Free Murder Is Binding by Lorna Barrett Page A

inches from her mouth, cold dread encircling her heart. “How long were you planning on visiting?”
    â€œOh, didn’t I tell you? I’ve decided to move to New Hampshire.”

FIVE
    Tricia nearly choked on her wine. “You what?”
    Angelica picked up her napkin, smoothed out the folds, and placed it on her lap. “I don’t like the idea of you living up here all on your own. Murders happening right next to your place of business.” She shook her head. “Mother and Daddy would be heartsick if they thought I’d abandon you in such a violent community. I feel it’s my duty to stay here with you at least throughout the crisis.”
    Tricia sat back in her chair. “There is no crisis. This is the first murder in Stoneham in over sixty years. It’s not likely to happen again.”
    â€œWhat about that poor woman who crashed her car?”
    â€œYou heard about that, too?”
    â€œI told you, people here like to talk.”
    â€œWell, there’s no proof she was murdered. I’ll bet she didn’t maintain that old rust bucket she drove.”
    Angelica picked up her fork, speared a chunk of tomato. “Surely that’s what yearly car inspections prevent.”
    â€œLet’s get back on topic, which is you moving to Stoneham. There’s nothing for you to do here. There’s no shopping, no art galleries, no museums, no gourmet restaurants—and as you pointed out, no shoe stores.”
    Angelica toyed with a piece of pasta. “Perhaps it’s my destiny to bring culture and a sense of style to this little backwater.”
    â€œStoneham is my home. Don’t call it a backwater. It has history and charm and it doesn’t need outsiders coming in with an agenda to change it.”
    â€œAu contraire. You yourself are an outsider. Bob Kelly told me the majority of booksellers were all recruited from out of state to come here. And you just said yourself that most of your customers are out of towners.”
    â€œYes, but—”
    â€œMost of the villagers don’t mind you little guys opening shop, but they don’t want malls and big box stores moving in and changing the area’s character, not to mention all the people from Boston crossing the state line just because it’s cheaper to live here.”
    â€œTell me something I don’t know.”
    â€œChange happens, Tricia,” she said, pointedly. “Whether some people want it or not.”
    Tricia’s temper flared. “You do not need to live here in Stoneham.”
    Angelica swirled the wine in her glass. “And I may not stay long. Just long enough to see you through this ordeal.” And then she did something that totally startled Tricia; she laid one of her hands on Tricia’s. “I may not have been the best big sister in the past, but I intend to make up for that now.”
    Flabbergasted, Tricia could only sit there with her mouth open. Then she shut it. Angelica had never before displayed even a hint of altruism. Something else was behind her visit, and her newfound sisterly love.
    How long would it be before she revealed her true intent?
    Â 
    Being labeled the village jinx didn’t seem to have an impact on customers at Haven’t Got a Clue. A busload of bibliomaniacs on a day trip from Boston had unloaded an hour earlier, and business had been brisk. It was easy to tell the townsfolk from the transients. The villagers paused at the shop’s windows, faces peering in to see the jinx on display like at a zoo, judgment in their eyes. Tricia braved a smile for each of them, but the faces turned away.
    Tricia rang up a three-hundred-dollar sale for a British first edition of Agatha Christie’s Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? and carefully wrapped the book in acid-free tissue before placing it in one of the store’s elegant, custom-printed, foil-stamped shopping bags. No plastic for an order of this