She glanced down at it, shrugged, and shoved it back into her bag. “Sorry. I overreact sometimes. But I have to protect myself. Cordelia and her son said they’d hurt me if they ever saw me again.”
“Wouldn’t it be better—just a thought,” I ventured. “To stay away from them, then?”
“Not a chance! She owes me a hundred thousand dollars!”
Eleanor, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet up to that point, whistled. “A hundred grand? What did you do? Rob a bank?”
“Just a small one,” Henrietta said, looking sheepish. “They put trackers in my molars when I was in prison! I showed them, though. I blasted myself with an EMP generator. Been a little fuzzy since then, to tell you the truth, but they can’t track me through my teeth anymore.”
I blinked. “Your teeth? No. Wait. None of my business. Ma’am … Henrietta. I can promise you I have never had and never will have the slightest intention of getting involved with any Phleabottom felonies, schemes, or plots.”
She studied me with narrowed eyes for a moment and then nodded. “You seem like you’re sincere, and you’re a polite young lady. Not a lot of them around anymore. Okay. Well, consider yourself warned. I’ve been following her for months, and I’m going to get my money from her, no matter what it takes. You can warn your friend, Sheriff Susan, that she should stay out of my way.”
“I don’t—”
“How much for this shirt?” She sorted through the Dead End Pawn T-shirt basket and held one up to herself to check the size. “It’s cute, and I left Detroit without a lot of clothes.”
“Fifteen dollars,” Eleanor said.
“Consider it a gift,” I said. “Please.”
“That’s very nice of you, Tess.” She shoved the shirt in her bag, probably on top of her gun. “I hope I don’t see you again, especially near those two crooks.”
“Have a nice day,” I said automatically to the woman who’d just threatened me, told me she was violating parole, and pointed a gun at me.
She turned and flashed a big smile, and then she was gone.
I raced over to the door to see what she was driving and maybe catch a glimpse of her license plate before I remembered the new camera system set up outside my shop. It might not get the license plate number of the old Toyota, but I couldn’t see it clearly, either. I didn’t want to run outside and let Quirksley see me spying on her.
I really didn’t want her to come back.
“Better call Susan,” I said after she drove off.
“Already on the phone,” Eleanor said. “There is something very wrong with that woman. ‘They’ put trackers in her teeth? Blasted herself with an electromagnetic pulse generator? What in the world?”
“This is turning out to be a terrible, horrible week for our friend, the sheriff.” I sighed, and then I filled Eleanor in on what was going on. Not the private stuff that Susan might not want shared, but the broad strokes.
My phone beeped. “Oh, no. That’s Lizzie. I’m late. I can tell her we have to reschedule, Eleanor. I don’t want to leave you alone after this … No. You know what? We’re closing for lunch for once. You go do your wedding stuff, I’m going to lunch with our new deputy, and we’ll hope Henrietta Quirksley doesn’t decide we put trackers in her earlobes while she was here and come back for revenge.”
Eleanor agreed, and then she burst out laughing.
“What?”
“Just think. Now we’ll have that woman advertising our shop.”
I groaned, but then thought of some of the other customers who’d come through the shop and shrugged. “There is no such thing as bad publicity?”
“Unless she shoots somebody while wearing a Dead End Pawn shirt.”
Suddenly, I didn’t have much of an appetite.
13
Tess
Dead End is a one-diner town, and that diner has always been Beau’s.
We had a pizza place that the new owner had recently renovated so you could sit at a table and eat there, and my friend Lauren’s deli had a few tables. Even Mellie’s bakery had places to sit and enjoy the scrumptious baked goods.
