Long earrings swayed from her earlobes today. Her wavy hair looked shiny and clean. She’d ironed her blue shirt and black skirt.However, dark circles smudged the skin beneath her eyes, and her wrinkles had etched deeper.
Aunt Carolyn’s aura of peace had been punctured. She had daughters who loved her and a grandchild on the way and friends and siblings. However, none of those people could replace her husband.
Zander understood. If Britt died, his life wouldn’t be worth a penny to him. He honestly didn’t think he’d be able to go on—
A woman near Carolyn’s age with short blond hair entered the shop.
“Sunny,” Carolyn said, coming out from behind the counter.
“Carolyn.” Sunny embraced Carolyn with sympathy and kindness. “How are you?”
The two talked quietly while candles, women’s bath products, signs, coffee mugs, boxes of chocolate, locally made jellies, stationery, and many other feminine items crowded around Zander. The Giftery always made him feel the way he’d feel if he entered a women’s restroom. Like testosterone wasn’t allowed.
He carefully moved his elbow away from a display of Easter decorations. Tiny eggs, rabbits, ducks, and flower ornaments hung from a tree. An Easter tree? He’d never heard of such a thing.
“Sunny, this is my nephew, Zander Ford.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Sunny said.
“You too.”
“Zander’s going to take me to lunch,” Carolyn explained.
“Excellent.” Sunny hitched her large purse higher on her shoulder. “I stopped by to check on you, but I have several errands to run. I’ll swing back by when I’m done, and we’ll chat more then.”
“Perfect.”
“Nice to meet you,” Sunny called as she sailed from the shop.
When he’d first moved to Merryweather from inner-city St. Louis, the fact that just about everyone here knew one another or knewofone another had made the town seem ridiculously small. He’d expected to feel bored at best and claustrophobic at worst. Instead, he’d grown to appreciate Merryweather’s close-knit community.
Here, he hadn’t been another nameless, faceless kid being herded through the public school system. Here, he and Carolyn belonged. Here, after eighteen months in foreign countries, he was known.
Carolyn assisted two women who were buying matching coffee mugs. When they’d gone, Zander pitched his voice low to mask it from the handful of people still browsing. “Just so I have the timeline right in my head... did you meet Frank before or after the Triple Play?”
She fidgeted with the ring on her finger that contained a green oval stone. “Before. He visited the Pascal summer long.”
“How often?”
“Very often. He was a museum member, so he could come whenever he liked. We didn’t say anything out of the ordinary to each other on his first few visits, but as the days went by, we talked a little bit more and flirted a little bit more each time.” Sorrow darkened her gray eyes.
“Did he ever ask strange questions?” Zander asked. “About the museum’s security, for example.”
“Not that I can remember.”
“Was the museum closed for a while after the robbery?”
Her forehead furrowed. “I believe that ... yes, it was closed for a time. Maybe a week or ten days? So that the police could investigate and we could repair the window and have new security systems installed.”
“And Frank returned to the museum as soon as it reopened?”
“I think so. If not right away, then very soon after.”
“Was he limping?”
“No. At least four or five times he showed up when I was scheduled to give a tour so that he could join the tour group, even though he’d heard it all before. It was after one of those tours that he asked me out on a date.”
“You said yes.”
