“We finished the wallpaper. But when I opened the can of trim paint to do the touch-ups, it was almost empty. What little was leftwas too thick. I couldn’t even stir it. I had to go to the hardware store for more.”
“Jackie didn’t want to go with you?” Obviously not but she needed Luna to say the words the same way she would have to say them to Bent when he arrived. And to Jerome and anyone else who asked. The idea that anyone would ever think this was anything other than a tragic accident was ridiculous. But Vera was a bit on the paranoid side. Her line of work—her own personal history—made her that way.
“No.” Luna inhaled a big breath. “I don’t want to say negative things about her.” Her voice trembled.
“Just tell the truth,” Vera urged. She hoped like hell the truth would be the right story. She scolded herself for the thought, but in Vera’s experience it was best to prepare for the worst.
“She likes spying on us.” Her hands twisted together. “I’ve caught her snooping in our mail. Prowling through drawers. I knew that was why she didn’t offer to go for me. She’s—was like that.” Luna drew in a ragged breath. “I asked her to go for me, but she said she’d rather I just go, so I did.”
Not surprising at all. “So you left for paint, and she stayed. About what time was that?”
Fear made an appearance in Luna’s eyes. “I ... I don’t know. I never noticed.”
Forgetfulness was common during the final trimester of pregnancy. “Do you have the receipt for the paint? It’s probably date stamped.”
Luna nodded. “It’s in my handbag. In the kitchen.”
When she would have struggled to her feet, Vera shot up. “I’ll get it.”
“Thanks.” Luna eased back into her chair.
Vera couldn’t help glancing at the woman lying at the bottom of the stairs as she passed through the hall. She’d had a serious health scare not that long ago. Cancer. The prognosis had been dire. Lost all her hair during treatment. But somehow she had survived. Even had her hair back in time for her son’s wedding. It was really tough luck, dying this way after surviving the horrific disease.
Luna’s kitchen was at the back of the house. The entry hall cut the front of the first floor in half. A huge living room was left of the center hall, with an equally large dining room to the right, then the two were joined by a kitchen that sprawled across the back with French doors opening out to the massive backyard. The center hall cut right through the middle, bypassed a powder room under the staircase, and flowed to an end in the kitchen. All the bedrooms, five as well as three bathrooms, were upstairs. Luna wanted to be on the same floor with her future children.
Her bag hung on a hook at the drop zone next to a side door that led into the garage. Vera unzipped it, and the neatly folded receipt was on top of everything else. Sure enough there was the time stamp: 9:45 a.m. Vera’s stomach dropped to her feet. That would have put Luna back here by about 10:15 or 10:20 unless she made another stop. An hour or more before she called Vera.
Back in the living room, she resumed her seat on the coffee table. “Okay, so the receipt says 9:45.”
“What?” Luna made a “that can’t be right” face. “That might be what time I left for the store, but it sure isn’t the time I paid for the paint. It took us at least an hourand a half to do all the wallpapering.”
“Luna, are you sure you didn’t stop anywhere else?”
She shook her head vigorously side to side. “There has to be an error with the receipt. We can call Mr. Potter. He’s the one who waited on me.”
“We can do that, yes. For now, let’s not worry about the receipt, okay?” Vera folded it and tucked it into the pocket of her jeans. She didn’t want to think about how this receipt made the situation look. An issue for another time, she decided. If the timing came up.
Confusion joined the other emotions rushing around in Luna’s eyes. “I was not here when this happened, Vee. Jackie was just fine when I left for the hardware store. She said she would put the nursery furniture back into place while I was gone. We’d had to move things around to hang the wallpaper. I came back well over an hour or hour and a half later, and she was like that.” She flung a hand toward the hall. Her lips trembled.
Vera squeezed her sister’s hand. “When you came home, you parked in the garage, right?”
Luna nodded, the movement jerky. “I walked in, hung up my purse, and headed to the nursery. I made it to the entry hall and saw her lying there. I guess that’s when I dropped the paint. I ran to her ... It was obvious she was dead. All I could think to do was to call you. But I ... I had to find my phone.”
Vera stilled. “Where was your phone?”
“I was so upset when I left to get the paint, I guess I laid it on the bench by the door when I was putting on my shoes and then I forgot to pick it up again.”
Which meant there was no way to trace her movements via her cell phone. Damn.
“So you went to the hardware store without your phone.”
Luna nodded. Her eyes filled with tears once more. “I didn’t even notice.” She swiped at her cheeks. “I need to call Jerome. Oh God, and his father. They’re both going to be devastated.”
As heartless as it sounded, Vera did not want to notify anyone in the Andrews family until Bent was here. “Let’s just wait until Bent arrives.”
Luna tucked the dark hair that had come loose from her ponytail behind her ear. She looked so different from Vera and Eve. They had the blond hair and blue eyes of their mother while Luna had the dark hair and eyes of her mother, their stepmother. Usually her hair was immaculately styled. She dressed like a housewife from a ’50s television series—always perfectly coordinated, stylish, and modest. But then she was a librarian; what did Vera expect?
Except for today. Today she looked completely out of sorts.
