The Vampire Book Club: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Cozy Mystery by Nancy Warren

Author:Nancy Warren [Warren, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781928145820
Publisher: Ambleside Publishing
Published: 2020-05-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

For goodness’ sake, Quinn. It was broad daylight, I was on the high street, and all the shopkeepers and the people who lived here seemed to have nothing to do but spy on each other. Kathleen had warned me they were a bunch of curtain-twitchers.

I hoped Sean Higgins wasn’t the butcher-the-messenger type.

I went back downstairs. Took five minutes to drink my tea, which I really needed now. And then I headed out. I did feel watched as I crossed the street. Again.

Once more, I entered the butcher shop. Rosie looked up and when she saw me went as pale and clammy as one of the skinless chicken breasts quivering in the case. Our gazes connected. I gave a helpless shrug. “Is your husband available? He’s needed at the shop.”

She swallowed. Closed her eyes. And I saw her hands grip each other hard. Then she nodded. She turned and shouted into the back. “Sean? Quinn would like you to go across to the bookshop.”

Her husband was enormous. In his short sleeves, the tattoos on his arms looked like warning flags. He came out and said, “What do I want with the bookshop? The only thing I ever read is the news.”

“Please,” she said in a shaking voice.

He looked at her and then at me and then said, “I’ll just wash the blood off me hands.”

A line I really could have done without.

He was back out in a minute, with his bloodstained apron off, thank goodness, and a jacket on. His hands looked clean enough. He followed me outside. “What’s all this about then?” Not suspicious, just wondering.

I didn’t know what to say. “I think you’ll understand when you get there.”

He paused in the middle of the road. I’d gone two steps before I realized he wasn’t following me. I turned around and stared back at him. He had a very uncomfortable look on his face. “Declan O’Connor was found murdered in your shop. What are you? Some crazy man-hater? Are you going to call all of us blokes into your shop and murder us one by one?”

Well, they do say that the best defense is a good offense. I couldn’t stand here in the middle of the road arguing with this man that I wasn’t a murderer. So I went closer to him. To my amazement, this enormous, muscular butcher looked a bit nervous. I had a feeling that if he didn’t know how many people were peeking out their windows and watching us right now, he’d have taken a step backward.

I lowered my voice. “The police want to talk to you. They’re in my shop right now. They asked me to come and get you so that everybody in town wouldn’t know that you were being interviewed.”

He looked slightly relieved. Then concerned again. “Me? Why would they want to talk to me?”

“I don’t know. I sell books. They’ve taken over my upstairs as their temporary office. That’s all I know.”

He nodded once and then strode forward. Once we got inside my shop, I showed him where the spiral staircase was.

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