Dangerous Curves Boxed Set 1: 3 Cozy Christian Mysteries

by K L Montgomery

  “Wow. That must have been before I knew her.” Evangeline had been divorced from someone she called “DW” for as long as I could remember. I wasn’t sure what DW stood for, but I had a feeling it wasn’t his actual name.

  “Well…” Molly tapped her fingertips on the surface of her desk as she stabbed me with her gaze, waiting to see how I would interpret our friend’s mysterious absence.

  “She was standing right with us when it happened, wasn’t she?” I knew where she was going with that look, and I didn’t like it. Not one bit.

  “You were standing with the mayor,” Molly reminded me.

  “Oh, right.” I closed my eyes and brought up a visual of Saturday night. I had an almost-photographic memory. I often closed my eyes and replayed things I’d seen—if I could access the data in my cluttered mind. It was like an episode of Hoarders in there.

  There I was, standing by Mayor Steyer as he read the figure off the pink Post-It note I’d given him. I could see the figure clearly written in my own handwriting in blue ink. The mayor smelled like aftershave and garlic—not a great combination, but I was grinning and bearing it. I was pretty stoked about the figure on that Post-It note, and I was watching the faces of the crowd react as he read it off. There was shock followed by elation, and I was surprised at how even the older and more stoic members of our community got so excited.

  I tried to pick out Evangeline in the crowd, but I didn’t see her. I saw Molly. But no Evangeline.

  “Was she with you?” I stared at Molly, hoping her answer would be yes.

  “She said she left her coat upstairs in the activities room,” Molly answered, making my heart sink. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I watched her go up the stairs…”

  “But she could have come back down the lobby staircase…” My hand flew to my face, where I spread my fingers out over my forehead, trying to ward off the migraine that was starting to brew behind my skull.

  “She already knew the figure on the Post-It note. So there was no reason for her to stick around for the announcement,” Molly conjectured.

  “Right. And she isn’t big on celebrations…or happiness in general.”

  “Or people.”

  “The fact she was even at the gala is pretty much a miracle.” As soon as I said it, my eyes bugged out, and my mouth popped open.

  “Oh no,” Molly gasped.

  I shook my head rapidly, refusing to believe it. “But she had to have an accomplice, right? How could she get from the lobby to the workroom and then back to the party so fast?”

  “Well, she could have bolted for the circulation desk right after she smashed the case and took the Bible. Maybe she hid behind the counter until the crowd moved into the lobby to check out the commotion; then she could have entered the offices from behind the counter. Maybe she went into the workroom, nabbed the money, exited out the back and stashed it somewhere. Then she rejoined the party and went back for the money later,” Molly theorized. “She has keys to the building. She could have even come back the next day for it. We don’t open till noon on Sundays.”

  I hated to admit it, but it was definitely plausible. The fact that we didn’t have security cameras was coming back to bite us in the rear end yet again! I scrambled for something, anything, that would exonerate my friend. “So here’s a question…”

  “What’s that?” Molly’s eyebrow rose.

  “When she said she needed to go upstairs to get her coat…did she actually return with a coat?”

  Molly scratched her head for a moment before the color drained from her already pale face. “She was wearing a big heavy sweater over her purple dress. She didn’t bring a coat.”

  Before I could bring up the fact that Jada from Tech Services was also gone, and that there was a chance they were in cahoots—they were friends—I heard the phone on my desk ringing across the room. Molly shot me a worried look as I rushed over to answer it.

  “Hello?” I could see it was my boss’s extension as I dove for the receiver.

  “Oh, there you are,” she said. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  “You have? I’ve been here all morning,” I stated, not meaning to sound defensive but definitely sounding defensive.

  “Can you come up to my office please?”

  “Sure, of course.” My heartbeat picked up its pace as I made my way back over to Molly, who was frozen there with her hands in a Well? position.

  “Susan,” I said when I reached her. It looked like the father and son were about ready to check out, so I couldn’t elaborate. “Should I tell her?”

  “No,” Molly insisted, shaking her head adamantly. “Let’s go talk to Evangeline after work.”

  “Okay.” I shot her a thumbs-up, then headed to see Susan, feeling very much like I’d been called to the principal’s office in high school, though I never actually had because I was a model, straight-A student. But I was pretty sure this was what it would feel like.

  “Jesus, take the wheel,” I muttered under my breath as I pushed her door open.

  “Hey, Sunshine. Have a seat.” Her tone was neutral, but my heart was still pounding like I’d run a sprint instead of just climbing the stairs.

  “What can I do for you?” I folded my hands in my lap and tried to project a very businesslike attitude. My eyes ran over the bookcases behind her desk. On the third shelf from the top, a book called Anagrams, Crosswords, and Word Games was pulled out about two inches farther than the rest. I had to resist my strong librarian urge to push it back in to make it even with the rest of the spines.

  “How is your investigation going?” Susan asked as she pushed away from her desk and crossed one leg over the other. She smoothed down her black trousers with one hand even though there weren’t any wrinkles in them.

  “Uh…well…” I decided to go with my lead about Camille because I still couldn’t believe Evangeline would be involved in something so sinister. I couldn’t imagine her motivation—unless she was actually a witch like Willa Bryce Monroe suggested yesterday when I saw her and Natty the Dog on their morning walk.

  “Everything okay?” Susan brought her hand to the desktop and started to tap her fingers impatiently.

  “I went to see the mayor’s wife the other night…” I took out my notepad where I’d been tracking all the suspects, my hunches, and any evidence I’d collected. It wasn’t much so far, but at least I killed some time opening the cover and appearing to pore over my notes before I had to address her.

  “Camille Steyer?” My boss’s eyebrow arched as she pinned her dark beady gaze on me.

  “Yes.” I sucked in a deep breath, preparing to spill my secret suspect. “Evangeline overheard Mrs. Steyer telling her friends that she hated the library, and she really hoped her husband wouldn’t be re-elected this year.”

  I wasn’t expecting Susan’s reaction. She threw back her head with laughter. “Oh, yes, it’s quite well known that Camille hates the library and doesn’t want Bull to win another term, but she’s been saying that for years. Then he keeps on winning. He’s on, what, his third term now? They really need to set term limits…”

  “What? Why would she say that and be on the Friends of the Library committee? Actually chair the committee!” I scoffed.

  “Ever hear the phrase ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’?” Susan was still chuckling loud enough she almost appeared to wipe a tear out of the corner of her eye, but I knew that must not be the case. She rarely ever smiled, let alone laughed. And she most certainly didn’t cry. That conversation we’d had about the case on Monday was the most upset I’d ever seen her, and she still wasn’t worked up enough to cry.

  I still preferred the idea of Camille in the role of Bryce Beach Bandit over my good friend Evangeline. I refused to let go of it that easily. “She openly tells people she hates the library and doesn’t want to be the mayor’s wife?”

  “That’s right,” Susan confirmed. “Bull keeps getting re-elected because he does a decent job
and usually runs unopposed. Or his competition is some fruitcake out-of-towner no one trusts.”

  In our town, “out-of-towner” could refer to anyone who wasn’t physically born at the Bryce Beach Hospital. If your parents moved here when you were the ripe old age of one day, you came from an out-of-towner family.

  I still had my suspicions about Camille, no matter what Susan said. But I was willing to entertain any other suspects who weren’t Evangeline. “When I went to talk to the mayor’s wife the other night, she expressed that Willa Bryce Monroe might be a person of interest.”

  No uproarious chuckle this time, but instead a loud snort. “Willa? Oh, come on, now, Sunshine. You’ve been here long enough to know that Willa is our biggest donor. And I heard she really outdid herself this year.”

  “That’s just it. Camille said she overheard her husband speaking with Willa, and she revealed that she’d fallen on hard times as of late. Maybe she stole the money so she wouldn’t have to deal with the embarrassment of not donating or passing a bad check. You know, ‘cause she wanted to keep up appearances.”

  It sounded pretty silly when I said it out loud, but after talking with the woman, I honestly couldn’t rule it out. She might not have been completely incapacitated, but she was definitely working with some miswired circuits.

  “Well, the checks have been cashed,” Susan revealed. “At least one of them has, anyway. And it was hers. So that blows your theory.”

  “What do you mean it was cashed?” My mouth dropped open as I stared at her. “How is that possible? Not into the library account, right?” For a split second, hope burst like fireworks on my face.

  “It was uploaded via some banking app to a bank in the Cayman Islands.” Her face was completely neutral, hands folded in front of her on her desk.

  Cayman Islands? Who the Helvetica would do that? “How do you know?”

  “Chief James called me this morning. Willa’s check was deposited into an account in the Cayman Islands, but they haven’t been able to match it to any suspects yet. They’re looking into it. They have to deal with the Cayman Islands police, and apparently that’s a challenge.”

  “Just that one check was deposited?” It seemed suspicious to me that it was just one check when we’d collected dozens, but maybe that would be the only one cashed. The others were much smaller. So maybe the thief figured if they could pocket the cash, which wasn’t an insignificant amount since we’d had a donation box sitting out for the entire month of April, and that one check, the heist had a good pay-off.

  Susan shrugged her broad shoulders. “So far that’s all I know. They’re still working on it.”

  “Were they going to tell me?” My face flushed with anger as I struggled to suck in enough air to fill my lungs. “I thought I was supposed to be in the loop?” Why didn’t Chief James call me? Maybe he disliked me as much as I disliked him.

  She shrugged. “He called me instead, I guess. Even though I told him you were the point person since you were in charge of the gala.”

  If I didn’t already have a beef with Chief James, I was burning with rage at him at the moment. Lord, I prayed, please help me calm down. My “Jesus, take the wheel” plea from earlier didn’t seem to be working. Almost like He took the wheel and went in the complete opposite direction of where I wanted to go.

  If Willa’s check was deposited, it didn’t exonerate her exactly. What if she deposited her own check from one account to another in the Cayman Islands? Wasn’t a rich person more likely to have a bank account in a foreign country, anyway?

  “So, besides Camille Steyer,” Susan said, “who else is on your radar?”

  I swallowed enough air to give me stomach pains later. “Well, uh, the other suspect I have is someone in the library, unfortunately.”

  Susan’s lips set into a long, thin line as she looked at me, her gray-green eyes taking on an icy glare.

  “Hear me out, okay?” I knew it was a longshot, but…

  I was just starting to work up the moxie to tell her about how Jada suspiciously went on vacation right after the gala, but then I remembered I’d seen something in the workroom a couple years ago when Evangeline and I were trying to clean it out—things were slow over holiday break, if I recalled correctly, and we volunteered to organize stuff in there. Maybe we were brown-nosing. Maybe we just needed a break from our normal daily grind, but…

  “Well, spit it out, Sunshine,” Susan admonished me.

  “I remember seeing a stamp in the workroom once upon a time. A long time ago. Just one of those rubber stamps, but it was for endorsing checks. It said ‘For Deposit Only. Bryce Beach Library.’ And there was a place to sign underneath.”

  My boss pursed her lips as she stared at me, presumably waiting for me to finish.

  When she didn’t say anything or offer any kind of comment, I rushed out, “Let me run downstairs and see if I can find it.”

  “I’ll be here.” She crossed her arms over her chest as though she relished the idea of me going on a wild goose chase while she waited.

  I ran down the stairs as fast as my chubby legs would carry me, across the space between the reference area and circulation desk, where the DJ had been set up on Saturday night, then down the hallway to the right of the circulation desk, where the restrooms and the entrance to the offices were.

  We kept the door locked all the time, so I whipped out my keys and opened it. We didn’t have newfangled tech like ID cards that opened the doors, though maybe after this security failure we’d get them? Nah, too expensive. We probably wouldn’t get cameras either, knowing how frugal Susan was.

  No one was around, which I found comforting as I dashed into the workroom and began to throw open the drawers built into the counter that was anchored to the wall. Above it were shelves with supplies like different colors and weights of paper and envelopes. As I was madly tearing through every single drawer, I heard footsteps behind me and the door close.

  The blood in my veins froze as I slowly swiveled around to see who had followed me inside and shut the door. The click resounded through my ears like a gun had been cocked. I didn’t know why I was so panicky, but I couldn’t take the chance that the thief wouldn’t revisit the crime scene to try to prevent me from discovering his or her identity.

  But all that adrenaline was for naught.

  Standing right there in her lavender dress and sensible pumps was Molly, shaking her blonde head at me in apparent amusement. “What’cha doing?”

  “Uh, looking for something?” Stupid questions deserve stupid answers.

  “Well, I figured that much.” She rolled her eyes and propped her fists on her hips as she stared at me.

  “What was your first clue?” I snapped back at her, still frustrated I hadn’t located the stamp.

  “Well, I was going to ask you if you want to eat lunch with me out in the courtyard, but if you’re going to be like that…”

  A long sigh puffed out of my mouth. “I’m sorry, Molls. Susan just told me that Willa’s check was deposited into an account in the Cayman Islands, and I’m trying to figure out if the stamp we used to have that says ‘For Deposit Only’ with our logo is still in here somewhere.”

  “Oooohhhhh.” Her nose scrunched up as she considered my dilemma. “I just saw that the other day when I was trying to find a rubber band.”

  “You did?” There had never been more hope hanging on two words than the ones I just spoke. “The other day this week or last?”

  “Probably two weeks ago.” She opened the drawer of a filing cabinet that was under the counter and pulled out a plastic organizer thingamajig. It had different compartments with paper clips, rubber bands, tacks, and staples. Then she rummaged around in the back of the drawer and pulled out a cardboard box that was full of stamps.

  My heart leapt as she dumped them out on the counter, and we began to hastily pick through them, examining each one and then tossing it back in the box. After looking carefully at all nine of them, we determined none was the F
or Deposit Only stamp. We had a Received Stamp, a couple Date Due stamps, a few with the library logo and a couple more with the address.

  “I’m sure it was here, Sunshine,” she said, her voice low and serious.

  “Evangeline knew about that stamp,” I said in a whisper.

  “Do you think Jada did?”

  I shrugged. “Hard to say. She’s a lot newer to BBPL than the rest of us. That’s an old stamp we don’t use anymore. I better go tell Susan I can’t find it.”

  Molly grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “No, I better do it myself. I just don’t understand why Evangeline would take it. It’s not like her at all.”

  “Maybe she’s being set up?” Molly shrugged. “Can we still have lunch? I’m starving!”

  “Let me go talk to Susan, and I’ll meet you out in the courtyard as soon as I can.”

  “Sounds like a plan!” My best friend smiled before scurrying off down the hallway and back toward the YA/children’s area, which offered access to the courtyard.

  I trudged back up the steps, my legs feeling like they weighed a million pounds apiece. Susan was typing away at a document on her computer when I arrived. I knocked on the doorframe and waited dutifully for her to admit me.

  “The stamp is gone,” I panted, still trying to catch my breath. Maybe all this detective work would help whip me into shape?

  “Well, we might have gotten rid of it a while back,” Susan speculated.

  “Molly said she saw it a week or two ago when she was looking for rubber bands.” I shrugged.

  My boss looked at something on her computer before turning back toward me. “Listen, I need to ask you something. I have my own theories.”

  “Is it Jada? From Tech Services?” I guessed. “She went on vacation right after the gala, and that seems pretty suspicious to me.”

  Susan’s nose wrinkled as she considered my suggestion. “She did?” She opened her file drawer and rifled through the folders until she came to what I assumed was Jada’s personnel file. She opened it flat on her desk and began to review the various forms.