today was the exception. Everyone was heading down to the waterfront for the annual Solstice Fair to kick off the start of summer. People from neighboring towns came out to the little town of Ellesworth, Massachusetts to enjoy arguably the best homemade baked goods on the southern coast of the state and generally indulge in silly carnival games. A familiar face greeted her and warmth crept up her neck. Christian Harper.

"Hi." Her mouth went dry at the sight of him. They hadn't really spoken in the last fifteen years. Not since they'd ended their three-year relationship in high school. But he looked just the same with his bright blue eyes—the kind a girl could get lost in without trying—and slightly messy brown hair.

"Hey, Kal. How are you?"

Kalina coughed a time or two to find her voice. "Good. Busy... Well, I mean not at this particular moment with the fair today but..." She rambled when she was nervous. Taking a breath, she collected herself. "Can I help you with something, Officer?" Last she’d heard he had joined the police department out of college.

Chris smiled, his eyes crinkling around the corners. "Actually, it’s Detective now.” He tapped the top of his detective’s shield. “And I was looking for some T-shirts for my nephews. They're big into superheroes these days."

"Nephews?" Kalina buried her face in her hands. How had she forgotten? "Of course. How old are they now?"

"Jackson is eight and Benji is ten."

She looked around the shop. The wall that normally housed the T-shirt selection was bare. "Well, we have some but we are taking them down to the fair. We have a booth."

"Well, if you don't mind the company, I'll go down with you. We can catch up."

"Sure. Let me just let AJ know he can head down and start setting up."

She was about to text him when AJ stuck his head in through the front door. "We're all set. Everything's in the car."

Kalina retrieved the locked cash box her father had kept for the fair from its spot on the back shelf. Holding it up, she gave it a shake. "You forgot this."

"I thought you said we were going digital?"

"Some things are tradition. Besides, you know all the proceeds from today go to the Wounded Warrior charity."

Her nephew rolled his eyes but grabbed the box and gestured for her to hand over the car keys. She arched a brow and nodded in Chris’s direction. “I don’t think so.” She turned to Chris. “Want a ride?”

“Love one.”

AJ led the small procession out of the shop. Kalina paused long enough to lock the front door—habits from her time living in the city—and climbed into the driver seat. Chris slid into the passenger and AJ settled in the back amidst the boxes of merchandise up for sale.

The trip down to the waterfront was brief and quiet. Apparently, ‘catching up’ didn’t involve talking in front of a fifteen-year-old boy. Ten minutes later, Kalina’s car was empty and the small booth with a “Geeks and Things” banner was laden with boxes. AJ wandered off in search of his friends, leaving the grown-ups to handle unpacking.

“I thought he was supposed to be helping you,” Chris said as he laid out some new comics.

She waved dismissively in the direction he’d gone. “He’ll be back. We’re splitting our time so I figure he can get in on some rides before the lines get too long. What superheroes are the boys into?”

Chris scratched his chin. “Jack likes Hulk. And I’m pretty sure Benji mentioned something about Rocket Raccoon.”

She rifled through a box of shirts. “So … detective, huh? Congrats.”

“Thanks. I owe a lot to Captain Cahill. He trained me since I joined the force.”

“I bet.” She nodded toward his badge. “You working today?” She out a couple of kids’ smalls and held them up for his approval.

He gave her a thumbs up on both. “Sort of. But my shift doesn’t start until later this afternoon.” He smiled again and Kalina’s legs went weak. “You know, Kal, I was honestly surprised to hear you’d come back to town.”

She tugged at a few strands of loose, red curls. Could she admit to him she hadn’t entirely wanted to? Would that make her sound like an awful daughter? “Well, Dad left the place to me in the will. I couldn’t just leave it to wither away. He raised me on comics. It’s in my blood.”

“I’m sorry about your dad’s passing by the way.”

Her chest tightened for a moment at the thought of her father’s death. “Thanks. We knew he had heart trouble so the last heart attack wasn’t a huge surprise. But it means a lot that you care.”

More familiar faces passed by. Some waved or nodded in their direction. Kalina waved back. Despite not having wanted to come home, a part of her was happy to be back. She missed being a part of such a small community. She stowed the cash box behind a pile of old video games and leaned forward on the edge of the table. “So, you aren’t on duty for a while. You want to check out the judging for the pastries?”

“Absolutely. How much do I owe you for the shirts?”

Kalina started to say they were free but caught herself. “Five bucks each.”

He handed over a twenty dollar bill but waved her off when she made a move to open the cash box. “Consider the rest a donation.”

“Thanks.”

AJ appeared from the crowd and ducked into the booth. His cheeks were flushed and he wore a dopey grin. The wrist band on his left hand signaled he’d been on the roller coaster and likely the Ferris wheel already.

“We’ll be back. We’re just going to check out the baking contest,” Kalina said and patted her nephew on the shoulder.

CHAPTER TWO

The fairgrounds bustled with people stopping by vendors on both sides of the promenade, buying everything from handmade picture frames to tote bags with hand-painted waterscapes. The pastry judging tent sat at the far end of the promenade. They always did the judging early on to encourage people to buy the winning sweets. It was never that much of a real competition. Mrs. Margaret Grant always won for her blueberry and raspberry scones. It had been that way since Kalina was a little girl. Usually, Mrs. Agatha Davies also won for her European sponge cake with lemon drizzle. Kalina walked with purpose towards the judging tent until she felt a hand squeeze lightly on her wrist.

“Sorry,” she said when she saw Chris slowing her down. “I guess I still have some city habits to break.”

“It’s okay. You just don’t need to be in such a hurry. You know they announce the winners over the loudspeaker.”

She smiled sheepishly and fell into step beside him. The sun peeked out from behind a thin layer of cloud cover, highlighting thin veins of gold in Chris’s hair. For a moment she remembered them as two high school kids who thought they were in love. But that time was past. They weren’t kids anymore, maybe friends but nothing more. “So, did you ever settle down?”

“Nope. Still a bachelor. I guess I just never found the right girl. What about you?”

She shook her head. “There was a guy in college but … it didn’t end well.”

They reached the judging tent and found both Mrs. Davies and Mrs. Grant sitting behind their respective entries. Kalina bent down to place an order for Mrs. Grant’s scones and noticed another set of scones down the table manned by Andrea Nevins. She’d been a couple years ahead of Kalina and Chris in school. At the far end of the table, Captain Cahill stood beside someone Kalina didn’t recognize.

“Who is that?” She pointed at the woman.

“That’s Leslie Mayfield, Dan’s fiancée. She teaches at the elementary school. Benji is in her class.”

They moved down the table and Chris placed an order for Leslie’s apple tarts. “Good luck.”

Leslie tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, not so subtly flashing her engagement ring, and smiled big. She turned to Kalina and offered her non-bejeweled hand. “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met.”

“I’m Kalina Greystone.” They shook hands briefly. “My father used to own Geeks and Things up on Main Street. I moved back to run the store after he died.”

“Oh, right, of course.”

Dan leaned in and kissed Leslie on the cheek. “I think they’re about to start the judging.”

Kalina and Chris moved back into the crowd while the judges sampled the various sweets, concurring in low whispers and making notes on their clipboards. The town took the contest very seriously. Tension rose amongst the crowd as they awaited the announcement. At the far end of the table Mrs. Davies sat with her hands folded in her lap. Mrs. Grant shot Andrea annoyed looks as the judges handed the winning votes to the announcer, Theodore Maxwell. He cleared his throat and held the microphone too close to his mouth.

“We have the results of the baking contest. Remember, you can put an order in at any time to purchase the winning pastries. All proceeds go to the Wounded Warrior charity.”

The feedback on the speakers squealed and Kalina covered her ears along with many of the people watching. Theo held the mic further from his mouth and studied the first scrap of paper. “The winner for best fruit tart goes to Ms. Leslie Mayfield.”

Cheers went up from the crowd and Leslie grinned and waved. Captain Cahill let out a loud whistle, making his fiancée blush. He darted up to the stage and placed a huge bouquet in her arms. Theo waved his hand for quiet and the crowd settled down. “Best sponge cake, of course, goes to Mrs. Agatha Davies.” The crowd’s response was a little more subdued as Agatha stood up and took a little bow. Kalina noted the older woman’s cheeks were a bit flushed but she assumed it was just due to the excitement of yet another blue ribbon for her mantle. Beside Agatha, Mrs. Grant already had her hands on the armrest, ready to push herself up to accept the blue ribbon for her scones.

“And finally, the winner for the best scones is…” Theo stopped and turned to the judges. They nodded in unison and he faced the growing throng, clearing his throat as he did so. “The winner is Ms. Andrea Nevins.”

A hush fell over the crowd. Mrs. Grant jumped from her seat and marched toward the judges before Andrea could accept the ribbon. Chris stood beside Kalina, mouth agape as the older woman leaned in close enough to Theo’s microphone that her tirade carried across the fairgrounds.

“This is unacceptable. My scones were far better than hers.”

Andrea paled and dabbed her eyes before hurrying off the stage clutching the ribbon to her chest. A few members in the crowd patted her on the back and her older brother broke from the group to wrap an arm around her shoulders, leading her away.

“Mrs. Grant, please. This is just a friendly competition,” Theo said, trying to yank the microphone out of her reach.

She wasn’t having any of it. She waggled a finger at the judges, summoning them forward. “You three had better explain yourselves.”

From behind her, Mrs. Davies shuffled forward and tried to tug Mrs. Grant away but had no luck.

“It’s not that your scones weren’t good, Mrs. Grant. It’s just … Andy’s were better this year,” one of the judges said.

People began to disperse, no longer interested in seeing Mrs. Grant lose her temper with the judges. Kalina nudged Chris in the ribs and nodded back towards the booth. “I should probably head back to make sure AJ is doing okay.” She looked at her watch. “Besides, he’s probably looking for an early lunch.”

“No problem.”

They walked side by side back down the promenade. Kalina made a mental note to stop by some of the booths near the end of the day to pick up some early Christmas presents for her sister and mother. The Geeks and Things booth came into view and she couldn’t keep a smile from tugging at the corners of her lips. A small group of kids clamored around the table, picking up action figures and T-shirts. Money changed hands rapidly and AJ gave her a double thumbs up when he spotted her.

“Well, I’ll leave you to hawking your wares,” Chris said.

“Enjoy the rest of the fair.” She waved and slid in behind the table next to her nephew.

He blew out a breath. “Thank God you’re back. It’s been super nuts. I’m starving.”

Kalina chuckled. “Yes, yes. Go get food. Bring me back a fried dough. Extra cinnamon sugar.”

He gave her a salute and raced out of the booth and toward the refreshment tent. Kalina settled into the metal chair behind the table and waited for people passing by to stop. She didn’t have to wait long before Leslie appeared with her big smile plastered to her lips. She’d pinned the ribbon to her blouse. The bouquet was nowhere to be seen.

“Congrats again on your win,” Kalina said.

“Thanks. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you before. I guess I’m not all that good with faces unless they are my students.”

“No worries. I left town for a while after high school. Big city dreams. Earned my business degree and worked in Boston for a few years. But I guess my heart was always back here in town.” Kalina glanced around for Captain Cahill. “Where’s your fiancé?”

“Oh, getting some drinks from the refreshment tent. We’re going to celebrate. Did you want to buy some fruit tarts?”

“Sure. I’d love to.”

Their conversation died instantly when a high-pitched shriek went up from the direction of the food. Another scream followed it. Leaving cash box and merchandise untended, Kalina took off at a sprint. Thoughts of AJ spurred her forward. Leslie stood frozen in front of the booth for thirty seconds before she followed suit. Kalina arrived at the tent to find people bunched together in a semi-circle around one of the tables. Wheezing and choking noises echoed from within the middle of group and Kalina shoved her way to the front. AJ bent over a writhing Mrs. Davies. She lay on the ground, one hand pressed to her stomach, the other gripped around her throat. She’d already started to lose color in her cheeks. AJ looked up, his facial features contorted into a mask of helpless terror, and he said, “I think she’s dead.”

CHAPTER THREE

Footsteps pounded on the hard-packed ground and Chris came into view. Kalina had no idea where he'd come from but he didn't look out of breath. On the other side of the table, Mrs. Grant pressed one hand to her chest, tears glistening in her eyes. She'd calmed down from her rant about the scones.

"Dear Lord, this can't be happening."

It was barely audible above the crowd yelling for help, but Kalina heard it. The statement seemed an odd reaction and it piqued her curiosity. She bent down and gently tugged AJ to his feet and away from the dead woman. Chris took up AJ's spot and studied Mrs. Davies. "Who saw what happened?"

AJ raised his hand. His fingers trembled and he quickly closed them into a fist to keep from shaking. A few other people inched forward, mumbling that they had seen what happened. From across the tent Captain Cahill approached, cell phone in hand. He pressed it to his ear and, amid the rumbling of the crowd, Kalina heard him request an ambulance. Ellesworth wasn't big enough to have its own morgue. She'd no doubt be taken west to Salem. Chris stood up and waved people back. "Everyone, I need you to back up. Do not touch anything on this table." He turned to AJ. "I'm going to need to talk to you. Why don't you come with me?"

"I'm coming with him," Kalina said.

"Did you see anything?"

"No. But you can't question him alone. He's only fifteen. He has a right to a parent or guardian present during questioning." She knew a little about criminal law, thanks to a law student she'd dated briefly during her first year of business school.

Chris looked unhappy about the intrusion but didn't object further. They headed over to an empty table at the back of the tent while Captain Cahill set up a perimeter of folding chairs around the body. It seemed an odd thing to do unless there were suspicious circumstances surrounding Mrs. Davies' death.

"Okay, AJ. Tell me what you saw." Chris produced a notepad from his pocket. He came prepared for anything.

"I was in line for fried dough. Aunt K. wanted some, and Mrs. Davies was sitting there having a cup of tea. Everything was fine and then she just started choking and bent over like she was going to throw up." He put his head in his hands. "I never saw anyone look like that."

Kalina took one of his hands in hers and gave it a firm squeeze. "It's okay. You did good."

He looked up at her through watery eyes. "But... I should have done something to help."

Chris leaned over. "Did you see anyone tamper with her tea?"

"N-no. I don't think so. God, was she murdered?"

Chris shook his head. "I don't know. But by all accounts she was in good health. Usually, when a healthy person drops dead it's not from natural causes. I'd like you go down to the station and give a full statement."

"Does he have to do it right now? He's in shock."

Chris's face softened. "No. Just make sure you get down there in the next day or so. If this turns out to be a murder investigation then we want to get people's recollections down as clearly as possible."

Sirens blared, sounding a prolonged wail from behind the food tent. Flashing red lights cast a bright glow over the faces of the crowd still gathered to watch. Somehow the captain had obtained a bullhorn and held it up to his mouth.

"Everyone, I need you to clear out and let the medics do their job. Please return to the fair and enjoy the rest of your day."

Despite the sudden loss of one of their own, Kalina had no doubt the townspeople would continue to buy and sell wares throughout the rest of the day, no one wanting to pass up the chance to make a charitable donation—if not for the altruistic reason of being a good citizen then for the tax write-off come the following April. Two uniformed paramedics climbed out of the ambulance and approached Captain Cahill. Chris had gone off to interview other potential witnesses and Kalina turned her attention to Mrs. Grant. She still sat in the same spot, staring at Mrs. Davies.

"AJ, I want you to call your mom and have her pick you up. You don't need to be here right now."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to have a little chat with Mrs. Grant. Something about this whole situation seems strange."

"Aunt K., don't get involved. Please."

"I'll be fine. Now go call your mom."

AJ wandered off. Kalina headed for the beverage table and picked up two bottles of water before retreating to Mrs. Grant. Chris reached out a hand to bar her path. “You aren’t a detective, Kalina. You need to let us do our job.”

“I’m just bringing her some water. She looks like she could use it.”

She sidestepped his outstretched arm and proceeded to sit down beside Mrs. Grant. The woman hadn’t torn her gaze away from the corpse, even as the paramedics loaded her onto a gurney and rolled her to the back of the ambulance. Kalina pressed an opened bottle of water into the woman’s free hand.

“Mrs. Grant, are you all right?”

Finally, Mrs. Grant blinked several times and turned her attention to Kalina. “I’m sorry. What?”

“I just wanted to see if you were all right.”

“Well, of course I’m not all right! My friend just died.” Almost instantly, her demeanor changed. Her body sagged and she took a swig of water. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“I understand. Mrs. Grant, can I ask you something?” The woman nodded. “You said something earlier, right after Mrs. Davies died. You said that this couldn’t be happening. What made you think that?”

Mrs. Grant took several long gulps of water and fussed with the hem of her blouse. “I … I don’t know what you mean. I suppose I was just shocked. It all happened so quickly.”

“Do you think it was murder?”

Mrs. Grant raised an eyebrow just as Chris approached. “Don’t you?”

“Kalina, that’s enough. Go back to your booth and let the cops handle this. Please.”

Kalina didn’t believe Mrs. Grant’s explanation. There had to be more to it, especially if Mrs. Davies’ death wasn’t an accident. But she allowed Chris to lead her out of the tent and back to the promenade. She expected him to return to questioning witnesses but he kept a solid grip on her elbow all the way back to her tent.

She pulled her arm free. “You don’t trust me?”

“You always had a thing for sticking your nose in other people’s business. The best thing you can do is make sure your nephew gives his statement while his memory is still clear. Okay?”

“Sure thing.” She leaned one hip against the edge of the table in her booth. “But, you know, it’s odd.”

Chris pivoted to face her, his normally electric blue eyes clouded by frustration. “What’s odd?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “If Agatha was murdered, if someone slipped something into her tea, this is an awfully public place to do it. I mean, I’m no expert but isn’t poisoning more of an intimate way to kill someone? You don’t usually hear about people keeling over in the middle of a crowd because of something they ate or drank.”

“You aren’t wrong.”

“And Mrs. Grant seemed surprised that it was Mrs. Davies who keeled over. Almost like Mrs. Grant expected it to be her kicking the bucket instead.”

“That’s all very interesting, but, as I said before, let the professionals do their jobs. Okay?”

She held her hands up, signaling surrender. “You got it.”

No way was she backing off now. Being back home had reignited a sense of loyalty she’d missed while being away. If someone had killed a member of her town, she was going to do everything she could to find out why.

CHAPTER FOUR

Ten minutes later, Kalina stood by the car, loading the last box of merchandise into the back seat. Her sister, Jillian, appeared from the gravel lot behind the refreshment tent and her expression warned that she was not pleased. She stalked over to Kalina’s booth.

“What the hell is going on? You said you’d look after AJ for the day.”

“Mrs. Davies is dead, Jill. It looks like it could be murder and AJ saw it happen. I wanted him home with you guys. That’s all. I’m just trying to look out for him.”

Jillian collapsed against the hood of Kalina’s car. “Oh God. He didn’t say … just to come pick him up.”

Kalina pulled her older sister into a firm hug. “He’ll be okay. He has you to lean on.”

Jillian rubbed at her eyes to dry them and composed herself. “You’re right. Thanks for letting me know.”

“You’ll need to make sure he goes down to the police station to give a statement. I promised Chris he would.”

“Chris?”

“Detective Christian Harper.”

Jillian let out a hiccup of laughter. “So you finally ran into the ex?”

“Yeah.” Out of the corner of her eye, Kalina spotted Mrs. Grant making her way to the parking lot alone. “I have to go.”

Without another word to her sister, she raced off in the hopes of intercepting Mrs. Grant. She had to jog to catch the older woman. “Mrs. Grant, can I offer you a ride home?”

“No. Thank you. I just want to be alone.”

“I don’t mind. Really.”

Mrs. Grant glanced around as if she feared they were being watched. “Tomorrow. Come by for morning tea.”

“Thank you. I’ll see you then.”

It wasn’t the sit down she’d been hoping for but it would have to do. Kalina made her way back to the booth to make sure she hadn’t missed anything when she overheard Chris making a phone call.

“This is Detective Harper. I need a forensic unit sent to the home of Mrs. Agatha Davies. I’ll meet you there.”

She turned around as he ended the call, hoping he hadn’t noticed her eavesdropping. She didn’t want to end up on his bad side but any little bit of information could help her know what questions to ask Mrs. Grant the next day. As she climbed into the driver seat of her car, she realized she had the perfect excuse to be near Mrs. Davies’ house when the forensic team arrived. With a mischievous grin, she started the engine and headed back to the center of town.

Fifteen minutes later, she pulled up across the street just as a CSI team climbed out of a van. Chris stood waiting for them on the front porch of Mrs. Davies’ house. She stayed put until they had all gone inside to begin their work. With a folder of pristinely packaged comics—including the latest Conan the Avenger release from Dark Horse—she climbed out of the car and knocked on the front door of the house on her side of the street. She raised her hand to knock a second time when the door flew open from the inside, revealing a middle-aged man in a bathrobe. A wad of used tissues protruded from a pocket.

“Sorry to bother you, Mr. Morgan, but I was in the neighborhood and wanted to drop these off.”

He eyed the folder and broke into a broad grin. “I’d have come down you know.”

“I know but it looks like you’ve got a cold and I don’t mind making house calls now and then.”

“Please, come in, come in.”

“Oh, I can’t stay. Just take a look through and let me know what you want. You can pay me later.”

Mr. Morgan nodded vigorously and gingerly took the folder from her. While he browsed, she kept an eye on the house across the street. She wasn’t sure what they were looking for or how long it would take, but she would wait.

Luck was on her side. Just as Mr. Morgan handed back an empty folder with a promise to pay the next time he stopped by, Chris came out wearing latex gloves, holding a piece of paper in a clear plastic evidence bag. She tried to act surprised to see him when he spotted her.

She feigned ignorance. “What’s going on?”

“Police work. What are you doing here, Kal?”

He set the piece of evidence down on the hood of his car. He didn’t do much to block her view. Lucky for her, she’d learned to read upside down a long time ago. The note bore a single line of bold, capitalized text: LYING IS A MORTAL SIN. She looked at Chris after a beat. “Mr. Morgan couldn’t make it down to the fair today so I was just dropping off some new inventory he’d ordered.”

“Of course you were. You should get out of here. Let the techs finish up.”

“I’m just trying to help, Chris.”

She spun on her heel and retreated to her car before he could respond. As she pulled away from the curb and did a U-turn, she wondered if Mrs. Grant knew about the note.

CHAPTER FIVE

That night, Kalina couldn’t sleep. The brief glimpse of Mrs. Davies’ face—a twisted mask in death—invaded her dreams, waking her in cold sweats. She couldn’t imagine how AJ was managing. Sure, she fancied herself a sleuth in theory, but maybe Chris was right. She wasn’t equipped to handle dead bodies.

“Don’t focus on the dead,” she mumbled to herself as the clock on her nightstand clicked over to two o’clock.

Kicking the sheets aside, she padded out to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. If the day’s events wouldn’t let her sleep then she would embrace being the night owl. For a brief moment she wondered how superheroes like Daredevil managed to get any sleep with the nighttime crime fighting and a day job.

Settling in front of her laptop, steaming mug of coffee within reach, she logged on to the internet with the hopes of finding … what exactly? There was no way Mrs. Davies was on social media. But certainly other townspeople had accounts. And in a town as relatively small as Ellesworth, you were friends with everyone on Facebook. Small mercies. She logged on and scrolled through her news feed. Not surprisingly, lots of people had posted statuses from the Solstice Fair, often with accompanying photos. Photos were good. She scrolled through them all. Many were useless, images snapped at the top of the Ferris wheel or teetering over the first plunge on the roller coaster. But a few from folks her mother’s age—yes, her mother was on Facebook—had posted photos of some of the items they’d purchased and a few people had gotten shots of the pastry judging.

She let out a hiss between her front teeth at a not-so-flattering photo of Mrs. Grant laying into the judges. “Not a good look, Mrs. Grant.”

What she needed was a shot of Mrs. Davies before her untimely demise. The refreshment tent boasted photo-worthy dishes. There had to be someone who had caught her in the tent before she died.

She lifted her mug to her lips but found the contents gone. The clock on her screen noted it was almost four in the morning. She’d been scrolling for nearly two hours and found nothing. Barely stifling a yawn, she retreated to the kitchen for a refill. She’d look for another half hour and then try to get some sleep. She had a breakfast date with Mrs. Grant to keep, after all. Kalina slunk back into her chair and continued scrolling, the infusion of caffeine jolting her nerves and synapses awake. Just as the clock ticked from 3:59 to 4:00 she had a breakthrough. One of AJ’s friends—Devon Landry—had a thing for food and had meticulously photographed the tent’s contents. He’d also dragged AJ into a selfie. It wasn’t much but she could make out Mrs. Davies sitting at the table behind them in the right corner of the picture. She clicked to the next photo in the album and nearly spilled her coffee down her shirt. Mrs. Davies lay on the ground and her body contorted mid-spasm. He’d photographed the murder. The last picture in the album depicted Mrs. Davies surrounded by metal chairs. Captain Cahill—at least Kalina assumed it was him from the back of his head—stood over the allegedly poisoned tea cup, no doubt studying the contents. From the angle of the photo she couldn’t tell if the captain was wearing gloves. But he had to be. He knew procedure. Still, something about the scene gnawed at her mind. There was something to it. She just couldn’t see what. Maybe Mrs. Grant would feel a little more forthcoming when the shock had worn off a little. Kalina downed the rest of the coffee and flopped onto the couch, hoping to get at least a couple hours of sleep.

CHAPTER SIX

“Hello, Mrs. Grant? It’s Kalina Greystone,” she called through the screen door on Mrs. Grant’s porch four hours later. She’d managed to sleep until seven.

No one answered. She waited before opening the screen door and knocking on the pale blue-painted wood behind it. Hand raised to knock a second time, Kalina stopped when the door eased open and Mrs. Grant appeared. Her eyes were red-rimmed and saucer-wide. The old woman hadn’t gotten much sleep either.

“What are you doing here?” Mrs. Grant’s gaze darted around as if she expected someone to jump out of the bushes.

“You invited me yesterday at the fair. And I didn’t get my order of scones so I was hoping I could pick them up.”

Mrs. Grant peered around for another thirty seconds before she relaxed a little. Her shoulders rolled back and she stood up straighter. “Oh, yes. I nearly forgot. Please come in.” She backed out of the doorway to let Kalina in. “And at least someone around here appreciates my baking.”

Kalina didn’t respond. She just followed the woman into her front foyer and took an immediate left into the living room. Mrs. Grant shuffled off to the kitchen without another word. Kalina took the time to check out the mantelpiece adorned with a simple silver urn at the center and a photo of a much younger Mr. and Mrs. Grant on their wedding day. A single framed photo of three women in their 30s sat on the other side of the urn. One of them was easily discernible as Mrs. Grant; the one in the middle bore a resemblance to Mrs. Davies.

“Here we are. Do you take anything in your tea?” Mrs. Grant reappeared with a tea tray.

“No, thanks.” Kalina accepted the cup and saucer once Mrs. Grant had poured the tea. “When did your husband pass?”

“Alan? Oh, last year in a car accident.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Mrs. Grant glanced at the urn and gave a solemn nod. “It was a shock. But things like that always are.”

Kalina took a sip of tea. “Like yesterday with poor Mrs. Davies.”

Mrs. Grant fussed with her teacup, turning it one way and then the other atop the saucer. She wouldn’t meet Kalina’s gaze and, for longer than felt comfortable, she kept quiet. Kalina had time. She could be patient if that’s what it took to make this woman open up about whatever she suspected.

“You know if you know something or even suspect something you should tell someone. The police maybe.”

“I don’t know about that. What do I know? I’m just an old lady.”

“But Mrs. Davies … Agatha … was your friend, wasn’t she?” Kalina motioned to the framed photo on the mantle. “It certainly seemed like it.”

“Oh, we were. We’d grown up together, gone to school up through college and came back to Ellesworth after graduation. We met our husbands in the same circles. Goodness, that was a long while ago.”

“Did you see anything out of the ordinary after you left the pastry judging?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Was anyone paying more attention than usual to her?”

“Not that I recall. I mean she always had everyone swarming to place an order of her cake. It was just like every year.”

Kalina pursed her lips, trying to figure out how best to phrase her question. “You said you think she was murdered. Did you notice if anyone went near her tea before she fell?”

“I wasn’t paying attention. To be honest, I was just so upset about losing to that little…” Mrs. Grant took a long swallow of tea, cutting off the tirade.

“You’re sure you didn’t see anything at all? You didn’t happen to notice if she made her own tea?”

“I think someone brought it to her maybe.” Her brow furrowed. “Yes, I think someone brought it to her but I don’t know who. Do they know what it was?”

Kalina shook her head. “I don’t know. But if it was something in her tea, I’d guess poison.”

Mrs. Grant set her teacup down, hands trembling. She still wouldn’t look Kalina in the eye. “It was lovely of you to stop by but I’m afraid I don’t have time to visit any longer. Things to do.”

Kalina didn’t want to accept defeat but Mrs. Grant wasn’t opening up like she’d hoped. She took her time finishing the cup of tea before standing up. “I appreciate your time, Mrs. Grant. When should I pick up those scones?”

“They should still have them at the fair. You can get them there.” Mrs. Grant shuffled toward her as if to shoo her out of the house.

What was she hiding? Kalina had no choice but to move to the front of the house with her host. There was one other thing she could try. “You know I heard they found some sort of threatening note in Mrs. Davies’ house. It said something about lying being a mortal sin. You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”

“N-no. I’m afraid not. I wish I could point you or the police to who would have wanted to hurt my friend, but I’m useless.”

Kalina tried to give a sympathetic smile. “Thanks again for having me over.”

Mrs. Grant shut the door behind Kalina, shoving her unceremoniously into the screen door. She let out a little grunt as the scratchy mesh snagged on her shirt and a loose wire scraped along her forearm. There was definitely something going on with Mrs. Grant. Just as she eased the screen door shut behind her, her phone beeped with a text message from AJ: “Can we talk?”

She sent back a quick note letting him know he could stop by the shop. In the meantime, she had some research to do and the shop was as good a place to do it as any.

CHAPTER SEVEN

It was a short trip from Mrs. Grant’s house to Geeks and Things. Kalina pulled into the back lot and headed in through the game room. It warmed her heart to know that she was touching so many different facets of the community with the shop. She was far surpassing what her father would have expected of her. The shop was empty as she settled behind the counter and pulled up a browser on her tablet. She stared at the search page that popped up, momentarily at a loss for what to do. She shook the sudden dragging feeling—the coffee from that morning was wearing off—and typed away. She searched for symptoms of poisoning. The search engine helpfully populated the phone number for Poison Control. She scrolled through the thousands of results and was about to click on one just as the bell sounded above the door and AJ walked in. Dark smudges under his eyes and pale skin signaled he hadn’t slept much the night before either.

“Hey. How you holding up?”

Her nephew hiccupped a breath and burst into tears. She laid the tablet aside and rounded the counter to fold him into a hug. “Shh. It’s okay. You’re going to be fine.”

“I just feel so guilty. I should have done something. CPR or I don’t know. I shouldn’t have just stood and watched.”

“It happened so fast I don’t think there was anything you could have done.”

He sniffled and scrubbed at his tear-stained face with the backs of his hands. In that moment he was the little boy she’d babysat for on summers home from college, so young and vulnerable.

“Have you given your statement to the police yet?”

“No. Can you come with me? Mom offered but I’d feel better if it was you.”

“Sure. Let me just grab a few things.”

She retrieved the tablet and keys, killed the lights and followed her nephew outside. The police station was only a five minute walk from the shop and so they headed down the sidewalk side by side. Most people were back down at the second day of the fair so the streets were empty in this part of town. Tragedy wouldn’t keep them down for long. Sure, there’d be an article in addition to the obituary for Mrs. Davies but with so little to go on, even the hungriest of journalists wouldn’t print anything just yet.

“Did you find anything out from the police about what killed her?” AJ shoved his hands into the pockets of his shorts.

“No. But I talked to Mrs. Grant this morning. She knows something. I can feel it. I just need to find a way to get her to open up to me more.”

“Did you offer to buy her scones?”

“I did,” she said with a little laugh. “I did mention something I know Chris found at Mrs. Davies’ house that might convince her to speak up.”

“What’d he find? How do you know?” His mood was definitely improving as they walked.

“Well, I was over making a special delivery to Mr. Morgan and Chris was across the street with forensics. I saw they’d found a note of some kind.”

“What’d it say? Come on, Aunt K., don’t hold out on me.”

“Your mom wouldn’t want me getting you involved in this.”

“I’m already involved.”

“Okay, fine. But this stays between us. It said, ‘Lying is a mortal sin.’”

They’d arrived at the station and Kalina held the door open for AJ to go first. The conversation died as soon as they crossed the threshold. Ellesworth PD was a small unit with about twenty uniformed officers, seven or eight detectives, one lieutenant, one sergeant and the captain. Most of the force was down at the fair again. No doubt Captain Cahill had wanted a double patrol given the previous day’s events. Chris sat at a desk poring over a report. Kalina nudged AJ forward.

“Uh, Detective Harper, I’m here to give my statement,” AJ said, inching closer to Chris’s desk.

Chris jumped in his chair and gaped at AJ for thirty seconds before regaining his composure. Kalina settled in a seat at a vacant desk nearby. “I told you I’d bring him by today. I keep my word.”

“I appreciate it.” He sounded tired. Chris pushed the file aside and opened a document on his computer to start taking down AJ’s recollection.

Kalina turned her attention to her tablet. Luckily, the department was cheap enough not to password protect their Wi-Fi and she logged on to continue her internet search on poisons. She wasn’t sure it would yield anything helpful but it was worth a shot. By the descriptions she found after clicking through a couple of sources, she was certain that this was the cause of death. The type of poison was less obvious. The coroner’s office had probably done a toxicology report but those took weeks to come back, didn’t they?

She was so lost in her thoughts she didn’t notice the interview was finished until AJ snapped his fingers in front of her face. She blinked until he came into focus. He seemed relieved to have given his official statement. Kalina licked her lips and swallowed to dispel the cotton ball feeling in her throat.

“I’m all done. Do you want any help back at the shop? Maybe figuring out what inventory to order?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure, that would be great.”

She turned to thank Chris for his time but he’d disappeared. She fixed her nephew with a quizzical look but he just shrugged. The file he’d been reading was still sitting on his desk. If he’d really wanted to keep her from snooping he would have put it in a drawer or somewhere less obvious and open. AJ said nothing as she crossed the short distance to Chris’s desk and bent over the file.

Kalina was wrong. Apparently, Chris had specifically asked the lab to rush the toxicology report. Initially, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at. The graph with thin spikes of different items in her blood was like reading a foreign language when you didn’t know one word. She flipped through to a different page but it only listed a myriad of technical jargon.

“Uh, Aunt K., you might want to hurry. He’s coming back.”

Kalina glanced around but Chris was nowhere to be seen. Still, she trusted AJ not to let her down. She turned to the last page with the summary paragraph. Bingo! According to the test done, it showed that Mrs. Davies had high levels of inorganic arsenic in her blood at the time of her death. She had definitely been poisoned.

“Aunt K., come on,” AJ hissed and made a move to tug her away from the desk.

She flipped the file closed and set it back on the desk where she’d found it. Exhaling a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, she and AJ headed for the front of the building.

“Hey, Kal,” Chris said, appearing with a coffee cup in hand.

“Yes? Did you need me to give a statement, too?”

“No. I was just wondering, did I hear right that you’re planning on running a game of Cards against Humanity at the shop?”

“That’s the plan, yeah.”

“Well, count me in.”

Warmth crept up Kalina’s neck and settled into rosy blushes on her cheeks as she nodded and turned around, wrapping a shaking arm around AJ’s shoulders. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from embarrassing herself. She hadn’t ever thought she would be reconnecting with an old flame. They made it through the front door before her cell phone rang. The call ID said it was from the shop, which meant it was call forwarding.

“Hello, this is Kalina Greystone.”

“This is Margaret Grant. I needed to tell you… Agatha wasn’t the only one who got that note. I got one too.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Kalina stopped mid-step. Had she heard that right? Did she just get a break in this whole thing? It sure sounded like it. She forced her voice to work. “Oh. I can come right over.”

“No, not here. The church down on Shore Drive.”

“All right. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

She ended the call and turned to AJ. “That was Mrs. Grant. She wants to talk.”

“About what?”

“She said she got the same note the cops found in Mrs. Davies’ house. This sounds like someone is targeting them. I just don’t know why.”

AJ turned back to the front doors of the police station. “Should you tell Detective Harper about this?”

“Not yet. I don’t know what she knows. I don’t want to waste his time if it’s nothing.”

“But she said she got one of those creepy notes.”

“Saying it and meaning it are two different things. I’ll let him know if anything solid comes out of this.”

“Okay. What should I do now?”

“Go to the shop. I’ll see you back there when I’m done.”

They parted ways and, just as Kalina headed down Main Street toward the beach, she caught Chris watching her from a window. He just stared at her. She hoped he didn’t try to follow her. She needed to find out if Mrs. Grant was telling the truth on her own. She needed to know she could do this.

The walk to Shore Drive was calming. It allowed Kalina to gather her thoughts and prepare for what she needed to ask Mrs. Grant. The Ferris wheel at the fair rose up in the distance off to the right. Even from this far away she could see the blobs that meant people were riding it. The thought of going back there, to where Mrs. Davies died, turned her stomach. She turned her attention to the simple, stone church up to her left. According to town history, it had stood since the 1700s. The interior had undergone renovation in the last few decades but the exterior stonework still held. She hadn’t been inside since she was a teenager at AJ’s christening. She didn’t have anything against churches or organized religion but, as an adult, she didn’t find faith particularly comforting or necessary to her life. But it was the perfect place for a confession.

Kalina blew out a breath as she eased open the doors to the narthex. She hadn’t spotted Mrs. Grant’s car but it wasn’t that far of a walk, even for a woman in her 60s. The church was eerily silent. Not even the sounds from the fair permeated here. Despite being Sunday, services were cancelled in order to help support the fair and the charity. She moved deeper into the sanctuary and spotted Mrs. Grant seated in the second pew from the front. Time to find out her secret.

“Mrs. Grant?” she called, not wanting to surprise the woman.

“Here, dear.”

Kalina strode up to the front of the church and took a seat next to her. They stayed quiet for a few moments, each taking in the image of Christ on the cross adorning the front of the pulpit. A powerful image for sure. The silence started to press on Kalina like a weight.

“You said you got a note too.”

“Yes.”

Kalina turned to sit sideways in the pew. “Did you bring it? Can I see it?”

Mrs. Grant opened her oversized purse and pulled out a folded piece of white paper. She started to hand it over but Kalina held up her hands. “I don’t think I should touch it.”

The older woman unfolded the page and held it up so that Kalina got a good look at it. LYING IS A MORTAL SIN was typed in bold caps just like the one she’d seen Chris find in Mrs. Davies’ home. Whoever had killed Mrs. Davies appeared to be targeting Mrs. Grant as well.

“When did you get it?”

“Last week. It just appeared under my front door, folded like that. I thought it was a flyer from one of the children or a reminder about the fair. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw what it was.”

“Do you know who sent it to you?”

She folded the paper and shoved it back in her bag. “No. I don’t. But the message seems pretty clear. And it scared me.”

“Did Agatha get hers at the same time?”

“Maybe. She didn’t say anything to me about it.”

“Are you sure? Because it seems to me that whoever killed her might be coming after you too.”

“She didn’t say anything. And I mean what I said that I don’t know who might have sent it. But… I might know what this is all about.”

“Okay. Why don’t you fill me in on what’s going on?”

“There were three of us. A long time ago, thirty years or so, we did something”—she looked up at the crucifix—“unforgiveable. There was a crime and someone went to jail. But … it wasn’t the right person.”

“How do you know they weren’t the right person?”

“Because we lied. We said we saw what happened but we didn’t. Not as clearly as we thought we had when it happened anyway.”

“So you filed a false police report.”

Mrs. Grant shook her head and her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “We did more than that. We lied during the trial.”

Kalina let that revelation sink in. Mrs. Grant, Mrs. Davies and someone else had committed perjury and sentenced an innocent man to prison. Whoever was targeting them had to know about the trial and the false testimony. But that could be anyone. And maybe this had nothing to do with the trial.

“Is there anything else that the note could be referring to?”

A single tear slid down Mrs. Grant’s cheek. “No. I don’t think so.”

Kalina turned back to the front of the church. A chill slithered down her spine as she considered her next question. “Who was the third person?”

“Cynthia Ellicott.” Mrs. Grant’s shoulders sagged but Kalina couldn’t determine if it was relief or resigning her friend to the fear of being next on the killer’s hit list. “But she won’t talk to you. She’s gotten rather ornery in her old age.”

Kalina had a vague memory of Cynthia babysitting her and Jillian when they little but couldn’t recall her face. It had to be the third woman from the photo on Mrs. Grant’s mantle. “Thank you for telling me all of this. You should take that note to the police. They can keep you safe.”

Mrs. Grant didn’t respond to Kalina’s suggestion. That was all right. She’d tip Chris off as soon as she got back to the shop. She needed an internet connection so she could do a little research on the trial. That was the key to finding the killer.

CHAPTER NINE

Kalina made great time getting back to the shop. She pushed through the front door and stopped dead in the doorway. Chris stood at the counter, chatting with AJ about what looked like a video game. Both looked up when she entered.

“Hi, Kal.” Chris waved.

“Hi. What’s going on? I thought AJ gave you everything you needed and I didn’t need to give a statement.”

“This isn’t official police business. This is a social call.”

From behind the counter AJ gave her a wink and a quick thumbs up. Brat! Kalina was lost for words. One day back in each other’s orbits and he was already making social calls. The high schooler buried deep inside her jumped at the potential for rekindling their romance. But they were such different people now; it couldn’t be that easy to just fall back into each other’s arms.

“I wanted to see what kind of games you had. See if any of them were appropriate for Jack and Benji.”

“Um, okay.”

It wasn’t the way she wanted to break the news about what she’d discovered but it would have to do. There was the risk he’d berate her more in person as she couldn’t just hang up, but it was one she had no choice but to take.

“Have fun,” AJ said with a small wave.

Kalina led Chris back to the game room. She planned on getting more games as people requested them but she had a few staples that she’d picked up at a couple small conventions she’d been at. This wasn’t exactly the venue she’d intended to share what she’d learned from Mrs. Grant but it would have to do. There was the risk that he would berate her for going behind his back but it was one she was willing to take. He browsed the table of games and picked up a small canister.

“Zombie Dice?” she said with a smile.

“Want to play?”

“I have something to tell you.”

“We can talk and play.”

They settled across the table from each other and Chris went first. She wasn’t paying attention to the dice as they skittered out across the table but she spotted the red shotgun blast. She was working herself up to telling him the truth.

“So I saw Mrs. Grant today.”

“Oh?” He fished three more dice from the container and rolled them.

“Well, she seemed so upset yesterday I wanted to make sure she was doing okay.”

“That’s very neighborly of you. I guess you didn’t forget your hometown manners being away in the big city.”

“She told me something. She got a note just like the one you found at Mrs. Davies’ house.”

The dice slipped from his fingers and rolled both a green and yellow shotgun. His turn ended. “How do you know about that?”

“I was standing there when you brought it out of the house yesterday, remember? You told me to go away.”

Chris blushed. “I didn’t think you’d seen what it said.”

“Business school. Great for learning how to run a business and read upside down.”

He dumped all of the dice back into the container and passed it over to her. She shook it and reached in, pulling out three dice and rolling them. Three brains. Lucky her.

“So, are you sure she got one?”

“She showed it to me.” She picked three more dice and rolled them. One shotgun and two brains. “I didn’t touch it. I made sure not to.”

“Where is she?”

“I left her at the church. You should send someone there and to her house to make sure she doesn’t destroy it. Not that she would but … just to be sure.”

He pulled out his cell phone and sent a text. “Did she tell you anything else?”

“She said there might be a third person who got a note. Cynthia Ellicott. But I don’t know that she’d talk to you, she sounds pretty crotchety.”

“What made her think that Ms. Ellicott would be targeted?”

Kalina licked her lips. “She said they committed perjury thirty years ago.”

“I should still speak to her, to confirm if she is indeed a target.”

“I’d like to come with you.”

“How many times do I have to tell you—”

“She might be willing to talk to both of us. A friendly face does wonders for making people open up.”

“You saying I’m not friendly?”

“No. But she used to babysit my sister and me when we were little.”

“Fine. But you do exactly as I say, got it?”

“You have my word.”

They left the table with dice spread across it and headed out through the front of the shop. AJ leaned on the counter, his nose mere inches from his phone.

“Hold the fort,” she called.

CHAPTER TEN

Ms. Ellicott’s house stood on the edge of the town away from everyone else. The more Kalina though about the woman the more she remembered her being kind of opinionated and irritable even as a younger woman. It was probably a good thing to be going as a pair to talk to her; Chris flashing his badge would only annoy her. Despite the summer warmth, the shutters were all closed on the front windows and the front door was shut. Stepping up onto the front porch, Kalina felt the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Chris didn’t appear to have the same reaction. He yanked open the screen door and knocked sharply.

“Ms. Ellicott, this is Detective Harper with Ellesworth PD. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

No response. Kalina paced the length of the porch and noted the windows on both sides of the house were also closed up tight. “Does she vacation somewhere else in the summer?”

Chris knocked again. “I don’t think so. Stay here. I’m going to check around back.”

“Okay.”

He jogged around the back of the house. Kalina tried the front door but found it locked. Standing there alone made her nervous. Something about this was wrong. Even people who didn’t want to be around other people didn’t shut themselves up like this. Not in this town. She abandoned the front of the house and made her way around the back, taking the same path Chris had to avoid spooking him. She hadn’t seen a gun on his belt but that didn’t mean he didn’t have one concealed somewhere else.

“Chris?” she called out, hoping to give him even more warning that she was coming.

He didn’t answer her and she picked up the pace. She rounded the back of the house and found him leaning against the side of the house bent double. The back door, which led to the kitchen, was open and a putrid smell wafted from the house.

“Oh God, what is that?” She gagged.

“We’re too late.”

Holding her breath, Kalina peered inside. Just within view, Ms. Ellicott lay on the floor with something silver protruding from her chest. There didn’t appear to be much blood. She hoped the poor woman had gone quickly. She backed away from the house and sucked in fresh summer air.

“Do … do you know how long she’s been dead?”

Chris shook his head and coughed a couple times. “No. And being shut in the house like that is going to make it harder to figure out. I need to get a forensic unit down here.”

“What should I do?”

His eyes watered, likely from the smell, and he pointed to the front of the house. “Go wait out front. Direct the EMTs when they get here.”

“I can do that.”

Chris pulled his phone from his pocket and hit a speed dial. “This is Detective Harper from Ellesworth PD. I need an ambulance to 1849 Spring Road. And I’m going to need a forensic team too. We’ve got another one.”

Kalina retraced her steps back to the front of the house and took a seat on the front steps to wait. Someone was definitely targeting the women who’d lied at the trial thirty years ago. And they were succeeding in doling out punishment. She really needed to figure out who was after them. If she did, maybe they could prevent Mrs. Grant from being the last victim. A short time later, sirens wailed and an ambulance pulled to a stop in front of the house.

“Where are we going?” a male paramedic asked as he climbed out of the driver side.

“Straight back. She’s in the kitchen.”

She rubbed the back of her neck and waited for the forensic team to show up. She stared out at the trees and grass lining the street, anything to keep her from closing her eyes and seeing the dead woman inside the house. It was far worse than Mrs. Davies. She had questions she wanted to ask but knew they couldn’t be answered yet. Finally, a forensic van showed up and, just as the team disappeared toward the back of the house, Chris appeared.

“How are you holding up?”

“I don’t know. I mean do you think if I’d told you sooner we could have stopped it?”

He sat beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “I don’t think so. Even without the heat of the house she’s probably been dead at least a day.”

Now she knew exactly how AJ felt witnessing Mrs. Davies take her last breath. They sat together in silence and she leaned into his solid presence. She almost expected him to kiss her cheek reassuringly. But that was the thought of an enamored schoolgirl. She pushed down those feelings and squeezed her eyes shut to ward off tears. She needed to stay strong to solve this case.

“I know I’m not a cop but … I feel like I’m a part of this case, Chris. Please don’t keep me in the dark. I need to know what happened.”

“I can’t make that promise, Kal.”

“You don’t have to let me sit in on any interviews or anything, but what was it that killed her?”

“It looked like a letter opener.”

“Did you find a note like the others got?”

“I don’t know. Forensics is still working.”

“Was it her letter opener?”

“I didn’t get a good look at it.”

“This has to be connected to that trial.”

“Maybe. But forensics will do what they do and let me know what they find. As much as we want answers right now, we have to be patient. We want to make sure we have all the evidence to put whoever is doing this away.”

“I know. I … this is just scaring me a little. I come home and all of a sudden people are being murdered left and right.”

“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t you.”

She smiled at him. “Thanks.”

One of the forensic techs approached with two evidence bags in hand. One bore a white, printed piece of paper and even from this distance Kalina spotted the identical message. The second bag contained the letter opener. The silver handle bore what looked like a monogram etched into it.

“We found the note in the bedroom,” the tech said.

“Okay. Let me see the weapon.”

The tech handed over the letter opener and, for his part, Chris didn’t stop Kalina from bending over to examine it with him. It was slender and the point was dulled with use. She tried not to look at the rust-colored stains marring the tip and half of the shaft. She’d been right about the top being monogramed. On closer inspection, she spotted an ornate “MG” embossed in flowery script underneath black fingerprint powder. She noted the swirls and whorls of an exposed print. She thought she spotted some blood on the sharp left point of the M but she didn’t say anything. Pointing out evidence wasn’t her job.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say this wasn’t hers,” she said.

“I’m inclined to agree with you. Hopefully, the lab can identify whoever’s fingerprint that is.”

She didn’t want to say it but it looked like the letter opener belonged to Mrs. Grant. It would explain why she’d been so reluctant to open up about the letter and the trial. Seeds of doubt took root in Kalina’s mind. But she couldn’t leap to conclusions just because the evidence was pointing in her direction. She would wait for proof before sharing her theory. Chris’s phone beeped with a text message. He set the letter opener on the stair to his left and checked the screen. He frowned and rubbed at his temple.

“What’s wrong?”

“I sent an officer to the church but Mrs. Grant wasn’t there. She wasn’t at her house either.”

“Maybe she went back to the fair.”

“Yeah, maybe. I think I need to talk to her myself.”

“If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to head back to the shop and check on AJ.”

“Good idea.”

The paramedics rolled by with Ms. Ellicott on a gurney. The smell of death followed them and up close Kalina saw the fear etched into the woman’s features. She didn’t deserve to die. Not this way. Neither of them did. She pushed herself to her feet and raked a hand through her hair while she waited for the ambulance to pull away. Maybe they were lucky no one else lived close by. They didn’t need people gossiping and spreading rumors. The ambulance eased back down the street without fanfare or sirens. They weren’t keen to announce another death either.

“I guess we’ll have to finish our game another time,” Chris said as he placed a hand on her arm. “I’ve got to head back to the station and fill Captain Cahill in.”

“Okay.” Time for her to actually do that research she’d planned on.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Where’d you go?” AJ asked as soon as Kalina walked through the front door of the shop. She’d made a stop at home to pick up her laptop. She needed the extra processing power.

“You can’t tell anyone but … we found another body.”

“Oh, crap. Who?”

“I can’t tell you. Not if I want Chris to trust me enough not to leave me out of the loop going forward.” She shut the door and flipped the sign to “Closed”.

“Come on. You told me everything else. Maybe I can help.”

“I appreciate it but this is more serious than we thought. I need you to go home.”

“Please, Aunt K., let me help.”

“I need to do this on my own, kid. Please just go home. I’m sure everything will come out when this is all over. But right now I don’t need a sidekick.”

“You know, the hero kicking the sidekick out never ends well,” he muttered but took the back exit.

She felt a little guilty about booting him out of her research but she knew Jillian would never forgive her if he got mixed up with a killer—well, any more mixed up than he already was. But she would be the good aunt and do everything she could to protect her family. It seemed the killer had a specific target but she couldn’t discount the possibility that he or she might lash out if the police closed in. She pushed those worries aside while she waited for her laptop to boot up and connect to the store’s Wi-Fi. She navigated to the town’s library webpage and searched for links to old newspaper articles. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like they’d scanned all of the editions yet. They’d gone as far back as 1990 but she needed the 1980s. At the bottom of the list of available editions she saw a disclaimer that editions from the 1980s and earlier could be found at the library itself and the website offered a list of article titles from those editions. At least they were trying to be helpful.

Kalina typed in the search terms “trial” and “Cynthia Ellicott”. She was the only one of the three who hadn’t married and Kalina didn’t know Mrs. Davies’ or Mrs. Grant’s maiden names. The page populated a list of results. There were a couple of articles in which Ms. Ellicott’s name came up in connection with a trial. They were from the spring editions in March and April 1986. There was also an article from June 1987 linked to those from the year before. That was what she needed to find. She copied the article titles and editions and emailed them to herself, pulling the email up on her phone’s email app before heading out to the library. She could feel a break in the case coming. Answers were almost within her reach.

A short time later, she sat in the newspaper archive section of the library in the basement. It was quiet and she was grateful for the solitude. She didn’t need people asking questions she wasn’t ready to answer. She started with the March editions, combing through the aged, brittle paper until she found what she was looking for. The article was buried within the third page.

Local Man Charged with Murder to Stand Trial

By: Adam Jenkins, Staff Reporter

It was a quiet night on February 18, 1986 when the authorities were called upon to investigate the body of a young girl found down near the waterfront. The victim, later identified as 16-year-old Alice Beech, appeared to have sustained injuries consistent with a physical assault, according to police who were on scene. The case developed no leads as Alice’s family begged the townspeople for someone to come forward. They offered a reward for any information leading to the capture of their daughter’s killer.

A break in the case came as blustery February turned into March. Three witnesses, including Ms. Cynthia Ellicott, came forward stating that they had been out for a walk on the beach when they observed a car speeding away toward the center of town. According to their statements, the vehicle passed by street lights illuminating the face of the driver. The suspect, identified as Samuel Gordon, 31, was arrested at his home on March 9, 1986 and has been indicted on charges of murder. A trial is expected to commence on March 24th in the Salem County Courthouse. Gordon remains in custody as bail has been denied. According to sources, Gordon has relatives out of state and the judge believes him to be a flight risk. At this time it is unclear whether Ms. Ellicott and the other witnesses will testify at trial.

Kalina leaned back and let out a breath. She’d been a toddler when Alice Beech died. No one in town liked to talk about it. In fact, she couldn’t even recall the case ever coming up after church on Sundays when she was young. And those ladies always liked to gossip. She checked the list on her phone again for the next article. It came from the April 10th edition. This time Mr. Jenkins made the front page with a faded color photo of the defendant sitting in court. He looked vaguely familiar, which was ridiculous. She’d never met the man.

Gordon Trial Drags On, Public Restless for Result

By: Adam Jenkins, Staff Reporter

Trial is still underway at the Salem County Courthouse. The prosecution’s case closed on Friday. Defendant Samuel Gordon has yet to take the stand and reports indicate he may not testify in his own defense. While he is not required to do so, there is no doubt the jury will consider it a strike against him.

Perhaps the highlight of the prosecution’s case came when Ms. Cynthia Ellicott, 30 and two other witnesses testified as to their recollections of the night in question. Ms. Ellicott testified that she, “saw a man driving away very fast from where poor Alice was found.” Ms. Agatha Hammersmith testified that, “Yes, I’m sure it was the defendant who killed that poor girl,” and when asked how she knew this, replied, “I saw his eyes. I could never forget the look of madness in them.” Finally, Ms. Margaret Cook testified that she, “recalled the license plate of the car and it matched the car driven by the defendant.”

Public sentiment is clear. They want a conviction sooner rather than later. Alice’s parents asked the defendant to simply confess to the crime so they could let their daughter rest in peace.

It definitely seemed like Mrs. Grant, Mrs. Davies and Ms. Ellicott had been sure of what they’d seen. Kalina had no way of knowing which details were fabricated but she was beginning to suspect most of them had been made up. Perhaps someone in the police force had pressured them to make statements against Sam Gordon. Or perhaps the real killer had threatened them for their perjured testimony. There were two more articles on the list. She had to retrieve a new set of editions from the shelves to find the one from April 18th. Again, Mr. Jenkins made the front page. This time the photo depicted Sam Gordon, face in his hands. The article was a short paragraph.

Gordon Sentenced to Life

By: Adam Jenkins, Staff Reporter

After an abbreviated defense, in which counsel for the defendant, Alan Grant, did not question anyone but Gordon’s wife, Catherine, to attest to his character, the jury retired for the shortest deliberation in the history of Ellesworth. Only ninety minutes after being issued jury instructions, they returned with a verdict: guilty. Gordon was sentenced to life in prison for Alice Beech’s murder. He was seen crying as the bailiff removed him from the courtroom. He was not permitted to say goodbye to his wife or son.

Kalina let out a gasp and a single tear ran down her cheek. She was beginning to understand why someone would want revenge on the people who led to the wrongful conviction and imprisonment of this man. As she dried her eyes and returned the newspaper to its protective folder, she had to wonder. Why had Gordon’s lawyer not let him testify? Surely he had an alibi? Why did the attorney not cross-examine the witnesses? Had the attorney had something to do with setting Gordon up? She scanned the article one last time before she put it back.

“Oh damn!” She bit her tongue for swearing but there was no one around to hear her.

The pieces were starting to come together. She had to check one piece of information but she had an idea why the three women were involved. She still had one final article, from June 1987, to review and it didn’t make sense to abandon the newspaper archives until she’d done so. The final article was even shorter than the one about the verdict.

Murderer Samuel Gordon Takes Own Life

By: Adam Jenkins, Staff Reporter

In what can only be deemed a further admission of guilt, one year and two months after he was sentenced to life in prison for the brutal murder of Alice Beech, Samuel Gordon was found dead in his cell. Reports confirm he hung himself. Gordon is survived by his wife Catherine and their son, Danny. Unable to take the shame, Catherine and her son moved out of the area. It is rumored she now goes by her maiden name.

“Well, that’s as clear a motive as you’re likely to get,” she said to no one in particular.

She needed to go check marriage records. If she could figure out what the former Mrs. Gordon changed her name to, she might have a better shot at pointing Chris in the right direction. Her phone buzzed with an incoming call. There was no Caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Kal, it’s Chris Harper.”

“Hi. Is something wrong?” She almost felt guilty for using her phone in the confines of the library. Almost.

“I wanted to let you know that the lab put a rush on that fingerprint on the letter opener.”

Kalina’s heart started to race at the unexpected news. He was keeping his word about looping her in on the investigation. Maybe she could point out that she had discovered the motive for the killings. “Who does it belong to?”

“You aren’t going to like it. It matched Margaret Grant.”

She let out a groan. “No, that can’t be right.”

“Well, I’m afraid it is. I mean, come on. It was monogramed with her initials.”

“But you don’t know that it was hers. Plenty of people in town have those initials.”

“Name one.”

“I… I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head. But, Chris, I think I found something.”

Muffled sounds came over the line. “I have to go. Officers just brought Mrs. Grant in. They found her at the cemetery visiting her husband. Thanks for your help on this.”

He hung up before she could share the news that, even if the evidence pointed to Mrs. Grant, the poor old woman was being framed. Just like Sam Gordon. She rose halfway out of her chair and stopped. Should she finish up here or go and try to observe the interrogation? Was that even possible? She didn’t have time to debate. If she didn’t move fast, the wrong person would be arrested for a crime they didn’t commit—again.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Kalina hastily put the newspapers back in their respective bins and took the stairs to the main level of the library two at a time. Pushing the front door open in a hurry, she staggered as the summer heat smacked her in the face. Sweat prickled along her hairline and her upper lip. She hadn’t noticed how cool the basement had been. The sudden change in temperature only spurred her on to get to the police station.

By the time she arrived, she felt as if she’d been dunked in salt water. A quick glance in the mirror in the women’s bathroom dispelled the idea that she was drenched in sweat. The central hub of the station was still sparsely populated, save for the two uniformed officers. They looked like they were right out of the academy, maybe only a few years older than AJ. They were both staring at a TV monitor that looked like it belonged in the early 1990s. At least it was in color and the audio seemed to be working. Mrs. Grant sat on the far side of a rickety-looking, faux wooden table. Chris sat across from her with a bulging folder. Kalina inched closer to better hear the conversation.

“Mrs. Grant, are you sure you don’t want a lawyer present?”

“If I really needed one, you would have told me that you’re charging me with something.”

“Ma’am, I need you to affirmatively state that you are waiving your right to have counsel present during this interview.”

Mrs. Grant pressed her lips together and squared her shoulders. “I do not want a lawyer. Is that clear enough for you?”

Chris coughed. “Yes, thank you. Now, I’d like to talk to you about Cynthia Ellicott.”

“What about her?”

“You two are friends?”

“I suppose.”

“In fact, you were friends with both Cynthia and Agatha weren’t you?”

“Yes. What does that matter?”

“You know that Agatha died at the fair. We discovered Cynthia Ellicott’s body earlier today in her home. She’d been stabbed—” he retrieved the bloodstained letter opener, still safely sealed in its evidence bag “—with this.”

Kalina waited for Mrs. Grant to react. The older woman studied the letter opener through the clear plastic in silence for what seemed like hours. Finally, she let out a shudder and dabbed at her eyes.

“That’s terrible.”

“Have you seen this letter opener before?”

“I don’t know. Why should I have?”

“We lifted a fingerprint from the handle.” He pointed to the swirls of fingerprint powder still clinging to the metal. “It was a match to you. So would you like to rethink your answer?”

Mrs. Grant kneaded her hands together in a nervous tic. She glanced around the small interview room, anywhere but at Chris. “I leant that to Cynthia ages ago. She never returned it. She was always forgetting to give things back even when we were girls in school.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Last week. Agatha and I cooked for her a few times a week. Those awful frozen meals were no good for her health.”

“Was Mrs. Davies there last week, too?”

“Yes. You can’t honestly believe I would murder my friends. That’s lunacy!”

Chris didn’t respond. Instead, he reached into the folder again and produced one of the notes. Kalina couldn’t tell which one it was. They’d all looked identical. Chris pushed the evidence across the table to Mrs. Grant. “Do you recognize this?”

“Someone slipped it under my door.”

“When?”

“I don’t remember. Last week maybe.”

“Last week or you don’t remember, which is it, Mrs. Grant?”

She fidgeted and kneaded her hands again. “Last week.”

“When you went over to Ms. Ellicott’s house, did you three talk about the notes?”

“No, it didn’t come up.”

Kalina chewed her lower lip. She didn’t like where this was going. Sure, the evidence looked bad but she knew the reason. Someone was framing Mrs. Grant. She needed to get that information to Chris before he made a huge mistake. She took quick steps to the door leading to the interview room. The sudden movement roused the two officers from their trance.

“Hey! How’d you get in here?” one called.

“You can’t go in there!” the other said.

Kalina knocked sharply twice on the door and waited. She stood to the side so that when Chris opened the door Mrs. Grant wouldn’t see her. She couldn’t hear voices anymore and she held her breath. Chris opened the door and stared at her. He pushed her out of the way and slipped out of the room, being careful to keep his body in the way so Mrs. Grant couldn’t see what was going on.

“What are you doing here?”

“You said you had Mrs. Grant in custody.”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“Then why did you call me? You had to know I couldn’t just sit around not knowing. I mean do you even have a motive?”

Chris opened his mouth but closed it again. He pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Not yet.”

“I have one for you and I don’t think it was her.”

“Kalina, the evidence points to her. It was her letter opener. It was her print on the letter opener.”

“Did you find her prints on anything when Mrs. Davies died?”

“No. Those prints aren’t back yet.”

“What about the blood?” She propped herself against the side of a tall, metal filing cabinet sitting just outside the interview room.

“I’m pretty sure, since we pulled it out of Ms. Ellicott’s chest, it was hers.”

“No—the blood on the handle of the letter opener. I noticed it at the scene. I assumed you did too and were having it tested.”

Chris cleared his throat and turned away from her. He hadn’t noticed the blood. Maybe the killer hadn’t noticed they’d cut themselves either. The air grew still and heavy between them as Kalina waited for him to speak. Finally, he grabbed her by the elbow and ushered her into Captain Cahill’s empty office.

“Look, what is this theory of yours anyway?”

“I know I’m not a cop or anything but I am pretty good at research. I talked to Mrs. Grant earlier and she told me that she, Mrs. Davies and Ms. Ellicott gave false testimony in a trial thirty years ago. Someone involved in the case is back for revenge.”

“She told you this?”

“Yes. I think she’s wanted to say something for a while. She seemed almost relieved when she told me.”

“All right. I’ll see what I can find out. But you need to not be here, okay?”

“I’ll go. I had something to do anyway. But can you just tell me one thing?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe.”

“Her husband, was his name Alan?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“She said he died a year ago in a car accident.”

“That’s right. Pretty nasty scene from what I heard. Slammed into a tree.”

“When last year?”

“I don’t know. Summertime.”

“June?”

“I guess.”

“Great. Thanks.”

She headed for the front door and caught sight of one of the new officers coming out of the interview room looking shell shocked. He approached Chris and said, “She wants a lawyer.”

“Guess you’ll have to wait on that evidence after all,” Kalina said and left the station. If she could figure out one piece of information she could finally solve this puzzle.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Kalina’s nerves tingled as she jogged back to the shop. She could do her last bit of research there. The records she needed were electronic, even that far back. She hoped it would take a little while for Mrs. Grant to get her lawyer. It would give Kalina the time she needed to figure out who the real killer was and, hopefully, Chris could do his own research into the Gordon trial.

“We’re closed,” AJ called when Kalina tried the front door.

“AJ, it’s me! Let me in.”

The lock released and her nephew appeared in the doorway. “Sorry.”

“I thought I sent you home,” she chided and pushed past him.

“You did. I didn’t listen. What did you find out?”

“I’m not sure I should tell you.”

“I’m not a little kid anymore. I can handle it.”

“No. I’m not going to be responsible for putting you in therapy. You can stay but only if you go clean up the game room.”

He rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t even the one who made the mess.”

“And yet I’m the boss and I say go clean it up.”

“Fine.”

She swatted his arm as he walked by. Now alone in the front of the shop, she grabbed her tablet and fired up the library website. The town was small enough that the library housed most of the town hall records regarding marriages, births and deaths. She found the listing for marriage licenses and typed in Samuel Gordon. With any luck he’d be the only one in town. It seemed luck was on her side. There was a single entry for a Samuel Gordon dated February 9, 1975. There was a scanned-in version of the actual license and she opened it up in a new tab. She had to enlarge the picture to get the image clear enough to read.

The tablet fell out of her hands and clattered on the counter. It couldn’t be right. Taking two deep breaths, she picked up the tablet again and looked. She’d been right the first time. Samuel Gordon had married one Catherine Cahill. Her stomach sloshed, suddenly uneasy, as she navigated to birth records and typed in Daniel Gordon. Sure enough, a record appeared from April of 1976. Daniel Michael Gordon had been born a healthy little boy to Samuel Gordon and Catherine Gordon.

Kalina slumped against the countertop, her ears ringing with the realization of what it all meant. How could she have missed it? The last article had practically screamed the information at her! But she needed to be sure. The phrase the three women had been sent was very specific. Something deep down in her mind insisted she had to be absolutely sure of the killer’s identity before she started accusing people. Chris wouldn’t believe her unless he had actual proof.

Swallowing several times so she could speak, she dialed Chris’ number and waited. It rang three times. Four. Five. Finally, just before it flipped to voicemail, he picked up.

“Hey, I haven’t found anything yet. We’re still waiting for her lawyer.”

“I know.” Her voice shook.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine. I just… I needed to know something. Where did you say the officers found Mrs. Grant?”

“The cemetery. Why?”

“No reason. I was just wondering. I have to go.”

She hung up before he could question her further. Did Mrs. Grant have it figured out too? Or did she just want to pay her respects and voice her apology to the man she and her friends had pushed to an early grave? Either way, she needed to find that gravesite. With a quick glance toward the back room, she rushed out through the front door. AJ could handle himself.

The cemetery was on the other side of the church. Mrs. Grant probably hadn’t left the area after they’d spoken. By the time she reached the main gate, Kalina’s calves had cramped from running and her chest burned from the stress of the run. She wasn’t out of shape by any means but the whole situation was taking a toll. As she eased through the gate and began searching the stone markers, she wondered how it could have only been two days since Mrs. Davies died. It was clear that Ms. Ellicott had, in fact, been the first victim. An involuntary shiver danced down her spine. Nothing like this was supposed to happen in Ellesworth. It was just a sleepy, little coastal town with nice people.

The headstones varied in color, some brand new, others beaten down and almost illegible with age. She longed for a helpful “You Are Here” map but was left to wandering aimlessly through the rows of the dead. She had nearly reached the back fence when she spotted what looked like fresh flowers leaning up against a slightly weathered headstone. They looked familiar somehow. Kalina’s heart sank when she reached the stone to find it belonged to none other than Samuel Gordon. He’d been buried at home after all. The epitaph read, “Lying is a mortal sin and you never did.” She had all the proof she needed now. She snapped a photo of the grave and sent it off to Chris with a message that she had found the proof that Mrs. Grant was being framed. And the flowers finally clicked in her addled brain. Captain Cahill had given the same flowers to Leslie when she won at the fair the day before. Now she just needed to get to the station and warn Chris about Captain Cahill before it was too late.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

This time, Kalina really was drenched in sweat as she staggered through the front door of the police station. Chris hadn’t responded to her text but she hadn’t really expected him to. The station was eerily empty and quiet. Where was everyone? She moved slowly, afraid something or someone might jump out at her at any second. The tiny hairs on her arms stood on end, another warning sign. She finally reached the monitor linked to the interview room. Mrs. Grant still sat there, alone, a plastic bottle of water cupped between her hand. Where was her lawyer? She’d asked for one nearly an hour ago. And where was Chris?

“Hello?” she called out.

No response. This wasn’t right. She studied the video feed and noted that the folder of evidence was no longer strewn across the table. Maybe Chris had taken it to get it tested. That still didn’t explain why Mrs. Grant had been left alone. Kalina’s stomach churned again and she swallowed back the rising acid. She fished her phone from her pocket and dialed Chris’s cell phone. This time it rang five times before clicking over to voicemail.

“Chris, this is Kalina. I don’t know where you are but I figured it out. Please call me back.”

Her palms turned slick with sweat as she ended the call and the phone slid from her fingers, clattering to the floor. She bent to pick it up and stopped with her fingertips brushing the screen. The front door squeaked open. The irrational part of her brain told her it was Cahill and he had come to finish what he’d started. Her heart began hammering in her chest and the blood rushed in her ears, drowning out all other sound. Balancing with one hand on the floor, she swore she felt vibrations as someone walked into the room. The vibration intensified and then stopped.

“Kalina? What are you doing?” Chris offered his hand.

Forgetting her phone for the moment, relief washed over her. She allowed him to pull her up and she collapsed into his arms. He staggered back a step under her weight before he eased her into a chair and retrieved her phone for her.

“You look pretty freaked out,” he said.

“Did you get my text?”

He nodded. “I’m still looking into things. But that helps narrow it down.”

“They sent an innocent man to prison and then he killed himself. Don’t you see? This is all about revenge on the people who lied and the person who made sure the lies stuck.”

“Slow down. What do you mean the person who made sure they stuck? Should we be putting someone else in protective custody?”

“No, no. He’s already dead. That car accident last year. Alan Grant. He was Sam Gordon’s defense attorney. I read the articles in the paper, Chris. He didn’t do anything to prove Sam’s innocence. He just sat there and let them all lie, claiming they saw the car and him in it.”

“You were right about there being some blood on the handle of the letter opener. That’s where I was. I met the forensic team at their mobile lab. It didn’t match Mrs. Grant and I examined her hands. She didn’t have any cuts.”

“So why is she still sitting here? You should let her go.”

“There’s just something that doesn’t sit right with me. She’s holding something back. I can’t put my finger on it but I need to find out what it is.”

Kalina rubbed at the headache forming just above her sinuses. “Forget that, okay? I know who the real killer is. We need to get Mrs. Grant somewhere safe.”

“I’m already on it. I called in someone to watch her. The blood is being tested now and the lab is running some prints lifted from Mrs. Davies’ teacup from the fair.

“I’ll drive you home, okay? All of this has been more than you should have to deal with, Kal. You’ve helped a lot and I do appreciate it.”

She tried to resist but his hand was so gentle on hers as he led her to his car. As if helping a child, he eased her into the front seat and pulled the belt over her shoulder, snapping it in place. Her pulse still raced as he stuck the key in the ignition and the engine rumbled to life. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye but Chris pulled out of the small lot and onto Main Street before she could get a good look.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Who did you send to watch Mrs. Grant?” Kalina’s throat felt raw.

“Everything will be fine. The captain is on it. He won’t let anyone near her.”

Kalina’s whole body went numb. In a foolish move she reached for the steering wheel, anything to get Chris to stop the car. Panic flushed his face and he slammed on the breaks. The car narrowly avoided plowing into a mailbox. She was going to regret that action.

“What the hell are you doing? You could have killed us!” His voice echoed in the confines of the car.

“I’m sorry but you can’t leave her with him. She won’t be safe.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s the killer!”

Her declaration hung in the air between them for far too long. She tugged on the seatbelt release but it wouldn’t unlatch. Chris stared at her, mouth hanging open in obvious disbelief. She could tell he was trying to find words but they wouldn’t come. Finally, the seatbelt unhooked and slid with a sharp ‘zip’ back to its original position.

“What… I don’t understand.”

“Sam Gordon, the man who killed himself, had a son named Daniel. After Gordon killed himself, his wife and son left town and started going by her maiden name, Cahill. It’s all in the town records. As I said, Alan Grant was Sam Gordon’s attorney. I don’t think that accident was an accident. And I bet you Cahill was on the scene. We have to go back before he finishes what he started.”

Chris continued to stare at her, taking the information in. She needed to act, to turn the car around and get back to the station. She snapped her fingers in front of his face; it did nothing to rouse him from his trance. Finally, the blare of a nearby emergency vehicle snapped him out of his shock. An ambulance flew past them in the direction of the police station.

“Put your seatbelt back on,” Chris ordered before he gunned the engine and the tires squealed on the pavement as he turned the car to follow the path of the flashing lights.

Kalina didn’t have time to bother with the seatbelt. She gripped the edge of the passenger seat and braced herself against the door as Chris employed driving skills better suited to a racecar driver than a mild-mannered police detective. They rolled into the station’s parking lot maybe two minutes after the ambulance. Two paramedics—not the ones who had been on scene for Mrs. Davies or Ms. Ellicott—jumped out of the rig and raced through the front door with medical bags slung over their shoulders.

“I need you to stay out of the way,” Chris said and shoulder-checked his door open.

“Yeah, okay,” she replied and followed suit.

She could stay out of the way and still see what was going on. She flashed to all kinds of horrible scenarios in the thirty seconds it took them to get inside. She imagined Mrs. Grant lying on the ground stabbed to death like Ms. Ellicott. The reality was worse. The camera feed to the interview room was still active. A man who looked to be in his forties sat on the floor cradling Mrs. Grant’s head in his lap. The paramedics ordered him to stay out of the way as they checked for a pulse and an airway.

“Just like Mrs. Davies,” Kalina whispered just loud enough for Chris to hear.

“You don’t know that.”

“Chris, the water. You have to tell them it was arsenic.”

“How do you know about that?”

“I saw the report on your desk. Look, yell at me later. She’s going to die!”

Chris waved a hand at her to shut her up and took three long strides to the open doorway to the interview room. “She may have been poisoned with arsenic.”

One of the paramedics nodded and started to do chest compressions. His partner held Mrs. Grant’s limp wrist lightly between his fingers. “I’ve got a pulse. We need to move.”

Kalina and Chris backed out of the way as the medics loaded Mrs. Grant onto a gurney and raced with her out the front doors of the building. Sirens wailed as the ambulance took off. Kalina had no idea if time was on Mrs. Grant’s side or not. She hoped they wouldn’t have to bury three people at the end of this. The man who had been in the interview room—she assumed he was Mrs. Grant’s attorney—dragged himself to a standing position and looked around dumbfounded. Chris closed the distance and leaned in close.

“What did you see? What happened?”

“I don’t know. I got a call that Margaret needed an attorney. I was down at the fair with my son and daughter. I came as soon as I could. When I got here she was slumped over in the chair. So I called 9-1-1.”

Chris ran a hand through his hair and let out a frustrated breath. “You didn’t see who brought her the water?”

“No. I’m sorry. I should go to the hospital.”

Chris dismissed him with a wave of his hand and the lawyer moved with brisk steps until he disappeared from view. Kalina studied the empty station in shock. What were they supposed to do now? They knew that they needed to find Captain Cahill but where to look? A single ‘beep’ punctured the silence between them. Chris glanced at his phone and tapped the screen a couple times.

“Damn it!”

“What is it?”

“DNA came back on the blood. You were right. It belongs to Captain Cahill. And the only prints on the teacup belonged to Mrs. Davies and the captain.”

“Chris, I’m so sorry.” She wasn’t sure why she said it but it felt like the right thing to say.

His facial features hardened into a mask of determination. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. If it weren’t for you, I’d be slapping cuffs on the wrong person.”

Before she could respond, one of the fresh-faced officers wandered in. “Sir, what’s going on?” His voice shook with nerves.

Kalina stepped out of Chris’s orbit. The officer was in for an interrogation of his own. Chris launched himself at the kid and grabbed the front of the officer’s uniform in his fists. “Who gave Mrs. Grant that bottle of water?”

“I ... don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Chris dragged the officer into the interview room and shoved the man’s face to within a few inches of the bottle. “This one. Who gave it to her?”

“I did. She said she was thirsty.”

“Where did you get it?”

“The fridge. What’s going on? Where’s the witness?”

“You poisoned her,” Kalina said in a soft tone.

The officer blanched. “What? No I didn’t. I just … gave her water.”

“She’s on her way to the hospital. She didn’t look good when he left here,” Chris said, his tone sharp.

“Chris, I don’t think he had anything to do with this. We should be focusing on finding the captain.” She walked into the room and placed a hand on Chris’s bicep, trying to exude calm.

Chris’s entire body tensed under her touch. Slowly, second by second, he relaxed and released his grip on the officer. The officer leaned against the table, clearly afraid of another outburst. Without realizing it or intending to, Kalina slid her hand down Chris’s arm and took him by the hand, leading him back into the open space of the station.

“We have to find him,” Chris said.

“I know. Can you … I don’t know, track his phone or something?”

“You’re brilliant.” Chris pulled her into a one-armed hug as he dialed a number on his phone. “This is Detective Chris Harper out of Ellesworth PD. I need a trace on a phone.”

Kalina waited patiently as he rattled off the captain’s phone number. Two minutes later, Chris ended the call and rounded on the officer who had slowly inched his way out of the interview room. “You need to get your partner and follow me. No lights or sirens. We are going in quiet.”

“Where are we going?” Kalina asked.

His phone beeped twice at him and he opened a map app. A tiny red dot blinked from the middle of the screen. “The cemetery. Let’s go.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Kalina sat in the passenger seat of Chris’s car in silence. She stared ahead at the road in front of them, leading to the cemetery and the church. They could have walked it from the station but Chris insisted on driving. Maybe he needed to feel in control of the situation. She didn’t argue. She was just grateful he was letting her come along. It had to be violating who knew how many rules to have a civilian involved in an arrest like this. She was also surprised that Chris only had the two new officers for back up. He pulled the car into a spot near the front gate and cut the engine. The car clicked and rattled as the engine block cooled. He turned to her but she held up a hand to silence him.

“I know. Stay out of the way. I got it. I’m not stupid or a hero. This is your show.”

“Thank you. I mean it.”

“Thank me when this is all over.”

He quirked a half-smile at her before easing the driver side door open and shutting it as quietly as possible. The two uniformed officers climbed out of the cruiser beside them. Chris removed his gun from its hip holster and the other officers followed suit. Chris consulted his phone before stepping through the open gate.

“The grave is near the back fence on the far right,” Kalina offered in a whisper.

Chris pointed at each officer and then to the left and the right of the cemetery. They were going to surround Captain Cahill. He might try to jump the fence but it was wrought iron and spiked at the top. There wasn’t much chance he would make it over before Chris or the other officers got to him. Chris let them go first before he started forward, gun gripped in his right hand but down by his thigh. Kalina stayed behind him a few paces, just as she’d promised.

The cemetery felt strange as they moved through it. It hadn’t held any special meaning for Kalina before, but now—even with all the other people around—she felt the quiet awe and respect for the dead one should have upon entering this place. And she could swear she felt a touch of sadness for Sam Gordon’s fate. She thought she might feel a little sliver of empathy for Captain Cahill but she didn’t. He may have been acting out of a place for love of his father but his actions were inexcusable.

They reached the back fence and found the captain kneeling in front of his father’s grave, rearranging the bouquet of flowers. The uniformed officers hung back just out of sight, weapons at their sides. Chris motioned for Kalina to stay where she was as he took a few steps closer to the headstone. He still held his gun against his thigh. He made sure to step on some loose twigs.

“Captain,” he called.

Captain Cahill turned to face them. He didn’t look surprised. Had he really expected they would catch him? He stayed crouched down but pulled his hands away from the flowers. He held them out, fingers splayed in a gesture that Kalina assumed meant he was unarmed.

“Sir, I’m going to need you to pull the weapon out of your ankle holster and toss it to me,” Chris instructed.

With slow movements, Captain Cahill complied. Chris bent down and scooped up the gun and tucked it into his waistband. Dead air filled the space between the two cops; neither seemed to know what to say. Kalina longed to speak, to say she understood why Cahill felt betrayed, but that wasn’t her job. She was here to be a silent observer.

“We found your prints on the teacup and your blood on the weapon that killed Cynthia Ellicott.”

Captain Cahill sighed and rotated to face Chris head on. “I didn’t realize the thing had cut me until later.”

“And the teacup? Seems pretty sloppy.”

The captain shrugged. “Someone would have noticed if I was wearing gloves.”

“That’s why you went back and touched the cup after Mrs. Davies died.” Kalina couldn’t help herself.

Both Chris and the captain looked at her. “I saw it in a picture on Facebook.”

“I guess I should have been more careful.”

“You had to know you wouldn’t get away with it,” Chris said.

“I nearly did. You had Margaret Grant in for questioning. If you hadn’t noticed that damn little speck of blood you would have charged her with at least one murder. Probably both.”

“Would it have been worth it?”

Captain Cahill let out a bitter bark of laughter. “They killed my father. They lied and put him in jail. He couldn’t handle it in there and so he took the easy way out.” His eyes shone with unshed tears. “My mother thought by moving away we could escape the shame but it never left me. Oh, I wasn’t ashamed of my father. I knew he hadn’t hurt that girl. But the injustice stuck with me.”

Chris loosened his grip on his gun. “So you came back as a cop, hoping people wouldn’t remember you.”

“I left here as a child. People change a lot in thirty years. I made sure when my predecessor retired, I was in the right place at the right time to assume his position. I knew people wouldn’t think I could be behind it.”

“The car accident with Alan Grant. That was you too,” Kalina said. She just couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

“Clever aren’t you? Yes, that was me too. He had my father’s case forced on him. And can you believe he went on to marry one of the witnesses who put my father away? They had to pay for their crime.”

Chris holstered his gun and pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “I need you stand up.”

Captain Cahill again complied without argument. He got to his feet and turned around, hands behind his back. The officers who had been on the periphery approached, weapons aimed at the ground. Chris snapped the cuffs in place. “Daniel Cahill, you are under arrest for the murders of Alan Grant, Cynthia Ellicott and Agatha Davies and the attempted murder of Margaret Grant. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have a right to an attorney to be present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?”

“Yes. I am waiving my right to counsel and I would like to give a written confession.”

Kalina hadn’t been expecting that response. If it shocked Chris, he didn’t show it. He just led Captain Cahill through the maze of headstones and back to the car. He situated the man in the back seat before turning to address Kalina. “Thank you again. We can take it from here.”

“Sure. I’m just glad I could help.”

She watched both cars pull out of the parking lot and head down Main Street toward the station. She wasn’t sure what to do so just started walking. She ended up back at the fairgrounds. It wasn’t as populated now that it was late afternoon. The fact that this whole ordeal had lasted only a few days washed over her, instantly draining her energy reserves. She found a bench and slumped onto it, letting the sturdy wood hold her up. With the killer caught, there wasn’t much left to do but wait for the trial, if there even was one. If Captain Cahill was refusing a lawyer and willing to sign a confession, something told her a trial might not be in the cards.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Monday morning came as a shock to the system for Kalina. She’d gone straight home after her stop off at the fairgrounds. She hadn’t heard anything else from Chris but she wasn’t expecting to. At ten minutes to nine, she flipped the front door sign to “OPEN” and settled behind the counter, ready for an influx of teenagers and older patrons. After all, she had a host of new arrivals waiting to be distributed. She’d given AJ the day off from helping out, given everything he had gone through. He seemed grateful to just be a kid for a little while. He had plenty of time to grow up. The stillness of the shop wrapped itself around her, seeping into her thoughts, and calmed her.

The bell sounded above the front door and jarred her out of her trance. Chris stood in the doorway, framed by morning light. He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. He looked exhausted. Kalina stood up and approached him.

“Hi.”

“Uh, hey. I hope this isn’t a bad time.”

She made a show of looking around the shop. “Perfect time. How are you?”

“Honestly, I’m still trying to process everything. Dan, he wrote out a confession yesterday. He’s meeting with the prosecutor to discuss a plea. Avoid trial. He’s going to do time and a lot of it.”

“I know you looked up to him.”

“I thought he was a good guy. Good police officer. I guess I never realized just how much darkness he was carrying around with him. I can’t imagine going through what he went through. And it kills me that I even feel sorry for him.”

“Vigilante justice isn’t right but sometimes the system is broken and making things right gets messy.” She motioned to the stacks of comics. “Isn’t that what most of these are about?”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Has there been any word on Mrs. Grant?”

“It sounds like they got her stabilized. She’s going to make it but they said she’s probably going to have some nerve damage from the arsenic.”

“How awful.”

“I was going to head over and let her know that we caught Dan. Would you like to come with me?”

“Are you sure that’s appropriate?”

“If it wasn’t for you, Kal, she’d probably be dead and the case would still be open. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

“If you can wait a few hours I’ll close up for lunch and we can go over.”

“Yeah, of course. I don’t know why I expected you to just drop everything. You have a business to run.”

“I’ll see you over at the hospital at noon, okay?”

He didn’t say anything, just pulled her into a tight hug. She held on tight too. She hadn’t been imagining the way they were falling back into each other’s orbits. Maybe there was something there to rekindle.

She let that thought buoy her through the morning. By noon she was ready to get out of the shop. She hung up the lunch sign and locked the front door. Chris waited for her just outside the shop. The hospital was at the other end of town from the waterfront. It afforded easier access in case of accidents on the highway. They checked in at the front desk and were escorted to the ICU. Mrs. Grant lay in bed, her skin ashen and her eyes half-closed. But she was most definitely alive.

“Mrs. Grant? It’s Kalina Greystone. I wanted to see how you were doing,” Kalina said and took a seat at the woman’s bedside.

Mrs. Grant roused herself and turned to face her. “You told him, didn’t you?”

“I had to. But we know you didn’t do anything to Cynthia or Agatha. We caught the person responsible. He’s going to jail for a very long time.”

“Who?” She coughed. “Who was it?”

“Daniel Cahill. He was Samuel Gordon’s son.”

Silent tears streamed down Mrs. Grant’s sunken cheeks. “I should have known.” She looked directly at Chris. “We were going to come forward and admit what we did. We talked about it. I’m sorry I wasn’t truthful with you before.”

“Do you know who really killed Alice Beech?”

Mrs. Grant’s eyes suddenly shown with tears. “Yes. There was a car speeding away that night and we did see his face. But it wasn’t Samuel Gordon. It was the Police Captain’s son, Andrew Paxton. The officers on the scene knew it , too, but I guess Sam had been pulled over for speeding that night and they just decided to make him the scapegoat. I’m assuming it was Captain Paxton’s orders. Alan was good friends with him and agreed to take the case to keep Andrew out of jail.” Tears trickled down her pale cheeks.

“Why did you lie?” Chris asked from the foot of the bed.

“The captain threatened us. At first, anyway. Then he tried to bribe us. In the end Alan convinced me that we were well liked enough in town to be believable. It was the biggest regret of my life.”

“Did you marry him to keep the secret?”

“He’d already proposed. After a while it just sort of faded into the past.”

Chris just nodded. “Good luck with your recovery, Mrs. Grant.”

The admission about coming forward seemed to tire Mrs. Grant out and Kalina and Chris soon left her to rest. As they wound their way back to the front of the hospital, neither of them spoke.

“Are you going to charge her with perjury?”

“I think she’s been through enough hell. She’s going to be living with a permanent reminder of what she did and what it cost her. That’s enough.”

“That’s really kind of you.”

“I wouldn’t call it that. But I don’t see the point in putting an old woman behind bars at this point.” He pulled out his phone. “I am going to have Andrew Paxton and his father arrested. Alice Beech is going to get the justice she deserved.”

“I’m glad Sam’s death won’t have been for nothing.” She checked her phone. “Hey, I’m still on lunch for another half hour. You want to come back and finish that game of Zombie Dice?”

“You’re on.”

They lazily made their way back to the shop, sequestered themselves in the back room with lunch and started the game over. Kalina even let him go first. As the dice clattered around the table in a bid to escape, a sense of normalcy settled over the shop and its two inhabitants. While darkness and death had touched the town, it would soon be pushed to the back of the townspeople’s collective memory. Ellesworth would resume being a nice, waterfront, Massachusetts town. There was little chance Kalina would get wrapped up in another case of wrongful convictions and vigilante justice. She was just a comic book shop owner, after all.

Read an Excerpt from FORGIVE AND FORGET (Geeks and Things #2)

An unusually oppressive early morning summer heat shimmered on the pavement as Kalina Greystone took off at a steady jog from the front of her shop, Geeks and Things. She had barely taken enough steps to get to the next block on Main Street when her phone beeped at her, displaying the temperature: 81 degrees. At seven in the morning.

"Wonderful," she groaned before settling on a playlist and picking up the pace. Heat or no heat, she needed to get her run in before she had to open up for the day.

The end of summer was a big money maker for the shop, especially with kids getting ready for school. There was little doubt in her mind that most of the teenagers in town would be turning in summer reading lists crammed with comics and graphic novels. She only felt a little guilty that the next generation wasn't reading actual books.

The notion that this was her shop, her livelihood, had finally settled in. People in town had stopped comparing the way she ran the business to her father—at least to her face—and it made the decision to come back home to Ellesworth feel like the right call. The little seaside town moved at a slower pace to the city, where she'd spent most of her adult life, but it had some perks, too. She'd managed to reconnect and rekindle a spark with her high school sweetheart, Christian Harper.

Kalina took a sharp left and sucked in a deep breath as she took the hill leading in the direction of the cemetery and the town's one church. As her heart pounded in her ears from the exertion, she flashed back to three months ago when she and Chris had stood in the cemetery and solved a pair of murders. The frenzy surrounding Mrs. Davies and Ms. Ellicott's passing had finally died down and the town was back to being quaint and normal. Kalina's phone buzzed in her pocket and she pulled it out to see a text from Chris asking her if they were still on for dinner. She smiled and slowed to a walk before responding that they were definitely on for dinner. They were lucky that their first break-up had been amicable. They were on different life tracks and they had been mature enough to get that. When he held her hand or kissed her goodnight she still felt like a giddy schoolgirl. Of course, she'd dated in college and grad school but being with Chris now was different. They were finally in a place where they could be together as adults and make it work.

Phone stowed back in her pocket, Kalina took off at a sprint to make it up and over the hill and settle back into a comfortable pace. As she ran she spotted Theo Maxwell in his boxers and undershirt scooping up the morning paper. He blushed bright red and waved before darting back inside. She chuckled to herself and took the next right, heading past the church. The door eased open and a lone figure stepped out looking subdued and tired. Leslie Mayfair, the former almost-Mrs. Cahill. A pang of sadness tightened Kalina’s chest as she watched the usually bubbly school teacher hunch her shoulders on her way to her car. She hadn’t known her fiancé had been killing little old ladies for sending his innocent father to prison. They made eye contact for a brief, uncomfortable moment and Kalina opened her mouth to say ‘Good morning’ but held her tongue. Leslie yanked her car door open and climbed into the driver seat.

Kalina waited until the car was out of sight before continuing her morning circuit. Sweat glistened on her bare arms and matted her short, auburn curls to her forehead as she veered away from the church and out towards the coast. Only a handful of people lived out by the water these days thanks to beach erosion. The salty air was a few degrees cooler and she sucked in a big gulp. Trying to shake the unease from seeing Leslie, Kalina put on another burst of speed and took the rolling slope of Ocean Front Lane at a decent clip. Her phone vibrated again and, in her earbuds, an automated voice announced that AJ was calling.

“Answer call,” she said and slowed to a walk. “Hey, AJ, what are you doing up this early?”

“Hey, Aunt K. I was just checking in. I wanted to see if you needed help at the store today,” her nephew answered.

He had done a lot of ‘checking in’ in the last couple months. Not that she minded. It put her mind at ease that he was doing okay after watching Mrs. Davies die. “If you want to stop by this afternoon you can. I don’t know that I’ll have too much for you to do, though.”

“Great. Are you okay?”

Kalina continued along Ocean Front at a slow pace, getting her heart rate back down to normal. “Yeah, I’m just out for a run.”

“Oh. You’ve been doing that a lot since…”

He didn’t have to finish the thought for her know what he meant. “We all cope in different ways. And I could use the exercise.”

Kalina rounded a bend in the street and a three-story house came into view. It belonged to the Larrabees. She’d been friends with their daughter, Nadine, in high school. Normally it wouldn’t have drawn her attention in the cookie-cutter section of town. Today, she stopped and stood with her mouth hanging open. A man’s body lay prone in the middle of the house’s small driveway and a woman about Kalina’s age sat on the front steps, rocking back and forth.

“Aunt K., are you there?” AJ’s voice sounded tinny in her earbuds.

“I have to call you back,” she said and yanked the buds from her ears. She moved into view slowly so as not to startle the woman. “Nadine?”

The woman looked up and Kalina saw her eyes shine with fresh tears. At this distance she could see Nadine’s hands covered in what Kalina assumed was blood. A dark stain had spread under the man’s head on the asphalt. “Oh, God. What did I do?” Nadine whimpered.

Kalina pulled the cord out of the headphone jack of her phone and dialed 911. She waited for the operator to give the standard response before speaking. “I need an ambulance at 1609 Ocean Front Lane. Send the police, too. A man is dead.”

Coming April 2016

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About The Author

Sarah lives in Massachusetts with her fiancé. She is a licensed attorney and spends her days combatting employment discrimination as an Investigator with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.

She is a self-professed TV junkie and in her spare time (what’s that?), she runs a TV recap blog with her best friend (and sorority sister), Jen.

You can connect with Sarah on Twitter @SBiglowWrites or by joining her newsletter on www.sarah-biglow.com

For those TV-obsessed souls, you can head on over to the recap blog: www.more-tv-please.com. You can also follow the blog on Twitter @MoreTVPlease and check it out on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MoreTVPlease.