Page 9

The EMTs were checking Devon over and Rita was scouring the shelves to determine if any of our merchandise was missing when I saw Jon Flanders walk into the store.

“What are you doing here?”

I asked.

“I figured you’d be back on the island by now.”

“I had some other business here on the peninsula to take care of, and when I heard the call on the radio, I came straightaway.

Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.

I wasn’t even here when it happened.”

Flanders glanced around the store but with his eyes raised toward the ceiling.

“The sheriff over there said you don’t have any security cameras in here?”

There was an obvious tone of disbelief in his voice.

“This is your home as well as your business, isn’t it?”

“No, I don’t, and yes, it is.

As you might imagine, some of my customers have interests that other people might consider outside the realm of acceptable.

Because of that, they tend to be a bit zealous about guarding their privacy.

Cameras could cost me a lot of business.”

Flanders cocked his head to one side and gave me a look of tolerant impatience.

“I considered putting some cameras up at the front and back entrances,”

I admitted, feeling an odd need to defend my reasoning.

“But that’s as far as I got, just thinking about it.”

“Is cost a concern? Because if it is—”

“It’s not,”

I said.

I glanced around to see if anyone else was within earshot and then lowered my voice.

“I inherited my father’s estate when my parents died.

I’m more than comfortable.”

Flanders looked surprised.

“You don’t .

.

.

I mean, the way you . . .”

“I don’t act like a spoiled, entitled rich kid?”

I finished for him.

“I don’t go around flaunting my wealth with a flashy car or live in a McMansion?”

Flanders flushed a vivid red, a trait I was finding more adorable every time it happened.

“Yes,”

he admitted with a sheepish grin.

“You don’t act rich.”

“Stick with me long enough and you’ll learn that I can,”

I told him.

“If I want something bad enough and I think the only way I can get it is to throw my money around, I’ll do it.”

He looked intrigued.

“I’d like to see that.”

I wondered if he was flirting with me—it was hard for me to trust my own judgment in that arena anymore after being duped by my ex—and I couldn’t decide how I felt about it if he was.

He was attractive, seemed kind, and Newt liked him.

Plus, he had a sense of humor—an absolute must in my department.

But it was too soon.

The silence between us lasted a bit too long and our smiles started to look—and in my case, feel—awkward and forced.

Flanders broke eye contact first, clearing his throat and looking around the store.

“Do you know if anything is missing?” he asked.

“Nothing obvious, but I haven’t done an inventory.”

“Cash in the register untouched?”

he asked, and I nodded.

“Sounds like the motive was intimidation, not robbery.

I wonder if whoever did it knew you weren’t here at the time, or if Devon’s fate was meant to be yours.”

Before I realized I was doing it, my hand reached up and gingerly probed my scalp in the area where Devon’s gash was, imagining how it felt.

Flanders looked over at Devon, who had risen like Lazarus and was now sitting on Old Sparky, a wooden chair that had once been used for electrocutions at a prison in Texas.

Devon was chatting with a freckled, redheaded female EMT who was securing a gauze bandage over his head wound.

I walked over to see how he was doing, and Flanders followed.

“Are you okay?”

I asked Devon.

“Hell of a headache, but other than that, I think I’m okay.”

He winced as the EMT—Anne, according to her name tag—tightened the head bandage with a knot.

I couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if Anne might have given that knot an extra tug on purpose.

“You are not okay,”

she argued, and I got a sense those two had been having that debate prior to our approach.

“You need stitches on that hard head of yours, and that goose egg you have means you should be seen and evaluated by a doctor so they can do a CT scan.”

She finished the bandage and stepped back to admire her work.

“You know, just to make sure you have a brain in there,”

she added sarcastically.

Devon grinned goofily at her, and I saw Anne return a hint of a smile.

I felt certain those two would be seeing more of each other in the not-too-distant future.

“Can you tell me what you remember about what happened?”

Flanders said to Devon.

Anne wandered off to talk to a coworker and Devon’s eyes followed her, his expression that of a sad puppy.

With a sigh, he finally shifted his attention back to us.

“I’d just finished ringing out a customer, and when she left, I thought the store was empty.

I went over to reshelve a book that she’d decided not to buy, and just as I was placing it, I heard something behind me.

I turned to see what it was, but before I could, my head exploded into bright stars.

Next thing I knew, Morgan was leaning over me, telling me to wake up.”

“Was this person already in the store?”

I asked him.

Devon screwed his face up and then winced.

“I’m not sure.”

“Think,”

I prompted.

“Did you hear the bell over the door ring?”

Devon perked up.

“No.

I’m sure I didn’t.

I would have looked toward the door immediately if I had.

I’m like Pavlov’s dog when it comes to that.”

I shot a worried look at Flanders.

“That means whoever it was had to have been in here prior to the attack.

It’s easy to hide back there in the bookshelves because they’re so tall.”

“Anything else?”

Flanders asked Devon, who shook his head and gave an apologetic shrug.

“We need to get going,”

Anne said, returning to our group.

“If you don’t want to ride in the rig, someone should drive you and you’ll need to sign a refusal form.”

“How will I get back if I go in the ambulance?”

Devon said, making a face.

I started to say that I would be more than happy to come and get him, or to take him there, for that matter, but Anne was faster on the draw.

“My shift ends in twenty minutes,”

she said.

“If you want, I’ll drive you back here once you’re done.

I have to come this way to go home.”

While I might not have been able to discern what was going on between me and Flanders, I easily recognized the flirtation between Devon and Anne, even before Devon’s face lit up like a happy puppy and he quickly said, “That would be great! Thanks!”

Once Devon was secured in the back of the ambulance, Flanders, Newt, and I retreated to the checkout counter.

“Can I reopen the store?”

I asked Flanders.

“There are some customers hanging out in the parking lot.”

“I don’t see why not,”

Flanders said, looking that way with a thoughtful expression.

“But give me five minutes before you do.

I want to check with the sheriff over there first since this is technically his case.

And I’d like to snap some shots of the crowd.”

I started to protest, worried that this invasion of privacy might scare off some of my customers, but Flanders raised a hand before I could utter my objection.

“I’ll be discreet, but it’s important.

Perpetrators often hang around or return to the scene of the crime to try to keep tabs on the investigation.

Whoever did this might be in that crowd out there.”

He let out an exasperated sigh and added, “Security cameras would have made this so much easier.”

“I won’t have them in my store,”

I insisted.

“And even if I did have them out front, it wouldn’t have helped unless whoever did it parked in the lot.

There are plenty of other places nearby where someone could park and sneak back.”

This was because my store is located on the northern edge of Sister Bay on a lane off Waters End Road.

My closest neighbors are a parking lot and a grassy field on one side, and woods on the other.

Across the road from my front door are more woods and, beyond that, a sprawling mansion of a home and the waters of Green Bay.

“I’m just glad you weren’t here when this happened,”

Flanders said, deftly changing the subject.

“Can I ask where you were?”

“Rita knows a guy who spent his life here studying the currents in Death’s Door and the surrounding waters, so we went to chat with him, to see what he thought about where the bodies turned up.”

“And?”

“It’s a work in progress,”

I said vaguely.

“He wants to go out on the water tomorrow and explore the locations where the men are presumed to have been when they died and where their bodies were subsequently found.

I’m going with him.”

Flanders looked troubled by that, but he said nothing.

“Do you think this episode with Devon was a random event, or might it be related to the thing you have me looking into?” I asked.

Flanders stared off across the room toward Henry, who looked none the worse for wear following his traumatic event.

“You’ve not had other incidents like this before today, have you?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

He chewed his lower lip for a few seconds, still staring at Henry.

“It seems mighty coincidental timing-wise, but the note was generic and vague enough that it would be easy to chalk it up to someone’s twisted idea of a practical joke.”

“If it was just the note,”

I said.

“But bashing my employee over the head sends a more serious message, don’t you think?”

He looked at me then, and a half smile softened the consternation on his face.

“I agree.

You need to be careful.”

He squatted down and gave Newt a scratch behind the ears.

“You watch out for your mistress here, boy, okay?” he said.

Newt chuffed his understanding, and with that, Flanders stood, said, “I’ll be in touch,”

and left the store.

I had to admit, I was sorry to see him go.