Free Murder of a Small-Town Honey by Denise Swanson

way to get the money.
    Finally Skye stood up. “I have an idea, but I don’t know if it will work and I really hate to do it.”
    Vince looked at her imploringly. “I’m going to lose the shop if I can’t meet the mortgage.”
    “Well, the only thing I have that’s really worth anything is Grandma Leofanti’s emerald ring. I could try to get a loan with it as collateral.”
    He buried his head in his hands. His heavily muscled chest heaved as he took a deep breath. “I’m quite a big brother, aren’t I? Maybe next time I’ll try stealing candy from a baby.”
    “Don’t ever be ashamed to ask for help,” Skye rushed to reassure him. “I only wish I had it to give. I’ll try to find out by Wednesday if I can get a loan. Will that be too late?”
    “If the answer is yes, it will be just in time. If the answer is no, time doesn’t matter.”

CHAPTER 7
    If You Could Read My Mind
    It was nearly six that evening when Skye walked out of Vince’s salon and headed toward her parents’ house. She drove back down Maryland Street, and as she approached the Basin Street crossroad the signal turned red.
    “The only stoplight in town, and I never manage to catch it on green,” Skye grumbled to herself.
    Looking down Scumble River’s main drag, Skye noted an unfamiliar sign, Young at Heart Photography. She figured it must be Mike Young’s studio—the one her aunt had mentioned Saturday.
    Up and down the street were banners promoting the now-passed Chokeberry Days, but something had been added since they were originally hung. Each pennant had been hand-painted with a red circle and a line bisecting it, the international sign for no.
    The light changed and she drove on, easing around the sharp curve after Webster Drive. She turned right onto County Line Road. Her parents’ farm was about a mile east off the paved road.
    Skye could hardly believe she was back. She had spent her whole adult life putting distance between herself and Scumble River. She went so far as to join the Peace Corps after graduating from college, and spent four years in Dominica, a tiny island in the Caribbean. But a single stubborn decision and all her plans were wiped out. It had taken only one long, emotional call home to get her reestablished here in town. Mothers sometimes worked in mysterious ways.
    Smiling ruefully, she mused, I was certainly eager enough to come home this time. Well, ready or not, I’m back where I started. At least my parents are happy I’m here.
    The tires crunching the white pea gravel on her parents’ well-tended lane interrupted her thoughts. Her father, Jed, was on his riding mower finishing up their acre of grass. When he spotted Skye he took off his blue-and-white polka-dotted cap and waved it in the air, revealing a steel-gray crew cut, faded brown eyes, and a tanned, leathery face.
    On the step near the back patio, she noticed her mother’s concrete goose dressed in a bikini with sunglasses perched on its beak and a bow on top of its head. It was usually attired in holiday garb, but with the Fourth of July long past and Halloween nearly two months away, this must have been the best her mom could do. Skye quickly checked out the trio of plaster deer to make sure they weren’t similarly costumed.
    Returning her father’s wave, she went in the back door of the red-brick ranch-style house. The large kitchen was bisected by a counter edged with two stools. Its pristine celery-colored walls looked as if they’d been painted just that morning, and the matching linoleum glistened with a fresh coat of wax.
    Her mother, May, stood at the sink, cleaning sweet corn. First she tore off the outer husks, then scrubbed the corn silk away with a vegetable brush. Despite her fifty-five years and short stature, May’s athletic build reminded Skye of the cheerleader her mother once was. The few pounds she had gained since high school did not detract from this image.
    The first words out of her mother’s mouth were, “Hope