Authors: Mary Ellen Hughes

Tags: #Mystery

String of Lies (30 page)

BOOK: String of Lies

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“Indeed. And,” Loralee said, turning to Carrie, “Dan said he can definitely build it within my budget—the money I
won’t
be spending now on a condo at Pheasant Run—and he can get started almost immediately. All we have to do is work out a few details.”

“That’s wonderful,” Carrie said, her eyes shining, and Jo knew she was thinking about Dan finally getting work to do after so many projects had been cancelled.

Loralee must have been thinking of that too, since she said, “I wanted to be the first in line for Dan’s time. I know, now that this murder thing is all cleared up, that his old customers will be flooding back.”

“Well, they certainly might, once they see you’re trusting him enough to hire him.”

“Trust!” Loralee cried, flapping a hand dismissively.

“Trust is a given. I wouldn’t invest this amount of money with any other man besides Dan. And with Xavier, of course, helping. Which reminds me, Jo, I’ve been to see Xavier and Sylvia, and we talked, among many other things, about their baby-to-be. Did you know it’s going to be a girl?”

“No, I didn’t.” Jo smiled.

“Yes, the doctors did a sonogram while Sylvia was at the hospital to make sure things were okay, and that’s when they found out. And,” Loralee said, her eyes dancing once again, “guess what they plan to name her, now that they know.”

Loralee was certainly in the mood for announcements today. “What, Loralee?” Jo asked, happy to play along.

“They want to name her Jo!”

“Oh! Wow!”

“That’s terrific,” Carrie cried.

“Isn’t it? Actually, it’ll be Jovita, which will satisfy Sylvia’s mother, but they will call her Jo. I told them they couldn’t have come up with a more perfect name.”

“Maybe,” Carrie said, throwing Jo a teasing look,

“they’d like to use Jo’s full name. The one that’s actually on her birth certificate.”

“What’s that?” Loralee asked. “I always assumed Jo was short for Joanne.”

“No,” Jo said, tossing Carrie a warning grin, “but we don’t need to go into that. Jovita is lovely. They’ll be much happier with that.”

“Well—” Loralee began, looking like she
did
want to go into that, but happily for Jo the Craft Corner’s door dinged as Javonne walked in.

“Hi, all!” she called. “I saw you heading here, Loralee, so I thought I’d pop in and catch everyone up on something I just heard.”

“Isn’t Harry’s office open today?” Loralee asked.

“Oh, yes, which is exactly where I learned this. Harry has a break between patients, so I’m taking the chance to run over to the school to drop off James’s lunch, which he left behind on the kitchen counter this morning.

“Anyway,” Javonne drew a breath, “Sue Doyle was getting her teeth cleaned this morning. She lives right across the street from the Bannisters, and she says Kevin’s moved out, and she’s pretty sure they’re heading for divorce.”

“Oh, my,” Loralee said, shaking her head.

“Well, Heather wasn’t guilty of murder,” Carrie said, “but from what you told me, Jo, she wasn’t exactly innocent.”

“No, Vernon pretty much confirmed that she and Parker had been having an affair. She tried to pretend to me that it was all a false threat on Parker’s part, as she must have pretended to her husband. But apparently he stopped believing her.”

“The truth always comes back to bite you,” Javonne said.

“How sad,” Loralee said. “But I suppose it could have been worse. At least neither of them is heading off to prison.”

“No, there’s that,” Javonne agreed. Her face turned somber. “How is Randy? Has anyone heard?”

“He’s out of intensive care and slowly recovering,” Jo said. “Of course, he’s under close guard at the hospital—both for suicide watch and because of the murder charges.”

All four women fell silent, contemplating the grim future that lay ahead for the former handyman.

The phone rang, breaking the spell, and Jo moved to answer it.

“Jo’s Craft Corner,” she said.

“Mrs. McAllister,” a male voice said, “I understand you’ve been trying to reach me. This is Max McGee.”

“Max! At last!” Jo sank onto the tall stool behind her counter. “How are you? Did you get my messages? Please, tell me what’s going on with this building!”

Javonne waved, pointing at the brown bag in her hand that she still needed to deliver to her son, and took off.

“My, my, my,” Max’s voice said into Jo’s ear. “Hold on, there. That’s a whole lot of questions, young lady. First of all, I’m fine, thank you. That dag-blasted knee of mine was more trouble than it was worth, but I’m walking on it again, so there’s that.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Jo said, holding her breath.

“And I did get your messages, eventually. The phones were down for quite a while where we were on the island. Not that service was all that good when they were up and running. But Rose and I went there to get away, and we certainly did.”

“Uh-huh,” Jo said. She rolled one hand in a speed-it-up motion, her frustrated glance catching Carrie’s, who had picked up on Max’s name and watched anxiously. Jo feared Max might next go into a description of the island and their accommodations, but he finally got to what she was dying to hear.

“That Holt fellow, he tried like the dickens to get me to sell my property up there. Kept upping the offer, throwing in perks, you name it. But I didn’t like the sound of it.”

Jo’s heart leaped with hope.

“So I told him no, I wasn’t going to sell.”

“You did!”

“I sure did. If I’d known it was going to cause you some consternation, I would have told you about the whole thing. It just didn’t occur to me that you’d ever hear a word about it. The discussion was just between him and me. I thought that was the end of it.”

“Frannie had to close her floral shop because her landlord sold to Holt. That’s how I first heard about what he was doing.”

“George Miller sold? Well, he was looking to get out for a while, from what I understand. He probably was just waiting for someone like Holt to come along. But don’t you worry, young lady. If you want to renew your lease, I can have the papers sent over to you right away.”

“Yes, I certainly do, Max. I will sign that paper the minute I get it. And thank you so much for calling. You’ve pretty much made my day.”

“Glad to be of service,” Max said, a chuckle in his voice.

Jo hung up her phone and threw up her arms. “I can stay!” she cried.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Carrie said.

Loralee smiled widely. “Wonderful! Dear Max. I knew he wouldn’t let you down.” She gathered up her tote and patted Jo on the arm. “I’m delighted with your news, but I’m afraid I have to be going. There are a million things on my to-do list. I’m so happy for you, Jo. We all want you to be here for a long, long time.”

She gave Jo a hug, then one to Carrie, and took off, leaving two happy people behind.

“Well,” Carrie said, “what’s the first thing you’re going to do, now that you know your shop is surviving?”

Jo grinned. “The evil side of me is tempted to call Mallory Holt, stick my tongue out, and say, ‘Nyah-nyah.’ But I won’t.”

“No, best stay on the good side of a woman like that. You never know.”

“It will be interesting to see what
she
does next. Will Sebastian Zarnik be a part of her life? And will she stay in Abbotsville and run Parker’s corporation, or chuck it all to follow Zarnik wherever his career takes him?”

“I don’t see Mallory as much of a follower, do you?”

“Not really, but . . . well, we’ll see. As to what I’m going to do, I want to sit down right now and design the best little necklace I can for my namesake-to-be, baby Jo Ramirez.”

“Lovely idea. Maybe something that can be added to as she grows?”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

Jo happily headed to her desk to begin sketching. A customer came in who was interested in yarns, and Carrie and she launched into a detailed knitting discussion, which Jo tuned out as she turned on her creativity. Pleasant thoughts kept intruding, though, including the look on Carrie’s face when she realized Dan’s business was getting back on track, as well as Loralee’s as she shared her rezoning news. Max’s phone call, of course, had settled in two minutes the worry that had hung over Jo for several days, and Jo sighed, feeling a deep satisfaction with her life as it stood at that moment of that day.

There wasn’t anything, she felt, that could make her feel any better than she did right then. Then the phone rang, and, seeing Carrie still occupied, Jo picked it up herself.

“Jo?” asked a male voice she instantly recognized. “This is Russ Morgan.”

“Russ,” Jo said, her own voice suddenly a bit wobbly.

“How are you?” The only contact she had had with Russ after that awful afternoon at her house had been through messages given to Carrie. Jo, within hours, had experienced an overwhelming fatigue that might have been more emotional than physical and had slept an unprecedented—and embarrassing—eighteen hours. The messages from Russ had only been polite inquiries as to Jo’s well-being, but Jo had greatly regretted missing them.

“I wondered if you might be free tonight?” he asked.

“There’s a great little place just outside of town I thought we could go to for dinner.”

Jo smiled foolishly at the phone and realized she had been wrong. Here she had thought she couldn’t feel any better than she had a moment ago.

But suddenly she did.

Make a Special Key Chain

(See one version of this beautiful key chain on
www.maryellenhughes.com
.)

Attach a small split ring to a key ring.
Run a six-inch-long wire through the split ring and bring both ends together.
Put a crimp on the double wire, close to the key ring.
String three or four large beads of your choice over your double wire.
Add a crimp after the last bead, then add your charm.
Run your wire ends back through the crimp and beads to finish off.

Beading Tips

Correct handling of jump rings: open the ring by curling one side toward you with pliers and close it by curling the same side back (away from you) until both ends meet. Never try to close by pinching both sides of the jump ring.
When making a floating (illusion) necklace, make sure there is an even amount of space between each pattern of beads. Crimp before and after the bead pattern with a .8-mm crimp (size #1) to keep in place.
When curling the loop of a head pin for an earring, be sure to close it completely against the pin so that your earring wire will not slip off.

About the Author

Mary Ellen Hughes
is the author of
Wreath of Deception,
the first of the Craft Corner Mysteries, as well as two other mystery novels and several short stories. A member of Mystery Writers of America and the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime, she has long been fascinated with both mysteries and crafts and enjoys being able to combine them. A native Milwaukeean, she presently lives in Maryland with her husband, Terry. You can visit her website at
www.maryellenhughes.com
.