Garden Girls Mystery 17 - Stranger Among Us by Hope Callaghan

Author:Hope Callaghan [Callaghan, Hope]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: cThriller, amazon
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Gloria strolled to the other end of Main Street where Brian’s hardware store, Nails and Knobs, was located. Brian was in the back, waiting on a couple of customers, so she made her rounds, checking out the new inventory.

Brian had managed to retain the charm of the small town store. He’d recently added a whole section of what Gloria called “nostalgia” items. It reminded her of Woolworth’s, the old five and dime stores.

There were bolts of bright fabric, an assortment of table lamps and even bins of hard candy. Gloria grabbed an empty paper bag and plastic scoop, filled the bag with root beer barrels, red licorice bites and even picked up some pixie sticks for Ryan and Tyler.

When she finished, she slid the scoop inside the holder, folded the top of the bag and made her way to the counter.

“You missed Paul. He was in here earlier.” Brian pointed at the bag of goodies. “You’ve given up on the Mackinac Island fudge?”

“No way.” Gloria placed the bag of candy on the counter. “I decided to take a quick trip down memory lane, plus Ryan and Tyler are coming over to help rake leaves so I thought I would buy some candy for them.” She hopped up on the barstool and set her purse next to her. “How’s Andrea feeling this morning?”

“Better,” Brian said. “She ate a piece of dry toast before I left for work and managed to keep it down.”

“Poor thing,” Gloria said. “Did you hear about Judith Arnett?”

Brian nodded his head. “Yeah, I stopped by the post office to drop off some packages and Ruth filled me in. Do you think it’s somehow connected to Vanessa Hines’ death or has something to do with the fact you were at her place right before she was almost mowed down?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Gloria said. “It’s frightening, though. Two incidents in two days. Sally Keane said she’s thinking about moving.”

“She’s been threatening me for months now.” Brian shook his head. “Sally has been hinting around that she wants another raise, but it’s not in the budget right now. I hope she doesn’t quit.”

“I hope not for your sake. I’m also here to find out about Vanessa’s visit when she bought new locks for her doors,” Gloria said. “Did she tell you she wanted to change the locks because she thought someone had been inside her home?”

Brian nodded. “It’s not unusual for a new homeowner to change locks. If you think about it, the house sat vacant for some time. She mentioned a lockbox on the front, which means someone, a real estate agent or others, had access to the key.”

“This also means they could have easily made a copy and no one would have known,” Gloria said.

“I’m not sure if the home was a short sale, foreclosure or regular sale, but if the owner was forced out, you never know what they’ll do to get revenge against the bank or the new owner who took their home from them.

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