At T minus one hour, she dialed the number.
"Stoneham Patisserie, this is Nikki. How can I help you?"
"Hi, Nikki. It's Tricia over at Haven't Got a Clue. I just wanted to make sure you'll be attending the book club meeting tonight. I managed to line up a special guest-- someone in publishing who was here for Zoe's memorial service. He stayed in town an extra couple of days just so he could talk to the group. I'd like to have as many warm bodies as possible in the store to make him feel welcome."
Nikki sighed, and Tricia flinched, afraid her plans might already be on the verge of unraveling. "I guess I can make it, but I can't pull off a cake on this short notice. Can I bring something else? Cookies?"
It was Tricia's turn to sigh--with relief. "You don't have to bring anything," she said. "I've got everything covered."
"Oh. Well, okay. I'll be there around six."
"See you then," Tricia said brightly and hung up the phone. No sooner had she set the receiver down than it rang again. "Haven't Got a Clue, this is Tricia."
"Tricia, it's Grace."
"Thank goodness. I was getting worried. Do you have good news for me?"
"It took some persuasion, but I've convinced the sheriff to arrive at precisely six o'clock."
"What excuse did you give her?"
"None at all. I just reminded her of her duty, that she's a public servant, and that it would be in her best interest to be there on time."
"And she bought it?"
"I believe she respects my reputation and the authority I used to wield. I wonder if I could use that same tactic to get the Board of Selectmen to step up their efforts and find a humane solution to the geese problem."
"Grace, I'm sure you could."
"Thank you for your faith in me. Ah, I think I hear William at the door. I'm looking forward to hearing all about the intrigue that's going on at your shop."
"And I'll be glad to update you later myself."
"Thank you, dear. Good-night."
Tricia hung up the phone.
"Aha! The stage is set," Ginny said, as she wrestled into her jacket a full half hour earlier than usual. Mr. Everett had been dismissed early after flawlessly performing his part of Tricia's scheme.
"Stage?" Tricia asked, pretending she hadn't thought of what lay ahead in the same terms.
"Didn't Shakespeare say that in one of his plays?"
"Not that I'm aware of. Now scoot, will you?"
Ginny hesitated halfway to the door, her expression growing serious. "I don't like this, Tricia. I think you should cancel the whole thing."
"It's too late now. And anyway, I'm not a bit worried," she lied.
"Well, I am."
No way did Tricia want Ginny hanging around and possibly spoiling everything. She came around the cash desk and put an arm around Ginny's shoulder, guiding her toward the door. "Look, if it'll make you feel better, I'll call you at home later tonight, okay?"
"Well, okay."
"Now go home. Relax."
"I'll go back to our house, but it's not yet a home."
"It will be one day." Tricia opened the shop door, gently pushed Ginny through. "I'll see you tomorrow. Say hi to Brian for me."
"Good night," Ginny called, and shuffled down the sidewalk toward the municipal parking lot.
Tricia shut the shop door, turning the cardboard sign around to closed, but she didn't lock the door. Nor did she shut the blinds along the big display window. If something unforeseen was destined to happen, she wanted Haven't Got a Clue to stand out like a lighted stage with the curtains drawn for the whole world to see.
She looked out over the street. Several of the other bookstores were already darkened. Tuesday was early closing night for most of the booksellers and other merchants. It was no joke that they rolled up the sidewalks of Stoneham a little after six p.m. If something unusual did happen, would there be anyone around to notice?
That's when she saw Russ across the street, standing in the doorway of History Repeats Itself, trying to blend in with the shadows. She raised a hand to wave, but he ducked out of sight. He'd promised he'd be there, cell phone in hand, to call nine-one-one in case of an emergency.
There will be no emergency, Tricia told herself. And if she was lucky, this whole fiasco with Zoe's murder and Kimberly's attempted murder would be over and done with within the hour. Tricia glanced at her watch. She was still two players short for her little production: Artemus Hamilton and Wendy Adams.
A silhouetted form paused in front of the shop. The door opened and Hamilton stepped inside. "Am I too late?"
"No," Tricia said, relief flooding through her. "Let me take your coat."
He stuffed his leather gloves in his pockets, unbuttoned his coat, and shrugged out of it. Tricia took it to the back of the shop to hang with the others.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked, when she returned.
"Why don't you stand over by those shelves? I'll make all the introductions once the sheriff gets here."
Hamilton looked around the shop, his gaze resting on the nook for a moment. "Whatever," he said.
The door opened, the bell above it jangling. Angelica stepped inside, dressed to the nines in her pink-dyed rabbit fur coat, another enormous purse, and matching magenta stilettos. "Why is your closed sign up?" she said, noting the two people in the store and turning it around to say open again. "It isn't six o'clock yet."
"And why aren't you in your own store?" Tricia said, charging forward.
"I closed early and didn't want customers pounding on my door. I'm meeting Bob here. He's taking me to Portsmouth for dinner overlooking the harbor."
"That's all very nice," Tricia said, pushing her sister back toward the door, "but I think you should just go back to the Cookery and wait for him."
"What's the big deal?" Angelica protested, digging her heels into the carpet. She caught sight of Artemus Hamilton lurking further back in the store. "Oh, Mr. Hamilton!" she called brightly and waved.
"Ange, you've got to go. Now!"
Before Tricia could maneuver here sister to the exit, the door opened again, but instead of Wendy Adams, it was a coatless Nikki who stood in the open entrance, still dressed in the white waitress garb and thick-soled shoes she wore at the patisserie--a full twenty minutes early. "What's going on, Tricia? Frannie just stopped by the shop and told me the meeting had been canceled. But you called me not half an hour ago to say there was a special guest coming in. What gives?"
Rats! Her worst fear had come to pass.
"We do have a guest. In fact, we have two."
"Then what--?"
The woman who'd been quietly sitting in the nook, her back to the door, finally stood. Slight, with shoulder-length graying blond hair, she turned, face taut, arms rigid, and fists clenched at her sides.
"Nikki, this is Fiona Sample. She writes the Bonnie Chesterton librarian mystery series," Tricia said.
Nikki gave the woman a quick once-over. "Oh, sorry. Nice to meet you." She turned back to Tricia. "What's going on? What gave Frannie the idea the meeting had been canceled?" She looked around the room, her gaze settling on the only other person in the shop. Nikki took him in, and Tricia wondered if she'd remember Hamilton standing next to Kimberly at the statue dedication.
"I could've brought some cookies or cupcakes if I'd known," she said, distracted. "I should go home--change. Where is everyone else? Will they be here at six?"
"This is a private signing," Tricia said, and turned to her guest. "Fiona, I'd like you to meet Nikki Brimfield."
Fiona held out her hand. Nikki took it, shook it impatiently. "Nice to meet you," she said again.
"But we've met before," Fiona said, her voice shaking.
"Before?" Nikki echoed, puzzled.
"Yes. I'm your mother."
t w e n t y - f o u r
Nikki's jaw dropped. "My mother's name was Faith. She died over twenty years ago." "She left Stoneham over twenty years ago," Fiona said. "But here I am." Her right hand d
ipped into the pocket of her long, dark skirt. She pulled out an old photograph, handed it to her daughter.
Nikki stared at the image of a little girl on a bicycle.
"I have more in my purse. Your seventh birthday. Even then you liked to bake. Remember, together we made a three-layer chocolate cake with marshmallow frosting?"
Nikki looked up from the photo to glare at the woman before her. "My mother is dead."
Fiona swallowed. "Your father's mother and your aunt told you that. Did they ever offer you any proof?"
Nikki opened her mouth to answer, then closed it again. "What are you doing here? Why now?"
Fiona's eyes filled with tears. "Because . . . I'm afraid. Afraid you've done something very, very bad."
"Me? I didn't abandon anyone. I didn't stay away for years and years," Nikki accused. "You let me believe you were dead. Where have you been all these years?"
"Believe me, I didn't want to leave. I told you--"
"But you did nothing to let me know you were alive, either."
"Your father gave me an ultimatum: leave without you-- without anything--or he'd kill me. I believed him. No one told me when he died. Many years later, I was told his mother and sister had had me declared dead."
"You could've come back."
"To what? I had no home--no one, except a daughter who probably hated me. And I had a new life, a new family in Canada. Was I supposed to abandon them?"
"Family?"
"Yes, you have a half sister and brother. Twins. They're sixteen now."
"Don't tell me Jess and Addie," Nikki sneered.
"No, Jessica and Andre. My husband's French Canadian."
Nikki crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. "So what do you want me to do, embrace you all with loving arms?"
"I came to ask you to do what's right. To give yourself up."
"What?"
"You've done a terrible, terrible thing."
"Just what is it you think I've done, killed someone?" She took in the faces of the people surrounding her, focusing on Hamilton's penetrating, hateful stare. "Good grief! You don't think I killed Zoe Carter, do you?"
Fiona's gaze swung toward Tricia.
"Tricia? What have you been telling people?" Nikki asked.
Tricia stepped forward. "I'm sorry, Nikki, but the evidence is pretty overwhelming."
"You wouldn't like to let me in on some of this evidence, would you?"
"You knew who the real author of the Jess and Addie Forever books was when you asked me to invite Zoe Carter to sign here at Haven't Got a Clue. She hadn't returned to Stoneham in several years, but an invitation to speak in her hometown as the last leg of her first and only book tour was an opportunity you could use."
"And what was I supposed to use it for, blackmail?"
"Zoe made millions off your mother's work."
The anger drained from Nikki's face, replaced by annoyance. "How was I supposed to shake her down for money? I didn't have any proof my mother wrote the books. I didn't even know they'd been published until a few months ago when I was browsing in this store."
"And what was your reaction when you found out?" Fiona asked.
"Okay, I was angry. It wasn't right that someone made money off of your work. But so what? I thought you were dead."
"So why didn't you out Zoe?" Tricia asked.
"What proof did I have? Was I going to tell a lawyer that Addie was afraid of thunderstorms? That was mentioned in the second book. I could tell them that in Forever Banished, when Jess had to kill his horse, Prince, because he'd broken a leg, my mom cried buckets. But guess what? By the time I knew of the books being published, they'd been in print for years. Why would anyone ever believe some down-andout baker in the boonies of New Hampshire? It would sound like sour grapes--or some kind of greedy envy."
"There's more," Tricia said. "The attack on the statue in the park. I saw a satchel full of tools in the patisserie on Sunday."
"So what? Steve knocked out an old closet so we could have more space for the baking trays."
"There was a can of red spray paint in the bag as well."
"Is it against the law to possess spray paint?"
"And Kimberly was attacked by someone wielding a sledgehammer," Hamilton said, finally joining in the conversation.
"Did she point the finger at me?"
"She doesn't remember what happened that night," he admitted.
"Very convenient," Nikki said.
"Someone forced Tricia's car off the road Sunday night. We could've been killed," Angelica said.
Nikki rounded on her. "What proof do you have that it was me?"
"None," Tricia said, "but you did give me poisoned food."
"Are you delusional?"
"The cut-out cookies and the red velvet cake you gave me were laced with some foreign matter that contained salmonella. A lab in Nashua has confirmed it--at least with the cake."
"You don't look sick."
"It wasn't me who ate them. Ginny Wilson and her boyfriend Brian did. Brian was so ill he was hospitalized on Saturday night."
"That can't be. I baked them myself, I--" She stopped short, her eyes growing wide in horror, her face blanching.
The door to Haven't Got a Clue opened, and Steve Fenton stepped inside. "What's taking so long, Nikki? I got the bakery cleaned up, but you know I can't cash out without you."
Nikki turned to face her assistant. "What have you done?" she asked, her voice shaking, frightened.
Steve shrugged. "Cleaned the bakery, like always."
She raised her left arm, pointed abstractedly at the people behind her. "They think I put something in those cookies and that cake I gave Tricia. They say they have proof."
"What are you talking about?"
"I assembled the ingredients for that cake, but you put it together and iced it. I baked those cookies, but you frosted them."
"You'd take their word that something was wrong with them?"
"Yes, because what they're saying makes a lot of sense. My God, I'm surprised the Health Department hasn't swooped in and closed me down." She clasped her head in her hands, looked at Steve in panic. "What am I thinking--they all think I killed Zoe Carter. They think I destroyed the statue in the park." She inched closer to him. "They think I attacked and nearly killed Kimberly Peters."
"You would never do that," Steve said, his gaze softening as he looked at her. "You could never hurt anybody."
Nikki closed her eyes and swallowed hard before speaking. "Please tell me you couldn't, either."
Steve looked away, his mouth flattening into a straight line, exhaling short breaths through his nose, sounding like an angry bull.
Tricia stared disbelieving at the couple before her. Steve the murderer? Not Nikki?
Then she remembered what Kimberly had told her the morning after the murder: that a man had called to tell her Tricia was spreading rumors about Zoe Carter's death, and Kimberly's supposed part in it.
With his focus still only on Nikki, Fenton clenched his fist, punched himself in the chest. "I take care of my own."
"Excuse me, but I don't belong to you. I don't belong to anyone. Not now. Not ever again."
"Nikki, it's just a matter of time," he said, oblivious of the others standing by in stupefied silence. "It's always been a matter of time before you turn to me. We were made to be together, babe."
"Why would you think that?"
"You hired me. You gave me work when no one else
would. You and me. We're a team at the bakery. We can be a team in life."
"You killed Zoe Carter," she accused.
Steve didn't deny it.
"Why--why did you do it?" she cried, horror-struck.
"For you. I did it for you."
"But why?"
"I felt so bad when you told me about the books and your mother and all. The money that woman made off those books should have been yours. That woman was a liar and a thief. You could've had a better life--owned the bakery without bank loa
ns. You wouldn't have had to work so hard."
"Stop calling it a bakery. And I like working hard."
"And what did you gain by killing Zoe and attacking Kimberly?" Tricia asked him.
Bookmarked For Death (Berkley Prime Crime Mysteries) Page 25