“Around ten.”
“Then we’ll be sure to set up around nine.” Ruth exchanged a glance with Alice. “Just to be on the safe side.”
“Great.” I sighed, feeling the weight of last night slip off me.
“That better?” Ruth said.
I nodded. “It is. Thank you.”
“Whatever else are friends for?” Alice said. “Other than bringing a casserole when one of your family members dies, that is?”
Ruth grimaced. I nodded appreciatively. “You’re right, Alice. What else could they be for?”
After that, the morning returned to normal. Ruth fielded a few calls, and Alice whipped up a few pairs of baby booties. As I was leaving to take the evidence to Devlin Monk, a woman actually entered the store to buy a pair of booties.
Well, would wonders never cease.
I took the folder filled with pictures and headed over to the newspaper. I found Devlin behind his desk. I knocked, and he rose, smiling kindly.
“Blissful, good to see you.”
“Devlin.”
He stared at me in a way that made me uncomfortable. Like the kind of stare where I knew he was sizing me up as dating material. I might not be able to date Roan, but that didn’t mean I was interested in anyone else.
For the record, I was not.
I cleared my throat and broke eye contact with him. I pointed to a chair. “May I?”
He extended a hand. “Please do. Not enough bodies warm that seat.”
I frowned but said nothing. I did, however, open the folder and show him the pictures.
“These are the original photos that went into Birda’s best-selling book.”
Devlin reached behind him to a bookshelf and pulled a thickly bound hardcover from a shelf. “Here it is. Managed to get myself a copy.”
“Great.”
Devlin flipped open his copy to the middle, where all the photos were compiled. He showed me the first one, a picture of Birda standing beside a mirror. The mirror reflected a ghostly image of a woman.
When I found the original, an unidentified woman stood in front of the mirror. It was the same woman reflected in the mirror and was an obvious fake.
“Looks like we’ve got something here,” Devlin said.
“Agreed,” I muttered.
We flipped through every single picture claiming to hold the image of a spirit and found a matching doctored photo in my collection.
“If this wasn’t enough reason to murder, I don’t know what was,” I mumbled.
Devlin leaned back. “You don’t think Birda would’ve murdered over this, do you?”
I hiked a shoulder. “I don’t know. You tell me. You’re the one who’s about to reveal to the world that Birda’s a fake. The one woman who had this proof is now dead.”
“But you have the proof,” Devlin pointed out. “If Birda had killed Cora, wouldn’t she have made sure the evidence was destroyed?”
“Not if she couldn’t find it.”
