My heart sank when I looked over my shoulder at Molly’s glare burning a hole right through me. I shrugged. I had no idea what Pastor Bethany wanted from me. There could be—and probably was—absolutely no romantic motivation behind it whatsoever.
Then I remembered the two notes that had mysteriously shown up on my doormat after solving the Bryce Beach Bandit case and the Mystery at the Marina. An “admirer” had penned a few words tucked inside a card to let me know he or she was a fan. I’d concluded after the second note that the person likely was expressing platonic sentiments.
Or maybe, in Pastor Bethany’s case, it was more of an “agape” sort of vibe?
“Agape” had the same Greek origins as “platonic” but was considered a higher, more universal form of love—the type of love God has for us, and we should have for others. A love encompassing brotherhood and sisterhood.
Yep, that’s what I’m going with for now, I convinced myself as I headed out to my trusty Mazda CX-3.
“What was that all about at church?” my sister-in-law, Izzy, asked as we gathered around the dining room table. My mother was busy arranging all the side dishes on the table as we waited for my father to bring the shish kabobs in from the grill. My nephews were “helping” him, though I wasn’t sure if they were more of a help or hindrance at this point.
“What do you mean?” I pretended to play dumb. I knew she was talking about Pastor Bethany.
Thankfully, I was saved by my father as he marched in like a Homerian hero, hoisting the platter of kabobs over his head like it was the shield that had secured his victory. The smell smacked me in the face with its savory aroma, instantly spawning a case of excessive salivation. It shouldn’t be legal for food to smell this good!
We divvied up the kabobs and prepared to dig into our feast. That was when my brother turned right toward me and said in that annoyingly patronizing tone of his, “I think Pastor Bethany has a crush on you, Sis.”
I shot a glare at my brother that rivaled the one Molly aimed at me earlier today. “I’m sure he just wants to chat about my last case or something.” I rolled my eyes as I fluffed my ginger curls around my shoulders.
“Pastor Bethany and Aunt Sunshine sitting in a tree,” Jake crooned from across the table.
“Stop it!” I barked. I never spoke so sharply to my nephews—I was the quintessential cool aunt, of course—but I really, really didn’t want to hear any of this nonsense.
There was no way he was actually…interested…in me, right? And, besides, it was much, much better for me if he wasn’t, because my best friend was smitten with him! That spelled disaster with a capital D.
I needed to change the subject and change it fast. “So on Friday when I was leaving the summer reading program awards ceremony—”
“Oh!” my mother gasped. “I can’t believe I forgot that was this weekend! How did it go?”
“It went great,” I assured her. “But, anyway, I ran into Willa Monroe—”
“I think you mean ‘Willa Bryce Monroe,’” my brother interjected in a hoity-toity accent he probably thought sounded British.
I rolled my eyes. Can I just speak, for crying out loud? I aimed the rest of my conversation at my father, since he was the one I expected to answer. “She was very upset about some…uh…gentleman’s club she said was coming to town, and told us how she was trying to outbid the developer on the property to prevent it from happening?”
My father dabbed at his mouth with his napkin as he nodded. “It’s not a gentleman’s club.” A hearty chuckle rumbled out as he poised his fork over his plate to take another bite. “It’s more like…what’s that restaurant where the waitresses wear the short shorts and tight tank tops?”
“Hooters?!” my brother supplied.
Izzy smacked him on the arm. “And that name just rolls off your tongue why?”
“Oh, okay. But not the franchise, like an independent joint?” I tried to stick with the conversation and ignore my brother and sister-in-law’s antics.
My father nodded again before attempting to talk around a bite of kabob, “She’s supposed to show up at the meeting tomorrow night—the town council plans to look at the developer’s proposal. It’s for a whole block of shops and restaurants with apartment space above. It would be a pretty big draw for tourists and stands to make the city a lot of money.”
“Phil!” my mother shrieked. “Who cares how much money it would make if it involves that type of establishment!”
My father’s eyes narrowed as he pinned his gaze on his wife of forty-five years. “Well, Nancy, you see, it’s this wonderful system called capitalism…”
I rolled my eyes. Yep, here we go. They were going to debate the merits of capitalism right here at the Sunday dinner table. After we just went to church and heard a sermon about spiritual gifts. I was pretty sure arguing with your spouse did not qualify as a spiritual gift, despite my parents’ penchant for it.
“Would Jesus frequent an establishment such as that?” my mother protested.
“Jesus!” my dad scoffed. “You’re talking about the man who dined with tax collectors and shared the Gospel with prostitutes!”
My mother’s face flushed with anger as she set down her fork. Uh oh, things were getting serious now. My eyes darted to my brother and sister-in-law, whom I expected to intervene since their sons’ innocent young ears were being exposed to this debacle.
“Do you think Jesus would want you to patronize such an establishment, Phil?” my mother continued.
“Whoa!” I raised my voice, hoping to put an end to this discussion. “Just to walk back to the original topic. The council meeting is tomorrow night?”
“That’s right,” my dad confirmed. “I didn’t see Mrs. Monroe at church today, did you?”
My mom shook her head. “Maybe she’s busy preparing her arguments for tomorrow’s meeting?”
“Yes, perhaps.” My dad stabbed his fork into a juicy piece of pineapple. “Probably conserving her energy.”
And that was the end of my attempt to get the scoop about the “gentleman’s club” that had Mrs. Monroe in such a tizzy.
Three
Molly seemed excited to see me when I walked into work on Monday morning, and relief flooded my body, reaching from my scalp, down my spine, to my fingers and toes. “Hey, what’s up?”
I walked over to her desk, where she dramatically slumped in her chair. “So…I talked to Paul after church…”
I blinked a few times in rapid succession. “You did?” He never called me, I just realized.
“I did. And he seemed…weird. Evasive, even.”
“Evasive how?”
She huffed out a long, weary sigh like regaling me with the story might take too much effort. So she took a long, fortifying sip of coffee first before diving in. “His eyes kept darting around the sanctuary, and it was like he was a million other places besides talking to me.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “I’m really sorry, Molls. I thought he liked you based on what I saw at the church picnic a few weeks ago.”
“I did too,” she pouted. “He seems to like you, though.”
My palms immediately flew up in defense. “Maybe, but it’s not mutual, I assure you.”
“You don’t like him at all, do you?” Her lips pursed, her eyes narrowing to accusatory slits.
“Oh, I like him fine as a pastor.” I shrugged, and her posture relaxed. “I’m just not interested in him like…that.” I wasn’t interested in anyone like that, and I doubted I ever would be.
“Well, good.” She seemed satisfied, like she needed to hear me say it—again. I was pretty sure I’d already expressed that sentiment, but maybe she needed a reverification.
“I talked to my dad about the conversation we had with Mrs. Monroe,” I changed the topic.
“Oh yeah?” Her blonde brow rose in interest.
“Yeah, he said there’s a developer interested in the whole block. The proposal states they’ll be putting in—”
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“Hey, ladies!” Tom Watson, the reference librarian, approached, coffee in one hand, newspaper in the other. “Good morning. I couldn’t help but overhear you talking about the proposal on the town council’s agenda for our meeting tonight.”
“Good ears,” I praised him, but I was filing that info away for when I might be discussing topics of a more sensitive nature I didn’t want my colleagues to overhear.
“You’re on the council, aren’t you, Tom?” Molly shifted her weight from one hip to the other.
“You betcha,” he said in his Minnesotan accent. “The developer is some big outfit outta New York City. It’s for a three-level complex. Shops and restaurants on the bottom, anchored by a large three-level sports bar and grill, with offices on the mid-level and luxury condos on top.”
“Luxury?” Molly and I both repeated in unison.
I wasn’t sure anything in Bryce Beach could be classified as “luxurious.” Nice, yes. Quaint, definitely. Charming, absolutely. Luxurious? That just wasn’t who we were.
Our founding hearkened back to the time of the pilgrims, after all. We were settled by those seeking freedom from religious persecution in England, a band of men we called our Founding Fathers. They were led by Nathaniel Bryce, of whom Willa Bryce Monroe was a direct descendent. And we had fostered a culture of working hard, living by modest means, and maintaining a fervent faith.
“So you sound like you’re pro-development,” I conjectured.
Tom shrugged. “I’m open-minded is more like it.” He shot me a wink and started to head back to his desk before whipping around to share his additional thoughts on the matter. “But I do know there is opposition. Willa Bryce Monroe, of course, is making a bid on the property. The problem is she doesn’t have any plans to develop it. If she wants to buy it, fine. We’d rather keep the money in local hands, of course. But we need to do something with it. That block has been an eyesore ever since the big Grandy’s fire back in 2004.”
You couldn’t drive down that block without remembering the horrifying flames shooting up toward the sky in the darkness of night. No one had ever determined what exactly started the blaze. The fire marshal ruled it faulty wiring, but there was always suspicion it was arson—that the owners, Martin and Emily Grand, wanted the insurance money so they could retire and get out of the restaurant business. Strangely enough, once they got their insurance settlement, they disappeared from our community.
“It will be interesting to see what happens.” I looked back at Molly, and she was already starting to log into her computer, effectively removing herself from our conversation.
Tom was still standing there, eager to tell us more stories, if only we appeared a willing audience. He seemed to be gauging our interest, but I knew from past dealings that he wasn’t the best judge of people’s attention spans. I was starting to think my best friend had the right idea—cut him off before he gets in too deep.
“Well, keep me posted on how the meeting goes,” I told him as I began to head toward the young adult area. “I’ve gotta get ready for a meeting this afternoon. We’re interviewing a candidate for the new cataloguer position—since Evangeline got promoted.”
“That’s right! Fingers crossed we get a good one!” He grinned and waved before heading over to the reference desk.
Tuesday morning, I parked at the coffee shop for my morning café mocha, made by my favorite barista, Jennie. I picked up a cup for my boss too—we had another interview for the cataloguer position this morning. The search committee was made up of myself; Evangeline, our new director; Jada, the head of technical services; and Bruce, our archivist, who had an office on the second floor, and we rarely saw him. He was almost like an apparition when he finally did make an appearance, so gray and thin he was hardly even there.
I breezed past Tom, who was chatting with Barbara at the circulation desk. I wasn’t going to engage him because then I’d never make it to my meeting in time, but he called after me, “Hey, Sunshine!”
I whipped around, plastering a pleasant smile on my face, trying to keep the spirit of my name alive. “Yes?”
“Oh, just thought you wanted an update on the council meeting from last night,” he shared with one of his cheesy winks.
“Oh, right.” I walked back toward the circulation desk, where Barbara was staging returned books on a cart to be shelved.
“I was just telling Barbara, don’tcha know, that Willa Bryce Monroe didn’t even show up at the meeting last night!” he explained.
“Really?” My whole face scrunched up with disbelief. “After she made such a big fuss about it!”
“I know,” he agreed, seemingly exasperated. “So I think the deal might actually go through.”
“Wow!” As I was processing that information, something else niggled at me. “You know, I didn’t see her walking Natty this morning on my way in. I walked from the coffee shop, and I almost always see her out there.”
“I hope she’s okay.” Barbara shook her head hard enough that her gray curls bobbed around her face.
“She wasn’t at church on Sunday either,” I shared. “Maybe she caught a bug or something?”
“Maybe.” A small, sad smile appeared on Barbara’s face. “At her age, it wouldn’t take much—”
“Barbara!” Tom exclaimed. “Stop being so morbid!”
They began to quibble about whether or not such a statement was, in fact, morbid, when I noticed a kid wandering around the young adult section. We’d just opened, and I wasn’t used to seeing my patrons in the library this early. Heck, even my favorite patron, Anna Cooper, never came in before ten.
It was a good excuse to leave the conversation, and besides, I needed to get this coffee up to Evangeline before it got cold. I gestured toward the kid, and Tom raised one bushy gray brow. I nodded and headed over to him.
He was a gangly specimen, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. He was wearing a pair of faded gray shorts that might have been navy or black when they were new, and there were a few stains on his t-shirt, which had definitely been white once upon a time. His freckled skin had a bit of a sunburn in a stripe down his arms, and his hair, if it were washed, might have been as red as mine, though it was hard to tell in its current state.
“Hi!” I greeted him. Probably too cheery, I realized when he whipped around to face me. He had dark eyes and a constellation of chocolate brown freckles across his nose and cheeks with smaller, lighter ones scattered across the rest of his face. His jaw clenched as he took in the sight of me, and he looked almost scary there for a second, despite his small, wiry stature.
“Can I help you find a book?” I toned down my voice a little, trying to sound as neutral as possible. I didn’t want to scare him off—even though he’d nearly scared me off. I’d never seen him around before, and he looked like he needed…well, more than a book, but books can right a lot of wrongs, you know?
“I’m good,” he said curtly, his voice deeper than I expected.
Maybe he was older…fifteen or sixteen?
“Okay. I’m going over here to my desk. If you need anything, please let me know.”
He nodded, his lips pursing in a businesslike manner, before he returned to browsing the shelves. As I waited for my computer to boot up, I watched him meander from the shelves to the new book display, then to the bulletin board I’d set up for my patrons to post their book reviews. Most of them were contributed by Anna, but toward the end of the summer, a few others joined in, and it warmed my little librarian heart to see them. Even though a new season was bearing down on us, I didn’t want to take them down just yet.
I was just getting ready to head up the stairs to meet with Evangeline when I noticed the boy in the lobby, his hands wrapped around the donation box that was attached to the display case for the Founders’ Bible.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” I charged for him, still carrying coffees in both hands.
He gave the wooden box a rough jerk, hoping to dislodge it, but instead, it
set off the alarm system we’d installed to protect the Founders’ Bible, safely nestled in the glass case. The blaring alarm ricocheted between my eardrums as I ditched the coffees on the nearest table and began to run after him.
As he darted toward the front doors, I shouted over my shoulder toward the circulation desk, where Tom and Barbara had finally stopped chatting, “Call the police!” Then I followed the kid out the front doors and down the sidewalk.
Unfortunately for me, I forgot about the uneven sidewalk a half-block from our building, and my foot struck it, causing me to become the victim of gravity as my heavy forty-one-year-old body went crashing to the ground. My head popped up just in time to see the kid round the corner and escape.
A flash of a memory illuminated in my mind—the kid who stole the purse at the coffee shop on Friday night. I was pretty sure it was the same kid.
I heard the police sirens before I saw the patrol car pull up to the curb at the library and the doors open up. It was Officer Harmon and Cadet Adams, whom I’d first met back in April when the Founders’ Bible was stolen—hence the need for the fancy-schmancy security system, which I could still hear blaring even outside the building. I hoped Tom and Barbara would figure out how to get it turned off.
“He went that way!” I screamed as loud as I could, pointing down the street. Both officers took off sprinting.
Wincing at the pain finally radiating through me now that the rush of adrenaline was subsiding, I pulled myself to standing, dusting the sidewalk dirt off my navy skirt and floral blouse. I limped back toward the library, noticing a middle-aged man in a suit making his way up the stairs. Ah, the candidate for the open cataloger’s position.
I was sure being greeted by a police car on the curb and the ear-shattering alarm as he entered the door probably conveyed a sense of “huh, not sure I really want to work at this place, after all.” Huffing out a long sigh as I noticed a bleeding scrape on my knee, along with a matching one on the opposite arm, I began to climb the steps myself.
Dangerous Curves Boxed Set 1: 3 Cozy Christian Mysteries Page 35