“Whoa.” I grabbed the link and sent it to Greg. He called me a few minutes later. I didn’t even say hello, just started the conversation with, “Did you know that?”

  “That Frank was the only child of a multimillionaire, and he managed the family charity trust?” He chuckled. “Lynda didn’t mention that. Now I need to track down Frank’s attorney to see who’s in line to inherit. Thanks for the info and the list. I’m trying to set up interviews for tomorrow. I already canceled my appointment with the DA. I don’t have a clue where to even focus my energy. Hopefully, the interviews tomorrow will provide some clarity.”

  “I just can’t believe Frank was rich. He acted like a normal person.”

  “Just because you come from money doesn’t mean you can’t be normal,” Greg reminded me. “Someone’s here. I’ll talk to you later. Call me when you turn in.”

  I set the phone on the coffee table and turned on the movie channel. Thankfully, they were playing an older movie I’d seen and loved. But not too much. I didn’t want to get distracted from the internet searching. I finished clicking on all the links for Frank, so then I looked up his charity to see if it had an internet presence. It didn’t. I put a note on tomorrow’s schedule to look up the annual filings at the courthouse for the charity. It had to file paperwork sometimes.

  I also used Google to look up contact information for Lynda. I knew Greg had already interviewed her, but maybe she’d tell a reporter for the South Cove Gazette more than she would the police. I called the number and wasn’t surprised when I didn’t get an answer. Grieving widow and all. I left a brief message.

  Then I did the same for all the other ex-wives except number five. Emma nudged my foot, and I glanced at the clock. It was already ten. One thing about working the early shift at the coffee house was I also followed the Ben Franklin rule for sleep. Early to bed and early to rise. Although the last part of the saying was a little sexist, you had to take into account what life was like back then. So I let my dog out and followed Ben’s advice.

  Saturday mornings aren’t any different for me than a weekday morning. Except Mondays, when I don’t have to get up. During the summer we are also open on Sundays, but not early, so typically, Toby picks up the morning and either Nick, once he starts, or Deek, get the second shift. Tomorrow, Toby wasn’t going to be able to cover his shift, and Deek had been working every day except Monday, so I didn’t want him to have to work both shifts. My aunt took Sunday and Monday off. I didn’t want to ask her to fill in. We were getting to the point that we might have to hire another part-time employee, although the only way that would work was if we got someone going to school or just needing a few hours a week. Which meant we had to work around more people’s schedules.

  Today, I’d work my normal shift, then Deek, and Aunt Jackie would close. If things were slow on Sunday, I could do the weekly accounting follow-up and approve the book order Deek and Aunt Jackie had developed over the last week. Technically, I could add books as well, but they did a great job of covering what we needed.

  We didn’t have time to run this morning, so I promised Emma a run after I got back from my second trip to Bakerstown that week. I grabbed my shopping list, so if I got done early, I could get that off my Monday list. I might seem like I have a lot of time because I only had to be at the shop for six hours most days, but I was always looking to carve out more time. Especially when I was in the middle of a good book.

  I drove to work and parked by my aunt’s extremely dusty car. I didn’t even have to look up to the apartment; I could feel her absence. I was beginning to miss her. Which was a strange thing to say, especially if you knew my aunt. I opened the back door and realized I hadn’t told her about the tax guy who came by the day before.

  Hopefully, the pranksters would be quiet today.

  I saw the sign on the door when I turned on the lights. Apparently, hope wasn’t enough. But because I was early, I probably hadn’t missed any customers. I went out to open the door and take down the sign. “Store Closed Due to Death in the Family.” The black letters chilled me to the bone. This was going too far.

  I called Greg, and he picked up on the first ring.

  “Sorry I wasn’t there this morning. I had a call I had to handle.” His voice should have soothed me, but it didn’t.

  “You need to come down to the shop. I have another sign.” I hung up, not wanting to explain further. He would see what had me so upset when he got here. I propped the door open and went back in the office for a large sheet of butcher paper we used for story hour and some tape. Then I covered the door, sign and all.

  Greg could unwrap it when he came. But I wasn’t letting some crazy woman mess with my livelihood. Not anymore.

  Coffee was going by the time Greg arrived, and I’d served my first customer, who didn’t even ask about the door. He had been too involved in a conversation with someone about a real estate deal that had fallen through. I knew the guy was a flipper from previous conversations, and from what I’d heard, his last attempt to purchase a small oceanside cottage had become a bidding war he’d lost.

  He hung up and smiled at me. “You win some, you lose more.”

  “Isn’t that the truth.” I handed him his coffee and a bag with a chocolate chip cookie. “On the house today. You look like you need some good karma.”

  “I think you get the karma. I get the sweets.” He held up the bag. “See you tomorrow.”

  Greg nodded at the man as he left. “You’re in a good mood today for the circumstances.”

  “No one is going to scare me into doing anything. What, they want my house? Or they want the store? Whatever it is, they’re sending mixed messages. I can’t keep up.”

  “Maybe it’s not related to any of this.” He nodded to the coffee. “Can I get a cup while I’m working?”

  “Of course.” I poured black coffee into a travel mug. “But it is related. At least, Tia’s related to Alice.”

  “What are you talking about?” Greg looked confused.

  I put the lid and a sleeve on the cup. “I didn’t tell you. Sorry. I overheard Tia talking to Alice Carroll at the beach. Tia told her she wasn’t going to do her dirty work anymore and called her ‘mother.’”

  “I didn’t know Alice had any children. That being said, I guess Tia changed her mind.” He glanced at the door. “Where’s the security feed?”

  “I haven’t even looked at it.” I pointed to the office. “It’s back there on the front wall. But it might not be Tia. She seemed pretty firm about not doing it anymore after Toby talked to her. Maybe Alice got a new flunky.”

  “We’ll see. Either way, they aren’t smart enough to realize they’re being watched.” Greg went into the back room, and I poured coffee and packaged up a slice of zucchini bread for a customer.

  “Jill? You need to come see this.”

  I handed the woman her change, then called back. “On my way.”

  I glanced around; there didn’t look like any more customers were heading my way. I walked around the door and glanced up at the monitor for the security system. Greg pushed a button, and the tape started to run. I watched as Deek taped up the sign, patted the door, then left, a girl on his arm.

  “Deek did this?” I leaned against the doorway and felt my legs start to give out. “My Deek?”

  Chapter 11

  I watched the video three more times. It was Deek putting up the sign. Deek, who had betrayed not only Coffee, Books, and More, but Aunt Jackie and me. I pulled out my phone and dialed his number.

  “Hello?” His sleepy voice filled my ear. “Wait, is this Jill? How are you? What can I do for you? Do you need me?”

  “I need you to stop putting signs on my doors. What were you thinking?” My voice got louder and started to crack. I was going to cry. I knew it. “How could you do this?”

  “Wait, what are you talking about? I did what you told me to do. I made the sign and put it up late last night, right after your text. I’m so sorry to hear about your uncle.”

  I stared at Greg, then handed him the phone. “I can’t talk to him. I don’t understand what he’s saying.”

  Greg took the phone from me and waved me out into the front area. “Go watch for customers. I’ll talk to Deek.”

  I nodded, not knowing what I was going to do. Deek filled a lot of holes in our schedule. He ran all the book clubs. He even set up our weekly ordering packages. He was an intricate part of our work family and he’d betrayed us. I would never had thought he had it in him.

  Greg came out of the back room and handed me back my phone. “Jill, this wasn’t Deek.”

  “I saw him on the tape. What do you mean, it wasn’t Deek?”

  Greg poured himself a cup of coffee and looked around the empty coffee shop before he spoke. “He got a text from you late last night. You said that Jackie’s brother had been in an accident and you’d lost him. You asked Deek to make the sign.”

  “I didn’t text him.” I opened the text app and showed Greg. “See? No texts last night at all. And Jackie doesn’t have a brother.”

  “I know. I asked him to send me the number they texted from. Probably a burner phone, but he knows he was played and he feels really bad about it.” Greg walked over and took down the sign and threw it and the covering paper away. “No need to test it; we know who wrote it and why.”

  “Do you think you can find out who texted Deek?” I took a brownie out of the case and took a big bite. I needed food to stomp down the emotions I was feeling. Healthy eating? No, but as long as I could name the emotion, I was okay with it.

  “I don’t know. But I’ll talk to Toby, and you need to bring your aunt into the conversation. If they’re using the people around you, there may be more misunderstandings before we find out who is doing this.” He leaned down and brushed a bit of brownie off my lips before he kissed me. “Just don’t bite Deek’s head off when he comes to work. He feels bad enough already.”

  “As he should.” But I smiled to let Greg know I didn’t hold Deek responsible. On the other hand, I was getting pretty tired of the games going on. I only knew one thing. If I’d been solid in my decision not to sell the house before, now I was rock solid. No one pushed me out of my house or my town. “I’ll see you tonight maybe?”

  “Probably. My investigation is stalling out. I need to take some time to think about all this. Maybe it really was just a bad timing hit-and-run.” He put a cover on his coffee cup. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Thanks for coming out and finding my sign monster.”

  He chuckled. “I haven’t solved that mystery yet. But I will. I think I’ll have a chat with Alice Carroll this afternoon.”

  “Find out when she’s sending out the Business-to-Business fee increase retraction letter.” I put my empty brownie plate in the sink and eyed the chocolate chip cookie in the display case.

  “That will be my first question. Not.” He waved as he walked out the door. “Sorry, love, but you’re going to have to fight that battle on your own. I’m only in the crime-fighting business.”

  “Extortion is a crime,” I called after him, but I saw him shake his head. Sometimes Greg could be infuriating. I took my cup and my notebook away from the cookie calling my name and sat on the couch. I couldn’t eat my way out of this problem. Even though I wanted to. I opened the notebook and made a list of what I wanted to get done today after Deek came in and relieved me.

  First up, find that last divorce decree. The county had some issues with misfiling last year, when the local senior agency was setting people up to be scammed. Luckily, the computer experts got that glitch corrected, and from what I’d heard, the new director of the Senior Project was doing amazing work. Paula was a sweet woman and deserved some good news in her life.

  And I wanted to stop by the real estate office where this Alice Carroll worked. I needed to get her to stop messing with me and mine before I clocked her one. Okay, so I probably wouldn’t really hit her, but I’d want to. Really, really bad. I don’t like it when people start messing with my family. Or my business.

  I could do the shopping for the week and stock up on frozen meal starters because Greg was going to be working. And I didn’t usually buy treats at the store when I had easy access here at the shop.

  I wasn’t going to run today, I needed to give both Emma and me the day off. But if I got these three things done, then working Sunday wouldn’t ruin my weekend. And if Greg was busy tonight, I could get the laundry done while I watched television.

  Satisfied with my plan, I grabbed my laptop and started researching wife number one. Lynda Evans Gleason had been in the news since before she started high school. I guess that’s what happens when your father is a computer genius. She and her mother attended more charity events than I even thought there were charities. Sometime when she turned twenty, Frank started appearing in the photographs too. They had the longest marriage, according to the records. And they’d both walked away with what they’d owned. No joint assets, according to the overview. How could that be when they were married close to ten years?

  I Googled her name, looking for an address, and got a hit. Just down Highway 1 and right on the shore. I wrote it down and decided I’d pop in there before heading to Bakerstown. Probably a dead end, but I could take her cookies from the store as a neighborly gesture. People took food when others died. And I had known Frank. At least a little.

  I made notes on the next two wives. Maybe they’d give me more information that could lead to a killer wife down the line.

  Deek came into the shop and walked directly up to me. He sat across from me and didn’t meet my gaze. “If you want to fire me, I understand. I thought it was you.”

  “We need a code word. If I tell you to do something out of the ordinary again, you just ask for the code word. Fake Me won’t know it.” I waited for him to raise his head to meet my eyes. “And no, I’m not firing you. I am tired of someone playing with the shop, though.”

  “I told Greg everything I knew about the person who texted me. It didn’t sound like you, but I thought, given the circumstances, you might just be showing your emotions.”

  I nodded, considering his statement. But really, I was trying to figure out a cool code word. “American Gods.”

  “The book?” He glanced toward the paranormal section. We had a larger mythological gods section in fiction now that he had started ordering books. “What about it? I think we have two copies on hand.”

  “No, our code word. It would be really random and strange for someone to say that in a normal conversation, especially because the book is over ten years old. So you ask me for the code word, and I’ll say, ‘American Gods.’”

  “Maybe it should be ‘American Gods rule’?” He shot a smile my way.

  I shook my head. “Nope. I like the randomness of the phrase. Just those two words. And I’m sorry they dragged you into this fight.”

  “No worries. I’ll do what I can. And I won’t do anything stupid again without your code word.” He stood and walked to the coffee bar, stuffing his bag under the counter and putting on an apron.

  “I’m heading into Bakerstown. Call me if you need anything.”

  As I left, a ton of people flooded into the shop from the tour bus that had just stopped down the street. If I’d been a good boss, I would have stayed and helped. But if he got underwater, he could call Aunt Jackie. Besides, he was a big boy. He could handle a tour bus swarm on his own.

  I got into my car, and when I reached the highway, I turned left to go find Lynda.

  After waiting to be cleared at the entry gate, and then again at the door while a woman dressed in a business pantsuit and wearing a clip on her ear went to see if Lynda was available, I was tired. And I hadn’t even got to town yet.

  The woman hurried back and waved me inside. “Mrs. Gleason will see you in the parlor. Follow me please. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Iced tea would be awesome.” I followed her to a room that looked like it had just been set up for a shot in one of the home and garden magazines. “Showcasing your Style” would be the headline, and there were several unusual items scattered around. There was a journal, the pages weathered and cracked under glass. From what I could read, it was about crossing over the land from St. Louis to here. The wife had wanted to stop in Sacramento and farm, but he kept pushing until they reached the shoreline. Then the husband bought up land. It was that land that the patriarch of the family had parleyed into a large fortune. I wondered how much of the journal was the whitewashed version of the trip, sanitized by years of telling the story.

  “My family was one of the original settlers in South Cove. They have written a lot about the Mission that was here back in the day. I hear you and Frank were working on certifying the remains that are set in your backyard.” The woman who walked toward me was regal. She held her posture straight and her shoulders back. I’d watched a documentary in which the Queen of Britain walk across a floor just like that. “I’m Lynda. So nice to finally meet you. I order from your bookstore all the time, but I’m afraid I send my assistant to pick up the books. I haven’t been out much since my health hasn’t been the best.” Her gaze dropped to the floor, then she shook her head. “And apparently, I’ve forgotten how to welcome someone into my home. I’m sorry I was so chatty. Let’s sit. Our refreshments should be coming shortly.”

  As if she’d been waiting for the cue, the woman who’d answered the door came in with two large glasses of iced tea with a sprig of mint sticking out the top of both. She set the tray on a coffee table between us, and there were pink and white macarons on a plate in the middle of the tray. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll be in the office. Just buzz when you’re done and I’ll come clear the tray.”

  The woman watched the other leave. “Martha worries about me. I’ve been dealing with the family curse, MS, for the last few years. Unfortunately, I’m in the middle of a flare-up, so if I cut this short, I apologize.”