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The Key in the Attic(54)

By:DeAnna Julie Dodson

Annie rolled her eyes. “So it just happened to stop right after you left that day?”

“Nothing I did on purpose anyway.” He shrugged. “While I was examining it, I guess I could have turned the face a little, enough so the mechanism behind it wasn’t hanging straight anymore. I’ve done it before winding my own clocks. It doesn’t hurt anything, but it keeps the clock from running right.”

“So you were the one who broke into my house.”

“You said you weren’t pressing charges.”

“Not if you tell us the truth.” Annie gave him a hard look. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

“I didn’t know the clock had stopped, so I didn’t know you’d taken it to be repaired. When I broke in and found it wasn’t there anymore, I didn’t want to take anything else. Nothing that the police would really bother to try to find.”

Annie still glared at him. “And how did you find out where the clock was?”

He jerked his chin toward Mary Beth. “I heard her say you were taking the clock into Brunswick to be fixed. There’s only one shop there that does work on specialty pieces like that. I just sent a friend of mine out there.”

“And who’s this friend? I suppose he’s the one who actually picked up the clock while you were giving yourself an alibi in New York.”

“Oh no, Mrs. Dawson, that’s one name you won’t be getting out of me. He thought he was just helping pull a prank on a friend and didn’t even know he was breaking the law. He’s not part of the deal.”

“Then we don’t have a deal.”

“No.” Mary Beth put one hand on Annie’s arm. “It’s all right. It’s not like he has any reason to do this to anybody else. I have my clock back and the little bit of information we were missing. I guess that’s the best we can hope for now. I don’t think Mr. Sanders here will be trying any other criminal activities. The police will come down hard on him if any other complaints are brought against him, I’m sure.”

Sanders gave her a half-smile, one that seemed surprisingly genuine. “Thank you, Ms. Brock. I’ll make it up to you.”

The security guard gave him a hard look, and then he turned to Annie and her friends.

“So is this settled?”

Annie fixed Sanders with a steely glare. “Did you bring some cash to take on your trip today?”

“Yes, but I—”

“How much do you think it will cost to replace your CD and DVD players, Mary Beth?”

Mary Beth shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re not all that expensive these days. Not the ones I had anyway.”

With a sigh, Sanders pulled out his wallet, took out several bills, and laid them on the table in front of Mary Beth.

“Will that do?”

Annie gave the money a disdainful look. “And there was the window she had to have replaced.”

Sanders briefly closed his eyes, and then he took the remainder of the bills in his wallet and added them to the others. Annie counted them out and gave them to Mary Beth.

“Does that cover everything, Mary Beth?”

Mary Beth nodded. “I can’t think of anything else.”

“OK,” the security guard said. “Now is everybody happy? No need to call the police? I still can, you know.”

“I think we’re fine now,” Annie told him. “You’ve been very helpful. Um … in case our friend here changes his mind later on, you would be willing to testify about what happened today, right?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’d be happy to.” He fished in his pocket, pulled out a much-handled business card and gave it to her. “If any of you ladies need me, you just call.”

Annie glanced at the card and suppressed a giggle as she put it in her purse. He certainly didn’t look like a Timmy Pertwee.

“Thank you,” she said, offering him her hand. “Really, you’ve been very helpful. Come on, girls—let’s go home. Mr. Sanders, you’d better go see if you can get the money back for your ticket to Virginia. There’s nothing there for you to see.”

Sanders only gave her a sour look. “My ticket was nonrefundable.”





18

Annie sighed as Mary Beth pulled onto the highway heading away from the airport and back toward Stony Point. “At least we got your clock back,” Annie said.

“You don’t sound very happy about that,” Alice said.

Mary Beth smiled at Alice in the rearview mirror. “I am. Mr. Sanders is probably right. If there was some kind of treasure, it must be long gone by now. But I have my clock back. Whatever happens with the shop will just have to happen.”