Page 7 of First Street (Harbor View Cozy Fantasy #1)

Chapter Five

Skye

The pizza arrived just as I was hurrying downstairs in search of Arthur. A teenager on an electric bike handed over the box, barely looking up from his phone. I took it without a word and went into the kitchen.

My mind was racing, and my heart was breaking all over again. How could this have happened?

I needed to talk to Arthur, but how much of what Jo told me could I actually say in front of Ocean? My daughter had no idea about our ghost. Our visits here were never long enough for her to pick up even a hint of that history. And there was no way—absolutely no way—I was opening that door now.

I could feel the conflicting fight or flight impulses racing through me, but fight was winning. Clare hadn’t simply died. She could have been murdered. She wouldn’t have gone out to the carriage house unless she’d seen someone going in.

But no one was looking for the intruder. And that made the hackles on my neck stand up.

“Good. Food.” Ocean grabbed the box from my hands and carried it to the kitchen table.

She’d already set the table—plates, napkins, and glasses of water arranged with care. One thing about my girl. She was an organizer, through and through.

“Ocean, could you grab the luggage from the car and take it upstairs?”

“Seriously? Now? Can we eat first?”

The smell of the pizza was already turning my stomach. If I took a bite, I was sure I’d be sick. “Please. I didn’t lock the car. My laptop’s out there.”

“You always said nobody locks anything in this town.”

“Ocean,” I said gently but firmly, “just do it.”

She let out a sigh. “Okay, okay.”

“I’ll help her,” Arthur said, already getting up.

I grabbed Arthur’s arm. “I need to show you something.”

Ocean paused in the kitchen doorway. “Mom, can I have your old bedroom?”

“Of course. You can have any room you want.”

Arthur gave me a curious look after Ocean disappeared down the hall. “What’s going on?”

“I just talked to Jo.”

He nodded, unsurprised. “Figured she’d show up the second you got here.”

It was such a relief to have someone in Harbor View who understood without question.

Clare used to say, with Jo here and Henry—the long-lost fiancé haunting the bookstore across the street—that she and Arthur never ran out of conversation.

After years of comparing notes, they probably knew more 1920s gossip than anyone alive. Or dead.

Arthur pulled out a chair and sank into it. “She must be lonely since Clare passed.”

“No doubt. You know how close they were.”

I glanced toward the front door, where Ocean was wrestling our suitcases out of the car.

“Not that Jo would ever admit missing Clare,” Arthur continued in a low voice. “Those two bickered nonstop, even when I was here. If only I could’ve heard both sides of those battles. Still, watching Clare argue with what looked like empty space? That was something.”

I hushed him with a warning look as Ocean came through the front door and clomped up the stairs.

“Henry, at least, is far more discreet. He can be a pain in the ass, but he always disappears when I have?—”

“Arthur.” I cut him off, pulling up a chair. “I don’t have much time. Jo told me someone broke into the barn. She and Clare saw the intruder. That’s why Clare went out there that night. Jo saw him run off down the street, but my mother didn’t come out. She was already dead.”

His smile vanished, and he leaned in, his brows pulled tight above his piercing blue eyes. “Are you saying she was murdered?”

“She could have been. What if she didn’t just slip and hit her head by accident? What if someone pushed her? Maybe there was a struggle.”

“Oh, lord.”

“What did the police tell you when they looked at the place?”

“There were no cops to speak of, my love.” Arthur sighed, shaking his head.

“This town hasn’t changed since you left.

Well, I take that back. They did hire a sheriff about ten years ago, and the man is afraid of his own shadow.

Nervous as a trombonist on the Titanic. We call him the Barney Fife of Harbor View.

Old, tired, and counting down the days to retirement.

All he does is drink coffee, take naps in his squad car down by the lighthouse, and round up octogenarian volunteers to write parking tickets for tourists. ”

I pushed to my feet and started pacing the kitchen. “We have to do something. Maybe he could reach out to the State Police in Pawcatuck. Get someone higher up involved. There could still be fingerprints in the barn. No one’s been in there since that night, have they?”

“I locked up everything after the ambulance took her away,” Arthur said, shaking his head doubtfully. “But what are you going to tell the sheriff or the State Troopers? A ghost isn’t exactly a reliable witness. How are you going to get them to do anything?”

Ocean’s footsteps on the stairs silenced us. A moment later, the front door opened again. She must have needed to get something else out of the car.

Arthur sighed. “I can’t tell you how many times I told your mother to get some kind of security system for the barn and for the house.

The teenagers in the village are getting bolder.

Far bigger wise-asses than they were in your day.

But no, she wouldn’t do it. She was stuck in her ways.

But tell me, what are you thinking? How are you going to motivate our sheriff? ”

“You.” I gestured at him. “You have connections, Arthur. You know everyone. You can do it. Come on, you always have the answers.”

He smirked. “Are you trying to butter me up, darling?”

“Maybe. You do believe her, though. Don’t you.”

“Of course. Ghosts...let me correct that... our ghosts are not liars. If Josephine says she and Clare saw someone, then they did see someone.”

“Exactly,” I stressed. “And do you really want whoever did this to just walk away?”

He reached out and took my hand. “Absolutely not.”

“Then you’ll help me?”

Ocean breezed into the kitchen. “Help you with what?”

I hadn’t heard her. She dropped the car keys onto the counter, then pulled out a chair and sat at the table.

“What do you need Arthur to help you with?” she asked, her gaze flicking between us.

“Paperwork stuff,” I lied.

Arthur didn’t miss a beat. “Of course. As you say, I am the answer man.”

He flipped open the pizza box, grabbed a slice, and placed it on Ocean’s plate with a flourish before looking up at me.

“Okay, my love. Meet me at the Town Hall at ten a.m. sharp. We’ll see if we can light a fire under that lazy derriere.”