Eye for an Eye by Nell Goddin

Author:Nell Goddin [Goddin, Nell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Goddin Books

23

The next morning, Molly decided to get out of the house and get the marketing done early. She had promised Paul-Henri she would take care of Lucie Severin’s garden gnome problem, and had thought of an easy way to accomplish it. And after the fright Jean Chavanne had given her, she felt grateful to have a nice, easy, non-lethal problem to deal with.

The market was one of the worst Molly had ever been to, thanks to the unpleasant cold. You couldn’t be fooled into thinking it was tolerable when a frosty wind would whip down the street, and it felt as though you might as well be naked for all the protection your clothes gave you. Conversations were limited to the transactions at hand, and no one was in any mood for gossip. Molly got her basket of vegetables and some sausages from her favorite leftist sausage maker, and headed to Pâtisserie Bujold afterward, as was her custom.

But partway there, she reconsidered. It wasn’t that her fervor for pastry was in any way diminished, though the waistband of her clothes seemed to have shrunk lately. It was that she wanted to get the garden gnome business over with so she could get together with Ben and hash things out.

It was only a little bump, she thought. But best to talk through the bump before it becomes a hill.

Oh, but she really should take the gîte guests a little something; she’d been neglecting them terribly.

I’ll just hurry Edmond along, she thought, continuing on to the pastry shop. It was crowded and he didn’t have time to chat in any case, so Molly was able to be on her way with a just few crumbs on her face from an almond croissant, hurriedly and very contrary to French custom eaten in the street as she made her way along the cobblestones to the Barstow house. She saw no friends or acquaintances, the cold having chased everyone inside.

Molly had gotten into the habit of surveillance no matter whose house she was approaching, and so once the Barstow’s rental had come into view, she slowed down and observed. It was a timber house, somewhat unusual in the region. It needed paint. The roof looked insecure. She could hear a child crying.

At the front door she paused, wondering whether her idea was a bad one, whether there might be some unintended consequences she was failing to envision. Then she rapped smartly on the door.

“Madame Sutton!” said Malcolm with surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Is that how you greet visitors?”

“No, I… we don’t really get visitors. I mean, unless…” he trailed off.

“Are you going to invite me inside? It’s ridiculous out here.”

“Yeah, sure!” The boy ran his hand through his hair, which was cut in the current fashion with a sort of rooster comb sticking up down the center of the top of his head. Pimples scattered across his forehead. He grinned at Molly as she came inside.

The front door opened onto a large downstairs room which was comprised of the kitchen and a sort of living room.

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