Page 24

TWENTY-FOUR

I was grateful to have the night off. My sister had to attend a dinner held for the children’s authors at the festival, but Mr. Poe and I were sequestered in front of the fire in our grandfather’s private library. Even though we owned the house, it still felt like his. In a strange way, being around his books made me feel closer to him.

Before settling in, I’d checked with our neighbor Rob, who was helping with the event, and he promised to walk my sister home. I didn’t want her going anywhere alone until the killer was caught.

Rob loved being involved in our mysteries and was happy to help.

Feeling good about myself because I’d knocked out three chapters and had officially hit the last third of my current work in progress, I decided to dive into research.

I paid for the privilege of a database that gave me access to old newspapers worldwide. I never used it much unless I was curious if one of the cases I made up had some hint of truth to them. More often than not, they did. At least peripherally. There truly was nothing new under the sun.

I prided myself on not using true crime events, so I’d change things up if I found too many things that were similar.

But tonight, I had a different sort of plan. If I wasn’t allowed to talk to the suspects, I could at the very least find out everything about them.

I had to do some math on my phone, but figured out when they would have been in primary school, and I started with that year. I had a long way to go, but at least I had a beginning.

While I didn’t find anything about the suspects in those early years, I did learn a great deal about Shamrock Cove and my grandfather. He had been very involved with the town, as well as the literary festival. Even though it had nothing to do with my investigation, I was fascinated to find out how well-respected he was.

There were even a few articles about my dad in his school soccer team. It seemed he was quite the athlete, which was something neither me, or my twin, could claim. We were both klutzes with a capital K.

When I hit upon a picture of my dad with my grandfather, tears burned in my eyes. I hadn’t known either of them, but they were smiling in the picture. They stood behind the counter of the bookstore. The look on my grandfather’s face as he stared down at my dad showed the love there. My dad had to be no more than six or seven. I tried to find myself in his face but there was no resemblance.

It broke my heart that they were never able to mend their relationship later in life. My poor grandfather had died without his family around. And had never known what happened to my dad after he went missing during a military mission for the government.

I hit print because I thought Lizzie would like to see the photo and the article, which was about the expansion of the second story of the bookstore. The second story had been an attic until then. It was hard to imagine the store as just one level. And he’d done such a wonderful job of making the upstairs look as beautiful and magical as the downstairs.

But it was my father’s eyes that stopped me dead. They were Lizzie’s gray eyes. I hadn’t noticed that in the few photos we’d found. My eyes were blue and I had lighter hair. She had dark hair like our mom, but her eyes were definitely our dad’s.

It was tough not to do a search on my family, but I decided we’d waited this long to hunt through records about them, so it could wait. Since we’d arrived, I’d been busy catching up on book deadlines, but I was still behind. Lizzie had been crazy slammed with the store and preparing for the festival.

I searched for James’s name in chronological order so I could skip ahead.

The first article was about a writing contest. There was a picture of a group of children who were fifth graders and they stood in front of the church down the street. The article was about three of Shamrock Cove’s very own young people placing in the youth writing contest at the festival. The works had been judged blindly and had included stories from children all over Ireland.

Three of the children had names I recognized—James Brandt, Keeley Boyle, and Mark Patrickson and had placed first, second, and third, respectively. As I read on, I discovered Finneas Hughes had won an honorable mention.

Wait . Chef Patrick had been a writer back then as well? And did no one think it suspicious that the friends had all placed so highly?

Maybe that was just the way my brain worked. But since they had been troublemakers later in life, I would have been trying to work out if they’d done something to sway the contest.

I wasn’t sure how exactly kids could do something like that, but it was too much of a coincidence for me.

The next search was a picture of the five of them as pre-teens on a large sailboat. They’d been part of the regatta that took place in Shamrock Cove over the summer months.

They didn’t look like a group of hoodlums. They appeared carefree and like they were having the time of their life.

But it was the next headline that stopped me and had me reading the whole article. The young teens had been questioned about a missing boy who had been seen on their boat earlier in the day.

The article stated that, though they had been questioned, the group of teens were not suspects. The article went on to say that the teens said the boy had taken a small dinghy out to sea because he’d wanted to see the whales.

Everyone believed the young man had come to a tragic end while out at sea.

But had they killed him? Was that what Keeley was trying to say in her book? And did Kieran know anything about this? He’d lived here back then, but the group had been almost ten years older.

I printed off the page.

As I went on looking through the various articles about them, a pattern emerged. They were a group of winners. Finneas had won the science fair four years in a row when he was a teen.

Keeley and James had continued to win writing awards. And Patrick won several cooking and baking contests and some were national wins.

There was an article about the teens being questioned about some missing manuscripts from the library. But the article made clear they were witnesses not suspects. The missing manuscripts were from James Joyce and C.S. Lewis.

James and his friends admitted they’d seen someone go through a window into the library when they’d been out past their curfews. But they had no idea who it was.

“And no one suspected them?”

“Suspected who?” Lizzie asked.

I screamed, and barely caught my laptop before it hit the floor.

She laughed hard.

“I’m glad you think it’s funny that you scared me to death.”

“What were you looking at so intensely?”

She’d be angry if I told her about the deep dive into the suspects I’d been doing. I shut my laptop quickly. “I have something to show you.” I carried my computer to my office and plugged it in. Then I grabbed the first printout I’d done about our father and grandfather.

As she gazed at the picture, her hand went to her chest. “They look so happy,” she whispered. “Grandad must have loved him so much.”

“I agree. The look on his face says it all. Did you notice Dad’s eyes? In the few photos we found, his head is always slightly turned, but this is dead on.”

She frowned. “I have his eyes.”

“You do.”

“I wish we knew more about him. Did you find anything else?”

I cleared my throat. “Not yet.”

She cocked her head. “So, tell me what you were actually researching and don’t lie. I’ll know.”

One of the worst things about being a twin was being unable to hide things from my sister. She was right. There was no use in me trying to hide things.

“Since you and Kieran were worried about interviewing our suspects, I’ve been going back through their childhood and teen years.”

“I think I’ll need a cup of tea for this.”

“Or it can wait until tomorrow. You look tired.”

She was always beautiful, but her face was pale, and her eyes pulled tight at the corner.

“I won’t rest until you tell me what’s going on. Come on, I hid a batch of chocolate chip cookies from you. They’ll go perfect with the tea.”

“You hid cookies from me?”

She shrugged. “When you’re writing you can eat a dozen without even thinking about it. I’m just looking out for your health. I don’t want you to end up with diabetes.”

She had a point.

After putting the cookies on a platter, and making ourselves some tea, we sat down with the pile of papers. I showed her what I’d found.

I didn’t say anything. I wanted her to read the articles with an open mind.

Halfway through, she lifted her head. “Do you see a pattern?”

I nodded.

“And do we think they are responsible for that boy’s death?”

I shrugged. “I’m beginning to think so.” I told her about Keeley’s book.

“Oh. My. That can’t be a coincidence. Have you told Kieran yet?”

“No. It’s late. I’ll share what I’ve found with him tomorrow. He’s very picky about needing proof before arresting people.”

“That’s so annoying.” She smiled. “Why can’t he just go with the assumptions we’ve made? Do you think one of them killed Keeley?”

“Without some sort of autopsy, we may never know. Maybe it’s just that she knew she was dying. She did have a heart problem. And her last book was a way of getting truth out there about that boy.”

She scrunched up her face. “Yeah, but is it a real confession if she made it fiction? And do we think she was really talking about the boy lost at sea? Even though the character in the book is a young adult woman?”

“We have no way of knowing because she’s gone,” I said. “But all of this is too much of a coincidence. She was dying, but the rest of them wouldn’t want the information coming out. It wouldn’t do any of them any favors.

“And think about it, she may be an Irish author, but she wrote for a mostly American audience. I couldn’t find any of her books for sale over here.”

“Let me look at something,” Lizzie said as she pulled out her phone.

“What is it?”

“The catalog service we use to order books. That’s odd, her novels aren’t listed anywhere on here. Maybe her publisher hasn’t sold the foreign rights. Not all books sell worldwide like yours.”

“I’m just lucky,” I said.

She cocked her head. “And a brilliant writer. By the way, I’m proud of you.”

“Why is that?”

“As soon as you found out this information you didn’t run and try to talk to the suspects again.”

That didn’t mean I wouldn’t. But I’d have to be very careful when I asked the mayor, professor, and chef if they were responsible for murdering the young boy, their friends, and Sebrena.

I really didn’t want to end up dead.