A Country Gift Shop Collection: Three cosy crime novels that will keep you guessing!. Vivian Conroy

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ said, “You only came back here to see Michael Danning again. I knew from the moment you told me about your return.”

      Vicky tried to scoff. “I had no idea he was out here. You sure didn’t tell me, and who else would have? How long has he been here anyway? He and Diane? All those times we talked on the phone or you wrote to me, and not a word about either of them.”

      “Diane hasn’t been here long,” Claire protested.

      “That’s not the point,” Vicky said. “You even called me to tell me a neighbor painted his garden gate yellow.”

      “Canary yellow. Quite hard on the eyes.”

      “Mom! Celine’s disappearance is the biggest thing that ever happened in Glen Cove. Why would your friends not talk about it? Pam just called to say Roberts is selling his place. She must also have called to tell you about Michael’s return, Diane’s, and this whole thing about the disappearance case being reopened, right?” Vicky tapped on the paper’s headline. “You knew and yet you never mentioned it to me.”

      Anger rushed through her, pushing her happy expectations for her gift shop away. How could her mother have stayed silent about something as important as this?

      “Reopening the case, hah!” Claire grimaced. “That’s just what Michael Danning is printing in that paper of his. It’s what the both of them want, not what will happen.”

      Vicky tilted her head. Her mother’s tone intrigued her. “How can you be so sure?”

      Claire marched to the gate. “They should have left it alone. Everybody had forgotten about it. We don’t want it all dragged up again.”

      She waved a hand in the air. “You were questioned by the police at the time. My only daughter, questioned by the police.” The indignation was thick in her voice like it had been a personal slight she couldn’t forget.

      “Everybody in college was questioned,” Vicky protested. “It had nothing to do with me personally. They were just trying to find clues to that mystery man Celine was allegedly meeting. But nobody had ever seen him or could give a clear description of him.”

      “Because he doesn’t exist. He was just some fabrication of Danning’s to shift the blame. He killed Celine.”

      “You don’t know that so please stop saying it.”

      Claire continued as if she had not heard Vicky’s protestations, “Now that you have left London behind and come to live here for good, you will go work at the Gazette. What else would you do with your time? You’re a reporter, a good one; you love your work. You’re not going to sit on your hands. You’re not going to Monday afternoon bingo or whatever else they think up around here for people who have nothing to do all day long.”Claire’s hand tightened on the gate. “You’re young and ambitious. You can’t fool me that you suddenly want to do something else, outside of the reporting world. No, this was all a setup from the start. You’re on your way now to the Gazette’s building, to see Michael Danning about freelance assignments. Or maybe even about a part-time job there? You have enough experience; he might take you on for that. But I’m telling you it’s a bad idea. That paper is dead, has been for ages. And with him in charge, people won’t touch it for sure. No matter what he comes up with for a cheap headline. They all know about him.”

      Claire pulled back her narrow shoulders in her lilac cardigan. “I don’t know how I’ll be able to explain to my friends that my daughter is going to work for that man.”

      So that was why her mother had been so reluctant to accept her homecoming as good news. Not only because she was afraid of a retirement home, but also because she had suspected Vicky wanted to work with Michael Danning. The Houdini among bachelors as Claire had called him, before Celine had vanished. After that, Claire had been convinced Michael was to blame. He was the last person alive she wanted associated with her only daughter.

      Cheerful chimes wafted over to them on the breeze. The church tower’s melody for the quarter of an hour. A quarter to ten.

      Vicky started, dropping the paper in the grass. It was a good ten-minute walk, and she didn’t want to arrive in a sweat from rushing. If only she had brought her bike to her mother’s. But she had figured it would be nice to walk into town, the old route she had taken countless times, and see if much had changed. It had seemed nostalgic and fun. Right now, however, she was shaken to the core by the news of Michael’s return and the possibility the old disappearance case would be reopened.

      Taking a deep breath, she said, “I have to go. And no, not to see Michael Danning. You kept that hidden from me very cleverly. Too bad really. If I had known Michael was back in town and this whole thing was about to unfold…I might have decided to stay away until it was over.”

Chapter Two

      Vicky stepped out of the garden gate, Claire hot on her heels with the dogs.

      “How do you mean stay away until it was over?” Claire asked in a small voice.

      Vicky clenched her hands into fists by her sides. Her overeager mother had drawn all the wrong conclusions and thereby achieved the exact opposite of what she tried to accomplish: dragging her daughter into a situation Vicky herself would have preferred to stay away from.

      She sighed before saying, “You could at least have given me a choice. I considered it all when I wanted to come back: giving up my job, my friends, moving into a small town where all eyes would be on me. To some people here I never grew up. They will treat me again like I’m still a teen. But I didn’t consider this whole Celine business of old. Diane back in town, the case about to be reopened. And Michael even stirring up this hornets’ nest. I can’t believe it. Why would he do that?”

      “You still care for him,” Claire groused. “Why else would you respond like that? It does matter to you.”

      Vicky snapped her face toward her mother. “Of course it matters. Michael left like…a man on the run. Everybody believed he was guilty. Not of some minor thing but of a horrible crime, a premeditated cold-blooded killing.”

      Claire blinked in confusion. “Nobody said it had to be premeditated. He could have killed her in a fit of rage.”

      “But nobody saw them together that night. Michael’s car was clean. The body never found. If you kill someone in a fit of rage, you have not prepared your actions so you make mistakes and there are traces. Even eyewitnesses. Something that points back at you. I worked in the newspaper world long enough to know about such things. If Michael really killed Celine without anybody finding out about it, he would have had to prepare every step of the way. So when people accuse him, they actually say that Michael planned the murder of his own girlfriend, way ahead and into enough detail that he left no traces and could get away with it.”

      Vicky shivered as she put the conclusion into words. “Now why would he come back here and face all of those evil allegations again?”

      Vicky’s heart cringed for Michael Danning’s position, and she had to take a few steadying breaths. She shouldn’t become so emotional about it all. That was not the way to convince her mother she didn’t care.

      As if she sensed that feeling, Claire held her head down and pushed ahead, satisfied to let the charged silence speak for itself.

      Wanting СКАЧАТЬ