Where Secrets Sleep

by Marta Perry

  “So kind,” Emily murmured, blotting a tear away with a tissue. “But I’d rather be busy. Oh, Ms. Standish, you probably don’t know. Ralph left the shop to me. Can you imagine? I never dreamed of such a thing, but that’s what his attorney said.”

  It was a surprise, but really, it made sense. “He didn’t have any family, did he? And you were as much a part of the bookshop as he was. I’m sure he did the right thing. And very glad you’ll be taking over.” A sudden thought chilled her. “You do plan to keep the bookshop open, don’t you?”

  “Yes, yes, I can’t imagine anything else.” There was a gleam of pleasure in the woman’s face, quickly masked by the decorum she probably considered necessary. “I wouldn’t have tried to open today, but the attorney recommended I keep the shop open as usual, right through probate. He said it would lose value if I didn’t.”

  “That’s probably true. The sooner you open again, the sooner it will start to seem normal.” She thought of adding that it was what Ralph would want, but she’d always thought that sort of claim about the deceased was presumptuous. But it seemed to spring naturally to the lips when trying to comfort someone. “If you need any help, you be sure to call on us.” Allison patted her hand.

  Emily grasped hers. “There is something you can do.” She looked a little shamefaced. “Would you go in with me? Just this first time? It would feel so much better to have someone with me.”

  “Of course I will.” Allison caught Sarah’s eye, and Sarah nodded. “Let’s do it now. If you’re dreading something, it’s always best to get it over with quickly.”

  Emily nodded, her white curls bouncing. “Yes. I’m sure you’re right.”

  Still, Allison had to grasp Emily’s arm to get her started toward the bookshop. The police would have searched the shop, she felt sure. Did they leave it in suitable shape? She could hardly have expected Fred to pay attention to the interior of the shop, since his job included only the common areas unless he’d made specific arrangements with the leaseholder. Should she warn Emily of the possibility?

  Before she could decide, she spotted Nick coming in the side door, a tool belt slung around his waist. He veered from the direction of the stairs and came toward them.

  “Good morning.” The words were ostensibly addressed to both of them, but his gaze rested on Allison, and her heart did a little dance in her chest. “Emily, I’m so sorry about Ralph. If you don’t feel like opening today—”

  “Did you hear that Ralph has left the shop to Emily?” Allison interjected quickly, before Emily could start to weep again. “The attorney advises her to keep it open as usual.”

  Nick looked as if he considered congratulating her and rejected the thought. “Ralph made the right choice. No one could care more about the shop than you, Emily.” He clasped her hand warmly.

  “Thank you, Nicky.” She patted his cheek. “You’re so thoughtful.” She turned to smile at Allison. “Everyone is being so kind. Allison came with me so I don’t have to go in the shop alone the first time. Isn’t that sweet?”

  “It is,” he added gravely, but his eyes danced when he glanced at Allison. “I’ll come with you, too, all right?”

  That flustered Emily so much that she dropped her keys, and Nick had to retrieve them and open the door. He stepped in ahead of them and switched on the lights. “There, now. Everything seems to be in order.”

  Following him in, Allison had to agree. The police searchers had left no trace behind them. She was impressed.

  “Oh, dear.” Emily put her bag on the counter, and her tears spilled over again. “I just have to glance at the computer, and I see him sitting there. How will I go on without him? What if I make a mistake?”

  “I’m sure you know everything about running the shop,” Allison said, feeling out of her depth at dealing with the woman. But from what she’d seen, Emily really ran things here. “Even so, you might want to hire someone to help out.”

  “Yes, I could do that.” She seemed to brighten. “It will be lonely here without him, especially during the slow times.”

  “I should probably mention that the police had to search the shop,” Nick said. “They did their best to clean up, but it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the books are in the wrong places. I suppose you could just leave it...”

  “Goodness, no.” Emily was suddenly animated. She stuffed her bag behind the counter without a glance toward the computer chair. “I’ll do a thorough job of shelving everything properly. The key to running a bookshop is knowing where every book is so you can advise customers.” She snatched up a duster and headed for the nearest bank of shelves. “I’d better get busy. Thank you.”

  In an instant it seemed she’d forgotten them as she began taking books down from the shelves, clucking to herself when she found something out of order.

  Nick touched Allison’s arm, and they slipped out of the shop.

  “That was brilliant,” Allison said.

  Nick grinned. “I knew all she needed was something to occupy herself. What I said was true as far as it went, although I think Mac and his searchers did try to put everything back where they found it.”

  They were standing very close to each other in the hall, and Nick’s hand still clasped her arm. She could feel the warmth through the thin knit of her sweater, and she could recognize her own response. She drew away reluctantly.

  “I’d better get back to the shop and see if Sarah needs any help, and then I have some office work to do.”

  “I’ll be up in the apartment. Stop by when you come upstairs.” His fingers brushed hers again.

  “I will,” she said, although she probably shouldn’t. Play with fire and get burned, she reminded herself as she hurried back to the quilt shop. Too bad she couldn’t seem to take her own advice.

  Sarah looked up from sorting fabric samples as soon as she came in. “I was afraid you got stuck there propping Emily up.” She made a face. “Ach, I shouldn’t talk so. I’m sure she really is missing Ralph.”

  “At the moment, she’s restocking books she thinks the police disarranged, so that should keep her too busy to dwell on Ralph for a time,” Allison said. “Do you need me for anything?”

  “What about sending the quilt?” Sarah’s eyes sparkled, reminding Allison of how her mother had looked that morning when they’d told her about the sale.

  “That’s true.” Allison set her laptop on the counter. “I’ll just check and be sure the payment went through. Do we have a box that’s big enough?”

  “One of the fabric cartons should do it. I have some in the back. Will we take it somewhere to send?”

  “Let me check and see if one of the carrier services will pick it up. That would be simpler. We’ll have to figure the cost of shipping into our prices in the future.”

  “It’s a nice problem to have,” Sarah said. “Things are going to be all right, ain’t so?”

  She obviously was thinking about more than selling quilts. But Allison told herself that if she could weather Ralph’s death without losing the bookshop from the building, things just might be all right.

  It was surprising, how much that seemed to mean to her. A month ago, the name of Laurel Ridge would barely have sounded a faint bell in her mind. Now—she didn’t like to admit it, but it had begun to feel like home.

  Working with Sarah was soothing, Allison found. They actually found themselves laughing a little as they boxed up the quilt for sale. Odd that she felt so much satisfaction from that small success. She’d handled far bigger deals in her time, but none that had brought her happiness as well as satisfaction.

  For most of her career she hadn’t done much where she was working cooperatively with someone else toward the same goal. There had always been a competitive edge to what she’d done in the past, with the sense that someone else would be waiting to grab her spot if she let down at a
ll. Working with Sarah, running the building—could she really be content with that? Or would she soon become bored, looking for new challenges?

  They were preparing to take some more quilt photos when the bell on the door jingled, and Emily hurried in. “Ms. Standish, I’m glad you’ll still here. I just don’t know what to do about this. Please—you’ll come and help me, won’t you?”

  “What is it, Emily?” She was willing enough, but she couldn’t quite interpret the expression on the woman’s face. She seemed both excited and distraught, if such a combination was possible.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she repeated, literally wringing her hands. “I don’t... I mean, I’d rather you just came to see what I found. You don’t mind, do you, Sarah?”

  “Of course not.” Sarah began to fold the baby quilt she’d just spread out. “Go on, Allison. We can finish this later.”

  Apparently she didn’t have much choice. When she’d thought about what running the building would entail, she certainly hadn’t included this sort of thing, whatever it was.

  They went back down the hallway yet again, with Emily almost trotting in her hurry.

  “Emily, if you’d just tell me—”

  “I can’t. You have to see it, that’s all.” Emily stopped at the door and unlocked it, giving Allison the chance to wonder why she’d closed up the shop just to come after her. With a quick glance around that suggested they were fellow conspirators, Emily hurried inside. She relocked the door behind them.

  “Don’t you want to stay open?” Allison asked.

  “Later. Not while this is here,” she added cryptically. She led the way to the back room. Several boxes had been pulled out from the shelves, lids open to reveal books.

  “I finished checking the shelves,” Emily said. “I noticed we didn’t have much in the way of local history on display, so I came back to look in some of the storage boxes.” She hesitated. “Sometimes...well, sometimes I thought that Ralph held on to books he should have returned for credit, but maybe there’d be something in these boxes that should be on the shelf.”

  “I assume you found something more than books.” Emily was taking her time in getting to the point.

  Emily nodded. “I don’t know when I’ve been so shocked. It was right down in the center of the stacks of books. If I hadn’t knocked a few books out trying to reach them, I’d never have found it.” She reached into the center of the box and pulled out a gray metal box about the size of a file box. She looked at Allison, blinking. “I opened it. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Anything in the shop is now yours, surely,” Allison said, trying to be reassuring. Was she never going to see this mysterious find?

  “I don’t know about this. It seems to me Ralph must have kept it hidden for a reason. Look.” She flung open the box lid, revealing the contents. Money. Neatly bound stacks of bills, all wedged into a metal box and hidden.

  For a moment, Allison could only stare. Then she picked up one of the bundles and riffled through it. “These are hundreds.” She felt as if she’d been hit with a brick.

  “I counted.” The excitement was taking over now. “There’s over a hundred thousand dollars there.”

  “A hundred thousand?” Maybe not that much in the world of high finance, but a lot of money for a small-town bookshop. “It’s surely not from the till?”

  “Goodness, no.” Emily dismissed that notion quickly. “So, where did he get it? And what should I do about it?”

  Allison ran her fingers through her hair, trying to think. Technically speaking, if the money had belonged to Ralph, it now belonged to Emily. But if the money had been unlawfully obtained— Her mind stopped functioning. The money might explain everything that had happened. Or it might complicate matters beyond belief. But whatever the result, there was only one possible course of action.

  “You’ll have to show this to the police,” she said. “Right away.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  NICK HAD EXPECTED Allison to appear upstairs long before this, but she hadn’t. Well, no reason he couldn’t take a break and stroll down to see how things were going, was there?

  The back stairs led down to the hallway outside the bookshop. He was halfway down when he realized people were gathered there, and another two steps showed him why. Mac’s patrolman was stretching orange crime scene tape across the front of the shop.

  Allison. Nick’s heart was suddenly thudding in his ears. Another crime? Another attack? He reached the bottom of the steps with no memory of how he got there and burst through the crowd of gawkers to seize Johnny Foster by the arm and turn him around.

  “What happened? Is someone hurt?” He shook him, trying to force an answer.

  “The chief said—”

  Giving up, Nick shoved past him into the bookshop, hearing the crowd murmuring behind him. A quick glance told him that whatever was happening, it was in the back room. He bolted toward the door and nearly sagged with relief when he saw Allison standing there, her arm around Emily’s waist. Mac looked up from a box he was examining, clearly annoyed at the sight of him.

  “Nick, you don’t—”

  “What’s going on? Allison, are you okay?”

  She nodded. “We’re fine. Emily wanted me to see what she found, and I called the police once I did. Nick, Ralph apparently had a whole file box of cash squirreled away, hidden inside a carton of books.”

  Mac’s expression of annoyance intensified. “Nick, nobody needs you to come to the rescue. It’s not a crime to hide money away, but we’ll have to try and figure out how it came here and if it had any significance to what happened to Ralph.”

  “If it’s not a crime, why is your patrolman out there putting crime scene tape all over the front of the store?” Nick asked.

  “He’s what?” Mac shoved himself to his feet and stalked out, muttering under his breath. “Stupid kid” was the only phrase audible, but in moments they could hear his roar. “What do you think you’re doing? I told you to secure the door so we wouldn’t be interrupted.”

  “But, Chief—”

  “Get that tape down and get in here. All I expected you to do was lock the door and put the closed sign on it.”

  “Poor kid,” Allison murmured.

  “He deserves it.” Nick didn’t feel in the least sorry for him. “He nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought someone had been hurt.” He’d thought Allison had been hurt, to be exact, but maybe he shouldn’t say that with an audience, and Emily was watching them, her eyes bright with curiosity. “Any idea how much was in the box?”

  “I counted it,” Emily said. She flushed. “Well, not every note, but I looked through and got a rough idea. A hundred thousand, I think.” A thought seemed to occur to her. “If it belonged to Ralph, does that mean it’s mine?” Her voice went up an octave on the last word.

  “That might depend on where it came from.” His thoughts tumbled over and over. What was Ralph doing with that kind of money? And in cash. Nobody in their senses kept that kind of cash hidden in a box of books. At least, not if it was honestly come by.

  Allison seemed to be listening to what was going on out front. “It sounds as if Mac is trying to reassure everyone. I’m not sure it’s working.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Things will calm down in a day or two.”

  “Will they?” She didn’t seem to take much comfort in his words. “Or will it keep getting worse? People aren’t going to want to do business in a place where the police are always popping up.”

  “Relax. Folks around here are more resilient than that.” At least, he hoped so. “And everyone knows it’s not your fault.”

  “Sorry about that.” Mac reappeared, the chastened patrolman nowhere in sight. “Look, there’s no reason for all of you to be here. I just want to have a th
orough look through everything in the room myself, in case there’s anything else my boys managed to overlook when they were supposed to be searching. Emily, once I’ve finished, you can get back in. The sooner you open, the sooner things get back to normal.”

  “That’s right.” Allison seemed to forget her worries in comforting Emily. “Why don’t you come over to the quilt shop with me? I’ll make you a cup of tea, and you can relax for a bit.” She urged her toward the door.

  They’d just reached it when Mac’s voice halted them. “Allison, I’ll need to talk to you again later. Will you be in the quilt shop?”

  Her gaze was questioning, but she nodded. “There, or upstairs in my office.”

  Nick waited until he heard the shop door close behind them before he turned to his brother. “What do you have to talk to Allison about? She can’t have anything to do with Ralph’s stash of money.”

  “Look, you don’t know that, and neither do I. Just stay out of it.” Mac glared at him.

  “If you think that, your uniform collar must be cutting off the oxygen to your brain. Allison’s been here a matter of weeks. She barely knew Ralph, and she’s been in the bookshop a few times at most. She’s only involved at all because Emily asked for help.”

  Mac’s jaw set. “It’s not as simple as that.”

  “Explain it to me, then,” he demanded.

  “I have to talk to everyone again—everyone who was in any way involved with what happened to Ralph. He didn’t fall down the stairs. He was probably never on the stairs at all that night. Somebody hit him from behind with a heavy object. He was murdered.”

  Nick had known it was a possibility. But he hadn’t realized how tough it would be to face the reality. Ralph had been struck minutes before Allison found him.

  “The murderer could have still been here when Allison came in.”

  “That’s one alternative,” Mac said.

  “If you’re implying that Allison called us and then struck him down with a blunt instrument, you’re crazy.”