“It was probably those kids in Hudson Creek again,” Rick said after looking around the place. “We heard about the donut shop, and it sounded like their doing, too.”
Not to be outdone, Darby said, “They’ve been breaking into places and taking selfies for their photomat pages.”
“That’s not what it’s called,” Rick said.
“Who cares? The point is, it’s just vandalism, pure and simple.”
“Probably,” Rick conceded.
“Hang on. That might explain the donut shop, but why would they hit Suzanne’s place?” Grace asked.
“Maybe they are stepping up their game,” Darby said.
“It’s possible,” Rick agreed.
“The real question is, what are you two going to do about it?” Grace asked them as though she were their elementary school teacher.
“We’ll step up the patrols out here,” Rick said.
“That sounds good,” Darby agreed.
“Do I need to call your boss?” she asked them in a scolding tone.
“There’s no need to bring the chief in on this,” Rick said plaintively.
“Yeah, there’s nothing he’d be able to do that we aren’t planning anyway. Do us a favor. Don’t call him, Grace.”
Both men looked so uncomfortable by the prospect of having their boss brought in that I couldn’t bear being the cause of it. “Just keep your eyes open and we won’t call anyone yet,” I said. “I doubt whoever it was will come back after the way I scared them off, anyway.”
“You should have called us first thing when you saw them trying to break in,” Darby scolded me.
“If I’d waited for you, they would have already been inside,” I countered.
“That’s not fair. After all, we got here two minutes after you called,” Rick reminded me.
I couldn’t disagree with him, but it had still been time enough for whoever it was to get in and out again, if they knew what they were looking for. What could that have been, though?
“If there’s nothing else, we have a meeting with the mayor in ten minutes,” Rick said as he glanced at his watch.
“Yeah, he’s trying to give us advice we don’t need and haven’t asked for.”
“Is he the only one doing that?” I asked, suddenly feeling sorry for the pair.
“No, your stepfather has been pretty vocal about pitching in, too. I don’t suppose there’s any chance you wouldn’t mention this to him, is there?”
“Not a single one in the world,” I said. After offering a slight smile, I added, “Sorry about that, but family comes first.”
“I get that,” Rick said as he headed for the door. “Bye, Suzanne.”
“Call us if anything else happens,” Darby added.
“You bet,” I said, thanking them for coming.
“A fat lot of good that did,” Grace said. “I have half a mind to call Stephen and tell him to cut his convention short. We need him back here.”
“Grace, we might not like it, but they were right. What could Chief Grant do that they haven’t already promised to do? Let’s just leave it alone and see what happens.”
“Okay, but I want to go on record saying that I don’t like it.”
“Duly noted,” I said with a smile.
“You’re back home early,” Grace said after we settled down on the couch.
“My friends and loyal customers bought me out,” I said. “The DeAngelis clan even came by in full force.”
“Wow, that must have been something to see.”
“Watching them walk out with five dozen donuts was the real sight. It was the best advertising I could have ever asked for,” I said.
“I bet. So, how was it being back at the helm? Did you see any ghosts?”
I knew what Grace meant, at least I think I did. She wasn’t literally talking about spirits from beyond but specters from my past, including the most recent one. “I had a few queasy moments, but in the end, it was just like being back home again,” I told her. “I desperately needed that.”
“I bet you did. So, what would you like to do today? That is if you have enough energy to do anything.”
“I thought I needed a nap before, but now I’m feeling pretty good. You don’t have to babysit me, you know.”
“I understand that I don’t have to,” Grace said with a grin, “but I want to. As a matter of fact, I can’t think of a better way of spending some of my vacation time than hanging out with you.”
“Then you are showing a severe lack of imagination,” I said with a grin. “But the truth is, that sounds great to me. First things first, though. Let’s see that painting.” I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it all morning at my shop, and I knew that I was ready at last to see what Annabeth had painted for me. After Grace and I opened it, I was going to suggest we go see Alyssa to tell Annabeth’s mother just how much her daughter had meant to me.
“I thought you’d never get around to it,” Grace said with a grin. “Do you want to get it, or should I?”
“I’ll grab it,” I said. “You don’t know the combination.”
“Are you telling me that there’s an actual lock on the door?” Grace asked as she followed me to the closet under the stairs.
“Kind of,” I said as I retrieved the magnet that sprang the lock. After showing her how it was done, I stepped in and took out the painting. It was about the size of a coffee-table book but not nearly as thick. Even though it was wrapped in plain brown paper, I still took pains to open it gently. After all, I didn’t want to take a chance and damage the painting beneath it.
Grace was more of a tear-your-way-in kind of gal. “Come on, Suzanne. It’s just plain old butcher’s paper.”
“Patience is a virtue,” I told her as I stuck my tongue out at her.
“Well, nobody in their right mind has ever accused me of being a virtuous woman,” she said with a grin.
As I began to pull the paper off slowly, something fluttered to the floor. “I wonder what that is?” I asked as I bent down to pick it up.
“I haven’t seen any of this before either, remember?” she asked me.
The sheet had some scribbling on it, but no ordinary person would be able to make out the symbols.
Then again, they hadn’t created a code in school like the three of us had a very long time ago.
I grabbed the notebook I had used the night before and flipped it to the key code. “Grab a pad from the kitchen and write this down,” I told Grace.
She did as I asked, and I started reading aloud as I matched up the symbols of our homemade code with the letters we’d attached them to so long ago.
)$$%*&**(()++!!$#@^&&^$… and on and on.
“What does it say?” I asked Grace as I flipped the sheet over to make sure there was nothing on the back.
HELP ME, PLEASE! SOMEONE IS TRYING TO KILL ME!
“That’s it? That’s all that it says?” I asked Grace.
“You read me the symbols. All I did was write down what you told me.”
“There’s got to be more to it than that,” I said. “Who would want to kill Annabeth? She was one of the sweetest people I knew.”
“You’d be surprised. After all, we all manage to pick up a few enemies along the way, especially the more successful we get in life,” Grace said.
“Thoughts like that make me happy I’m such a nobody,” I said in all sincerity.
“You’re not a nobody to me,” she said. “What is the painting of, anyway?”
“I never got that far. Let’s see,” I said as I finished unwrapping the paper. Grace was still staring at the urgent note Annabeth had left me in code when I said, “Come over here and check this out.”
“What is it, a cow? I’d love to see her rendition of a farm animal. No, it’s probably some wild-looking donut, isn’t it?”
“It’s not the painting I want you to see,” I said as I started to smooth out the wrinkled brown butcher’s paper. Inside, on the interior part that had faced the painting—which I still hadn’t seen—was a series of scrawls, notes, and more code, all in Annabeth’s all-too-familiar handwriting. “What do you make of it?”
“Is it possible she lost her mind there toward the end?” Grace asked me gently. “Most of this is just pure nonsense.”
“Grace, I spoke with her just before I left town, and she was perfectly sane then,” I said.
“I know. It’s as though she’s put all of her scattered thoughts down on this paper, but why did she use it to wrap your gift?”
“Don’t you see? These aren’t random at all. I’m willing to bet my life on it. Somewhere in this jumble, Annabeth was trying to tell us who wanted to kill her. Now it’s up to us to figure it out and bring her murderer to justice.”
“She died from an accident, Suzanne. Remember?”
“Was it, though? Really? How do we know it wasn’t staged to look that way? What if whoever killed her wanted the world to think that it was purely accidental?”
“I don’t know,” Grace said, clearly troubled. “Everyone just assumed that she fell off the ladder and hit her head on the side of her work table. Stephen seemed to be sure of it.” It was clear that she didn’t want anything to reflect badly on her boyfriend, but we couldn’t ignore the facts. Still, I didn’t have to beat her over the head with it.
“Grace, Stephen thought it was an accident because he didn’t have all of the facts we do. If Annabeth hadn’t left us this hodgepodge of information and a note to tell us what she suspected might happen to her, we would have accepted it, too.”
“That’s true,” Grace said. “We need to figure out what she was trying to tell us and then see if we can find her killer ourselves.”
“Should we tell Rick and Darby what we’ve discovered?” I asked, though it was the last thing I wanted to do. Annabeth had entrusted this to me, and I meant to see it through.
“I don’t think there’s any reason to alert anyone just yet,” Grace said. “After all, we’re assuming that Annabeth was right and not just being paranoid. Let’s dig into this a little deeper, and then we can decide what we’re going to do about it.”
I looked at her steadily before I spoke again. “Is there any doubt in your mind that we’re going to try to find the person who killed our friend?” I asked her.
“Not a chance in the world,” Grace said with stiff resolve.
“Then grab that paper and let’s get started,” I said. Almost as an afterthought, I flipped the painting over and looked to see what she’d painted for me.
The canvas was blank!
It was clear that the message on the butcher paper was what was important, but I was still a little disappointed that I wouldn’t get one last painting from my late friend.