A Flicker of Doubt - Tim Myers [71]
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, Harrison. I’m here to buy more supplies for myself, but I believe I’m ready to carry on my candlemaking alone now.”
“I understand,” I said, stunned by the unexpected nature of her declaration.
“Don’t look so hangdog, Harrison, I’m not moving on to another craft; I’ve got candlemaking in my blood. I just want to experiment on my own for a while. You’ll be able to live off the order I’m about to place for months.”
I looked straight at her and said, “Do you want to know the truth? I’ll miss your company a lot more than I’ll miss the income from our lessons.”
Was that a tear in the comer of her eye? “Harrison, I’ll be around, don’t you worry about that.”
“Then let me grab a cart and I’ll help you.”
We filled two of them by the time she was finished, and the total was my largest sale to date, a dozen times more than what I’d charged Ruth earlier. For a banner day in sales, it was one filled with sadness, too.
I knew better than to offer her any discounts, but I did manage to slip one of my own candles into her bags as a present What I’d said was true. I’d become a candlemaker preparing for our lessons, and I’d miss her greatly.
I expected Eve to be despondent when I came back from loading Mrs. Jorgenson’s supplies in her car. Instead, she had a wistful look on her face.
“I expected you to be falling apart about now,” I said.
“Harrison, we both knew this run would end sooner or later. Frankly, I’m amazed she stuck with candlemaking as long as she did. From what I’ve heard in the crafting circles, her time with us was a record.”
“I’ll miss her more than her money,” I said.
“I know you will, but there will be other students and t other classes. In the meantime, you should celebrate. . You made enough today off two sales to shut the candleshop down for a month and still have money left over.”
“You can take some time off if you’d like, but I can’t think of anyplace else in the world I’d rather be than right here.”
She laughed. “What a difference your time here has made. I had my doubts the first day you walked into River’s Edge, I’m not afraid to admit it”
‘That made two of us. I’ve got it in my blood now, though, there’s no getting rid of me.”
The rest of the day was happily uneventful, and though I still worried about what had happened with Becka, there wasn’t much else I could do about it I sent. Eve home early, knocked off five minutes before closing myself, then headed out to the truck to make my deposit for the night
I was nearly to my truck when someone stepped out of the shadows.
I’d found Greg Runion after all.
Or more accurately, he’d found me, and from the pistol in his hand, it was pretty obvious he wasn’t all that happy to see me.
Chapter 20
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
“You know what I want. Give me the papers Becka stole from my office and I’ll be in my way. Don’t worry, I won’t kill you if you do what I say.”
“What are you talking about, Runion? I don’t have any papers.”
He glanced back at his SUV and said, “Jeanie couldn’t have been lying about that, too. She told me Becka stole the forged contracts for Cyrus’s land and gave them to you for safekeeping, along with a packet of incriminating photographs. You had to butt in where you had no business, didn’t you? Why did you do it, Harrison? I almost had it all in my hands, and you blew it for me.”
“Listen, you’ve got to believe me. I don’t know what you’re talking about Jeanie isn’t telling you the truth.”
“Now I’m not sure who to believe,” he said. “It looks like you’re going to have to die anyway, just like that nosy ex-girlfriend of yours.”
“So you killed her?”
“Becka didn’t want to take the pills, but I forced her to do it. I told her she’d have a better chance beating the overdose than a bullet.”
“But why kill her at all? What did she do to you? Is this whole tiling about Cyrus and his land?”
Runion snorted. “You really don’t know anything, do you? Becka caught me doing something far more criminal