Deadly Ever After by Eva Gates (distant reading .txt) 📗

free hand. I noticed he’d already punched in a nine and a one. Butch soon reappeared. He waved to us, and Connor and I got out of the car.

Butch met us at the bottom of the steps. “I’ve called for backup and asked them to notify Detective Watson. Someone left you a message, Lucy.”

He turned his light to shine directly on the door. A piece of plain computer paper had been fastened there with a nail. The typing was neat, in Times New Roman 12, too small for me to read from where I stood.

Butch nodded, and Connor and I climbed the steps. We peered at the note but didn’t touch it.

Stay out of what doesn’t concern you. Or next time your cousin will be in trouble. Maybe even you.

Chapter Eighteen

Southerners love their sweet tea, but there’s nothing like a hot, steaming cup of strong, fragrant tea for calming one’s nerves.

And my nerves needed calming.

I gripped my mug tightly. Charles stretched out on the couch next to me, and Fluffy snoozed on the carpet under the coffee table.

“Top you up?” Connor asked.

I held out my mug. “Yes, please.”

He filled it and then sat at the other end of the couch. I stretched out my legs and put them into his lap, and he stroked my bare toes. “I don’t like being threatened,” I said.

“I don’t like you being threatened. Sure you don’t want me to call your mom?”

“Positive. Let me think this through and decide what to say. I’ll talk to her in the morning.”

Sam Watson had arrived at the lighthouse in record time in answer to Butch’s call. The front door showed no signs of being tampered with, but I’d been guarded by a phalanx of police officers, not to mention the mayor of Nags Head, while I’d gone upstairs to collect Charles, Fluffy, and my toothbrush and pajamas. I’d had time, as I was hustled through the library, to notice that nothing seemed out of place.

Holly Rankin had been dispatched to follow Connor and me into town and make sure we reached Connor’s house safely. In other words, the police were taking this evening’s happenings very seriously indeed.

“Before we start speculating,” Connor said, “you don’t think it was Louise Jane trying to scare you out of your apartment?”

“Absolutely not. Louise Jane can be irritating at times and as annoying as all heck, but she’s not mean.”

“Agreed. Who, then?”

“Who indeed.” I leaned against the arm cushions of the sofa, my feet resting in Connor’s lap. “I know one thing.”

“What?”

“The murder of Rich Lewiston isn’t a Boston matter, and it had absolutely nothing to do with organized crime.”

“Did you think it did?”

“The police were considering the idea. Sam told me the police in Boston are looking into an organized-crime angle. It would appear that Rich wasn’t always operating on the right side of the law, and he might have been in debt to underworld forces. We can disregard that line of inquiry now. No one from the mob is going to make such a halfhearted attempt to frighten a Nags Head librarian.”

“Don’t discount yourself, Lucy. Maybe rumors of your detecting prowess have expanded beyond the confines of the Outer Banks.”

I snorted and stroked Charles’s ears. “You know as well as I do that I have no detecting prowess. I have a lot of dumb luck.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way, but never mind. I don’t suppose you’ve been frightened off.”

I lifted Charles off me and swung my legs to the floor. Fluffy awoke with a start and barked. I stood up and went for my purse. I rummaged around inside, finding a pen and a copy of the Lighthouse Aerie rental agreement I’d been consulting when I decided to think about moving. I resumed my seat. “Let’s make a list of all the possible suspects. I’ve found that helps to clear the mind.”

“Dumb luck, right,” Connor muttered. “If we must. First things first. Whoever tried to scare you off—if we assume that was their attempt and not just a childish prank—doesn’t know you very well.”

I drew three columns on the back of the rental contract. “Why do you say that?”

“Anyone who knows you knows you can’t be frightened off.”

I smiled at him.

“And, as someone who knows you well and loves you beyond measure, I wish you could be frightened off. Leave it to the police, Lucy.”

“I will. This is only a mental exercise. I’ll tell Sam anything we come up with. Who do we have?” I started writing names in the left-hand column. “Evangeline. Ricky. Gordon Frankland. Leon Lions.”

“Gordon Frankland,” Connor said.

I looked up. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I want it to be him. Get him out of my hair.”

“It doesn’t work that way. Wouldn’t it be nice if it did?” I hesitated, pen poised. “Not much of a list. One thing I do know is that it can’t be someone who spends much time at the library. It was nothing but another instance of dumb luck that I even got the original text message tonight. Anyone who knows how things work in the lighthouse knows not to text me or call me on my cell phone if they need me. They call the landline.”

“Doesn’t help much.” Connor pointed to the list. “None of those people are regulars at the library.”

“And thank heavens for that.”

“Then we have person or persons unknown,” Connor said.

“Evangeline,” I said.

“You think she killed her husband?”

“I think something’s up with her. I can’t forget how strongly she reacted when she saw James Dalrymple at the library. I wonder if James should be on the list. Although he knows cell phone coverage isn’t reliable in the building.”

“You’re clutching at straws, Lucy. Maybe James simply reminded Evangeline of someone.”

“I suppose. I also suppose I am clutching at straws. We know why Rich was at Jake’s that night: because someone sent him a note asking him to meet them there. But we have to wonder why he was in the Outer Banks at all. He left Boston