“We’re certainly making up for our lack of walks today, aren’t we buddy?” Ellie said to Beau as they made their way back toward Queen Street. She hoped that Ma’May wouldn’t be too annoyed with her extended trip and that the quick text she’d sent was enough to keep her from worrying.
She was headed to Dearly Mine in search of just what exactly Dave Ainsley had ordered. His wording hadn’t sat well with her and there had been an unexpected bitterness in his voice. Not that he didn’t deserve to be bitter, but until that moment he’d only been sad. Only with the mention of the jeweler did he turn from sad and a touch angry to bitter.
It was a twenty-five minute walk from the Ainsley’s house to Dearly Mine, and Ellie was certainly starting to regret her lack of exercise by time she got there. She hadn't considered herself out of shape, though she wasn’t exactly fit, but she never considered herself unhealthy.
But Queen Street was slightly uphill and by time she got to Dearly Mine she found herself too hot in her jacket and her breath was as heavy as Beau’s panting. Right then and there, she resolved to get out and walk her dog more, if not for her own sake, then for Beau’s.
Before she went into the jeweler’s, Ellie tried to come up with an excuse for being there. She couldn’t exactly go in and just flat out ask what Dave had been looking for while he was there, that would lead to too many questions. She had to play this one smart and get the jeweler to offer up the information of his own free will.
Thinking back to her favorite mysteries, Ellie tried to come up with a cover and came up empty. She was going to have to wing it, but knew she had to be sure to not just ask the one question she wanted an answer to.
With her breath steady again, Ellie pulled open the door and found Gerald Pataki behind the counter of the store he owned with his wife. Gerald was short, round, and didn’t look like the kind of man whose fingers were nimble enough to work with the small stones and tools a jeweller needed. Which was fine, because it wasn’t him who did that work. It was his wife Hilda, a short, birdlike woman with long, slender fingers that were exactly what the profession called for that did all the delicate work.
For Gerald’s part, he was the one who worked with the customers. Ellie hadn’t seen them much since moving home, but she remembered the couple from when she and her father would go into Dearly Mine to pick out Ellie’s mom’s birthday gift together every year.
“Hi Gerald,” Ellie called out to the store owner as she pulled open the front door. “Do you want me to leave Beau outside?”
Gerald looked up from the newspaper he was reading and flashed her a smile. “Ellie? Ellie Reid, is that you? Of course you can bring your dog in, if he’s well behaved.”
“He definitely is,” she assured him. “And yes, it’s me.”
“I heard you were back in town,” Gerald said. “My, it’s been what, five years?”
“Eleven,” Ellie corrected. “And way too long at that.”
“I’ll say!” Gerald agreed. “Hilda would be happy to see you, but she ran out to get us some lunch.”
“Oh that’s a shame,” Ellie said, but she wasn’t exactly being honest. As a girl, Hilda had scared her some. There was a reason Hilda stayed in the back of the store and Gerald ran the counter. Hilda always carried a menacing look and wasn’t very versed in the rules of customer service. She was blunt, a little rude, and a perfectionist. Her custom jewelry was second to none, but she wouldn’t have ever sold a single piece if not for the fact that her husband was so good at talking to people.
“What brings you in, my dear?” Gerald asked her. “I doubt it was just to say hello.”
Ellie chuckled. “You got me there,” she admitted. “I’m actually looking for...”
She trailed off. Just what was she looking for? She hadn’t exactly gotten that far when trying to think of what to say. She couldn’t just stand there in a stupor. She had to come up with something!
“I’m looking for a little gift for myself,” she told him. “I actually got divorced recently, and thought maybe some jewelry would be a nice treat to myself to celebrate my second attempt at being a single woman.”
Ellie knew it was coming, and realized it was a necessary evil as part of her plan. In an instant, Gerald’s round, smiling face fell some and his head tilted slightly to the right. “Oh, I’m sorry, dear,” he said. “How are you holding up?”
It was the same look she’d seen half a million times, the one everyone gave her when she mentioned the recent dissolving of her marriage. The look of pity that was supposed to be sweet and caring, but was so formulaic that Ellie was starting to wonder if it was rehearsed.
While seeing that look did nothing but annoy her, Ellie powered through. She’d come this far and a little pity wasn’t going to turn her around now.
“Oh, I’m doing quite well,” she assured him. “I’m running the bookstore with my grandmother now, and love being back in Dundurn. I honestly don’t know why I stayed away so long.”
A couple months earlier, those sentiments might not have rung entirely true, but Ellie meant every word she said. Dundurn was home, and she was happy there. If anyone thought otherwise, that was fine with her. Their opinions of her life held no bearing on her. That was something she wished she’d realized earlier.
Gerald’s face brightened again and the thick sheen of pity left his eyes. “I’m glad to hear it!” he beamed at her. “So a treat for yourself then?”
“Yes,” Ellie told him. “Something that screams I am strong and independent, but doesn’t break the bank.” She realized she may have to go through with actually buying something and despite being happy to be single again, divorce was expensive. Ellie didn’t exactly have the money to front anything too extravagant right now. She vowed not to spend more than a couple hundred dollars on herself in the name of investigating.
As Gerald showed her some of his wares, Ellie began to realize that the idea of a treat wasn’t that hard to swallow. The last thing she’d really purchased for herself had been a new suit to wear to court on the final hearing for her divorce from Alex, which had turned a bit nastier than she’d wanted. A piece of jewelry might be exactly what she deserved for powering through what was easily the most difficult two years of her life.
“What about this amethyst piece?” Gerald asked her as he held up a chunky purple and silver necklace. “It would go great with your blonde hair and really bring out the green in your eyes.”
Gerald handed the necklace over to Ellie, who almost dropped it. The weight of it was more than she expected and she immediately scrunched her nose and handed it back to him.
“Maybe not something so heavy,” she told him. “I get headaches sometimes and that will only make them worse.” Sometimes was an understatement for Ellie’s headaches. Any weight on her neck was an instant trigger and anything more than a glass of wine would have her running for the painkillers and a jug of water. Her curly hair was kept at shoulder length to avoid the weight of it pulling on her head and she saw a chiropractor once a month to keep everything in check.
The chiropractor visits had fallen to the wayside since she’d moved home which she suddenly remembered as her neck twinged. She’d yet to book an appointment with Doctor DeBoer, Dundurn’s only chiropractor, even though Ma’May kept insisting that she should. Ellie knew her grandmother was right and vowed to make an appointment when she got home.
Of course, that was if she remembered to.
“How about this one?” Gerald asked as he moved to a small gold pendant on a delicate chain. “Something feminine and dainty?”
Ellie shook her head again. “A little too dainty, I think,” she told him and then let out an awkward laugh. “Sorry, I’m being difficult,” she apologized.
“Don’t worry, my dear,” he assured her. “That’s what I’m here for. I don’t blame you for being a little indecisive after what happened.”
Ellie laughed again. “That was months ago Gerald, I’m fine!”
“Not the divorce,” he said, turning solemn. “About what happened at your store.”
Ellie’s laugh died quickly at that. Gerald was totally correct, but on the bright side he’d given her the opening she’d been looking for.
“What a tragedy,” Ellie sighed, and she meant it. “One minute we were talking about a book and it feels like the next minute she was gone. I’d hate to think someone would do that to her.”
Gerald nodded his head. “I hate to think those rumors are true,” he agreed. “But a healthy young woman doesn’t just drop dead. Maybe it was an accident of some kind and not what some people are insinuating.”
“I’m with you there,” Ellie agreed. “And I’d just spoken to Dave a couple days before,” she went on with a bit of a white lie. “He told me he had plans to come here himself, now he won’t get the chance.”
“He did though,” Gerald said as he rubbed his rounded chin. “Come in, that is. Placed an order for something to be customized. Hilda just finished it this morning, if he still wants it. We put a bit of a rush on it for him.”
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate that,” Ellie told him. “In fact, I was thinking of paying him a visit,” Ellie told Gerald, another white lie. “What would you say to me picking up what he ordered and bringing it to him? I’m happy to pay for it, of course.”
That last bit was a touch of a white lie as well. She could only hope that Dave hadn’t busted the bank on the jewelry he’d purchased and that there was enough in her account to cover the cost of it. Dearly Mine’s jewelry was normally quite affordable, being in a small town such as Dundurn without a large clientele of wealthy customers, but she’d seen some of the tags in the shop and five figures wasn’t unheard of.
Gerald gave her an uncertain look as he rubbed his chin harder. The wheels in his mind were turning furiously by the strained expression on his moon shaped face. Ellie imagined that he was debating whether it was riskier to let her buy a piece of jewelry that someone else had ordered or to end up never selling it at all.
“I think that’s a lovely idea,” Gerald settled on. Perhaps if he hadn’t known Ellie since she was a little girl, their conversation would have gone differently, but he’d relented and went to the back to grab the custom ordered gift.
Ellie’s eyes trailed over the sparkling jewels as she waited for Gerald to return. Her gaze fell on the cabinet right by the register, the one with the bright strips of pure white light and sparkling stones that dazzled bright like stars. Ellie knew this cabinet well.
As a girl, she was always drawn to the pretty, pure white diamonds over the colorful gems that filled the rest of the shop. She dreamed of marrying young, just like Ma’May had done with Ellie’s late grandfather, and then Ellie’s own father. Both were married at twenty and had their first and only child by twenty-one.
Her marriage to Alex had come a couple years later than she’d expected, but it hadn’t put a damper on her plans. Chicago had been expensive, work had been time consuming, but she never gave up, even when life decided to make things hard for her.
“Here you go,” Gerald said, running Ellie’s train of thought off the tracks. In Gerald’s stubby fingers was a small, pale pink shopping bag that had Dearly Mine stamped in gold letters and it had white tissue paper sticking out the top. He placed the little bag on the counter and moved to the register.
“I really appreciate this,” Ellie said as she fished her wallet out of her bag. She wasn’t exactly sure how much her bank account was going to appreciate it.
“Please,” Gerald said as he punched numbers into the old cash register. It wasn’t so old to be an antique, but it wasn’t fancy and new like the touchscreens of today. “You’re doing me and Mr. Ainsley a big favor. With everything that’s happened, I’m going to sell you the bracelet at cost.”
That alone was some relief, and Ellie smiled at him. “Thank you,” she told him earnestly. She knew he didn’t need to do that, and she was relieved that the cost might not be as bad as she was expecting.
“The total is two-hundred and sixty-five dollars,” he told her. “We did the engraving for free, of course. Did you still want to look at something for yourself?”
Ellie sighed. She did want to look at something for herself. Once the idea was planted in her mind, she realized that she really did want a treat, but looking down at Beau and then the number that was already on the register, she thought better of it.
“I guess not,” she said with a soft laugh. “But I will be back,” she promised him as she handed over her card and watched him swipe it on the old card reader. Secretly, Ellie told herself that if she could find a way to clear Dave’s name and find out what really happened to Abbie, she’d be back at Dearly Mine for a treat she really deserved.
With a ding of the cash register, Gerald finished the sale and handed the bag over to Ellie. It was light, almost like there was nothing in it at all, but she didn’t question him as she let Beau know they were leaving and headed out the front door.
Now what? Ellie thought to herself as they stepped out into the afternoon autumn sun. She had the jewelry and knew there was some custom engraving on it, but she needed to know what that engraving was. It might hold a clue as to why the piece of jewelry had been worth Dave’s bitterness.
Ellie was so wrapped up in her thoughts about the little bag she carried in her hand that she almost walked right into Owen Mathers. Beau gave out a little whine just in time for Ellie to look up and see that he was only two feet in front of her, distracted by his phone.
“Owen, I’m sorry!” Ellie said as she tripped over her own feet in an attempt to stop.
Owen held out a hand for her to catch. With his help, Ellie stopped herself in mid-tumble while Beau barked at his mistress’s antics. His familiar dark brown eyes were exactly the ones she remembered from their two dates back in high school. He’d been sweet, but a little clingy and Ellie had ended it before it even got started.
“Ellie?” he asked. “Ellie Reid, is that you? Or should I say Ellie Meier?”
“Reid,” she confirmed. “I never did change my name when I got married and now I’m unmarried, so I guess that worked out for the best.”
“Oh wow, that’s crazy,” Owen said. “I didn’t even know you were back in town until I heard about, well, you know what.”
She did know what, but that wasn’t the part that floored her. Owen Mathers didn’t give her that pitying head tilt that she’d learned to despise very quickly. If anything, he looked excited to see her.
“Yup,” Ellie sighed. “I went to see Dave –”
Owen cut her off before she could continue. “Poor guy,” Owen said. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, or lady for that matter. And just as they were about to celebrate, too.”
“Celebrate?” Ellie asked. “What were they celebrating?”
“I wish I knew,” Owen said. “Last few months at work, oh I forgot to mention that Dave and I work together down at the plant! Anyway, last few months he’s been real excited about something and wouldn’t tell a soul what it was. Caught him singing to himself a few times!”
“Dave Ainsley?” Ellie had to chuckle. “Singing? Like what?”
“I could never tell,” Owen said as he ran his fingers through his full beard. “With his welding mask on and sparks flying it was always muffled, but he was definitely singing away while he worked.”
“That is certainly unexpected,” Ellie had to note, and then a sudden wave of guilt hit her. “I’m sorry Owen!” she said with a friendly laugh. “I haven’t even asked how you’re doing. What’s new? It’s been years!”
“Don’t you worry about it,” Owen assured her. “But I’m good. Real good. Crystal and I got married last year and we’re saving up for our first house.”
Ellie searched her brain for the name Crystal. She wasn’t sure if she knew anyone by that name in Dundurn, maybe the woman was a recent transplant to the small town with the new subdivision.
And then it hit her. “Crystal Pilgrim?” she asked, a little shocked, but not unpleasantly. Crystal Pilgrim had been a freshman while Owen and her had been seniors. If she remembered correctly, Crystal had been what Tina Fey would have called a ‘Mean Girl’ in a teen comedy. The main thing Ellie remembered about her was her designer clothing, which meant expensive tracksuits with words across the bum, long platinum blonde hair, and a penchant for laughing at anyone who wasn’t herself.
“One and the same,” Owen said with a boastful grin. “I can tell by your face that you’re shocked.”
“Well,” Ellie admitted. Owen had been a sweet guy, maybe too sweet, and she couldn’t imagine seeing him with a girl like Crystal.
“Hey, I was shocked too when we reconnected when she moved back from college,” he admitted. “But things are great.”
“Good,” Ellie told him with a smile, and she meant it. It was nice to see Owen so happy. “You guys should come by the bookstore sometime,” she told him. “Ma’May will be happy to see you, I’m sure.”
“Yeah,” Owen said, but he didn’t look too certain. “You know me, I’ve never really been much of a book person.”
That much was true. On their first date he’d told Ellie the last book he read for fun was in second grade. She’d given him another date to be polite, but that was one thing she couldn’t look past. She loved books more than she loved almost anything else in life and being with someone who didn’t at least enjoy them was not something that she could look past.
“Well, I hope you will come by,” Ellie told him. “But I should run. Beau needs a water break.”
That part was an excuse, but Owen didn’t need to know that. In reality, she still had work to do and didn’t think she could waste a minute of time. Dave’s reputation was on the line and the longer she took proving his innocence, the harder it would be to make the rumors go away.
She barely made it around the corner when Ellie stopped to open the little bag from Dearly Mine. She knew it was prying and perhaps not really any of her business, but she rationalized that it was for the greater good.
Inside the little bag was a small box in matching pink. Ellie was careful, but the tissue paper still managed to get away from her and fluttered down the street in the breeze. “Dang it,” Ellie grumbled, but she kept going and opened the box to reveal a silver charm bracelet with a single charm dangling from it. On that charm was an inscription that read ‘Paige’.
Ellie was hoping there would be answers in that box, but instead she only got more questions. Why was Dave so happy? Who was Paige? Did it have something to do with Abbie’s death?
She didn’t have answers to any of those questions, but she knew she had to find them. The first question on Ellie’s mind was where to go next to start to unravel the mystery she’d found herself in.