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  Zoë looked as if she was about to protest, but Kimberly spoke again. “I may not be there when you get back. And you forgot to take your medication earlier, so you’d better take it by at least eight o’clock. I wouldn’t want you to keel over and get hurt.” She turned on her heel, marched to the door, and yanked it open. Tricia was glad she didn’t slam it—otherwise she’d probably need to replace the glass. Twenty or so pairs of eyes stared at the exit.

  Embarrassed for Zoë, Grace turned away, and the next person in line held out a book for the author to sign.

  Tricia turned to Nikki and found her looking at the door where Kimberly had exited, her expression thoughtful. “She’s a nasty piece of work.”

  “And how.” Tricia let out an exasperated breath. “Thanks for breaking the tension.”

  “No problem. But I didn’t mean to rush the evening along, either,” Nikki said, making the first cut. “It’s just that I really need to get home and get to bed. Three thirty comes awfully early. I already told Steve to head on home.”

  “Three thirty? Is that when you guys have to get up?” Tricia asked.

  “It’s the only way to have fresh bread and pastries available for our customers at eight a.m.”

  “Then it’s well worth it—at least for your customers. Any news on the bank loan?”

  “Not yet. I’ve got my fingers crossed it’ll be either tomorrow or Thursday. Then the Stoneham Patisserie will be mine, all mine.” The power of her grin could have lit a hundred lightbulbs.

  “I’ll keep my fingers crossed, too. What does Steve think?” Steve Fenton was well known around town as “the weirdo who doesn’t drive.” He had a reputation as a loner who was often seen riding his bike or jogging around the village—and sometimes hitched a ride to nearby Milford and surrounds. Maybe ten years older than Nikki, he was also her only employee and as knowledgeable about baking as Ginny was about bookselling—and just as valued.

  “He says he’ll rough up the bank manager if I don’t get it.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Steve is. He’s all bluff and bluster, but I’m glad he’s on my side.”

  Steve could be called scary. Tall, brawny, head shaved bald, sporting a do-rag and gold earring, and his muscular arms covered with tattoos, he fit the description of a biker, but without the motorcycle.

  Tricia glanced down at the sheet cake. Zoë’s book cover had been reproduced in exact detail, but now was marred by the cake’s dissection. “Too bad cutting the cake ruins the picture. Just how did you transfer the cover onto the frosting?”

  Nikki shrugged. “I snatched the picture off her Web site. It’s much the same process as an inkjet printer—only with edible inks. Not my favorite way to decorate a cake, but for occasions like this it works well.”

  “And what’s the surprise?” Tricia asked knowingly.

  Nikki’s eyes sparkled, subtracting a few years from her face. “Mocha chocolate cake with rum-infused white ganache filling.”

  “Sounds heavenly,” Tricia said. Her stomach growled. She hadn’t had dinner, and although cake wasn’t her favorite food, she was willing to eat just about anything to stave off hunger pangs.

  Already the book club members and the others who’d shown up for the signing were lining up in front of the eats table, their eyes wide in anticipation. “Let me get out of your way,” Tricia told Nikki, just as the little bell over the entrance jingled. Russ Smith, editor of the Stoneham Weekly News, entered the store. A Nikon digital camera dangled around his neck, and he grasped it in anticipation of taking a shot. He looked across the crowded shop, found Tricia, and made his way through the throng.

  “Am I too late?”

  “Nikki’s just cutting the cake.”

  “I mean to interview the big-time author.” He didn’t roll his eyes, but his tone suggested he’d thought about it. He glanced in Zoë’s direction. “Not much of a looker, is she?”

  Tricia, too, had been surprised by the author’s appearance. A plain Jane dressed in what could’ve been a nun’s habit—black skirt and shoes, and a white blouse. No headgear, of course, and the chain around her neck was unadorned as well—no gold cross hung from it.

  “Now, Russ,” Tricia chided, reaching up to straighten the collar on the plaid flannel shirt beneath his denim jacket. His brown hair curled around the base of his neck. No matter how often he got a haircut, it always seemed like he needed another in short order.

  “No, really, Tricia. I don’t need to be here.”

  They’d been over this before. She had to agree that in a town full of booksellers, another author signing was hardly breaking news, although Zoë was perhaps the biggest name to come through town in quite a while. Still, despite his budding relationship with Tricia, it was only the enticement of a slice of Nikki’s cake that had sealed the deal and lured Russ away from his evening with ESPN. “You told me that the last few times you’ve written about Zoë, you’ve received a lovely thank you note, and even a couple of review copies over the years.”

  He nodded, resigned. “You’re right.”

  The cake line snaked around the table, and a number of people clutched their signed copies as they oohed and aahed over Nikki’s to-die-for confection. What was left of the book’s icing cover now looked like a mosaic, and Nikki heaped another slice onto a waiting plate.

  “I saw Frannie leaving. She wasn’t exactly happy,” Russ said.

  “No, and I’m afraid she’s not my only unhappy customer. Zoë’s been great, but that assistant of hers should have her mouth washed out with soap.”

  “Assistant?” Russ asked, looking at those assembled.

  “Zoë’s niece. She sent her home a few minutes ago. That young woman was really obnoxious.” Tricia caught sight of Grace speaking to Mr. Everett, pointing at where Kimberly had stood, and frowning. “Despite the fact this is probably the best author-signing I’ve hosted, I’m afraid Kimberly may have spoiled the evening for more than a couple of people, and that could be a bad reflection on the shop.”

  “Time will tell. What is this, your fourth, fifth signing?”

  “Thirteenth.”

  “Well, that explains it,” Russ said and laughed. “Thirteen is an unlucky number. And you are—”

  “Don’t even mention that ‘village jinx’ business to me again.” A few unfortunate events some six months before had saddled Tricia with that irritating label.

  Russ shrugged, his gaze wandering over to the rapidly diminishing cake.

  “Tricia?” The timbre of Ginny’s voice conveyed her growing annoyance.

  “Get your cake—and be nice to Zoë,” Tricia told Russ.

  “If you say so.”

  Tricia hurried over to the register to save her employee from her sister. “Ginny, why don’t you help Nikki with the cake,” she suggested. “She’s got to get up awfully early tomorrow morning and really needs to leave.”

  “Gladly,” Ginny grated, scooted around the counter, and stalked away.

  “Ange,” Tricia admonished.

  “I was just trying to help Ginny with that last customer. Honestly, she has no marketing savvy at all.”

  “Ginny is the best assistant in the entire village, and you know it. Why don’t you go pester your own help?”

  Angelica threw back her head and sighed theatrically. “Samantha quit this afternoon.” Which would account for Angelica’s sour mood. “She wasn’t of much use, but I don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow at the store.”

  Stay busy and out of my hair, Tricia hoped.

  Bursts of light drew Tricia’s attention back to Zoë, who posed, pen in hand, for Russ. Again and again the camera flashed. Printing one of the shots in the Stoneham Weekly News wasn’t going to bring in a horde of customers after the fact, but it wouldn’t be bad for business, either.

  Another customer stepped up to the counter. Tricia took Ginny’s vacated spot at the register while Angelica bagged two copies of Forever Cherished and a couple of paperback thrillers from the bargain shelf.

  “That’ll be fifty-seven thirty,” Tricia said and finally looked up. “Deborah!” She’d been so preoccupied she hadn’t even noticed her customer was also her best friend in Stoneham, Deborah Black. “Thanks for coming.”

  “Believe me, it’s my pleasure. Little Davey’s teething. I had him with me all day at the shop—it’s his dad’s turn to deal with him.” Deborah ran the Happy Domestic, a boutique specializing in new and gently used products, how-to books, gifts, and home decor. Her son had been born some seven months before. Between running her shop and taking care of the baby, the poor woman had been worn to a frazzle. For the past few months, Tricia had been consulting her on redecorating—softening the industrial-looking exposed-brick walls—in her loft apartment. At least that was the excuse Deborah had given her husband for her Wednesday “girls’ night out” dinner with Tricia.

  “We still on for lunch tomorrow?” Deborah asked. Unfortunately, she couldn’t make dinner this week and they’d already made alternate plans.

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Lunch?” Angelica piped up hopefully. “Mind a straggler joining you?”

  Yes, Tricia was tempted to blurt, but instead said, “You can’t go anywhere. You lost your sales force this afternoon.”

  “Darn.”

  “See you at the diner at noon—or as close to as possible,” Deborah said, picked up her purchase, and headed for the exit.

  Deborah’s departure seemed to trigger a mass exodus of guests, who’d abandoned their paper plates and plastic forks on just about every flat surface, and headed for the checkout or exit, some having escaped without purchasing a book.

  The crowd had thinned by the time the rush was over, leaving just Ginny, Grace, Mr. Everett, Russ, and An
gelica on hand.

  Ginny glanced at her watch. “Eight fifteen. People didn’t stay as long as we thought they would.”

  “No.” Tricia took in the stacks of unsold books still sitting on the author’s table. Zoë was nowhere in sight. “Nor did they buy as many copies of Zoë’s backlist as I’d hoped.”

  “I told you so,” Angelica piped up. “And I haven’t had a chance to talk to Zoë yet. Where is she, anyway?”

  Ginny ignored her, turning back to Tricia. “How much stock will you have her sign?”

  “All of it. Besides being a best seller she’s a local author, even if she is abandoning Stoneham.”

  “Let’s hope you can sell them to tourists. Her handler turned off a number of the locals we’d managed to lure in here tonight.”

  Tricia sighed. “What did Kimberly say to you?”

  “Nothing too insulting. Just implied my career aspirations must be pretty low to ‘settle’ for a job in retail. I had to bite my tongue to keep from mentioning that I didn’t have to depend on nepotism to keep me employed.”

  Tricia looked around the shop. “Where is Zoë? As soon as she signs that stock, I can shut the door and scrounge some dinner.” She hadn’t even managed to snag a piece of Nikki’s cake, of which only crumbs remained—not that she was often seduced by sweets or desserts. Too hard on the figure.

  “I didn’t see her go,” Ginny admitted.

  Mr. Everett and Grace were rounding up icing-stained forks and plates, depositing them in a big black plastic trash bag. “Did Zoë leave?” Tricia asked them.

  Mr. Everett shook his head, pointed to the coat still slung over the back of one of the signing table’s chairs.

  “I think she went to the restroom,” Grace said. She frowned. “Didn’t that awful niece of hers say she needed to take her medication at eight o’clock?” She glanced at the diamond watch on her wrist. “Oh, my, she’s been in there quite a while.”

  They looked uneasily at each other. “I’ll go see,” Tricia said.

  Tricia had sacrificed her utility closet to add the small washroom a couple of months before. Most of her clientele arrived via bus tours, and one of the first stops the mostly elderly ladies and gents wanted to make was a bathroom. Since the front of her store had been outfitted to look like the Victorian facade of Sherlock Holmes’s beloved 221B Baker Street, Tricia had carried out the decoration of her restroom in the same manner, with an antique pedestal sink and an oak mirror overhead, a high-tank toilet, dark beaded board, and reproduction hunter green flocked wallpaper. Unfortunately, she was the one who got to clean the little room every evening after the shop closed. Not the most glamorous part of owning her own business. In lieu of the closet, she’d had a wall erected to hide the boxes of stock and dollies, and had added shaker pegs higher on the wall for herself and her staff to hang their coats. Simple, but effective.

  Tricia passed the last of the bookshelves and felt a draft. Bypassing the washroom, she hurried to the back of the shop, noticing that the rear door, which was always locked except for deliveries, was open a crack. Thank goodness her cat, Miss Marple, had been banished to her loft apartment during the signing. If she’d gotten out . . .

  Tricia quickly closed the door and threw the deadbolt. Shoplifters had used the back exit for an escape route before, but the security system should have alerted her when the door was opened during business hours. It wasn’t likely Ginny or Mr. Everett had circumvented the system, but whenever Angelica was around, unusual things seemed to occur.

  Remembering why she’d come to the back of the store, Tricia stepped over to the closed washroom door. The little sign on it said Occupied. She bent close and listened.

  No sound.

  She knocked.

  “Zoë? Is everything all right in there?”

  No answer.

  Tricia leaned in closer, listening harder.

  Still no sound.

  Ginny approached. “Anything wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” Tricia said. She rested her hand on the door handle. It turned. Since the room was tiny, the door opened out.

  Tricia’s breath caught in her throat and she backed away, bumping into the wall behind her.

  Zoë Carter was seated on the lid of the commode, her dark skirt pulled primly over her knees, her mouth stuffed with paper napkins, and her face mottled a shade of purple Tricia had never seen. Scrapes marred her wattled neck, and some fingers from both hands were caught in the kelly green bungee cord that was knotted at her throat.

  TWO

  Sheriff Wendy Adams glowered at Tricia. “You have a penchant for finding dead bodies, Ms. Miles.” She referred, of course, to the body Tricia had found in a neighboring store some seven months before.

  Tricia looked away from the tall, bulky, uniformed woman who towered above her. Seated in one of the upholstered chairs in Haven’t Got a Clue’s readers’ nook, she held a cardboard cup of cold coffee in one hand, a balled-up, damp tissue in the other. “Believe me, Sheriff, finding a body is not on my top ten list of things to do.” She closed her eyes, and found the image of Zoë’s distorted face imprinted on her mind once again.

  “What is it with you, Sheriff? Do you find pleasure in badgering traumatized witnesses?” Angelica asked.

  Tricia opened her eyes to see that her angry sister had insinuated herself between Tricia and the sheriff.

  “Now, dear,” Bob Kelly murmured, resting a gentle restraining hand on her arm, but Angelica shook him off. Bob had shown up—late—intending to take Angelica to dinner. Instead, he’d declined to leave once he saw the sheriff’s patrol car outside and, as the head of the Chamber of Commerce and one of Stoneham’s leading citizens, no one had asked him to leave.

  “Back off, Bob,” Angelica ordered, unaccountably surly. To Tricia’s knowledge, Angelica had never said a cross word to her “good friend,” as she called him. She folded her arms across her chest, and Tricia allowed herself a twinge of sisterly pride at the sight.

  “Why don’t you wait outside, Mrs. Prescott,” the sheriff said, her spine stiffening. “I’ll get your statement in due time.”

  “Sure, I’ll just go out on the sidewalk and stand in the goose poop that the Board of Selectmen hasn’t been addressing,” she growled. “And by the way, I am no longer Mrs. Prescott. I’ve taken my maiden name once again. You may call me Ms. Miles.”

  Sheriff Adams jerked a thumb in the direction of the exit. “Outside. Everyone. You’ll get your turn to give me your sides of the story. Placer”—she addressed the deputy—“don’t let them talk about the crime. I want to hear everyone’s story in their own unique way, without them contaminating each other.”

  The deputy stepped forward to usher everyone outside. Dutifully they filed out, sans coats, which were hung on pegs at the back of the store, next to where the body was still located. Once the door closed, the sheriff turned her attention back to Tricia. “Well?”

  Tricia heaved a sigh. “I found her. Just like—” She risked a glance over her shoulder. “Like she is.”

  “And you didn’t kill her.”

  Tricia’s jaw dropped. “Of course not. She was my guest.”

  “Did she argue with anyone tonight?”

  “No.” She thought about it. “Although she had a little tiff with her niece, Kimberly Peters. And Kimberly did leave in a rush. I suppose she could’ve come back, snuck in through the open back door and . . .” The thought was too terrible to contemplate. A family member killing for—what? Money, revenge? Weren’t they the usual motives?

  “Kimberly also let it slip that her aunt was being blackmailed.”

  The sheriff raised an eyebrow, and Tricia explained.

  “Was she teasing or serious?”

  “That I couldn’t say.”

  Wendy Adams grunted. “I’ll need a list of everyone who was at the signing tonight.”

  “I can’t give you one. I mean, I don’t know everyone who came. I sent press releases to the Stoneham Weekly News and the Nashua newspaper, and advertising circulars. We had a good crowd. Maybe twenty-five people in all.”

  “Give me a few for instances.”

  Tricia exhaled again. “My sister, Ginny Wilson, Mr. Everett, Russ Smith, and Grace Harris, of course. Then there were Deborah Black, Nikki Brimfield, Frannie Armstrong, Julia Overline—” She thought about the faces . . . but no other names came to mind. “That’s all I can think of. Ginny or Mr. Everett might be more helpful. They’ve lived in the area longer and are more familiar with the locals.”