No Escape Claws

Chapter 10

Liam and I were loading an antique pie safe into a customer’s SUV the next morning when Liz pulled into the parking lot. He had the top of the cupboard and was leaning in the back passenger door trying to maneuver the padded piece into place while I held the legs.

“You need to go about an inch to your left,” he said.

The pie safe—made of oak with the original hardware and punched tin doors was heavier than it looked. With a fair amount of grunts from me and a couple of muttered swear words from Liam, we managed to get the piece of furniture secured.

I was sweaty and rumpled and my hair had come loose from the ponytail I’d pulled it into. I blew my bangs back out of my face. “Thank you,” I said to Liam. “I don’t know how I would have done that without you.”

“Anytime,” he said with a smile. “I’ll put it on your tab.” He headed back to the sunporch, where he and Nick had already replaced a second window. I had a feeling my tab was getting pretty high.

I walked over to Liz, pulling loose the elastic that had been sort of holding my hair. “Hi,” I said. “What did Avery forget? Her phone? Her lunch? Her eyeliner?”

“I’m not here because of Avery,” Liz said. “Alfred called me. He’s found Wilson’s former assistant at the foundation. Remember I told you about her? Marie Heard.”

“I remember,” I said. “So where is she?”

Liz shook her head. “I don’t know. Alfred said he’d explain when I got here.”

“Let’s go find out then,” I said.

We found Mr. P. at his temporary desk. “Hello, Elizabeth,” he said, getting to his feet and setting his coffee cup on the end of the workbench.

“Hello, Alfred,” Liz said. “So tell me. Where’s Marie? Is she still in Arizona? Is she in Florida?”

Mr. P. shook his head. “No. It turned out she was in Arizona.”

I caught his use of the past tense. “Was?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Mrs. Heard is dead.”

Liz closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. “Dead? When did it happen?”

Alfred glanced down at the notepad next to his laptop. “About six months ago. I do have the contact information for her son, if you’d like it.”

She nodded. “I would. Thank you, Alfred, very much.”

He tore the top page off the pad and handed it to her. “If there’s anything else you need, let me know.”

“I will,” Liz said. “I appreciate this.” She folded the paper and stuck it in her purse.

We started for the shop. “I can’t believe Marie is dead,” Liz said. “I can’t believe Wilson didn’t stay in touch with her. We should have sent flowers or made a donation in her name or something.”

I gestured at her purse. “You have her son’s address and phone number. You can still make a donation and you can send a note to her son.”

“I think I’ll do that,” she said. She made a face. “I know this is selfish of me, but this doesn’t help us figure out what was going on at the foundation.”

“I know,” I said. “We’ll just have to figure it out some other way.” I wished I had even an inkling of what that other way was.

Just then John came through the door from the shop carrying a large cardboard carton. We’d found a beautiful 1930s vintage pink blush and clear pressed-glass shade in a closet in the spare bedroom at Clayton McNamara’s house. Clayton had no idea where it had come from but he guessed it was likely something that had belonged to his brother, who was even more of a pack rat than Clayton was. When Gram had seen the shade she’d decided it was perfect for the ceiling fixture in the living room. Clayton wanted to, as he put it, “just give the danged thing to her,” but Gram would have none of that. After some give-and-take on both sides I’d come up with an amount both of them could live with. John had arrived to pick up the shade and give Nick and Liam a hand taking out the run of windows in the sunporch that faced the parking lot.

“Hello, Liz,” John said. Something about her expression made him frown. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” Liz said, mostly, I think, out of reflex. Then she sighed. “No, John, it isn’t. Do you remember Marie Heard from your time on the board?”

“I do,” he said. “She was Wilson’s assistant. She took the notes at the meetings.” His brown eyes narrowed. “Why? Did something happen to her?”

“She died,” I said.

“Six months ago,” Liz added.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” John said. “She knew when I first joined the board that I didn’t have a clue about how that sort of thing worked. She always made sure I had what I needed to do the job—reports, spreadsheets, notes from previous meetings.”

“We were hoping she could help with the book project,” I said. “I don’t suppose you kept any of that old paperwork?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sarah. It’s long gone.”

I nodded, hoping my disappointment didn’t show on my face. Turns out it did.

John turned his attention to Liz. “How long have we known each other?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Thirty years maybe. Whenever Jack took you on as his grad student.”

“Closer to forty,” he said. “So how about both of you stop this song and dance about writing a book and tell me what the hell is really going on?” I saw a brief flare of anger in his eyes.

“Tell him,” I said.

Liz glared at me. “Fine,” she said. She looked at John. “I think that Rob Andrews was set up. I don’t think he embezzled the money from the camp.”

John blew out a breath. He set the box on the corner of the workbench and then gave us his full attention.

“You need to go to the police,” he said.

“Sarah and I are trying to find enough evidence to do that,” Liz said. I noticed she hadn’t mentioned Michelle. “So I need you to keep this to yourself for now. Please.”

John made a face and rubbed his jaw. “If you’re right about this, then who did take the money?”

“We don’t know,” I said. “We were hoping Marie Heard might be able to help.”

“Do you have any notes from the board meetings back then?” John asked. “Or copies of the annual reports?”

“I have both.” Liz flicked a bit of lint from the dark purple tunic she was wearing. It seemed that I could feel the frustration coming off of her.

“If it will help, I can take a look at them again. Maybe I’ll see something this time now that I know what I’m looking for.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He gave me a tight smile and looked at Liz. “I’ll keep your secret for now—but not from Isabel.”

“I’m sorry, I should have been honest with you from the start,” she said.

“You really think Rob Andrews was innocent?”

“I do.”

“I’ll look at everything,” he said. “Maybe there’s a connection I didn’t see.” He eyed Liz for a long moment. “You’re going to have to bring the police in on this at some point.”

“Just not yet,” Liz said. “Please.”

John hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “All right.” He picked up the box holding the light shade and headed for the back door.

“He’s right,” Liz said. “I should have told him what was going on from the beginning.”

“You’ve told him now,” I said. “And maybe he’ll see something in those papers that we didn’t.”

“I hope so,” she said, “because without Marie I’m not sure what my next move should be.” She shook her head. “I feel bad that she died and none of us knew. I can’t believe Wilson didn’t stay in contact with her.”

“What if you tell Wilson what you’re trying to do?” I said. I looked down at my shoe and realized I had what looked like chocolate sprinkles on the toe, probably from the back of that customer’s SUV. “Maybe he would have some idea who could have taken the money and set up Rob.” There were also bits of dried grass and what seemed to be dog hair stuck to my sleeve. I brushed them away. That SUV could use a good vacuuming, which reminded me that my vehicle probably could as well.

“Do I look like I’ve taken leave of my senses?” she asked.

“No,” I said a little uncertainly. This had to be a trick question.

“First of all, Wilson is incapable of keeping a secret.” Her mouth twisted to one side. “He’s my brother and I love him but sometimes I’d like to whack him on the back of the head with my purse. If something doesn’t affect him directly it could be happening right under his nose and he wouldn’t notice. And no, that short attention span is not because I knocked him with a swing when he was four.”

“You knocked your brother off a swing?” I said.

Liam had once spun me so fast on a roundabout at the park that I’d thrown up.

On him.

“I didn’t knock him off a swing,” Liz said. “I might have knocked him in the head with a swing. But honestly, it hardly left a mark. Though you would have thought he’d fractured his skull the way he fussed.”

I laughed and slung an arm around her shoulder. “Did I ever tell you about the time Liam spun me on the roundabout at that little park down the street from Mom and Dad’s house?”

• • •

Liam and Nick headed out for lunch about twelve thirty. Rose and Mr. P. went with them. Mr. P. had managed to find enough trim and baseboard from Cleveland to finish the sunporch. In return we’d given the picker a box of old tools that had been in the first of the two storage units. Everyone was happy.

Charlotte and Avery were working in the store. Charlotte was showing china to a young woman who was getting married at Christmastime while Avery was ringing up a sale at the cash desk. To my surprise a man was buying two boxes of old first-grade readers that had to have been hanging around the shop for at least six months. Elvis was sitting in the tub chair being his usual charming self.

I went up to my office, dropped into my desk chair and picked up my coffee. It was cold. I could go get a cup and then add a few items to the store’s Web site, I thought. I could go downstairs and talk to Avery about ideas for a new window display. I could eat the last blueberry streusel muffin in the staff room—assuming Nick or Avery hadn’t already inhaled it. But what I really wanted was one of Mac’s pep talks where he told me that Rose and crew would in fact pull this investigation out of the fire the way they’d saved every other case they’d taken on.

I looked at my phone lying on the desk. Mac had said if I needed anything to call him. “So why don’t you call him?” I said.

There was a loud murp from the floor in front of my desk. Then Elvis launched himself onto the desktop. He licked a paw and ran it over his ear, then cocked his head and looked inquiringly—at least that’s how it seemed—at me.

“He might be busy,” I said. I rubbed the space between my eyebrows. I was having a conversation with a cat. A cat who probably had no clue what the heck I was even talking about.

The cat in question ducked his head and nudged the phone a bit closer to me. Okay. Maybe he did know what I was talking about.

I picked up the phone, punched in the number Mac had given me and wished I didn’t feel like I was back in high school.

Mac answered on the fourth ring. “Sarah. Hi,” he said.

I couldn’t help smiling. “Hi yourself,” I said. “Is this a bad time?”

“No, this is a good time.” I heard the squeak of what sounded like a desk chair. “I’m eating a piece of coffee cake and drinking a cup of coffee and thinking how much better Rose’s coffee cake is and how much I like the coffee made from the beans Mr. P. gets from that roaster in Kennebunk.”

“So you miss us,” I teased. “Or at least the food and the coffee.”

Mac laughed. “Rose’s coffee cake is very good, but I do miss all of you. What’s up?”

Elvis had stretched out on the desk. Now he rolled on to his side and closed his green eyes. Cat for My work here is done.

I swiveled around in the chair and leaned back, propping one foot on the edge of the desk. “Liam is here working in the sunporch.”

“That’s good,” Mac said.

“There are two new windows in and a big hole covered by a tarp because Liam, Nick, Rose and Mr. P. have gone to lunch.”

He laughed. “They’ll be back. I swear.”

“I have visions of coming in Monday morning to find a raccoon sitting in the tub chair and a family of seagulls on top of that big gold standing mirror.”

“In other words, you’d have the display for the front window for next month all worked out.”

This time I was the one who laughed.

“So is the détente between Nick and Rose still holding?” Mac asked.

I swung slowly from side to side in my chair. “It is. Although sometimes I feel like I’ve been transported to some other version of this planet.”

His question reminded me that I wanted to ask Nick what he and Rose had been looking at the day before. Even though Rose had said I didn’t want to know, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I probably did.

“It would be great if they actually have stopped butting heads, but . . .”

“. . . that’s probably not the case so I should enjoy the calm before the storm so to speak,” I finished.

“Based on past experience, probably.” The chair or whatever it was squeaked again. “So what’s happening with the case?” Mac asked. “In your last text you said you were going to talk to the parents of the girl this Gina Pearson hit with her car.”

“The father is very angry still,” I said. “Not that I blame him. But he has an alibi. As for the mother, Rose thinks she’s a possibility. And she doesn’t have an alibi.”

“You don’t agree with Rose?”

I sighed softly. “I guess I don’t really want Jia—that’s her name, Jia Allison—to be a possibility. There are already three kids who have lost their mother. I don’t want it to be four.”

“It’ll work out, Sarah.”

“You always say that,” I said.

“And I’m always right.”

I thought about what Avery had said about Mac. You should ask him when he’s coming back so he knows we want him back. Instead I said, “I should probably go check on Avery and Charlotte.”

“Tell them I said hello,” Mac said.

“I will.” I turned back around to face the desk. Elvis was gone.

“I’ll talk to you soon,” Mac said and he was gone, too.

I went downstairs. Charlotte had an armful of pillows and Avery was just coming in from the workroom with a tray of teacup planters—little Haworthia plants in china cups and saucers. They were a perennial favorite with tourists.

“Rose just texted Avery,” Charlotte said. “She’s sending a bus full of tourists from Quebec our way. They’ll be here right after they finish lunch.”

Rose and Mr. P., along with Liam and Nick, were back about ten minutes later.

“How was lunch?” I asked.

“Excellent,” Rose said. “We went to Natalie’s Chowder House.” She looked at me as though she was expecting some kind of reaction.

“Good,” I said, fairly certain that was not the response she was looking for.

“Molly Pace works there,” Mr. P. said.

Molly Pace. Who the heck was Molly Pace?

Liam was leaning against the workbench while Nick was standing feet apart with his arms crossed. They seemed to be enjoying my bewilderment.

“Have you forgotten that Molly Pace is Gavin Pace’s wife?” Rose said. “He’s the man Gina Pearson had the affair with. Try to keep up, dear.”

“I’m with you now,” I said, glaring over her shoulder at Liam and Nick, who smirked back at me. “So did you talk to her?”

“Well, it would have been silly to go there and then not talk to her, don’t you think?”

“Yes, it would,” I said, nodding like a bobblehead doll stuck to a car dashboard. “What’s she like?”

Luckily Mr. P. stepped in to save me. “Not what I expected,” he said.

“What were you expecting?” I asked.

“Someone angrier, I guess, given what Sammy told me about her confrontation with Gina outside the pub—which wasn’t their only encounter, by the way.”

“Do you think she could have hurt Gina?”

Rose shook her head. “First of all, Molly isn’t any taller than I am and she doesn’t have my upper-body strength.”

I had no idea what Rose’s upper-body capacity was and it didn’t seem like a good time to ask so I just nodded.

“And second, she wasn’t even in town the weekend of the fire. She was in Portland with friends, Christmas shopping and indulging in the festivities.”

“So we cross her off the list,” I said.

“Yes, we do,” Mr. P. said.

“But right now we need to get ready for those tourists,” Rose said. She pressed her thumb to her lips and looked around the workroom.

“Charlotte already got the pillows,” I said.

Rose nodded. “Good. What if we put out some of those fancy pots Avery did and maybe some of those old bottles from Clayton’s?”

“Good idea,” I said. “I’ll go get the bottles. They’re under the stairs.”

“I’ll get the flowerpots,” she said. She looked at Mr. P. “Alf, could you give me a hand?”

“Of course,” he said with a smile.

“Liam. Nicolas,” Rose said over her shoulder, “I think that’s enough lollygagging. Don’t you two have work to do?”

Nick ducked his head. Liam cleared his throat. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. They started for the sunporch.

The next hour was busy. The tourists from Quebec were friendly and full of questions about everything. And none of them laughed at my very rudimentary attempts to speak French. It turned out to be a good thing that Charlotte had brought out all the pillows and Avery had carried in her planters. We sold them all, along with dishes, about half the bottles, books, vintage postcards and a large mahogany framed mirror and a chamber pot the purchaser insisted would fit under her seat.

Rose was already rearranging the remaining bottles. The pale green vintage Coke bottles were the first that had been snapped up. I was always amazed by the things people liked to collect.

I put my arm around Rose and kissed the top of her head. “Thank you for telling the tour bus operator about Second Chance. We did well and I think she’ll be back next time she has a tour in this area.”

“You’re welcome, dear,” she said. She put a hand up to her neck. “It helps that I’m wearing my lucky scarf.”

Rose’s lucky scarf (purple with a silver Aztec design) had been given to her by Steven Tyler—yes, that Steven Tyler—after she’d danced in the aisle with him at an Aerosmith concert and kissed him, so long and so deeply that teenaged me had wished for the earth to open up and swallow me alive, especially since Tyler had made it clear he’d enjoyed the encounter.

I went out to the garage to bring in a box of teacups. We never seemed to run out of them. I’d find a few in a yard sale or buy a couple from one of my regular pickers. And I’d purchased two dozen of them from one of Rose’s friends who was giving up her house for an apartment and a very limber yoga instructor who was twenty years her junior.

When I came back into the workroom Avery was lifting a bin down from one of the shelves. “I thought I should reset those two tables,” she said. “Maybe I’ll use those white ghost pumpkins and some of those branches with the little red berries for a centerpiece.”

I nodded. “That’s a good idea.” The place settings of china and the glassware on both of the tables in the shop had sold. The smaller table had even lost the starched linen tablecloth, napkins and silver napkin rings.

Avery set the bin on the floor. She eyed me and shifted from one foot to the other. I waited. “Sarah, would it be okay if my friend Greg stops by at the end of the day to look at some of those old classroom maps we have? We’re working on a project.”

“It’s fine with me,” I said. “Do you know where they are?”

She nodded, fidgeting with her arm of bracelets. “I pretty much know where everything is. I’ve been kind of making a map of back here.”

I set the box of cups on the workbench. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Probably because you and Mac are usually the ones who put things away so you know where it all is.”

She was right. The garage work space was more Mac’s domain than mine, and more than once in the last month I’d found myself out there searching for something he would have been able to put his hands on in less than a minute.

“So it’s really okay for Greg to stop by?” Avery said.

I looked at her, more than a little confused. “Like I said, it’s fine.”

She was looking at me as if I was as dense as a bag of sand. Then I got it. “Wait a minute,” I said. “Your friend Greg? Do you mean Greg Pearson?”

Avery nodded. “Yeah. Took you long enough.” She pushed the bin across the floor to me.

“Are you two really working on a project?” I asked. I gestured at the small stepladder she’d been using and she went back to put it away.

“Yes,” she said over her shoulder.

“How did that happen?”

“I knocked my stuff off my desk.”

She seemed to think that was enough of an explanation.

“And?” I prompted.

“And by the time I’d picked everything up most of my friends had found partners. So I ended up with Greg.” She shrugged. “Easy-peasy.”

I had to swallow down a smile because she suddenly reminded me so much of Rose.

“And you know what the cool thing is?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

She hung the ladder on its hook and walked back over to me. “I like working with him. He’s smart and he has good ideas and he doesn’t dump all the work on me.”

I did smile then. “I’m glad it worked out.”

“He should be here about four thirty or so. He doesn’t drive so he has to wait for his grandmother to bring him.”

“A teenage guy who doesn’t drive? That’s an anomaly.” Avery drove Liz’s car every chance she got.

I grabbed one end of the bin and Avery picked up the other. It was heavy.

“Yeah, I know,” she said. “I think he was doing driving lessons when his mom . . . died. I figured maybe they couldn’t afford them anymore and he was too embarrassed to say.”

Mr. P. had already learned that the insurance company had refused to pay out on both the Pearsons’ fire insurance and Gina’s life insurance policy. Maybe if we could prove that someone had murdered her that would change.

Greg Pearson showed up just a couple of minutes after four thirty. He gave me a shy smile when Avery introduced me as her boss, but he looked me in the eye and thanked me for letting them look through the maps. Someone had taught him good manners.

He was tall and lanky in that way that teenage boys often are. He had the same brown eyes as his sister and the same guarded look in them. His hair was dark instead of blond, but he looked very much like Mallory, which meant they both took after their father. He wore khakis, a blue and red flannel shirt over a gray T-shirt and black Chuck Taylor’s.

“Did I get here too early?” Greg said to Avery.

“No,” I said. I smiled at Avery. “You can go take a look at those maps right now. I can help Charlotte.”

“Okay,” Avery said. “If you need me, yell or something.”

I’d made a point of staying away from the sunporch ever since Liam and Nick came back from lunch—my resolve made easier by the blue plastic tarp they’d hung over the door. But now I wanted to see how much work they’d gotten done and I wanted to tackle Nick about his conversation with Rose the day before.

I poked my head around the side of the tarp. “Can I come in?” I asked.

“As long as you don’t mind the mess,” Liam said. A pair of safety goggles was pushed up on the top of his head and a dust mask hung below his chin. All four windows facing the parking lot had been replaced and he was screwing what looked to be the last piece of drywall to the studs.

“What do you think?” Nick asked. He was still wearing his safety glasses and there were bits of wood and drywall dust in his sandy hair. He’d pushed his own mask down off his face, too.

“I think it looks terrific,” I said with a grin. “I can’t believe you got so much done in just one day.”

Liam grinned back. “It made a big difference having John here to help when we were taking out the old windows. And Nick’s an okay assistant.”

Nick held out one hand and waggled his fingers from side to side. “Your brother’s an okay boss,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s good to know that the two of you have been striving for okay-ness.”

Liam set the drill on the floor and straightened up. Nick reached for the broom that was leaning in the far corner of the room and began sweeping up the debris and dust on the floor. Liam picked his way over to me and draped one arm over my shoulder. “The plan for tomorrow is to pull down all the remaining drywall, insulate behind it and put up new stuff. I know an electrician who’s coming to add a couple of outlets and install the lights. After that, it’s just a matter of taping, mudding, sanding, trim and paint.”

“That sounds like a lot of work.”

Liam shook his head. “Once the drywall is up, the worst is over, as far as I’m concerned. He frowned. “Is Alfred around? I need to find out when the trim is getting dropped off.”

“He was helping Charlotte change the filter in the vacuum,” I said.

“I’m just going to go talk to him,” Liam said. “I’ll be right back.” He pushed the tarp aside and disappeared into the workroom.

Nick had just about swept his way over to me. “Thank you for helping Liam with all of this,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” he said, looking around for something to pick up all the bits he’d collected.

There was a rectangle of brown cardboard—it looked like the top flap from a box—leaning against the wall where normally Mr. P.’s desk sat. I grabbed it. I knew it was Liam’s version of a dustpan. I’d also seen him use the newspaper and the top of an egg carton for the task, much to Mom’s annoyance.

“Here,” I said to Nick, holding the cardboard so he could sweep everything onto it. The cardboard made a pretty good dustpan. I dumped everything into a black garbage bag without spilling anything back on the floor.

“Seriously,” I said, turning back to Nick. “I appreciate this. I owe you.”

He grinned and nodded. “I know.”

I folded my arms over my chest and eyed him. “Am I going to regret that?”

“There’s a pretty good chance of that,” he said, still grinning.

I bent down and picked up a drywall screw from the floor. Liam and I hadn’t talked about floor covering, I realized.

“I need to ask you something,” I said to Nick.

He was eyeing the back wall, lips silently moving, probably doing more drywall calculations in his head. “About the room or about the case?”

“The case.” That got me all of his attention.

“Problem?”

I shrugged. “That depends. What were you showing Rose yesterday?”

“I thought everyone agreed that was something you didn’t want to know.”

“Rose said that and in the moment I agreed, but now I’m not so sure I should have.”

His mouth twisted to one side, but he didn’t say anything.

“C’mon, Nick,” I said. “I thought we were on the same team.”

He let out a breath. “We are.” Another momentary silence. “Fine. I uh . . . I know the officer who investigated that car accident Gina Pearson had. It was in Rockport. He let me take a quick look at his report. I can’t show it to anyone else.”

There was a “but” coming. I waited.

“But he let me have a look at his rough notes. He has stacks of those six-by-nine memo pads, in boxes in his basement, every one with a black cover. New case, new notepad. I showed the notes to Rose. I thought maybe there might be someone—a coach, a teacher, another parent—who might be a viable suspect.”

So it hadn’t been a notebook they’d been looking at. It had been a memo pad.

I pulled my left shoulder with one hand. “And?” I said.

Nick looked confused. “And what?”

“And did you learn anything?”

“No. No, I don’t think so.”

I caught just the briefest hesitation between the first and second no. “You’re not certain.”

He closed his eyes for a second and shook his head. “You’re as bad as Rose, Sarah,” he said.

I didn’t say anything.

Nick pulled the eye protectors off the top of his head and turned them over in his hands. “I didn’t see anything in those notes. Hannah Allison was the only one hurt. One of the coaches did first aid. Another took charge of the rest of the runners. As far as I could see, neither one of them had any kind of exchange with Gina Pearson or her son.”

“So why the lack of certainty?”

“Okay, this is going to sound weird and I can’t actually believe I’m saying this but I think Rose noticed something in those notes.”

“Okay,” I said.

He frowned. “You don’t seem that surprised.”

I smiled at him. “This is not my first rodeo. What makes you think she found something?”

“She went back and read the same page twice.”

“Did you ask her about it?”

Nick gave me a wry smile. “She said she just wanted to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.”

“And that could be all it is,” I said.

“Or?”

“Or it could be she discovered something she doesn’t want the rest of us to know, at least for now.

He bent down, picked up the drill and snapped out the battery pack. “So what do we do?”

“You don’t do anything,” I said. “Right now you’re on her nice list and I’d like to keep it that way at least for a little while longer. I’ll talk to her.”

He narrowed his dark eyes. “You really think she’ll admit anything to you?”

I shook my head. “Not a chance. But she will tell Mr. P. and I’m pretty sure he’ll tell me.”

“What do you think she saw that I didn’t?” Nick asked.

“You know Rose’s mind doesn’t work like anyone else’s,” I said.

He smiled. “Oh yeah, that’s true.”

Liam came back then. Cleveland would bring the trim first thing in the morning.

“What time do you want to start?” I asked.

“Is eight too early?” Liam asked.

“Not for me,” I said. “I’ll see you then.” I ducked under the tarp. Nick hadn’t noticed that I hadn’t actually answered his question. What had Rose seen in those notes that Nick hadn’t? She didn’t want me to know, whatever it was. Was it something that might incriminate Mike Pearson?

I stopped at the Emmerson Foundation offices on the way home to pick up the papers Liz had promised to John. The foundation was located on the second floor of the old soap factory, an L-shaped brick building close to the harbor front. I took the stairs because I loved to look at the old photos of North Harbor that hung in the stairwell. I was expecting to find Liz in her office but instead discovered her assistant, Jane Evans, who was also mom to Josh Evans, the Angels’ de facto lawyer.

“Hi, Sarah,” she said. She was just putting two file folders into a cardboard banker’s box. Jane was about my height, albeit a lot curvier, with blond curls courtesy of Phantasy. At the moment a pair of half-frame glasses was perched on the end of her nose. She was wearing a green and black dress with heels, although not as high as Liz generally wore. Jane and her son had the same slightly mischievous smile.

“Hi, Jane,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

She put the lid on the box. “I came in to bring coffee and cream for Monday morning and found Liz trying to sort this box of papers into some kind of order.”

“And ended up doing it yourself.”

She ducked her head and smiled. “Liz has a lot of skills, but dealing with paperwork isn’t one of them. I sent her home.”

“You’re the only person on the planet who could do that. She’d never listen to anyone else,” I said. “How do you do that?”

The smile got a little wider. “I’d really love to tell you,” she said.

“But then you’d have to kill me,” I finished.

“Maybe not kill you. But certainly incapacitate you for a while.” She pushed the box across the tabletop toward me.

“Thank you, Jane,” I said, reaching for the carton.

“I was sorry to hear about Marie,” she said.

“Did you know her?”

Jane nodded. “We both started off working in the office at the chocolate factory. That was a long time ago.”

“What was she like?” I asked.

Jane smiled. “Liz said you were helping her with this book project.” She took a minute to consider my question. “Marie was a dynamo,” she said finally. “She was organized and efficient and she could keep a more complicated schedule in her head than most of us could keep with a datebook and a calendar. And I know it’s cliché, but she was married to her job after her husband died. Working for the foundation, for Wilson, was her life.” She pushed the chair next to her under the long wooden conference table. “I think it’s wonderful that you offered to help Liz with this project, Sarah, but don’t fall into the trap of work being your whole life.”

She laughed then, well aware that she was standing in her office on a Saturday. “I’ve been telling Josh the same thing. And I know I’m a fine one to talk.”

“I’ll keep your advice in mind,” I said, giving her a smile. “As long as you promise to do the same.”

“You have a deal,” she said.

I picked up the box, thanked her and headed for the stairs. I hoped John could find some answers in the contents.

I knew that Liz considered the Emmerson Foundation her family’s legacy. The thought that someone had tampered with it cut her deeply and I knew she’d do whatever it took to protect her family. I thought about Mike Pearson then. What had he done to protect his family?