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Paige woke up early. She wanted to get to the bookstore and start working. Now that she’d decided to stay in Comfort Cove and get Aunt Nora’s store turned around, there wasn’t any time to waste lying around in bed. She showered, got dressed, and made her way downstairs, planning to head straight to the Jeep and pick up breakfast and coffee at Just Baked.
The past few days, she’d missed Scott in the morning. He started early and worked late, burning both ends of the candle trying to bust Comfort Cove’s drug ring and earn his promotion. But he was still downstairs when Paige got there, so she stuck her head in the dining room to tell him goodbye.
“Hey, I want to give you something,” her brother said, getting up from the table and heading into the living room. Paige followed along, curious. When they got to the front door, Scott grabbed a set of keys from the rack hanging on the wall and handed them to her.
“What’s this?”
“The keys to my Oldsmobile. I’m going to start driving the Mustang because . . . well, why not? Life is short. I figure I might as well drive my dream car instead of sticking it in the garage to drive Sarah nuts.”
“So, you’re giving me your piece of junk car?” Paige raised an eyebrow at him.
“Hey!” Scott gave her a mock outraged look. “That car is super reliable. And it’s free. So tell me thank you and then zip your lips.”
Paige laughed and launched herself into Scott’s arms, hugging him tightly. “Thanks, bro,” she said. This really was a blessing. She wouldn’t have to pay for a car or a place to live now. As soon as she got the attic at Beachside Books cleaned up.
“This reminds me,” she said, stepping back and looking up at Scott. “I’m going to move into that attic room at the bookstore.”
Scott frowned, and wrinkles appeared on his forehead. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “That might not be safe.”
“Why? Is there a lot of crime in that area?” Paige had never heard of Aunt Nora having any problems with break-ins or anything, and it seemed like a safe, quaint little downtown.
“Not a lot but some. The bike shop has seen its share of burglaries.” Scott’s face was tense. “I don’t like the idea of you being in that old building all alone at night.”
“I’m a grown woman,” Paige said. “Plus, I know a great cop if anything were to happen.” She held up the keys and smiled.
Scott reached out and squeezed her arm. “Just remember that we shouldn’t be trusting anyone right now. This drug ring is bigger than I thought, and we have no way of knowing how many people are involved or who they are. They could all be dangerous if someone gets close to their secrets.”
Paige nodded. “I’ll remember,” she said. “I’ll see you later.” She headed for the door.
Scott stopped her by saying, “Sarah and I will drop the Jeep off at the rental place later today. She has a hair appointment over that direction. Also, she was wondering where you were for dinner last night. You missed the hummus sandwiches. Actually, they weren’t half bad.”
“I went out to Maretti’s with Jay from the bike shop.” Paige paused with her hand on the doorknob. “It’s kind of a crazy thing,” she told him. “You know that guy Marco who showed up with my stuff at the memorial yesterday?” When Scott nodded, she continued. “He’s working over there. I guess the owner, Frank, is a distant relative of his.”
Scott was suddenly frowning again. “That’s weird.”
“Yeah, I thought it was a strange coincidence too.”
“How’d you meet that guy anyway?”
“Marco? He’s a cousin to one of my roommates back in Portofino. Martina.”
Scott nodded, but Paige thought he still looked a little suspicious about the Italian chef.
A noise upstairs told them Sarah was up. She’d come down momentarily, Paige knew, and try to get her to eat sprouts for breakfast. “Gotta go!” she said, leaving Scott to chuckle as she escaped out the front door.
The Oldsmobile fired right up, and Paige had to admit it felt solid and reliable as she drove it into town. She pulled into the rear parking lot and walked around the front to head into Just Baked. Lucy gave her a cup of coffee, a muffin, and a wide smile. The first sip of the hot beverage seemed to course all the way through Paige’s body and boost up every cell. Aah. Luckily, Scott had found out that it was the coffee in the bookshop that had been poisoned, not Lucy’s.
The Friday morning crowd had Lucy too busy for small talk, so Paige carried her breakfast to the bookstore. Even after stopping to talk to Scott, it was still early, and Neal wasn’t there yet. She went around behind the checkout counter, and before she could set her purse down, the front door’s bells rang. She was slightly dismayed to see Jay walk in.
“Morning,” the surfer said. “Have you given any thought to my offer?”
Paige shook her head. “I’m not selling right now.” She took another sip of her coffee and tried to wish Jay back out the door with her mind. When he took a few steps back, she almost spit out her coffee. Had she done that?
“Come on over to my shop,” he said with a smile. “I’d like you to see it. I’ll show you where I need more space.”
The sudden change in his manner made Paige’s still tired head spin. “I really need to get to work,” she protested. The last thing she wanted to do was spend more time with Jay pressuring her to sell the shop.
“It’ll only take a minute. Come on,” he insisted. The look in his eyes said he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
Paige looked longingly at the untouched muffin on the counter and sighed deeply. Maybe if she humored him, he’d leave her alone for a while. She picked up her coffee and purse and headed back around the counter to follow him out the front door, down the sidewalk, and into his shop.
“We’re not open yet.”
Paige wondered why Jay was there so early. As far as she knew, he liked to sleep in and wander into his shop in the late morning or early afternoon. But she didn’t have time to think about it for too long. A big man, maybe twenty years old, approached them from a back room. “This is my guy, Curt,” Jay said by way of introduction. “He’s my right-hand man here. Curt, this is Paige. From the bookstore next door.”
Curt sported a shaved head and a pair of diamond stud earrings. He nodded at Paige but didn’t say anything. Instead, he spun on his heel and disappeared back the way he had come.
“I’ll show you around,” Jay offered. Paige didn’t know much about bikes, but the surfer showed her about a trillion of them. He talked without pausing about mountain bikes, road bikes, tandems, and different types of tires until Paige wanted to run away screaming.
When she couldn’t stand it another moment and was planning a desperate escape attempt involving spilling her coffee all over her own clothes, Curt ambled back into the room. “All done, boss,” he said. His voice sounded gravelly, like he hadn’t used it in a few days.
Jay nodded once and then placed a hand on Paige’s back, propelling her toward the front door of the shop. “Anyway,” he said. “You can see how much inventory I have to keep around and how I could use some extra space. Give it some more thought, and I’ll talk to you later.”
Paige found herself on the sidewalk before she knew what was happening. Jay shut the front door of the bike shop firmly behind her, and she heard the lock engage. She shook her head and walked toward the bookstore. As she did, she studied the space between her building and Jay’s Bike World. It was unpaved but big enough to drive a small car through. This space had been left open intentionally to give tourists easy beach access from Main Street. Looking at the stone exteriors, it was obvious the two buildings had been built in the same era.
When she reentered Beachside, Paige was immediately accosted by a white fur ball, who wrapped himself around and through her legs in a figure eight clearly designed to bring her crashing to the floor. “Casper, stop!” she cried, trying to step over him. He meowed several times, and she looked down into his face. His pupils were dilated. He looked agitated. “What’s wrong?” The cat continued his frantic behavior as Paige set her coffee down and tried to walk to the storeroom. “Come on, cat. I’ll feed you—just stop trying to trip me.”
She finally made it to the back room and dumped some kibble in Casper’s bowl. The cat gave her one last look and then lowered his head to eat.
The back door opened and Neal entered. “Hey.”
He looked agitated too. Paige was starting to think everyone knew stuff she didn’t. He set his backpack behind the counter and looked at Paige sheepishly. “I have to tell you something, Miss Murphy,” he said.
Okay, maybe now she’d learn some useful facts. “Sure, what’s up?”
“I’ll be right back.” Neal crossed the storeroom and headed into the retail area, Paige trailing behind. He headed up the stairs to the attic. Puzzled, Paige wondered what he needed up there and stood at the bottom of the stairs waiting for him to return. He wasn’t gone long, and when he came down, his face was a grayish mask of confusion.
“What did you want to tell me?” Paige asked.
“What?” He looked at her like he’d forgotten she was there. “Oh! Never mind. It’s nothing important.”
Puzzled, Paige stared at the young man. He didn’t seem to be stoned or drunk. She decided to act cool and see if he’d reveal his secret on his own. “Oo-kay,” she said, drawing out the word. “We got in some new inventory. The boxes are over there. Can you get the books out and price them? Make sure they’re entered into the inventory sheets and shelve them.”
“Sure.” Neal moved off to start working. He was a strange kid, but he helped a lot. Without him, Paige knew she’d probably never keep up with all the work around the bookstore.
They spent the morning in companionable silence, each focusing diligently on their own tasks. Paige worked on cleaning off the shelves and cupboards behind the checkout desk. When she found a gold key, she immediately knew it must go to the glass case holding Captain McDougall’s logbook and Nora’s special books. She crossed the room to check and was rewarded when the key worked. The glass door swung open.
She pulled out To Kill a Mockingbird, checking to see if it looked genuine. From what she could tell, it was—a signed first edition. The Great Gatsby looked real too. Thank goodness. Paige breathed a sigh of relief. Then she pulled the leather-bound logbook out of the case. Of course, she had no idea how to tell if this one was real, but she was curious about what it looked like inside.
“Miss Murphy, what do you want to do with all those boxes of books upstairs?”
Paige’s hand paused over the logbook’s cover as Neal’s voice interrupted her train of thought. “First of all, call me Paige. You make me feel like the old cat lady.” Oops. Is that what Nora had been? Could you be a cat lady if you only had one cat? What did she want to do with those boxes? She stuck the logbook back in the case, locked the door, and carried the key back to its drawer under the cash register.
“Let’s go see what’s in them,” she answered. “Then we can decide.”
The two climbed the stairs to the attic and dug through a few of the boxes Paige had gathered and stacked by the door. “Some of these books can go up for sale,” she said. “But there are a lot of duplicates.”
“Since you’re wanting this space cleared out, maybe we could move the boxes to the basement,” Neal suggested.
“There’s a basement?” Paige was shocked. She couldn’t remember ever being in the building’s basement as a child or an adult.
Neal nodded. “Ms. Murphy didn’t really use it, but once we had a hot water heater problem, and I had to let the service guys into it.”
“Show me,” Paige said.
Neal led the way back down to the main level, stopped behind the counter to grab a flashlight, and went into the storeroom. Behind a tall metal shelving unit stood a door Nora had never noticed. He opened it to reveal a dark, narrow staircase.
Paige followed Neal into the damp basement. It was not as big as the first level of the store—maybe half that—and there were some old, battered crates lying around. A large wooden panel, perhaps left over from the building’s construction, stood propped against one wall. Three large metal drums took up most of the central floor space. A shuffling sound made Paige think of mice. She had no desire to feel one scurry across her feet. “It’s too damp down here for books,” she said firmly. “I can tell why Aunt Nora never showed me this space. She probably didn’t use it for anything.” She pulled up the neck of her blouse to cover her mouth and keep anything floating in the air from getting inside her lungs. “What’s in those barrels?”
Neal shone his flashlight on one. “There’s no label.” He pulled at the lid but it didn’t budge. “Do you want me to find something to pry it open?”
“No, let’s just get out of here.” She heard the scratching sound again and hurried up the steps. Once upstairs, she brushed the dust off her blouse while Neal rolled the metal shelving unit back into place and stuck the flashlight on it. “We’ll just leave the extra boxes in the attic for now.” What a creepy basement.
The tinkle of the bells on the door drew them back to the front of the store, and Paige sighed when she saw Marco standing there. So far this morning, she’d had zero paying customers and two annoying male visitors.
“Bella!” he cried, reaching out to her.
“Hi, Marco,” she said in a neutral tone, avoiding his hands and air kisses as she approached him. “What’s up?”
“I’ve been on the beach all morning. It’s spectacular. I wish you to come swimming with me.”
“I’m working. I can’t.”
“But you should take some time for yourself,” he insisted. “Have some relaxing time with me. I have sunscreen to butter up on you.”
Paige opened her mouth to tell Marco to take his sunscreen and get lost when the door bells tinkled again. A woman wearing a bikini and flip-flops and holding a bag from Lucy’s bakery stepped in. She ignored Paige, locking her eyes on Marco. “Come on, babe,” she said. “Let’s go back to the beach. I’ll give you some of my cookies.” Her eyes fluttered and Paige almost lost her breakfast.
Marco glanced at Paige and blushed. He raised his hands as if to say, What do you expect a guy to do? He leaned down to brush her cheek and whispered, “Ciao, bella. I hope to see you soon.”
After they left, Neal and Paige spent a few more hours cleaning, organizing, and stocking. Some customers wandered in, and Paige enjoyed talking to them and helping them find books. Not being a people person, she realized books were a subject she didn’t mind discussing. It was actually fun and gave her spirits a much-needed boost.
After Neal left for the day, Paige sat on a tall stool behind the cash register to rest her feet. That was how she used to feel after a long day of cleaning hotel rooms. Maybe Marco was right. Maybe she should take time to walk on the beach for a few minutes each day.
But not now. She wanted to work on the financials for another hour before she closed up for the day. Nora had left at least ten different spreadsheets she needed to figure out. She glanced out the front window. Neal was walking down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. As she watched, a big brown station wagon pulled up beside him. He scrubbed a hand through his hair and bent down to talk into the open passenger window for a moment. He got into the car. She watched it continue down the street past the bookstore. Curious, Paige kept an eye on it to see if she knew the person who’d picked up Neal.
As the car passed the shop, there was no doubt who the huge, red-headed man in the driver’s seat of the station wagon was. It was the rare book dealer, Horace Bellevue.