Reap What You Sew (11 page)

“Lied?” Margot echoed. “Why would they do that?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Glenda mused. “We are, after all, talking about Anita the Great, remember? The most hated person on this and virtually any other set.”

Margot’s mouth hung open momentarily before recovering long enough to form a sentence that sent chills down Tori’s spine. “But if someone lied, that would mean Anita was
murdered
.”

Glenda popped the now salt-free pretzel back into her mouth and chewed with careful precision. When she was done, she merely nodded, the light in her eyes a dead giveaway to the excitement she harbored at the possible truth behind Margot’s words. “It would, wouldn’t it?”

“But who would—”

Glenda continued on, undeterred from her conspiracy theory, rescuing another pretzel stick from the near-empty bowl. “Apparently Anita never saw
Snow White
as a kid. ’Cause if she had, she might have thought twice about that half-eaten brownie they found next to her body.”

It was no use. She simply couldn’t focus on the order she needed to place. Or the shelving that needed to be done. Or even the letter from Felicia Donovan, the young adult author Nina had been trying to track down for months despite being on bed rest prior to Lyndon’s birth. The fact that the writer had agreed to headline the library’s First Annual Holiday Book Extravaganza that December wasn’t even enough to distract Tori from the worry that had gripped hold of her heart and refused to let go.

Anita Belise had died eating a brownie—a brownie laced with the very nuts that sent the actress into anaphylactic shock, from which she had been unable to recover.

The news had sent Callie’s thumbs a-tapping and Tori’s heart racing. Only their reactions were for very different reasons.

By learning the reason behind Anita Belise’s death, Callie stood a very real possibility of making the kind of money she would never see any other way. The woman’s fifteen-second chance at fame may have been gone because of the tragedy, but the tragedy, itself, had the potential to open new and different doors. Lemons into lemonade and that sort of thing.

Yet for Tori, the reason behind the actress’s death brought something completely different. It brought fear. For Leona.

She supposed her antennae should have been up when she learned of Leona’s sudden interest in brownies. She even supposed her radar should have been pinging off the roof when she first realized Margaret Louise had made the nut-filled brownies upon Leona’s request. But, deep down inside, she’d already made all of those correlations. She’d just assumed Leona would use the brownies as a way to keep Anita away and, thus, Warren all to herself. In fact, Tori had found the idea to be rather clever.

Unfortunately, it had all gone down very differently. And now the target of Leona’s baking-by-proxy idea was dead because of those very same brownies.

“I don’t know what that woman thinks. All that I care about is how to make her go away.”

The memory of Leona’s words sent a fresh chill down her spine. Question after question crowded her thoughts, making every task she tried to complete at the library futile.

Reaching onto the shelf beneath the computer, Tori pulled out her cell phone and checked the screen. No missed calls. She sighed. Why wasn’t Leona returning her calls? Had the police shown up at the antique shop and carted her friend away? Was Margaret Louise hiding her twin in her basement—a nose-twitching Paris nestled nearby in her brand-new bejeweled bunny carrier?

“If Leona were here, she’d tell you not to scrunch your face like that, Victoria. It invites wrinkles.”

Tori straightened up tall on the stool and did her best to smile at Dixie. Although trying at times, her predecessor-turned-nemesis-turned-begrudging-friend had been an absolute godsend the past few months. In fact, without Dixie’s willingness to fill the void left by Nina’s bed rest and subsequent maternity leave, Tori would be forced to run the library single-handedly. A tough task in its own right, it would be darn near impossible with everything else that was going on. Not the least of which was the very real possibility that Tori would soon be finding herself watching Leona from the front row of a courthouse, doing her best to support her friend during a fairly cut-and-dry murder trial.

“But, since Leona isn’t here, I’ll take a different route,” Dixie announced as she came around the information desk and pulled a second stool up to the computer. “Is everything okay? You look as if someone took your world and gave it a good shaking.”

She pushed the keyboard tray away and turned to face Dixie. “I couldn’t describe my mood any better if I tried.”

Dixie gestured her hand around the virtually empty main room. “I know it’s quiet today, but that’s okay every once in a while.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s—”

Dixie tsked her tongue. “I know, Victoria, you don’t have to say it. You’re upset you got cut, aren’t you?” Sliding off the stool, Dixie made her way over to the opposite side of the circular countertop and began sorting through the pile of returns, grouping them effortlessly by genre. “I’m sure it’s disappointing, but those movie folks did you a favor. Librarians shouldn’t be involved in movies. It’s almost a betrayal of what we stand for if you think about it. We should be advocating
reading
, not sitting on one’s backside staring at a screen letting someone else do the imagining for us.”

She almost asked why Dixie had been at the Green along with everyone else that first day, but she let it go. Why risk upsetting the applecart? Any momentary satisfaction that would come from such a retort would be short-lived. Instead, she simply laid out the simple fact. “I wasn’t cut.”

Dixie set a mystery novel down on its pile and turned to face Tori. “You weren’t cut?”

She shook her head.

“Then why are you here? Shouldn’t you be over there?” Dixie pointed her finger in the direction of the Green. “With all those people who should be in here reading, instead of standing there waiting for a chance to see someone famous?” The words were barely out of the woman’s mouth before the accusing glare took over. “You’re not worried I can’t handle things here by myself, are you, Victoria?”

It was a silly question but one she answered anyway. Dixie was the type of woman who needed pats of reassurance all the time, especially where her dedication and competence toward the library was concerned. “Of course not, Dixie. You’ve been amazing these past few months.”

The glare gave way to the slightest hint of a sparkle. “I have, haven’t I?” Dixie went back to the stack of returns, sifting through the next four titles in quick order before turning toward Tori once again. “Then if you weren’t cut and you’re not worried about things here, why aren’t you working on the movie?”

She stepped down off the stool and joined Dixie in the corner, working through the second stack of returns with matched efficiency. “Because the movie is temporarily, if not permanently, on hold.”

“On hold?” Dixie parroted. “But why? Have they decided Sweet Briar is not good enough for them?”

She had to laugh. Like their dear friend, Rose Winters, Dixie was fiercely loyal to the town she’d called home since infancy. Those who talked irreverently about Sweet Briar quickly found themselves on the receiving end of both women’s ire. “No, no, nothing like that. It’s just that something unexpected happened that necessitated a halt in production.”

Dixie’s eyebrow rose. “Oh? Then why is there still such a large crowd standing around the Green?”

“Because instead of watching a movie being made, now they’re watching news unfold.” Tori dealt the remaining books into their correct piles—national history, local history, mystery, romance, reference, young adult, and children’s.

Upon placement of the last book, Dixie swooped up two of the piles and made her way toward the appropriate shelving. “News? What kind of news?”

She grabbed the stack of local history titles and joined Dixie out on the floor. “Anita Belise is dead.”

Dixie gasped, nearly dropping her books at her feet. “Did you say
dead
?”

She nodded. “They found her in her trailer just a few hours ago.”

“But she was so young,” Dixie protested, her feet rooted to the floor in the center of the mystery aisle. “What could possibly have happened?”

Tori closed her eyes briefly, inhaling deeply as she did. “Um, from what I’ve been able to gather, it sounds as if she had an allergic reaction to something she ate.”

“People with allergies must be so diligent,” Dixie mused as she slowly resumed the task at hand. “Why, if I had an allergy to something, you can be sure I’d be asking questions about everything that even resembled food.”

That’s assuming people would tell you the truth…

She grabbed for the corner of a shelf as a wave of guilt crashed over her from head to toe. What was she thinking? Leona Elkin was her
friend… .

In a flash Dixie was at her side. “Victoria? Are you okay? Do you need to sit down?”

Shaking her head, she willed herself to breathe. “I’m—I’m okay. I just have a lot on my mind and I’d really like to talk to Leona. Have you seen her today by any chance?”

“Actually, I did. She came prancing in here around eleven, I believe. Said she wanted to leave a surprise for you.” Dixie meandered down the aisle, shelving books left and right. “She was in a weird mood.”

Tori set her own remaining stack on the edge of a shelf. “Weird? Weird how?”

“All giddy like a high school girl,” Dixie explained in a voice that was suddenly bored. “You know the type, Victoria. They spend hours droning on and on about some boy that happened to look twice at them in the cafeteria that day.”

Before she could respond, Dixie continued. “The way Leona got with Investigator McGuire, and Curtis, and that magazine owner who was in town to give Margaret Louise the award for her Sweet Potato Pie last year. That’s why I figured there must be someone new on her radar. Somebody who’s all but made hell freeze.”

She shot a look at Dixie. “Made hell freeze?”

Dixie nodded. “When else would Leona Elkin be spotted with a plate of something homemade in her hand?”

“Homemade?” She swallowed.

“She breezed in here with a plate of brownies, claiming she helped make them. Said she had a few left over and that you’d appreciate them for her cleverness.”

Tori took a step forward, her legs more than a little resistant. “Where are these culinary masterpieces?”

“In your office.” Dixie pointed toward the stack of books Tori had left unshelved. “I’ll take care of those. You go sit down, enjoy one of Leona’s brownies.”

Sit down…

Sit down…

“Oh, and Victoria?” Dixie’s voice broke through her reverie, the woman’s unexpected words rooting her feet to the ground just as surely as any glue ever could. “She told me to be sure and tell you they did the trick.”

Chapter 9

For the first time since the fire and subsequent renovation of the office she shared with Nina, Tori didn’t stop in the doorway and smile. In fact, she didn’t stop at all, her feet propelled forward by one thing and one thing only.

Brownies.

And while her friends might argue such a reaction was, in fact, normal for her, she knew it wasn’t. Because as strong as her sweet tooth was, her love for the Sweet Briar Public Library was even stronger.

For as long as she could remember, libraries had always fascinated Tori. Even as a very little girl, she’d preferred a trip to the library over one to the park. As she grew into her teens, she’d been known to talk a date or two into going to the library rather than one of the more acceptable venues like bowling alleys or movie theaters. Graduation from college had brought her first real job at a library and she’d savored every moment, her only real distraction being her goal of running her own library one day.

Now that she was where she’d always hoped to be, her days were consumed with the everyday tasks that accompanied her position as head librarian, while her evenings were often spent thinking of new ideas and programs to make the Sweet Briar Public Library even better.

So far, the children’s room she’d opened across the hall from her office was her most prized accomplishment to date, but she loved each and every change on its own merits. Nina’s teen book club was off to a nice start with more and more kids signing up for each meeting. The coffee nook Dixie had lobbied for over the summer was a nice addition, too, earning rave reviews from the elderly patrons as well as the moms who brought their toddlers to story time each week. And the office renovations that had been necessitated by the fire two months earlier had ended up being a blessing in disguise, providing her and Nina—when she returned from maternity leave—with more functional space.

Yet none of that mattered at the moment in light of what had happened to Anita Belise. Or, rather, what Leona may have
done
to Anita Belise.

Tori crossed her office with several long strides and sank into her desk chair, her gaze riveted on the foil-wrapped plate positioned dead center on her desk. A note, in Leona’s pristine handwriting, was taped to the top.