Alice sneaked out of the Pemberley Inn without being seen by Ona. She hurried along the sidewalk, head down, avoiding eye contact with any of the passersby.
She only looked up when she reached the bookstore. The back looked even more ruinous in the bright morning sunshine, and the gaping hole in the roof forced her to admit that the firefighters had been right to call the place unsafe.
Someone called her name from across the street. She pretended not to hear, turning away. She put her head down again and power-walked toward her destination.
Bonsai & Pie was open for business again. A customer tried to push open the door, her arms full of pie boxes. Alice held the door for her.
“Oh, thank you,” the woman said, and then her eyes widened, apparently recognizing who she was speaking to. “Are you all right?”
The whole town must know what had happened. Heck, half of them had been standing in front of Blithedale Books when the wall collapsed. And, thanks to Becca, most of those people had gathered for a photo outside What the Dickens Diner.
Alice mumbled, “Fine, thanks,” then slipped into the cafe.
Andrea stood behind the counter, serving another customer. She wore a tank top under an apron. Her neck, as before, was as bare as her head. It was like the gap in a puzzle, a piece conspicuously absent. This morning, Alice would complete the puzzle.
“Thank you,” Andrea said. “And have a nice day.”
The customer hurried out with his pie box, a hungry glint in his eyes.
Andrea turned her attention to Alice and put a hand to her chest.
“Alice,” she said. “You had us all so worried. How are you feeling?”
She was a good actress. If Alice didn’t know better, Andrea would’ve convinced her. But Alice’s accident wouldn’t make Vince’s killer lose sleep. She knew Alice was asking questions. If the collapsing wall had killed Alice, wouldn’t that have been convenient?
Once she’d assured Andrea that she was all right, she put her hand in her pocket and, watching Andrea, drew out the necklace with the heart pendant reattached.
“I believe this means a lot to you.”
Andrea gasped and took a step back. Her face went rigid, yet her lips trembled when she said, “I don’t know what you mean. Half of Blithedale owns a necklace.”
“Vince bought this one.”
“Vince,” she said, and let out a long sigh. “How did you find it?”
Alice shook her head. “I found it at the bookstore.”
Alice tried to speak as softly as she could, hoping Andrea had been bottling up this terrible secret and actually wanted to confess. “Vince had secrets. And he played with people’s feelings. He played with your feelings, too, didn’t he? Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
Andrea put a hand to her cheek. Her eyes filled with tears.
“He said—” Her voice cracked. “He said he loved me. He bought me a necklace to prove we were one heart. He was making a lot of money and promised he’d take me places: France, Mexico, the Bahamas.”
Her gaze became dreamy, sad, settling on something in the distance.
Alice said, “But he didn’t take you, did he?”
Andrea shook her head. “He kept delaying. I’d ask when. He’d say soon. Finally, I confronted him. I said I couldn’t keep this a secret any longer. I wanted us to be together. I wanted him to choose.”
“You mean between you and Susan?”
Andrea nodded. “He said he’d leave her. Then delayed again. Until one night—” She stifled a sob. “He told me it was over. Just like that. Cold. Matter of fact. No more ‘baby’ or ‘sweetheart.’ He said, ‘Andrea, you knew this couldn’t last. Don’t pretend—this isn’t some girlie fantasy.’ I couldn’t believe how cruel he was. It was like I’d never known him.” She gave a bitter laugh. “That was the real fantasy—the idea that he was a decent person. He was 100 percent selfish, only focused on himself and what he could get out of others.”
“What happened then?”
Andrea shrugged. “Nothing. I went back to my old life. More alone than I’d ever felt. In fact, on the day he died, I closed the cafe for a while to visit MacDonald Realty. I’d been grappling with this idea—well, I might as well tell you. I decided to sell Bonsai & Pie.”
“You what?” Alice had expected a denial of closing the store. “You went to Mayor MacDonald to talk about putting the cafe up for sale? On the day Vince died?”
“I did. But thank God nobody was there. They were out of the office at meetings. So I took a long, long walk, all the way up into the woods. I have a little cabin. It’s my hideaway.”
The word sent a jolt through Alice.
Andrea said, “It’s the only place I feel like myself. I can think things through. Does that make sense?”
Alice nodded.
“So that’s what I did. I thought things through. My head cleared. Part of my heart did, too. I realized this: Vince was a jerk. He didn’t deserve the grief I felt. By the time I returned to my cafe, I had dropped the idea of selling.”
“After I talked to you, you went back, didn’t you? You hid in the cabin.”
“You could call it hiding,” Andrea said. “I needed to think. Get clarity. If you knew about Vince, others would too. I’m not proud of having an affair with a married man. I thought I could keep it a secret. After giving it some thought, I decided I couldn’t hide forever. I love this town. I love my little business.”
“On the day Vince died, can anyone vouch for where you were?”
Andrea laughed. “Come on, Alice. You’re joking. What is this—an interrogation?”
Something on Alice’s face, maybe her seriousness, convinced Andrea that this was no joke.
“You think I killed Vince?”
“I found your necklace at the scene of the crime.”
“But Alice,” Andrea said, opening a drawer next to the display counter, “that’s not my necklace.”
She pulled out a necklace, identical to the one Alice was holding and held it up. It even had a single heart pendant.
“This is the necklace Vince gave me.”