“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
—J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
“Why am I not surprised to find you two skulking around my crime scene and getting into more trouble?”
Quinn couldn’t believe her ears. “Getting into trouble? Did you hit your head on the way over here? Because from where I’m standing, I’m quite the helper.”
Sister Daria pretended to scowl. “Ahem.” She gestured back and forth between them with her forefinger. “We are quite the helpers.”
Quinn gave a brisk nod. “Apologies, cousin … we would appreciate a little, well … appreciation.”
Aiden towered over her, arms crossed. “And I’m trying to catch a killer, something I can’t do if you’re tampering with evidence.”
“But she didn’t!” Daria said, elbowing her. “Show him.”
Quinn reached into her messenger bag. “Yes, let me show you, my doubting detective, oh ye of little faith.” She pulled out the clean plastic doggie bag and pencil. “See? I used these as a makeshift glove and stylus. Clever, eh?”
Sister Daria tossed her fiery-red hair over her shoulder, raising her chin. “We’re ready for that mea culpa–slash–thank-you anytime now.”
Aiden gazed up to the heavens, muttering, “Deliver me” under his breath.
Quinn leaned into her cousin. “I don’t think that’s an apology.”
Daria gave him the stink eye. “No, I don’t think it is. Rude, by the way.”
Aiden opened his mouth to respond, but then a squad car pulled up to the curb—flashing lights and all—where the three of them were standing. RBG pressed her body into Quinn’s legs, something she did when she was in protective mode. Officer Reynolds and Shae Johnson unfolded themselves from the car. Quinn stroked RBG’s head and down her back, letting her know everything was okay.
Sister Daria’s whole face scrunched, like something reeked. “Oh don’t look now, but the other one without manners is here too.” She straightened her spine as they approached. “Just so you know, I’m this close”—she held up her thumb and forefinger, an inch apart—“to reporting your conduct to your superior.”
“Good afternoon to you too, Sister.” Officer Reynolds adjusted the holster on his belt. He looked to be around their age, with sable-colored hair and brown eyes. He would’ve been more handsome if his face wasn’t set in a permanent scowl. But it was, so he wasn’t.
As Quinn watched Officers Johnson and Reynolds standing side by side, something hit her. “Wait a second—aren’t you usually partnered with Officer Carter?”
Now it was Shae’s turn to frown. “The captain thought it’d be good for me to partner with Officer Reynolds for a little while.”
Sister Daria barked out a laugh. “You mean he’s hoping you’ll teach him how to behave, since everyone witnessed how awful he’s been to Quinn.” She met Wyatt’s gaze. “Who, by the way, is innocent of any crime you may think she’s committed in that head of yours.”
That vein in the middle of his forehead was beating like a drum again, but Shae gave him a “don’t go there” glare, so he didn’t take her cousin’s bait. “We heard over the radio, you found evidence relating to Trish’s murder?”
Quinn and Daria locked eyes, both thinking the same thing: for a new cop in town, he sure sounded familiar with Tricia Pemberley. Only those closest to her were allowed to call her “Trish.”
Her cousin pointed toward the fence line. “Yes, it’s right there, exactly where we found it.”
That’s when Quinn noticed Shae Johnson was holding a couple of evidence bags and latex gloves.
Aiden reached out. “Here, let me,” he instructed.
She gave them over. He slid on the gloves and opened the evidence bag, bending down to the grass, in a fluid motion, to retrieve Tricia’s phone, then sealing it right away. She couldn’t help but marvel at the grace of his movements, at how someone so built could move with such ease.
Wyatt Reynolds stepped forward. “I’m happy to take those in for you, sir.”
Sister Daria huffed. “Oh, so you can try and frame my cousin for murder? I don’t think so.”
His face turned beet-red. “You know, just ’cause you sometimes wear that penguin getup doesn’t mean I won’t cite you for interfering with this investigation.”
Sister Daria stepped forward, getting right in his face. “Calling you out on your offensive and biased conduct isn’t a crime, Officer Reynolds. But harassing innocent citizens of this town is, the last time I checked.”
Spittle gathered in the corners of his mouth. “You know what else is a crime? Planting evidence and pretending it’s something you found.”
She reared back.
Quinn piped in. “She would never—I would never do such a thing!”
His eyes squinted. “Pretty convenient if you ask me, finding her phone.”
Officer Johnson tugged at his sleeve. “You need to back up, Reynolds,” she told him. “Besides, hate to break it to you, but it’s plausible we missed this one, with the phone case blending in with the grass and it being just outside our search radius.” Shae Johnson kept going. “And think about it: Why would Quinn have called us—twice—if she were guilty?”
Officer Reynolds scowled. “Because she wants to appear innocent.” He tapped his head. “Reverse psychology.”
It was now Quinn’s turn to look up to the heavens and mutter, “Deliver me.”
Aiden approached him. He was a good four to five inches taller than Wyatt, and Quinn noticed how Officer Reynolds thrust his chin out and squared his shoulders back—a shorter man’s habit, one she remembered Scott doing often. Quinn felt like Jane Goodall with an ape in the wild, seeing the runt attempting some sort of dominance in spite of being out-alphaed.
“I’m going to have Shae submit the evidence, Reynolds. That way there’s no chance of anyone being accused of impropriety. And I suggest you rein in that attitude. If I have to warn you again, I will not hesitate to write you up. Do we understand each other?”
Reynolds’s cheeks puffed out like a blowfish. Quinn could almost taste the bitter in his mouth.
“Yes, sir,” he muttered.
“I’ll check these into evidence straightaway,” Officer Johnson said, her gaze settling on the cousins. “Our tech guys will comb through her data. This is an important find. Thanks.”
Daria threw her hands up. “See? Now that’s how you say thank-you.”
Quinn ignored her cousin’s outburst. “I read a study by the United Nations that stated while most men are murdered by a stranger, the majority of women—I think it was fifty-eight percent—are murdered by a partner or family member.”
Three pairs of eyes stared back at her.
“What? It means her phone will, most likely, have pertinent personal info to lead you to her killer. That’s a good thing.”
Officer Reynolds’s mouth was hanging open. “Now how and why do you have that kind of information?”
Aiden and Sister Daria said in unison. “That’s just Quinn.”
She ignored both of them. “Anyway, it’s going to help loads.” She shoved her hands deep into her pockets. “Especially if she’s like most people our age. We live on our phones.”
“Right, well, I’ll meet you two back at the station in a bit,” Aiden said to the officers.
“All right.” Shae took the filled evidence bags from him. “You two? Maybe leave the rest of the police work to us from now on.”
She might have made it sound like a question, but there was no mistaking that it was a command. Shae wrapped her hand around the bend of Officer Reynolds’s elbow, almost dragging him back to the squad car like a stubborn mule.
As soon as they were inside the car and headed in the opposite direction, Quinn let out a sigh of relief. “Well, glad that’s done.”
“Indeed.” Daria glanced at the time on her phone. “I need to get back to the abbey.”
“Yeah, I need to get to the bookstore. I have a ton of projects to work on.”
Aiden’s gray eyes darkened, something she noticed they did whenever he had a lot on his mind, as if he had his own rain clouds following him around. “Listen, you two finding that phone … it’s appreciated, but Reynolds made a point others can make just as easily.”
Her eyes widened. “What—that we planted that phone there? That’s ridiculous.”
He blew out an exasperated breath. “You know that and I know that. But others don’t. The more time I have to spend proving you’re innocent, the less time goes into finding out who’s guilty.”
He had a point there.
“But your cousin is right,” he added, taking a couple of steps into Quinn’s space, close enough for her to catch a hint of his soap-and-cotton scent. “You two found something my entire team missed.”
Her gaze focused on the tops of his shoes, suddenly too shy to meet his eye. “Oh, well, it’s understandable, with that green cover and the tall grass not being mowed by the fence. Anyone could’ve missed it.”
“Everyone else did miss it, but not you,” he said, his stare so strong she felt it warm her skin. “I’d try recruiting you for the police force, but Adele and Finn would tan my hide for even thinking it.”
She looked up, to determine if he was teasing her or not, but all she could see was him beaming down at her like the sun framed around his head. Her mouth went bone dry.
“C’mon, let me give you both a ride.”
Quinn should’ve known something was up as soon as she walked into the bookstore. Instead of being at her garden, hosting the Walk on the Hill, her mom was behind the register. That was her first clue. Being greeted by her pained expression? That was clue number two.
“Oh, honey, I didn’t know you were planning on coming in today. I would’ve told you to take the day off, especially after that ghastly scene at the police station.”
Usually Mama Caine welcomed her with a warm smile or chilled tea. Her dad would glance up from his book, his round spectacles perched on his forehead like a hood ornament, and give a short nod before returning to his reading. And then, if it was busy, Quinn would pitch in behind the counter, serving drip coffee, wine, or a variety of easily assembled nibbles. If it was quiet, she’d retreat to her office in the back.
It was late Saturday afternoon, and besides her parents, there wasn’t another soul in the entire store. She double-checked the time on her watch: it was just shy of five o’clock, exactly when the place should’ve been abuzz with people enjoying glasses of sauvignon blanc or a cold pale ale. Usually, there would already be customers assembled on the white leather cushion stools in a row by the counter while others would be seated outside on the front patio.
They were more than customers, really. They were her neighbors and friends, people she’d known all her life, as well as new faces of those who had just moved to Vienna. Because Prose & Scones was more than a bookstore: it was the town’s unofficial welcome center.
One of the ways the Caines made everyone feel at home was by planting annuals and tending to the perennials in the patio’s surrounding flower boxes. Virginia bluebells, three-petaled purple spiderworts, and orange daylilies as bright and brilliant as summer decorated the outside of their shop. Even though the town did a splendid job of landscaping, mother and daughter took it upon themselves to do some extra gardening along the green patch that divided the street from the sidewalk. Not too much—just a little something-something, to make their slice of Vienna more colorful and fabulous.
There was also a lovely bench nearby, painted with classic book titles under stars, parked right before the patio entrance. That was Quinn’s preferred seat when they weren’t hard at work, not only because the bench artist had depicted copies of her favorite books but also because of its ideal placement in the sun.
Quinn froze by the register, the perfect vantage point to survey everything around her: the store, the patio, and the bench—all vacant. If it weren’t for the Spotify playlist strumming in the background, there wouldn’t have been a sound.
That is, until the toilet flushed.
Her father emerged from the bathroom, surprise coloring his features as soon as he spotted Quinn. “Oh, we should have called.” He plastered on a smile. “Go home and rest. You’ve had a day of it already.”
“Wow, you two really suck at this whole distracting thing.” She whizzed past her mama at the register and then her dad by the lavatory. “Excuse me, I have work to do.”
Before either could stop her, Quinn had made her way to the back of the store and opened the door to her office.
As usual, there was her desk, felt-lined, with many of her bookbinding tools laid out like a surgeon’s instruments: her awl, different-sized bone folders, and her favorite English backing hammer. On the shelves she had stocked a variety of adhesives, small rolls of linen tape, stacks of book boards, and a ream of white woven bound paper.
The adjoining bookcase housed all her current bookbinding projects. Not long ago, the well-maintained piece had been teeming with old books and photo albums, aged yearbooks and rare diaries—assignments that would take her months to refurbish. On last count, she was working on three simultaneously, with over forty in the queue.
It only took her five seconds to ascertain that she was now down to twenty-three.
Hot tears stung her eyes as Quinn tried to swallow the sorrow lodged in her throat. A large, warm hand rested on her shoulder. A chin nestled on top of her head.
“They’ll come back around. You’ll see,” her dad said into her hair.
“These are supposed to be my people. They’ve known me forever.” Quinn willed her voice steady. “How could they think I would do such a thing?”
He turned her around to face him. “They don’t know what to think, with the shock of it all. What you’re witnessing is a knee-jerk reaction. Not many may have liked Tricia Pemberley, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t feeling this loss in a profound way.”
Her mother hurried over. “Listen to him, honey. What you’re seeing is a small sample size, not the majority.”
“Not by a long shot,” her father added.
Quinn couldn’t help but balk. “How can you say that when there’s not one customer in here, and with half the projects gone!”
“Because I’m older than you and, hence, can take the long view.” Her father pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Give them time. Soon they’ll remember who they are, and then they’ll remember who you are.”
Adele stroked her daughter’s hair, cupping her chin in her hand. “The people who took back their books were people who don’t know you—or our family—well at all. You stay strong, you hear me? This here’s just a tiny glitch on the radar. It’ll pass, no matter how big a mouth Milly Hauser has.”
The blood drained from her face. “Is Scott’s mom telling everyone I killed Tricia?”
“Adele,” her father warned.
She gave him her “oh hush” look. “It’s better she hears it from us than from some other busybody out there.” Adele let go of Quinn’s face. “She’s carrying on, saying you must’ve been more devastated by his engagement than you let on and that you convinced yourself that if Tricia was out of the way, Scott would find his way back to you.”
Quinn pressed the backs of her fingers to her lips, trying not to vomit.
“If it’s any consolation, you’re not the only one Milly’s indicting. She also castigated Trina, right in front of King and Cole.”
King & Cole was the local funeral home. Founded in 1881, it was also the oldest business in town.
“What did she say?”
Her mother brushed wisps of hair out of her way. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I only heard what happened secondhand, on our way into the store today. Supposedly everything started off fine enough. The Hausers accompanied the Pemberleys to make all the arrangements. But as they were leaving the funeral home, Milly Hauser started carrying on, right there on the street, in front of everyone, how she wouldn’t be surprised if Trina turned out to be the killer because she was raving mad with jealousy over her twin marrying first, especially to such a prize as her son.”
Quinn blinked. “Wow, she’s even more delusional than I thought.”
“Milly Hauser may not be my favorite individual, but she’s a mother who loves her children. Seeing your child in pain is an extraordinary hell I don’t wish on anyone.”
Her father stretched up to turn off the light in the back office. “Indeed, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that William and Abigail Pemberley are the grieving parents—not Millicent Hauser.”
“Dad, why are you shutting off the light? I was about to go in there and get some work done.”
He peered down, his spectacles slipping down to the tip of his aquiline nose. “I’m calling time of death on the workday.”
Quinn groaned. “Dad jokes? Really?”
Her mother glanced at the watch on her wrist. “But we don’t close until eight.”
Finn Caine cleared his throat. “I am very well aware, love of my life, but after selling only two coffees and a tacky greeting card so far, I say we pack it in.”
Adele’s hands went to her hips. “Excuse me, but we don’t sell ‘tacky’ greeting cards.”
His brows perked up. “The card said, ‘Everyone wants your opinion. Signed, Alcohol.’”
Quinn laughed, snorting a little. Adele let out a titter.
“Fine, let’s close early. We now have ourselves a free Saturday night. Any suggestions?” her mother asked him.
His impish glint faded away. “As much as I’d prefer to take my bride out, we need to go to Whole Foods and stock up.”
“For what?” Quinn asked.
Awareness set into her mother’s features. “He’s right. We need to make a meal for the Pemberleys. Offer our condolences, even if the funeral’s delayed because they’re waiting on the autopsy.”
The idea of Tricia being the subject of such an invasive examination was almost too much for Quinn to bear. She turned her head away, willing herself not to lose it.
Finn Caine brought her in for a hug. “Listen, kiddo, deep down the Hauser’s and the Pemberley’s know you didn’t do this heinous thing. But you’re a walking, breathing reminder of what was taken from them. Milly may be letting her ire out on you, but that won’t last. Carlson has always known how to calm his wife. He’ll get her to reason. Then, soon enough, the real culprit will be found and brought to justice.”
Her mother joined their hug. “Until then, hold onto us. Because until they catch who did this, you might be the town scapegoat.”