Free From the Queen by Carolyn Hart

Annie Darling shivered as she sloshed through puddles. Usually she stopped to admire boats in the marina, everything from majestic ocean-going yachts to jaunty Sunfish. On this February day, she kept her head ducked under her umbrella and didn’t spare a glance at gray water flecked with white caps and a horizon obscured by slanting rain. She reached the covered boardwalk in front of the shops, grateful for a respite. She paused at the door of Death on Demand, shook her umbrella, then inserted the key.
    The chill of the morning lessened as she stepped inside her beloved bookstore. In her view, Death on Demand was the literary center of the small South Carolina sea island of Broward’s Rock. She tipped the umbrella into a ceramic stand, wiped her boots on the welcome mat, and drew in the scent of books, old and new. She clicked on the lights, taking pleasure from the new book table with its glorious array of the best mysteries, thrillers, and suspense novels of the month.
    She hurried down the central aisle, turned up the heat and put on coffee to brew. The island didn’t teem with visitors in February so customers would be as precious as a first edition of The Thirty-Nine Steps . Ingrid Webb, her faithful clerk, was enjoying a holiday in Hawaii with her husband, Duane, and many regular customers were also off-island sunseekers. If Max were next door at Confidential Commissions, his rather desultory business that offered solutions for any situation, he’d be very likely to pop in for a mug of coffee and suggest a prompt departure for home and afternoon delight, one of his favorite pursuits, but her husband was at Pebble Beach for the PGA tournament with a group of golf buddies. It would be quiet on all fronts.
    What would be the perfect book to choose for a moment of leisure? As she poured a mug of French roast, she considered which title to select for her treat. Tasha Alexander’s The Counterfeit Heiress ? J. A. Jance’s Beaumont struggled between past and present in Second Watch . Perhaps the new Darling Dahlia title by Susan Witttig Albert. Or on this rainy, cold (for a sea island) day, she might reach for an old favorite. Just as a baggy sweater and wellworn house shoes afford comfort, so did books from yesterday, Drink to Yesterday by Manning Coles, Ming Yellow by John Marquand, Murder’s Little Sister by Pamela Branch.
    A sharp mew sounded. She felt a tiny prick on one ankle.
    Agatha, the elegant black feline who ruled the store, gazed at Annie with unwinking green eyes.
    Why did her cat’s stare make her feel like she was back in school and had received a summons from the principal’s office?
    Agatha paused for one last meaningful look and marched determinedly toward the coffee bar.
    Annie followed. She poured fresh cat food into a steel bowl. She lifted a ceramic bowl, swished it out, added fresh water, and placed it next to the steel bowl. She should now, if she were diligent, hurry to the storeroom, place orders, perhaps unpack books. Instead, she headed to the front of the store to the first bookcase, carrying her coffee mug. She smiled as she picked up Murder’s Little Sister .
    She settled on a shabby sofa in an enclave with a Whitmani fern and slipped into Pamela Branch’s mordantly funny world, secure in the certainty that nothing exciting was going to happen today.
    The front bell sang. Annie slid a crimson Death on Demand bookmark into her book and came to her feet, ready to smile. It was late afternoon and the store had been as quiet as a cemetery all day. She started up the central aisle.
    Ellen Gallagher bolted toward her, shoes thumping as she ran. Her frizzy brown hair was in its usual unbrushed, tangled state, but her long, thin, ordinarily sallow face was flushed a bright pink. Near-sighted eyes behind thick lenses blinked rapidly. She clutched a feather pillow tight to her chest. “Annie.” Her voice was a mix between a squeal and a highpitched