“I couldn’t believe it when I saw him sneaking out the back door with a box full of goodies.” Marlene grabbed one of the last of her brownies and frowned thoughtfully. “I wonder if his family is having money problems or something? He got fired for stealing food from Roxy’s place and the box he was trying to get out to his car last night was filled with bread and cheese and a couple of jars of apple butter and pickles.”
“As far as I know, the Arello family is doing just fine,” Sheri replied. “Mr. Arello still works at the bank and Mrs. Arello works at the grocery store.”
“Maybe Michael is just a kleptomaniac,” Marlene said as she popped the last of the brownie in her mouth. “Maybe if he was working at Vick’s garage he’d be putting hubcaps in his pockets.”
Sheri laughed and glanced at her watch. “I think I’m going to head on home. Will you be okay here until close? Jennifer is supposed to get off at seven. If you want to shut the place down then, that’s fine with me. Business is usually fairly nonexistent between seven and nine on a Tuesday night anyway.”
Normally the store was open six days a week until nine, but it was still a bit too early in the year for the heavy summer traffic and tourist season. “Maybe I’ll do that. Without Abe here I really don’t like closing up all alone, especially once it gets dark.”
Sheri nodded. “That’s why I suggested it. I don’t like to be open at night with just myself here, either.” Sheri grabbed her oversize brown purse from beneath the counter. “I’m off to my enchanted cottage and I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”
Marlene smiled as Sheri left. Her sister’s house in the woods did look like an enchanted cottage, but that was where the fairy tale ended.
Marlene didn’t believe in fairy tales anymore. She knew firsthand that handsome princes weren’t always what they advertised.
At seven, as Jennifer grabbed her purse, Marlene decided to go ahead and close up shop. She really wasn’t comfortable working alone. They’d been lucky in that they’d never been robbed since opening, but Marlene had only worked the store alone once one evening and had been uncomfortable the whole time.
Minutes later she was in her car and headed back to the tiny apartment she called home. When she’d returned from Pittsburgh broke and broken, she’d jumped at the chance to rent the small furnished apartment above the Treasure Trove.
Although the furnishings were Minnie style: a used sofa in a puke-green color and a matching chair, all of them sporting crocheted lacy doilies on the armrests. The kitchen area was along one wall―a stove-top oven, a sink and a fridge that was also green.
The only thing Marlene had brought brand-new into the place was a bed and her bedding. There was no way she wanted to sleep on somebody else’s discarded mattress.
And her bed with its bright pink bedspread was where she spent most of her time. Her television was in the bedroom, and she often ate in there on a bed tray, worked on her computer and thought about the days when she’d felt so safe, so secure as a young girl growing up in her aunt Liz’s house.
She and Sheri had shared a room with twin beds covered in bright pink bedspreads, and it didn’t take a brain scientist to understand why Marlene had chosen a pink spread after her traumatic marriage.
She was thinking about snuggling into that pink material as she walked up the wooden staircase to the second-floor apartment. When she reached the landing, she knew something was wrong.
Her heart crashed against her ribs as she saw the damage to her door and that it hung slightly open on its hinges. Afraid to go inside, unsure who might still be there, she turned and hurried back down the staircase to the street where her car was parked.
She got inside, locked the doors and then called the police. As she waited for help to arrive, she tried to halt the shivers that trembled through her.
Who had been inside her apartment? Why would anyone break in? She had nothing of any real value to steal. Surely he hadn’t come here for her. Or had he?
* * *
“Got a call of a potential break-in at the apartment over Minnie’s store,” Erin Taylor, the dispatcher, called out.
“I’ll take it,” Detective Frank Delaney said, his car keys in hand. He’d just been about to head to his car and call it a night, but he knew who lived above Minnie’s place.
Of the three Marcoli sisters, Frank had found Marlene the most distant, the most standoffish, while working the investigation into her aunt’s disappearance. He had no doubt that she had fully cooperated with the investigation so far, but she’d appeared far more tightly controlled than her two sisters.
As he headed down the street toward Minnie’s Treasure Trove shop he wondered who in the hell would want to break into the tiny apartment above the junk store?
It was less than a three-block drive from the Wolf Creek Police Station to Minnie’s shop, and he saw Marlene’s old Chevy parked at the curb with her inside behind the steering wheel.
Frank pulled in just behind her, and as he got out of his car, she got out of hers. He couldn’t help the slight edge of pleasurable tension that roiled through his gut at the sight of her.
The evening light was more than kind to her, shining a luster into her pale blond hair and making the blue of her eyes more intense. He was accustomed to them radiating coolness, but tonight they shimmered with unabashed fear.
“The door is broken and was hanging open when I arrived home a few minutes ago,” she said before he could ask anything. “I didn’t go inside, so I don’t know if there is somebody still in there or not.”
Although she said the words calmly, matter-of-factly, Frank couldn’t help but notice that as she reached up to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, her hand trembled.
“I’ll go check it out. Why don’t you return to your car and lock the doors until I come back for you?”
She nodded and quickly did as he asked.
Frank headed toward the stairs and pulled his gun from his shoulder holster. As always when faced with an unknown situation, his heart started a rapid thump and all of his senses came alive with a new level of awareness.
He stealthily crept up the stairs, catching the stench of garbage in the alley behind the store. In the distance, he heard a dog bark. What he didn’t hear was any movement from the apartment just ahead of him.
When he hit the landing it was easy to see what had concerned Marlene. The door had apparently been hit with enough force to spring the flimsy lock. It stood open about an inch and Frank tightened his grip on his gun as he used his foot to lever the door open all the way.
It was still light enough outside that as he entered the main room the damage was obvious. Broken dishes crunched beneath his shoes as he focused his attention on the other doors in the room...specifically, the door that led to the bedroom.
The door was open, and although Frank sensed nobody in the room, he entered in a crouched position with his gun leading the way. Just as he’d sensed, nobody was there. Nor was there anyone hiding out in the bathroom. But whoever had been here had left one heck of a mess behind.
He holstered his gun, checked the door that he knew led to inner stairs that went down to the store and found it locked, and then headed to the wooden steps that carried him back down to the street.
Marlene once again got out of her car to meet him. “There’s nobody up there now, but somebody definitely got inside and did damage.”
Some of the fear left her eyes and instead that cool detachment that was her trademark shone through. “Then I guess I’d better go see what’s been destroyed.”
She