Deadly Notions - By Elizabeth Lynn Casey Page 0,51
them before except in passing at Leeson’s Market or in line at Debbie’s.”
“Wait.” Nina’s eyes widened. “Caroline Rowen has that little redhead doesn’t she?”
Tori nodded. “Zoe.”
“Yes, yes, that’s right. Nice little girl. Her mother is always very sweet.”
“And Samantha Smith?” She fingered the design on the cover of the notebook, her thoughts swirling with more questions. “You still can’t remember her?”
“What does she look like?”
Thinking back to Sally’s party, Tori did her best to describe the woman who’d spent much of the evening hovering around her daughter—behavior that made sense now in light of the information Milo had shared. “She’s about my height, short brown hair, big brown eyes, kind of quiet.”
Nina stopped mid–head shake. “Does she have a little girl, too?”
“I believe Milo said her name is Kayla.”
“Kayla, hmmm.” Nina tapped her finger to her lips. “No, I—wait, yes, I do. The little girl is painfully shy. But as hard as her shyness seems to be on her, it seems even harder on her mom.”
Tori cocked her head to the side and studied her assistant closely. “What do you mean?”
Walking over to the windows, Nina opened the one in the center. “Well, if this Samantha Smith person is the one I think she is, she was in here about a week before Sally’s party. She spent a good ten minutes trying to coax Kayla into the children’s room to play with the costume trunk and stage. The little girl kept shaking her head and biting her lip as if she was afraid to go without her mom. It caught my attention because at first I couldn’t figure out why the mom wouldn’t just go with the little girl.” Nina leaned closer to the screen and sniffed in the spring air. “But as I watched, I realized this little girl was painfully shy and that the mom was just trying to help her take some baby steps in a safe environment.”
“And?”
“She finally convinced Kayla to give it a try but not more than five minutes later the little girl was back at her mom’s side.”
Tori leaned against her desk and folded her arms across her chest, Nina’s words winding their way through her thoughts. “Do you have any idea what happened? Or do you think she’d just had enough time without mom?”
Nina’s lips curved downward. “I didn’t hear everything that happened but I know Kayla was upset. And when her mom asked what was wrong, the little girl insisted on whispering the answer. Whatever she said, it prompted her mom to give her a big hug and lead her out of the library empty-handed despite the stack of books she’d set on the information desk just moments earlier.”
“Do you think something happened?”
“Possibly. It was that day you met with the board members over lunch.”
She thought back to the day in question. “We brought in Dixie as backup, right?”
Nina nodded. “Perhaps she’d be the better person to ask.”
“You might be right.” Pushing off the desk, Tori gestured toward the hands of the clock that signaled the start of another day at Sweet Briar Public Library. “I’ll give her a call later on, see if she remembers anything that might be helpful.”
Chapter 19
She followed her lunch as it made its way down the checkout belt, its proximity to the various over-thecounter medications separated by the plastic orange divider Regina Murphy had slammed down as Tori approached the line. The action, in and of itself, wouldn’t have caught her by surprise all on its own. After all, the notion of paying for items you didn’t want wasn’t appealing to her, either.
But when it was accompanied by a raised eyebrow, clenched fists, and a cluck of disgust that echoed throughout Leeson’s Market it had a way of making a person feel rather pariah-ish.
The key was how to handle it. Did she keep her mouth shut and let the woman purchase her items and leave? Or did she reach out and try to make polite conversation?
She knew what Leona would say. She suspected Margaret Louise and Debbie and the rest of her friends would concur. But try as she might to keep quiet, she simply couldn’t.
“How are you, Regina?”
The woman pivoted on her three-inch heels. “How do you think I am?”
The fists were your clue.
Inhaling every ounce of courage she could muster, Tori pressed on. “I imagine you’re hurting. You lost a friend and a business partner.”
“Lost is a rather sugar-coated way of saying she was murdered, don’t you think?” Regina hissed through clenched teeth.