Carol Higgins Clark Boxed Set - Volume 1: This eBook collection contains Zapped, Cursed, and Wrecked. (58 page)

Detective Lopez nodded.

“I don’t mean that that was the case with Mrs. Hopkins, not at all. But Jessie says that sometimes in the middle of the night he sees some crazy stuff.” George paused. A troubled expression came over his face. “Did something happen to her?”

“Yes,” Lopez said quietly. “She was living on Cape Cod. They’re in the middle of a bad storm right now. She was on the beach this morning and was washed out to sea.”

George shook his head, and leaned back in his chair. “Oh, no! That’s a shame. Jessie is going to feel really bad.”

“Do you have his number?”

The concierge nodded, pulled open a drawer, and reached for a binder. A minute later he held out a piece of paper with Jessie’s full name, address, cell number, and home phone, neatly written. “He’ll be in tonight at eight.”

Lopez looked at the address. “He lives pretty far away.”

“He got engaged, bought a great house his fiancée loves, and now it takes him two hours to get to work! I tell him he’s crazy. But he works a twelve-hour shift, three days a week, so he doesn’t mind.”

“Do you know if he has a key to Mrs. Hopkins’s apartment?”

“Yes he does. He checks for leaks, if her mailbox gets full he brings the mail upstairs, that kind of thing.”

“Does the management company have a key to her apartment?”

“No, only Jessie.” George lowered his voice. “Jessie told me her ex-husband is pretty bad. When she moved in last year she didn’t leave a key with the management. She was afraid her ex
would sweet-talk his way into getting into the apartment when she was out.” George rubbed his fingers together. “He has a lot of dough. They were going through a nasty divorce. That guy was supposedly really controlling. She was afraid to leave any important papers around, you know what I’m saying?”

Lopez nodded. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Jessie’s home number. A machine picked up. Then he dialed Jessie’s cell phone and got his voice mail. The detective left a message for Jessie to call him as soon as possible.

George smiled and waved his hand. “That guy never picks up his phone. He sleeps weird hours so he always has his phones shut off.”

“What does his fiancée think about that?” Lopez asked.

George rolled his eyes. “He has another cell phone that no one has the number to, except his fiancée. I’m telling you, I think Mrs. Hopkins must have been paying him way too much money.”

The search of the Carpenters’ home proved fruitless. Regan, Jack, Dorie, and Dan couldn’t find a thing that shed any light on Adele Hopkins’s life. They were all coming up the stairs from the basement when the doorbell rang.

“Who’s that?” Dan asked. “That reporter wouldn’t have the nerve, would he?”

Regan was the first one up the steps. She opened the door, hurried into the living room, and looked out the window to the front porch. “It’s Fran and Ginny.”

“What do they want?” Dan asked anxiously.

“They’re our house guests for the weekend,” Jack answered, his tone wry.

Ginny spotted Regan at the window and held up a FedEx box. “This is for you,” she shouted, pointing back and forth between the package and Regan.

Regan acknowledged Ginny by waving her hand in the air, then moved away from the window. “She’s delivering a FedEx package for me.”

“A FedEx package?” Jack asked. “We’re only here for the weekend.”

“I have no idea what it might be,” Regan answered.

The doorbell rang again.

“Let’s keep things vague with these two,” Dan pleaded. “No specific answers to questions about Mrs. Hopkins . . .”

Dorie opened the door. “Well, hello, ladies.”

“Hello, Dorie,” Ginny cried as she stepped inside, Fran in her wake. “My goodness, is it wet outside or what? Hello, Dan.”

Dan greeted the two sisters. “Good to see you,” he lied.

“Regan,” Ginny said, waving the box triumphantly. “Fran and I came back to the house and rang the bell. The door’s locked. We turn around and see the FedEx truck rumbling down the road. Good thing we were there, right? The reporter outside was trying to find out who it was for, the name of the sender, but believe me, I kept my mouth zipped,” she said, pretending to zip her mouth as she relinquished the package. “It’s from your mother.” She turned to Dorie and Dan. “Our house is so damp and drafty you wouldn’t believe it. Right, Fran?”

“I sneeze just thinking about the conditions in our living room. Brrrr.”

“A branch went through our front window this morning,” Ginny continued. “Skip put up a piece of plywood but until we get that window replaced, it’s going to be very unpleasant. The chill is running right through me as I speak. Luckily we can stay with Jack and Regan.”

Regan nodded. “I appreciate your taking such good care of this,” she began, indicating the box in her hands.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Ginny asked.

“I’ll wait until Jack and I go back to the house in a few minutes. Sorry about the locked door. We thought Skip would be coming back with you.”

“He took off for parts unknown,” Ginny reported.

“Oh boy,” Regan said as she turned to Jack. “Would you give
Ginny the key so she and Fran can go over and take off their wet coats and shoes and warm up? I hate to see them so chilled.”

“We’re fine,” Ginny insisted. “There’s no rush. It’s nice to say hello to Dorie and Dan.” She turned to them again. “I’m sorry about Mrs. Hopkins. We didn’t get the chance to know her. Have you reached her family?”

“Almost,” Dan answered.

“Skip’s a wreck. He feels just terrible. What can you do, right? These things happen.”

“They do,” Dan agreed.

“Fran and I were just told by a friend about all the apology cards Mrs. Hopkins left behind. Do you mind if we take a look at one? I see an occasional ‘I’m sorry’ card on the rack at the drugstore, but I’ve never heard of buying them in bulk.”

A brief, awkward silence followed. “They’re just like any other cards,” Regan said.

Ginny eyed the dining room table. “Can we just take a peek?” she asked.

“Sure,” Dorie answered quickly. “She hadn’t written anything inside them yet, so it’s not quite as personal.”

“She hadn’t?” Ginny asked, sounding disappointed, as she and Fran followed Dorie over to the table.

“No.”

“Who was she planning to send them to?”

“We don’t know.”

“Wasn’t there a list of names or anything like that? . . . Oh look, here’s one.” Ginny picked a piece of paper off the table. “Fran, look at this. They’re all first names.”

Fran squinted. “They sure are. I don’t see Fran or Ginny on there, do you?”

“No,” Ginny answered. “Dorie, we brought over a pie for Mrs. Hopkins. She didn’t invite us in the door, and she never
thanked us. She would barely wave hello when she drove by our house.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s not your fault. You can only find out so much about a person when you rent them your home.”

“Only so much,” Fran agreed. “You can’t find out what’s in their heart, that’s for sure. You can’t predict that they’ll be a little rude to the neighbors.”

Thank God we put the self-help books out of sight, Regan thought.

Ginny sighed. “Fran, what do you say? Let’s go next door. I’d like to have a nice hot cup of tea. Jack, you’ll be back soon?”

“Yes. We’ll be right there.”

Ginny turned, spotted the bags of pillows in the corner, and investigated. “
GRUDGE ME, GRUDGE ME NOT
?”

“Those belonged to Mrs. Hopkins as well,” Dorie explained.

Ginny looked at Fran. “To think she never gave us the time of day.”

Fran shrugged. “Her loss.”

“Let’s go.”

As soon as the sisters were out the door, the phone rang. It was Detective Lopez from Chicago.

After ten minutes of waiting in the unheated, overly air-freshened room, it occurred to Kit that maybe she should check if the mechanic was still breathing. She got up from the uncomfortable, uneven chair, and stepped over to the counter. The sudden loud noise of a tool rapping against metal reassured her that the man under the car was still of this earth. Nothing like someone who can focus on a job without letting anything disturb them, Kit thought. But what would he do if a customer wanted gas? He didn’t even ask why I’m here.

The rapping went on for at least thirty seconds. When it stopped, Kit didn’t hesitate. “Excuse me!” she called in a loud voice.

“Yes?”

“I was just wondering if you were going to be tied up for much longer.”

“I’m not tied up.”

“What I meant was—”

“I know what you meant.”

“Oh, okay,” Kit said with a very slight laugh, then decided to get right to the point. “My windshield wipers stopped working. I
can’t drive in this weather. Do you know how long it might take for you to fix them?”

“Depends on what caused the problem.” A man rolled out from under the car, hoisted himself up and came out to the office. He appeared to be in his fifties, was thin and wiry, with slicked-back brown hair and a mustache. “I promised I’d fix this car today and it’s taking longer than I expected,” he said. “I’ll get to yours just as soon as I’m done.”

“It won’t be too late?”

“Nah. I should be finished with the jalopy I’m working on in no time. Besides, this is my business. I’m on my own schedule.”

That’s for sure, Kit thought. “Is there a place nearby where I can get a cup of coffee? I’ll give you my keys. Perhaps you could call my cell after you’ve had a chance to look at my car.”

“Sounds like a plan. There’s a coffee shop just up the road a piece,” he said, pointing in the direction Kit had been heading. “You’re going to walk in this rain?”

“I’ll be fine. This raincoat is warm and I have a big umbrella.” She put her keys on the counter, then wrote her cell phone number on her business card. “Here,” she said. “Do you have a card?”

“I ran out. New ones should be in next week.”

“What’s your name and number in case I have to call you?”

“Nathaniel Boone,” he muttered, then clearly recited his number for Kit as she wrote it down on one of her own business cards.

“Thank you, Daniel. I haven’t had lunch—”

“My name is
NATHANIEL
not Daniel. Everybody gets that mixed up. I still don’t know what my parents were thinking. I’ve spent my whole life correcting people. You don’t know how annoying it gets.”

“Sorry, Nathaniel.”

“I forgive you.” He turned and went back to work.

Tip for Nathaniel, Kit thought. Never run out of business cards. She turned up the collar of her raincoat, hurried out to the car, and popped open the trunk. As fast as she could, she changed to her sneakers, grabbed an umbrella, opened it, shut the trunk, and started walking. She soon realized that Route 5A was not meant for pedestrians. Should I call Regan? she thought, as she did her best to avoid puddles. I don’t want to bother her, but she’ll wonder where I am. I’ll call her when I get to the coffee shop, she decided.

Kit ambled along for fifteen minutes, past woods and houses, trying not to think about how miserable she was. Nathaniel Boone has no sense of time or distance, she realized as the road curved and the next stretch didn’t show any promise of commercial zoning. What’s his idea of “up a piece”? She contemplated turning back, then decided against it. I’ll call a cab from the coffee shop to bring me back to the gas station. It can’t be that much farther. Ten minutes later, her feet soaked, her coat drenched, her umbrella blown inside out, she spotted a storefront in the distance, set back from the road.

A sign finally came into view.
PILLOW
TALK
. Is this the store Regan was talking about? Kit wondered. The store where the woman who died bought those pillows? Doesn’t matter if it is or it isn’t, I’m going in. I have to get out of this rain.