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Thoughts of Lucy and whether her catered food was safe to eat during Aunt Nora’s memorial service fled as Paige fumbled to answer her cell phone while unlocking Beachside Books’ front door. She recognized her editor’s voice almost immediately and cringed. She should have checked the caller ID before she took the call.
“Paige, where are you?” Carl never wasted time on small talk. He reminded her often that he had dozens of clients who needed his attention and she was a small fry.
“Hi, Carl. Um, I had to go home to Texas because my aunt passed away.” Paige tried to sound as sad as she possibly could. “I’m sorry I haven’t checked in lately, but everything is going great with the book.”
“Everything’s going great, huh? You do realize that you’ve already had two extensions and gone incommunicado with us in the past week, right?”
Paige stammered to come up with an answer, but Carl didn’t wait to hear it. “Never mind. I’m done talking about this. We can’t wait any longer. You’ve had two deadline extensions and still aren’t on track to deliver a decent novel. We have to focus on good books that are ready to go on time. So, if you can’t get the finished product to us by this last deadline, we’ll have to consider our contract null and void.”
Paige was silent for several moments. There was no way she could get the book done in time now. There might have been a very slight chance of finishing if she had been able to stay in Portofino, but even that was dubious. She sighed deeply, reluctant to say the next words. “Unfortunately, there just isn’t going to be a way for me to finish it this time. I inherited my aunt’s bookstore, and I have a lot of family stuff going on right now. I do so appreciate the time you spent on my novel, though, and I hope we can work together again in the future.”
“That ship has sailed, my dear,” Carl said with a snort. “You’ll be lucky to find another agent at all after this fiasco.”
The line went dead and Paige slowly lowered the phone from her ear. A lone tear slipped down her cheek. Well, at least that painful conversation was over, and now she could move forward without the looming deadline on her horizon. She squared her shoulders, set the cell phone on the checkout counter, and headed to the back room to check Casper’s food supply. Her mind raced as she thought of all the things that would need to happen now.
She was stuck in Comfort Cove, at least for a while. She needed to call her roommates in Portofino and let them know she wouldn’t be coming back. A place to stay and something permanent to drive were her top priorities now. She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Paige Murphy: Bookshop Entrepreneur. She was okay with how that sounded . . . for now.
After she made sure Casper’s food and water were full, she scooped the cat’s box and smoothed out the remaining litter. She washed up in the bathroom and then headed back to the front of the store to grab her phone again to call Scott. Her brother answered after the first ring. “Hey,” she said. “I decided to stay in town for a bit. I want to get the shop solvent so it’s in better shape for selling, and I’ll just work on my novel from here. But I don’t want to put you and Sarah out for any longer than I have to.”
“Hey, it’s no problem, sis.” His voice was soft and understanding. “You can stay with us as long as you want—I know Sarah feels the same way.”
“It’s okay. I have an idea of a place I can stay. Would you take a look at those impounded cars and pick one out for me? I don’t care what it is as long as it’s got four wheels and is reliable . . . and cheap.” She pictured Marco on his scooter back in Italy but brushed away the melancholy feeling creeping up on her.
“Yeah, sure. No problem. Hey,” he said before hanging up. “I’m really sorry.”
After she ended the call, Paige headed toward the narrow staircase leading up to the attic storeroom. She hadn’t been up there for a decade or more, so she was hoping it was still as she remembered. When she got to the top of the stairs, a sharp thrill of apprehension shot through her body as she remembered the loud noise that had come from behind the door the last time she ventured up the staircase. She reached out and touched the door handle, half expecting to hear another loud clatter, but everything was silent. Paige pushed her way into the room and scanned it quickly.
It looked just like she remembered. Very little had changed except there were a few more boxes and a lot more dust. But the space was nice and airy, with windows on two sides and a slanted eight-foot ceiling. Through a door on her right she could see a tiny bathroom with a shower. A stove, college-size refrigerator, and sink stood against another wall. The place had obviously served as an apartment at some point in its storied past.
She crossed to the bathroom. The fixtures were old and the pipes clanked when she first turned the water on, but everything seemed to work. She left the bathroom and looked around again, resting her hands on her hips. It would take some work to clean the room up, but it would do just fine. She could stay there while she worked on getting Beachside Books on its feet, and it would be a nice, quiet place for her to work on her novel. She would look for a small second-hand writing desk to put next to the window looking out on the ocean.
A movement in the doorway caught her attention, and she turned her head to watch Casper enter the attic. “Hey, kitty. I’m thinking about staying here. How’s that sound to you?”
The white cat didn’t answer, but he approached Paige and head-butted her in the shin.
“I’ll take that to mean you approve.” She knelt down to ruffle the fur behind Casper’s ears. “I think we’ll do just fine here together.” Looking around, she added, “Well, there’s really no time like the present to get started.” She began stacking boxes of books near the door to the stairwell. She’d seen a hand dolly downstairs in the storeroom earlier and figured she could use that to make quicker work of getting the attic room cleaned out.
She worked for an hour and a half and then pressed both fists into the small of her back and arched into them to stretch her muscles. “Time to call it a day. Maybe Neal will help me finish up tomorrow.”
She’d have to search the storeroom or ask Scott about a shop vac to clean out the dust in the attic once the boxes were all moved downstairs. Right now, all she wanted to do was take a nice, long, hot shower and wash the day away.
Paige let herself into Scott’s house once she got there. She should have time for a quick shower before Sarah served the tempeh. Her foot was on the first stair when Scott appeared in the doorway leading to the living room.
“There you are,” he said. “I was going to call you, but I figured you’d be home pretty soon. I have to tell you some news I just got.”
Scott’s tense tone caught Paige’s attention, and she stepped back from the staircase and turned to face him. “What is it?”
“The toxicology report came back on Aunt Nora, and it was a street drug that killed her. The same one involved in the drug ring the department’s been working on busting up.”
Paige felt her jaw drop. “How in the world did Aunt Nora get ahold of that?”
“I don’t know, but I can tell you this: Our aunt somehow got herself involved in something shady. There’s no way she took that drug on her own. I saw her nearly every day and she wasn’t on that stuff or any kind of illegal substance. Someone gave it to her. A lot of it. I think she was murdered.”