The majority of the residents had decorated their cottages in cottage style. Not Britt. While charming was fine for the outside of her house, she’d kept the interior modern, crisp, and simple. White walls. Sleek leather furniture. A thin Kilim rug patterned in shades of blue and white.
“...the detective told us that Frank had a bullet wound in his leg,” Zander was saying.
“Wait.” Britt ceased her movement. “Wait wait wait. My mind must have wandered. What are you saying?”
“I was saying that yesterday Kurt Shaw, the detective—”
“I know Kurt,” Nora said.
“So do I,” Willow said. “He grew up here in Merryweather.”
“His mom,” Nora told Willow, “is Racquel Shaw—”
“But what did he say when you met with him about Frank?” Britt asked Zander.
“That Frank died of a heart attack, just like we thought. He also said that the injury Frank had on his leg was caused by a bullet.Which means the story he told my aunt and everyone else about the scar on his leg was false.”
“Intriguing,” Nora said.
“Why would he have lied?” Britt asked.
“He might have been ashamed or embarrassed,” Willow suggested.
“Could be,” Zander said. “It seems strange to me, though, that he wouldn’t have told Carolyn the truth. Why wouldn’t he have told her?”
The sisters shrugged in response. Britt popped a red grape into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. She broke another from the stem and pitched it to Zander so accurately that he caught it in his mouth.
Tonight, he’d combined his jeans with a muted orange T-shirt that made his eyes look especially blue in contrast. His inky hair stuck up in casual disorder. Five o’clock shadow darkened his cheeks.
“I’d like to find out more about Frank’s old injury, if I can,” Zander said. “Nora?”
Nora perked up. She loved to be helpful.
“What would be the best way to look up information on that?”
“Do you know Frank’s full name, his birth date, and the location of his birth?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’d recommend you start by plugging that information into one of the genealogy websites and running a search for records.”
Britt hurried toward the staircase. “I’ll grab my computer.”
“We don’t have to do this right now.” Amusement tinged Zander’s words. “Think of the Broccolini.”
“I’ve never stopped thinking of the Broccolini.” Britt climbed the stairs two at a time. “And we absolutelydohave to do this right now. My curiosity’s piqued.”
“There’s no stopping her when her curiosity’s piqued,” Britt heard Willow say.
“No,” Zander replied, “there’s not.”
“‘Never lose a holy curiosity,’” Britt called down to them. “That’s an Albert Einstein quote.”
She grabbed her computer, descended the stairs, and handed it to Nora. Nora set it on the bar top near the brie and booted it up.
Red-haired Nora had dressed with trademark vintage flair tonight in a sleeveless turtleneck shirt and turquoise capris. A genealogist who ran the Library on the Green Museum that anchored Merryweather Historical Village, she’d never met a search for historical information she didn’t like.
Willow stood next to Nora wearing a plum-colored sundress, absent-mindedly straightening a lock of blond hair between her thumb and pointer finger. She still looked as slim and sophisticated as she had when she’d been a model, even though she’d retired from modeling more than a year ago. Since then, she’d opened a clothing and housewares store in Shore Pine called Haven.
