Thrown (6 page)

I hesitate, unsure what to do. Should I ask him if I can help him?

Leave him to browse on his own? Maybe he doesn’t want a pushy salesperson in his face. He seems to know what he’s looking for as he takes paperbacks out of the racks, pages through them and replaces them.

He chooses one and sets it aside while he looks for another. I’m rocking back and forth on my feet, desperate to keep my first customer happy but wary of scaring him off. Dell waits calmly behind the counter checking her black nail polish.

He comes back with three second-hand paperbacks. They’re all pulpy crime books with lurid covers. He places them on the counter and pulls his wallet from the inside pocket of his trench coat.

‘You’re in luck, Sir,’ Dell says, ringing up his purchases, ‘because you are the first customer under our new management so you get three books for the price of two.’ She offers him a smile.

‘Sounds good,’ he replies, thumbing bills out of his leather wallet.

‘New management. So that means one of you two young ladies must be Amy Anderson.’

‘That’s me,’ I say.

He hands the money to Dell and turns to face me while she finds a paper bag under the counter and slides his books into it.

‘I’m sorry about your aunt,’ he says with what sounds like genuine sympathy. Maybe he knew her. He could be a regular here who spent time talking to Aunt B every day. He could be her best friend for all I know, although I didn’t see him at the funeral or at the house afterward.

‘Thanks.’

Dell hands him his bagged books and his change. He takes them and says to me, ‘It’s a terrible shame that your aunt had her life cut short like that.’

‘Yes,’ I agree, ‘it is.’

‘When a woman who goes walking along those cliffs at night in all weathers suddenly falls on a clear rainless night, it’s almost enough to make you wonder if there wasn’t foul play involved.’

‘Foul play? I’m sorry, who are you? Were you a friend of my aunt?’

He smiles and shakes his head. ‘Not exactly. My name’s Peter Macbeth. I’m a detective with the Penzance Police Force.’ He shows me his ID.

‘Detective? I don’t understand.’ Why is a police detective questioning me about Aunt B? Is he saying her death wasn’t an accident? This doesn’t make sense. Nobody mentioned the police being involved in an investigation.

‘Miss Anderson, your Aunt’s accident does seem on the surface to be just that…an accident…but we need to follow up on the cases like this.

It’s purely routine.’

‘Cases like this?’ I need to sit down. The bookshop is swirling in my vision and I’m afraid I’m going to faint. I reach out for the counter and steady myself.

‘Do you need to sit down?’ he asks with what sounds like genuine concern. Dell appears behind me and guides me to the swivel chair. I sit there taking deep breaths. Don’t panic. Stay calm. Breathe.

Macbeth leans on the counter. ‘I’m not suggesting that your aunt was the victim of foul play, I’m merely pointing out that some aspects of her accident seem to be worth investigating further. Your aunt was a young woman who had a lot of experience on those cliffs. I’m sure she herself would want us to look into every aspect of her death and leave no stone unturned.’

’So what has your investigation uncovered so far?’ Dell asks.

‘Nothing,’ he replies. ‘And that’s good news. Nobody wants to think that your aunt’s death was anything but an accident. But if you think of anything that may help us in our investigation, please contact me on this number.’ He slides a business card across the counter. I don’t look at it. I can’t. What he has said…what he has suggested…that someone might have killed Aunt. B…I just can’t take it in. There’s no reason anyone would want to hurt my aunt. None.

‘Anyway,’ Detective Macbeth says a little uncomfortably, ‘I’ll keep in touch and let you know if we discover anything.’ He leaves the store and the little bell rings to announce his departure.

‘Are you OK?’ Dell asks, stroking my head gently.

‘I don’t know. I had no idea Aunt B’s death was being investigated as a murder.’

‘That isn’t what he said…’

‘But it’s what he meant.’

Murder. I can barely form the word in my mind. I feel like the world has suddenly changed and I have stumbled into a dark corner of it, a hidden place which contains secrets that may change my life.

‘All we can do is wait and see if the police uncover anything,’ Dell says. ‘Like Macbeth said, it’s just routine. They don’t expect to find anything.’

I nod but I feel numb inside.

I don’t know what to think anymore. The people beyond the bookshop window are all strangers to me, strangers living unknown lives. Could the sleepy town of Promise Cove be harboring my aunt’s killer?

CHAPTER FIVE

Drive

Amy

Stoker arrives at exactly two thirty and pulls up outside the store in a dark blue Land Rover which has a winch on the back. The words STOKER AUTOS are painted on the side in gold paint. Seeing him sitting out there waiting for me makes my heart skip a beat and I’m not sure why. I’m probably just nervous about having to make conversation with him all the way to Penzance and back. At least learning the gearshift will give us something to talk about. It isn’t like this is a first date or anything.

‘Your carriage awaits,’ Dell says.

‘Are you sure you’ll be OK here on your own?’

‘Do you see any customers? I’ll be fine. Meet you at the house later.

I’ll be getting a taxi. No way am I walking back up those cliffs. What do you want for dinner tonight? I’ll grab something from the market.’

‘You decide.’ I can’t think about that right now, not while Stoker is waiting. And the bombshell that Detective Macbeth dropped on me earlier has my mind reeling.

‘OK, you go and be swept off your feet by the handsome mechanic.’

She pushes me out the door.

I stand on the sidewalk and Stoker looks up and sees me. He’s wearing blue overalls open at the top to reveal a white t-shirt beneath. Seeing his ruggedly handsome face again sends tingles sparking through my body.

Why does he have this effect on me? I don’t like it. I like to control the situations I find myself in as best I can. Just a glance from Stoker makes me loose any semblance of control and sends my senses into overdrive.

Not good.

When he sees me, the expression on his face turns to concern. He opens the passenger door and says, ‘Amy, are you OK?’

I nod but don’t say anything as I climb into the Land Rover. I don’t trust myself to open my mouth right now. I don’t know what I might say or if I’ll be able to speak at all. Our first meeting was enough for him to classify me as ‘probably crazy’ and I don’t want to do anything to turn that ‘probably’ into ‘definitely’.

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ I don’t know if he’s really interested in my emotional state or if he’s just being polite. We hardly know each other so I’m guessing it’s his English politeness that makes him seem concerned.

But even so, how can he read my mood and guess that something is wrong? Am I that easily read? People can’t usually read my moods at all so I’d be surprised if he can pick up on subtle shifts in my behavior since he doesn’t really know me.

Yet.

His word. Meaning he wants to get to know me.

Yes, he wants to get to know me. Until he actually gets to know me.

Then he’ll want to run away from the crazy girl he once thought was worth getting to know.

At least for now he’s interested in talking to me. So don’t screw it up.

We drive along Main Street and he seems to be thinking of a way to break the ice. Finally he says, ‘So how is the bookshop? Think you’ll be OK there?’

‘I love the shop. I can remember exploring it when I was younger. The sights and smells of that shop are part of my childhood. It feels like home.’

‘And Promise House? I guess that’s the same for you.’

I don’t mention that everywhere I look in the house I imagine my mom and aunt growing up there. Instead I just nod and say, ‘Yeah, I like it.’

We continue on in silence. I don’t know what to say to him and this was a really bad idea. He probably already thinks I’m a dork and now I’m proving him right. This is a disaster. Think of something to ask him. Ask him anything. I go to open my mouth but he cuts me off before I can speak.

‘So you said you have to go to Penzance? It’s a long way for your first lesson in the car.’

‘I have to go get my aunt’s cat.’

‘Mr Tibbles? What’s he doing in Penzance?’

He knows the name of Aunt B’s cat? Add that to the fact that he knew Aunt B well enough to fix her car for free and I think there’s more to Stoker’s relationship with my aunt than he’s telling. She always taught me to look for things that don’t fit and this doesn’t fit. Why would she have a close relationship with Stoker? She was thirty two and he’s nineteen or twenty. She was into literature and the arts. I don’t know much about Stoker…yet…but the only times I’ve seen him have been related to cars. He drives a Land Rover with a big winch on the back for God’s sake. That doesn’t mean he can’t be into the arts, I guess, but he seems like a typical mechanic to me. He has grease on his face and neck right now and those cuts and grazes on his knuckles make me think that if there is something more to him, it’s probably something I don’t want to know about.

We pull into the driveway of Promise House and I let out a little breath of relief. At least from here on out I am going to be driving and he is going to be giving me instructions, which will give us something to say to each other. I feel weird because I’m physically attracted to him yet we have nothing at all in common.

Even the fact that I’m attracted to him weirds me out. This is the first time I’ve ever felt like this. The boys I dated back home all asked me out and I usually said yes because I really wanted people to like me and dating was a way to increase your social status, especially in school. I didn’t really care much for the social status thing but I hated being on the bottom rung. So if a popular football player or a guy who was considered desirable asked me out, I always said yes. But even the desirable guys didn’t seem desirable to me. Dell once asked me if I didn’t like guys at all but I knew I was straight because all my dreams and fantasies about love and sex involved men. Never real men, not even pop stars or actors, but faceless men whose features I could never quite imagine clearly.

And now for the first time, I’m experiencing what all the girls were talking about and I understand what they meant when they described a boy as ‘dreamy’ or a ‘hunk’. I feel those things about Stoker. I wish I didn’t because it’s making me act weird.

‘Amy?’ he says.

I realize he’s parked on the driveway and cut the engine and opened his door already. And I’ve been sitting here daydreaming. Great.

‘Sorry.’ I open my door and climb out. ‘I’ll just get the keys.’ I leave him on the driveway and I enter the house to get the garage and car keys from the rack by the door. Get a hold of yourself, Amy, and don’t phase out. Try to keep a hold of reality or he really is going to think you’re a mental case or something.

I go back out and hand him the keys. ‘’You want to get the car out of there and I’ll take it from there?’

He nods and unlocks the garage then lifts the door. I wait by the Land Rover while he reverses the Volvo out of the garage and turns it around so it’s facing the road.

‘She’s all yours,’ he says, sliding from the driver’s seat across to the passenger seat.

I get into the driver’s seat and adjust the rearview and side mirrors and slide the seat forward so I can reach the pedals. Stoker watches me with some amusement on his face.

‘What?’

‘It’s just that you look so serious.’

‘Well this
is
serious. I want to get it right.’

‘You will, don’t worry. You can drive can’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘So all you need to learn is this little extra thing…the gears. You’ll pick it up in no time.’ He sounds more confident in me than I am in myself. That’s kind of nice.

‘OK. Do we need the GPS to find the way?’

‘No, I know the way. Now, the car is in neutral at the moment. Put your hand on the gear shift and feel how it moves freely.’

I place my hand on the gear stick and wobble it around. ‘OK, it moves.’

‘Now you’re going to put her into first. See the diagram on the top of the stick? It tells you where the gears are so first is slightly to the left and forward. To change gear, you need to press the clutch in. That’s the pedal on the left. And anytime the car is in gear but you aren’t pressing the accelerator…the gas…you need to put the clutch in or the car will stall.’

I bite my lip and nod. ‘OK.’

‘So put her in first.’

‘Do you always refer to cars as ‘her’?’

‘Yes and you’re playing for time so let’s go. First gear.’

I depress the clutch and push the gear shift into first position.

‘Now be careful when you let the clutch come back up because…’

I release the clutch too fast and the car jerks forward twice before stalling. A red light on the dash shines at me accusingly.

‘OK,’ Stoker says, ‘let’s put our seat belts on before we go any further.’

We do that and I notice a grin on his face. ‘You better not be laughing at me.’

‘I’m not laughing at you.’

‘So why are you grinning?’

‘You get flustered easily. It’s cute.’

Cute? I start the Volvo again and slam it into first gear, lifting the clutch until I feel it bite and the car starts to move forward toward the road.

‘Now you’ve got it,’ he says.

Cute? I give the car more gas and we go past the end of the driveway and onto the road. I have no idea where we’re going so I take a right, away from town. The car is picking up speed but it’s still in first gear and the engine is screaming.

‘You need to change to second now,’ Stoker advises.

Cute? I stomp on the clutch and pull the gear shift back hard into second. The gears crunch and the stick shakes in my hand. I let the clutch up too fast and the car kangaroos, throwing us about until it stalls again in the middle of the road.

‘Let’s try that again,’ he says calmly.