She looked away, glancing around the shop as if wondering how a business so small kept from going under. It was all Perry could do to stop herself from whipping out the shop’s tax return.
“I manage Sugar Blues, yes,” she said, sitting straighter. “But I don’t know how I can help you unless you’d like me to show you around the shop.”
Dawn shook off Perry’s offer. “One of my sources tells me that your aunt was at the old Eckton warehouse yesterday before the site was raided.”
“Raided?” Perry arched a brow, praying it hid the tic she felt at her temple. “I didn’t know one could raid an empty building.”
The other woman reached into her bag for a second pencil when the lead broke on the first. “Were you also there, then?” she asked, blinking rapidly. “Since you’re aware of the building being empty?”
Shoot. Was it not common knowledge? Or had she just screwed up? “Everyone knows the building is empty.”
“I doubt everyone has reason to know any such thing,” Dawn Taylor said, jotting notes, her cell phone ringing before Perry could respond.
“Excuse me.” The woman—a girl, really—who’d come in behind the reporter, dropped a text on sun signs on the counter. “I can’t find a price on this book.”
Perry grabbed two incense burners before they rolled to the floor. “If there’s not a price on the spine, there should be one penciled inside the cover. See? Nineteen ninety-five.”
She darted a quick glance at Dawn Taylor, who’d turned to take her call, then said to the girl, “Would you like me to ring that up for you?”
“No. That’s okay. I’ll come back for it. I didn’t bring enough money.”
“I’ll keep it for you here at the counter until the end of the day,” Perry said, but the young woman was already out the door.
Taylor clipped her phone shut to end the call and returned her notebook and pencil along with the cell to her purse. “I have an interview that’s been bumped up in my schedule. I’ve got to go, but I will be back for your story, Ms. Brazille.”
“I’ll be waiting with bells on,” Perry muttered under her breath, watching the reporter breeze out of the shop. She took a deep breath, wondering what the hell that had been about, and if she’d really messed things up, then slid the astrology book under the counter.
The bell hadn’t finished its closing chime before Jack pulled the door open and came barreling down the center of the shop toward her. “What was Dawn Taylor doing here? What did she want?”
First things first. “Listen. If I’d had your cell number, I would’ve called you the minute she told me who she was.”
He grabbed a crystal from the counter, rubbed it with his thumb. “Did she question you? Or talk to Della?”
Perry shook her head, returned her gaze from the crystal he held to his face. “She asked what I knew about the warehouse discovery yesterday. I told her to talk to my literary agent since I’ll be selling the story, and that she’d have to make an appointment to see Della.”
“Where is she now? Where’s Della?” he asked, ignoring her sarcasm and bouncing the crystal in his palm.
“She must be in the kitchen, why?” she asked, glancing toward the door at the sound of the entrance chime.
Book came charging toward them, his face drawn. “Where’s Della?”
Frowning now, Perry pointed over her shoulder. “In the kitchen.”
He was around the corner and through the beaded curtain before she finished speaking.
“What’s going on, Jack?”
“With him? I don’t know. But Della told me this morning that she saw Eckhardt drowning. Guess what one thing never clicked?” he asked, his eyes sparkling, his excitement nearly palpable.
She, unfortunately, had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. “What?”
“Taylor. He killed himself by jumping from the Causeway Bridge. But it wasn’t the fall that killed him. I pulled the information this morning. Coroner’s report said it was death by—”
“Drowning,” she said, finally catching on.
“Exactly. What if what Della was seeing was Taylor instead of Eckhardt?” he asked, lobbing the crystal to her over the counter. “It’s way too much of a coincidence that both men drowned—”
“She’s not in the kitchen,” Book barked out, the curtain swinging in a wild tangle of beads behind him. “She’s not in the utility room or in the courtyard.”
Perry got up from the stool, a flitter of worry tickling her spine. “I’ve been here all morning. I would have seen her go upstairs.”
“I’ll check,” the detective said, already climbing.
“The reading room, maybe?” Jack asked, heading toward the corner of the shop. “Did she have an appointment booked?”
“Yes, but the client never showed up, and the rest of her morning is clear,” Perry said, grabbing the appointment book and scanning the page. “We had breakfast, then I showered and changed upstairs. When I came back down, she was finishing up the dishes. I’ve been out here ever since. I would have seen her if she’d gone upstairs.”
She glanced up at the sound of Book’s voice calling Della’s name. As he came thundering back down the stairs, Perry’s throat began to burn.
And she could hardly find her voice to ask Jack, “What’s going on?”
He shook his head, scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Dawn Taylor is involved. She’s gotta be.”
“Dawn Taylor? The widow? What about her?” Book demanded.
“She was just here,” Perry whispered, her eyes beginning to water, her chest growing tight. “She was looking for Della.”
And now Della was gone.
“Perry. Walk me through exactly what happened,” Book said, digging through his suit pockets. “Everything you can remember.”
She started slowly, mentally retracing the morning’s steps. “I was behind the counter. I’d just climbed onto the stool and was thinking about a conversation Della and I had earlier. I heard the chime and looked up, and that’s when Dawn Taylor came in.” Blew in. Like a hurricane. “She obviously wasn’t here to shop because she marched right up to the counter and asked me if I was Della.”
Book finally came up with a pen and notebook. “Did she tell you what she wanted with Della?”
Perry thought back, nodded. “She introduced herself first, then asked if I was Della because she had a few questions for me.”
“Then what?”
“When I told her she could make an appointment, she asked if I was me. She knew I worked here. I told her I didn’t see how I could help, but that I’d be happy to show her around the shop.” Perry stopped, pushed her hair back off her forehead. “That was when she said a source told her that Della had been at the warehouse before yesterday’s raid.”
Book bit off a string of foul words. “Who the hell is talking to this woman? Where is she getting her information?”
Jack looked from Book back to Perry. “What did you tell her then?”
“I told her I didn’t know you could raid an empty building, and she asked how I knew it was empty.” She shrugged sheepishly. “I thought it would be obvious. I didn’t even think.”
“Don’t worry about that now,” Book said. “What else?”
Eyes closed, Perry rubbed at her temples. “She broke her pencil. Her cell phone rang. While she took the call, another younger woman brought a book up to the counter to check on the price. I told her what it was. She left, and then Dawn Taylor left, saying she had an interview.”
Book scribbled a line of notes. “Tell me about the other woman.”
“She was about twenty with bright red hair. Wearing dark jeans, a dark turtleneck and sneakers. She was looking at a book on sun signs.”
“Did she buy it?”
“No. She said she didn’t have enough money with her. I told her I’d hold it for her until we closed for the day.”
“Did she say she’d be back?”
“Uh, no. She just left.”
“Where’s the book now?” Book asked.
Perry glanced beneath the counter. “It’s right here.”
“You don’t think…” Jack started to say, letting the sentence trail off.
She looked from one man to the other. “Think what?”
“She may have been a diversion. Dawn Taylor came in and steamrolled you,” Book said, and then he began to pace, gesturing with one hand as he talked. “The phone call could have been a signal.”
“You’re saying Dawn Taylor could be behind the Eckhardt kidnapping? And that maybe she’s taken Della to keep her quiet? But why? Della doesn’t know anything.”
“If Taylor’s not behind it, then she’s being fed information from someone following the case—”
“Or from someone involved,” Jack finished for him.
“So what are you going to do?” Perry wasn’t even sure who she was asking.
“The book. The one the woman didn’t buy.”
Perry reached for it, and stopped when the detective held up a hand. And then she broke the bad news. “If you’re thinking about her prints, you won’t find any. She had on mittens.”