A Deadly Deletion (A Booktown Mystery, Band 15) - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Lorna Barrett is the New York Times bestselling author of the Booktown Mysteries, including Poisoned Pages and A Just Clause.

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ONE

¥ "Are you out of your mind?" Tricia Miles said, raising her voice. She had good reason to do so, too.

Stoneham Police Chief Grant Baker stood before her in stunned silence. His marriage proposal had been the second Tricia had received within fifteen minutes-and she hadn't expected either of them.

Tricia's relationship with Marshall Cambridge had pretty much been "friends with benefits." She enjoyed his company, he encouraged her independence, but there had been a distinct lack of passion. She hadn't given him an answer, but she had an answer for Chief Baker.

"Absolutely not!"

"Why won't you marry me?" he asked, sounding like a petulant child.

Tricia kept her jaw from dropping in shock, but only just. "You couldn't commit to me when we were together, and now you've jilted your fiancŽe weeks before that wedding to ask me to marry you. What are the odds you'll have cold feet again?"

"Zero," he asserted.

"Yeah, and I've got a bridge for sale in Brooklyn," she said sarcastically. She pointed toward the door. "Go."

"Tricia, can't we talk this over?"

"There's nothing to talk about. Go!" she repeated. When he didn't move, she stalked off in the direction of the door, threw it open, and gestured for him to leave.

Just as Baker reached the threshold, the roar of a powerful engine thundered somewhere on Main Street. At first, Tricia wasn't sure which direction it was coming from, but as it grew louder, she realized it was heading north. Baker pushed her aside and darted onto the sidewalk outside Tricia's store, Haven't Got a Clue, just as a big white pickup truck-with lights out-veered toward the sidewalk and Baker. Tricia grabbed him by the back of the shirt, pulling him into her store as the truck swerved into the street. Before either of them could react, they heard someone yell and the terrible sound of a thud before the truck disappeared down the darkened street.

Baker was the first to recover and dashed up the sidewalk with Tricia in hot pursuit.

Up ahead in the middle of the street lay a crumpled form. As Tricia approached, she recognized just who it was.

"Marshall!" she cried.

Baker fell to his knees in front of the supine figure, searching for a pulse, first at the man's wrist, and then reached for his throat.

"Do something!" Tricia cried as tears welled in her eyes.

Baker rose to his feet, his expression one of shock.

"I'm sorry, Tricia. He's dead."

The blue-and-red emergency lights still flashed out on Main Street more than an hour after the accident.

But was it an accident?

Of course it was. It had to be.

"Did you say something, Tricia, dear?" Tricia's sister, Angelica, asked, sounding worried.

The rotating colors from the flashing light bars on the police SUVs below came through the second-floor windows, looking gaudy against the living room's pastel green walls.

Tricia held a glass filled with whiskey, ice, and soda-her second. For some reason, she found the cold condensation beneath her clenched fingers to be of comfort. Well, not comfort, but it proved to her that she could feel something besides the terrible numbness that had encircled her soul.

Marshall. Dead.

"I can't believe it. I . . . I just can't believe it," she murmured.

"I'm here to listen," Angelica said softly from the adjacent chair. "That is, if you're up to talking."

Tricia looked up to take in her sister's worried gaze.

"He asked me to marry him." The echo of that proposal kept rattling around in her brain.

"And you were going to say no."

"I was," Tricia said. "But that didn't mean I didn't have feelings for the man. If nothing else, he was my friend." And lover.

Tricia absently petted the soft fur atop Angelica's dog's head. Every so often, the bichon frise raised his head, looked up at her with soulful brown eyes, and whimpered. He knew when one of his human friends was in pain.

"He had so many plans," Tricia lamented.

"What will happen with the sale of the Stoneham Weekly News?" Angelica asked. "Did Marshall sign the final paperwork?"

Tricia shrugged and took a sip of her by-now-watery whiskey. "I don't know. Why do you ask?"

Angelica suddenly stiffened in her chair. "Uh, no reason," she said, but for some reason, her voice had risen in pitch.

Tricia shook her head. What would happen to the women at the little weekly newspaper? They'd been nervous when its owner had put it up for sale-and was now destined for jail. Surely nobody else would be interested in buying the horrible little rag. Marshall had planned to resurrect the dying enterprise. Earlier that evening, over dinner, he'd outlined the plans he'd devised for the paper. Tricia now wished she'd paid more attention to that conversation.

Suddenly, she had a lot of regrets.

"Are you sure I can't get you something to eat?" Angelica asked. Offering food was her way of showing concern. She put such care into the dishes she prepared for others-and, of course, herself.

Tricia shook her head. "We had a lovely dinner at the country club outside of Nashua." She frowned. Marshall's last dinner. And then she'd gone and spoiled his evening by refusing to give him an answer to his proposal. But then, maybe he'd died with his heart full of hope.

Like her ex-husband, Christopher?

Yeah, she'd promised him moments before he died that she'd again wear the engagement ring he'd given her years before. And she had, but for only a few months and mostly on a chain around her neck. She wouldn't get the chance to do the same with the ring Marshall had offered.

"I suppose Chief Baker will want you to make a formal statement," Angelica said.

"It'll be brief, that's for sure. I didn't see much of anything. Just that white pickup careening down the block." She shuddered at the memory, slopping the last of her drink onto poor Sarge, who didn't seem to notice. Another wave of anguish assaulted her. Tricia hadn't taken the time to do more than drag a comb through her hair and freshen her makeup for her (last) date with Marshall.

Her mouth trembled.

"Why don't you stay here tonight?" Angelica suggested, and reached to place a hand on her sister's arm.

Tricia looked down at the boot her sister still wore on her right foot-part of her recovery from bunion surgery. Although Angelica was getting around better, she was in no position to host a guest. And if Tricia was going to have to change sheets, she'd rather do it on her own bed-and certainly not that night.

"It's good of you to offer, but I think I'll just go home."

"What if the chief wants to get hold of you?"

"I'll text him to let him know I'm going back to my apartment, but first I'll take Sarge out for a tinkle break."

"Oh, you're so good to both of us," Angelica clucked.

Tricia got up, taking her now-empty glass to the kitchen and placing it in the dishwasher. Then she headed for the door, slipped on her jacket, and reached for the dog's leash. He knew that sound and came bounding across the room like a gazelle. "We'll be back in a few minutes," Tricia called.

"I'll be...