“Jordan.” Anneliese’s blue eyes were steady. “I would not have managed at the hospital those two weeks without you taking care of everything. Let me take care of this.” A small smile. “It isn’t so very hard, after all. Keep a handkerchief and a thank-you ready, and answer all questions with ‘A hunting accident, no one’s fault.’”
Jordan felt her eyes burn. “Anna—”
“Shoo.” Giving a small shove. “Go find Garrett. I’ll make excuses.”
But Jordan didn’t go find Garrett. She saw his broad shoulders across the room, and with a guilty glance she edged out of the parlor, grabbing her pocketbook as she wrenched the front door open. “Jordan dear,” a plump motherly-looking neighbor clucked, black-gloved finger poised over the bell. “I brought some lemon meringue pie, your father’s favorite—”
“Thank you so much, Mrs. Dunne. You’ll find my stepmother upstairs.”
“There was such a nice article in the paper about your father, what a pillar of the community he was. A pity they got his dates wrong—”
“Yes, I saw.” It got her dad’s age wrong, it said Anna McBride was born and raised in Boston and not that she and Dan had met in Boston—“probably my fault,” Anneliese had said. “I was in such a muddle when I was being asked for the details.”
“You just take this pie, dearie, and I’ll whisk on up!”
For a moment Jordan stood on the doorstep with the pie in her hands. She wanted to dash down to the darkroom and hide until everyone went away, but Garrett was sure to come looking if she went there, and Jordan didn’t think she could take one more bear hug.
“You want a ride, miss?” The taxi driver who had dropped Mrs. Dunne on the doorstep leaned out the window of the cab.
“Yes,” Jordan said, half stupefied. “Yes, I want a ride. Clarendon and Newbury.”
IT WASN’T UNTIL halfway to the shop that she came out of her daze in the backseat and realized she was still holding a lemon meringue pie. She almost burst out laughing, or maybe burst out crying. Dad’s favorite. Jordan scrounged enough change to pay the driver and climbed out in front of McBride’s Antiques, pie dish still in hand.
The door had a black crepe bow on the knocker. Jordan tore it off, fishing her keys out of her pocketbook. The shop was dusty in the late-afternoon sunshine; it had been closed up nearly three weeks. Jordan flipped the sign to Open without thinking, setting the pie down on an antique ceramic birdbath, and wandered behind the counter. She traced her father’s initials in the dust, biting back an almost irresistible urge to call out—Dad?—because surely that meant the backroom door would open, and she’d see him there, smiling as he said What can I do for you, missy? All she had to do was call out. It hadn’t been him in the hospital bed. It was all a mistake.
The sob that broke out of her was huge and noisy, echoing in the tomb-silent shop. Jordan gripped the counter, welcoming the tears. “Jesus, Dad,” she whispered. “Why didn’t you buy the right shells? Why did you have to use that old gun instead of a new one that wouldn’t blow up in your face?”
The bell over the shop door tinkled. “Excuse me . . .”
Jordan looked up from the counter, heaving a breath around the solid wall in her chest. “What?” Through the blur in her eyes she could see a young man in the doorway, hands in his pockets.
“Do you work here, miss?” He closed the door behind him with another jingle of the sweet-toned bell. Her father had polished that bell every week, keeping it bright. “I’m here about a job.”
“Job?” Jordan echoed. She couldn’t seem to focus. She blinked hard, once, twice. Why did I come here?
“There’s a Help Wanted sign.” The young man jerked his thumb at the window. “I saw a German fellow last week as he was coming in—”
“Mr. Kolb?”
“Right. But he said I’d have to speak with the owners.”
Help Wanted. Her dad had put that sign up the week he died, looking for a clerk. Some suave fellow or pretty girl to work the counter. Jordan blinked again, focusing on the man standing on the other side of the counter now. Olive skinned, dark haired, lean, about Jordan’s height, maybe four or five years older. Anneliese wouldn’t like that loose collar, the rumpled dark hair without a hat. Sloppy, she’d