Shoots to Kill (8 page)

No way!
was on the tip of my tongue. Watching her hand Libby the jacket that should have been in my shop was the last thing I wanted to do. But I caught a vulnerability in Mom’s expression that told me she was nervous. Maybe having me at her side would give her a boost of confidence. Or maybe I just wanted to be there to remind Libby whose mother she was.

I smiled. “Sure. I’ll walk over with you.”

The relief in my mom’s eyes made my decision the right one.

Ten minutes later, I opened the
other
yellow door and watched Mom carry in her pride and joy du jour. I followed her inside, then stared around in astonishment. Libby had re-created Bloomers’ interior.

She’d copied my shop cleverly. In place of my wreaths and swags, her walls were filled with art. Her curtain was ice blue, not purple, and her display furniture held clay, wood, and glass sculptures instead of flower arrangements. A small alcove on the right even held a white wrought iron table and chair set, with a small coffee bar nearby. It wouldn’t be obvious to the casual observer—but I knew.

My gut feeling had been right. Libby was out for revenge. She had taken over my cousin, my haircut, my mother’s art, and my seat at our family dinner, and now she’d stolen the look of my shop inside and out. Where would it end? How far would she go to get even with me?

“Mom,” I said quietly, taking her arm, “let’s go back to Bloomers.”

“Why?”

“There are things you don’t know about Libby.”

“Abigail, don’t be jealous. Even if I don’t show my art at Bloomers anymore, I still love you. This is a big opportunity for me, honey. You understand, don’t you?”

I gazed into her hopeful eyes, ready to make a stronger case, but I couldn’t do it. The art meant too much to her. I glanced around for Libby, but saw only a hulking, thick-bodied woman perched on a stool behind the counter, immersed in a paperback, oblivious to our presence. She had a small head topped by short, coarse, steel gray hair; beady eyes; a long, narrow nose; and no chin to speak of. She had on a shapeless blue denim jumper over a dingy white shirt with a scarf at her neck that looked like a man’s red bandanna.

When I cleared my throat, the woman looked up, obviously annoyed that her concentration had been broken. “Wotcher want, then?” she snarled with a strong cockney accent. “We’re not open fer business yet.”

If this woman was Libby’s salesclerk, her shop was doomed.

“My name is Maureen Knight,” Mom explained with her patient teacher’s smile. “I’m supposed to bring this jacket over for the fashion display.”

The woman’s beady eyes bugged at the sight of the jacket. “Wot? That thing ’ere? Yer not serious?”

Mom looked shaken, so I said firmly, “May we see Libby Blume, please?”

“Not ’ere,” the woman grunted. “ ’Er muvver popped in, din’t she, and they took orff. ’Er bruvver’s in back if’n yer want ter talk wif summin else.”

Mom glanced at me for help. “Libby left with her mother,” I interpreted. “Her brother’s in back if you want to talk with someone else.” Wow. Watching all those mysteries on BBC America had finally paid off.

“Can I just leave the jacket here with a note for her?” Mom asked.

“No skin orff my teeth,” the woman said, returning to her paperback.

If she
had
teeth. What could Libby have been thinking to hire such a coarse, unprofessional clerk? I suspected I knew the answer but hoped I was wrong. “I didn’t catch your name,” I said, as Mom scratched out a hasty note.

“Tilly Gladwell,” the woman muttered, drawing herself up as though she were royalty, “not that it’s any business o’yers.” She looked up with a scowl when Mom laid the jacket on the counter in front of her. “Not ’ere! Over there.” She pointed to an empty table next to the curtained doorway, then, with a sharp huff of displeasure, turned back to her book.

“She must be a temp,” Mom said, trying to put a good spin on it, as we walked back toward Bloomers.

Or a very bad copy of Grace—until Libby could get the real thing.

That evening, when I went to Down the Hatch to meet Marco for dinner, Gert, the waitress, who had been there as long as the fake carp, informed me that Marco was meeting with a potential client in his office. Suspecting it was Libby, I slid into our booth, ordered a Miller Lite, and watched the evening news on the television mounted on the wall, waiting for his meeting to end.

Fifteen minutes later, Libby breezed past the table with only a brief hello, confirming my suspicions about the client. I smiled to myself. Marco had obviously refused to take her case.

At that moment, he slid onto the bench opposite me. “How’s it going, Sunshine?”

“Super. So, I guess you told Libby to hit the bricks.”

Marco signaled to Gert to come take our order. “No, I took her case.”

CHAPTER FIVE

“You didn’t!” Stunned, I put my hands against the sides of my face. “This just keeps getting worse.”

“It appears Libby has a legitimate problem, Sunshine. I’m going to look into it for her.”

“She’s playing you, Marco, just like she’s playing my mom.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Libby convinced Mom to put her art on display at Blume’s Art Shop.”

“Maybe Libby likes your mother’s art.”

“No one likes my mother’s art. Why do you think we store it in our basement?”

“You should be glad your mother has an outlet for her stuff. Now you’re off the hook.”

“The point I’m trying to make is that everyone falls for Libby’s act, including you!”

“Have a little faith in me, Abby. Libby is genuinely frightened.”

“Of what? The boogeyman?”

Leaning toward me, Marco said quietly, “I’ll tell you this in confidence only because I was going to ask you to work on this case with me anyway. Libby is being stalked. She’s getting hate mail, e-mails, and threatening phone calls, to the point where she’s afraid to go out alone. She believes the stalker may be someone from college with whom she had problems before.”

“Do you know how easy it would be for her to claim someone is stalking her? Libby could mail
herself
threatening letters.”

“She could, but why would she? Why do you want to believe the worst about Libby?”

“Because I know her. She looks harmless on the outside, but inside she’s all screwed up.”

“No, you
knew
her, Abby, when she was eleven years old. Give her a break.”

I sat back and crossed my arms. “I’ll give her a break when she gets a life of her own and stops copying mine.”

Marco sat back, too, clearly irked. “Let’s just drop the subject. Nothing I say is going to snap you out of this funk. I think you should take a pass on working on her case, too. There’s no way you can be objective.”

“Those were the next words out of my mouth,” I replied testily.

“You want to order?” he grumbled, nodding toward our waitress standing patiently at the end of the booth.

“I need comfort food, Gert,” I told her.

“One grilled cheese and tomato sandwich with sweet pickles on the side,” she said, marking it on her pad.

After Marco had given her his order, I said to him, “You know what I’d like you to do? Walk down to Libby’s shop tomorrow. See for yourself how she made it look like Bloomers.”

“Okay, so Libby admires you and tries to emulate you. It’s awkward, but it’s not a crime.”

“You still don’t get it. She’s not just emulating me, Marco. She’s hijacking my life. Look at all the things she’s done to be like me, even changing her name to sound like mine. I thought you of all people would understand how frustrating this is for me.”

“You realize this is about the past, don’t you? You can’t stand it that Libby admires you because you still see her as that little pest you had to babysit.”

“She
was
a pest, and I didn’t even tell you the half of it. Because of her showing up everywhere I went, my friends stopped asking me to hang out with them. Libby was at my house so much that my mom started buying her Christmas and birthday presents, and my brothers called her their
other
little sister. She didn’t just read my diary, Marco. She made entries in it—as me! But the absolute worst thing she did was to tell a guy whom I secretly liked that I had a major crush on him. She told him I had written his name all over the inside of my locker and then she opened it up and showed him the signs
she
had hung there! I was mortified.”

“And you’ve never forgiven her, have you?”

I opened my mouth to deny it, then closed it again. Could Marco be right? Was Libby’s behavior driving me crazy because I had never forgiven her? Was I blowing this thing all out of proportion because of grudges I still carried? I sat back, my mind reeling as my thoughts spun backward to those open wounds of my youth.

Marco reached across the table and took my hands. “Let go of the past, Sunshine.”

Let go. Sure. As if it could be that easy. I gazed at Marco’s handsome face and knew he was only trying to help. “Maybe you’re right.”

“I’ll do whatever I can to make it better.” He rubbed his thumbs in the middle of my palms. “You know those foot massages you like so much?”

I sighed dreamily. Was there anything better than a thorough foot massage, especially when delivered by a hot hunk with more on his mind than feet?

Marco lifted one of my palms to his lips and nibbled it, sending tingles of ecstasy up my arm and straight to my core, which was rapidly turning molten. “And how about a bottle of that Italian wine we discovered at that great little restaurant on Rush Street to go with your massage?”

I took it back. A foot massage, a hunk,
and
a glass of Brunella—now,
that
was the best.

“And maybe top it all off with dark chocolate truffles from your favorite candy shop?” He raised an eyebrow to entice me. “My mother went home. My place is all mine again.”

“Now,
that
sounds like a plan,” I said, fanning my face. If he didn’t stop kissing my palm soon, I was going to dissolve into a puddle of euphoria.

“Would you two get a room?” Gert drawled, waiting to set our plates on the table.

I gave Marco a little smile as we drew apart. “We were just discussing that.”

When Gert left, I leaned forward to say in a sultry voice, “What time shall we launch your, um, Abby initiative?I can meet you at your place when you get off work this evening.”

“You’re on, Sunshine.” Marco gave me a hot glance as he picked up his burger, but he stopped centimeters from his mouth. “Damn. I’ll have to take a rain check. I promised Libby I’d start on her case tonight.”

Not tonight! My molten core cooled as a wave of disappointment washed over me. A protest was on my lips, but I managed to stifle it. If Marco wanted me to let go of the past, then that’s what I’d do. Although I still suspected Libby was playing him, I’d go out of my way to demonstrate that I was a benevolent person, not a begrudging crank. And if my prediction about Libby proved to be true, he’d just have to learn it the hard way.

“I’ll hang on to that plan until you’re free,” I said cheerfully.

He squeezed my hands. “That’s my Sunshine.”

Between running the bar and working on his PI cases, Marco was tied up for the rest of the week, so I made it a practice to drop by the bar after I closed the shop, so we could at least have a beer together. Without fail, however, Libby would show up soon afterward to discuss the latest developments in her case, which made it nearly impossible to block out my animosity for her. Still, I tried, even when other shop owners kept stopping me to say how much Libby and I looked like sisters, and what a great kid she was, and wasn’t I glad she had returned to town? In each case I managed to smile and nod—and quickly move on.

To demonstrate even further to Marco that I was willing to let bygones be bygones, I made up a big floral arrangement for Libby’s grand-opening celebration on Friday and walked it down there myself just before closing time on Thursday. Oliver had just flipped the sign in the door to CLOSED, but when he saw me through the glass pane, he let me in, saluting as I passed.

I stared around at the balloons and streamers hanging from the ceiling, and the big, colorful splash of roses, orchids, spider mums, gerbera daisies, and more that were artfully positioned in designer vases all around the shop. Obviously, Delphi had gone somewhere else for her flowers. At least I could claim one arrangement, even if I had brought it down myself.

“The place looks great,” I told him. I glanced around and saw three of my potted bamboo plants on display in an Oriental art exhibit. “What happened to the fourth bamboo plant, Oliver?”

“It wasn’t requisitioned, ma’am.”

Hearing Delphi’s angry voice and some unpleasant cockney screeching coming from the back room, I said, “Should I come back later?”

He took a seat on a stool behind the counter. “You’ll miss the show, ma’am.”

I set the flower arrangement on the counter just as Delphi cried, “You’re a thief! A crude, lying, sticky-fingered thief! Don’t you dare deny that you took money from the cash drawer, you wart-covered cockney toad. Give it back.”

“ ’Oo d’yer think you are, talkin’ ter me that way!” Tilly fired back.

“The woman who’s going to have you deported, that’s who!” Delphi shouted.

Tilly burst through the curtain and headed straight for the counter with Delphi in hot pursuit and Libby trailing after, looking anxious and unhappy.

Oh.
That
show.

“Out o’me way, you barmy swine,” Tilly bellowed, nearly shoving Oliver off the stool as she reached beneath the counter for her purse. She swung to face her accuser. “Just try an’ ’ave me deported,” she sneered. “You’ll be sorry you ever crossed Tilly Gladwell, you will.”

“Oliver,” Delphi commanded, “call the police!”

I glanced over at him and found him entranced in the whole spectacle as though it were live theater. I tapped on the counter. “You’d better call 911.”