Dead Certain - Mariah Stewart [46]
Derek’s disks were in the top desk drawer, stacked in no particular order. Amanda booted up her laptop, popped in a disk, and, one by one, scanned the files wherein her late partner had recorded all his sales transactions. Not finding anything that rang a bell, she went on to the next disk, then the third, which contained a list of all of Derek’s customers. Thinking this list might be more useful, she sat down at the desk and sipped at the last of her coffee while she scrolled through the names. Next to each, Derek had typed in the customer’s preferences. She went from J. Adams, early American stoneware, to H. Zelinski, Mission Oak. The nearest she’d come to a notation of anything even remotely akin to the goblet was K. Minnette, Turkish bronzes.
A search through the remaining disks didn’t seem to be any more useful. Maybe Derek’s intended customer was another dealer, she theorized. Maybe one of his contacts in New York or Chicago or Boston . . .
Amanda raised the coffee cup to her lips and realized it was empty. Frowning, she decided now was as good a time as any to take a break. She’d been working since six-thirty, and it was now closing in on eleven. She walked to the front of the shop and opened the door to take in a bit of the morning. It was then that she noticed that the CLOSED sign was still hanging on Marian’s door.
She tapped on the window. When there was no response, Amanda rang the bell, which she’d been hesitant to do, because Marian said the sound of it always startled her. When the bell went unanswered, Amanda went back to her own shop and dialed Marian’s number. When there was no answer, she searched the top drawer of her desk for the spare key Marian had asked her to keep on hand for the inevitable day when Marian forgot her own. Amanda returned to Marian’s shop and unlocked the door.
“Marian?” Amanda called from the doorway.
She’d gone but three steps into the shop when she realized that something was wrong. Something smelled wrong.
Tiny inner alarms began to clang with increasing intensity as she made her way toward the back of the shop. The door to Marian’s office was partially closed, but she could see a sliver of light spilling out under it. Light deepened in spots by something else. Something dark.
Even as she pushed against the door, the hairs on the back of her neck, on her arms, began to rise.
“Marian?”
She pushed again and fell forward, landing partly on what was left of Marian O’Connor.
“Marian . . . Oh my God, no . . . oh my God . . .”
Her hands covering her mouth, Amanda scrambled away from the body. She rose on shaking legs and backed into the main room, oblivious to the blood that clung to her face, her hands, her clothes.
Gagging, knees about to give out on her, Amanda stumbled toward the counter, searching for the phone. She found it on the shelf behind the cash register, where it usually sat, but couldn’t make her fingers punch in the three numbers that would bring the police. Over and over she tried, until she finally was able to hit 911. When the dispatcher picked up, Amanda was barely coherent. By the time Sean Mercer arrived, she’d already been sick twice and was barely able to string two words together to make a sentence.
“Try to tell me what happened.” Mercer had taken her outside, away from the gore, away from the bloodied body of the woman who had been her friend. He sat with her on the bench outside Marian’s shop, waiting for the medical examiner to