Dead Certain - Mariah Stewart [70]
“But then he pled out, and there was no trial.”
“You think somehow this is all connected to him?”
“It’s worth following up on. At one time, he’d threatened both Derek and Marian. And now they’re both dead.”
“But you said the prison officials confirmed that he’s had no other visitors, no contact with anyone other than his mother and his sister.”
“We’re going to have to look a little closer at Mr. Lowell. Maybe there’s a former cell mate, someone he came in contact with—”
Her hands started to shake and her legs went weak. “I don’t want that to be it. I don’t want it to be because of me. I don’t want them to be dead because of me.”
Without thinking, he put his arms around her and let her cry, held her until she stopped shaking.
“Bastard,” she growled. “I thought this was all behind me—that he was behind me. Bastard. If he had anything to do with this . . .”
“We’ll figure it out. If it’s him, if he’s involved somehow, we’ll find out. If he’s behind this, we’ll find out.”
“It’s so hard to believe. For one thing, I would never figure him being smart enough to plan something like this. I mean, wouldn’t you have to be pretty smart to pull off something like this from behind bars?”
“Maybe he has a smart friend.”
“He’d have to.” She disengaged herself and dug into her purse for a tissue. Not finding one, she went behind the counter and pulled one from the box that sat on the shelf. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose and turned back to him. “Let’s find him. Let’s find Archer’s friend, if he has one.”
“Let’s do that.” Before Archer’s friend finds you . . .
Her eyes returned to the glass case that stood between them. “Marian bought several pieces of jewelry at the sale.” She leaned down to peer at the items on display. “There are the earrings . . . and there, there’s the bracelet.”
She frowned.
“Something wrong?”
“There was a pendant on a nice gold chain. Emeralds set in concentric circles, quite lovely. She had that in here.”
“Maybe she sold it.”
“If she did, it would have had to have been sometime on Wednesday. I can’t believe she wouldn’t have mentioned it, though. Let me check her receipts for this week.”
She took a few steps in the direction of the office, then stopped.
“Tell me where it is. I’ll get it,” Sean said.
She shook her head. “No, I’ll do it.”
She pushed open the door and went into the small room, which still held the smell of blood and fear. She steeled herself against it and walked around the stain, refusing to let the images in.
In the top desk drawer was the black folder in which Marian recorded her purchases. Amanda grabbed it and returned to the front room.
“You might want this,” she told Sean. “Though there doesn’t seem to be too much sales activity this week . . .”
She scanned through the folder once, then a second time.
“It’s not here. If she sold it, she would have noted it. She was a stickler for keeping track of her sales.”
Amanda went back to the glass case to take another look. “Not here.”
“When had you last seen the necklace there?”
“Late on Wednesday afternoon.”
“And it was in that case?”
“Right there on that black velvet stand. Unless she moved it to another case . . .” Amanda made her way around the shop, studying the contents of each glass case. “It isn’t here, Sean.”
“Then she must have sold it after you saw it on Wednesday.”
“There’d be paper on it.”
“Maybe she planned on taking care of that when she got in yesterday. Maybe it was late in the afternoon . . .”
“No. She would have done it there and then. There was no mañana to Marian. She would have written a receipt at the time of the sale.”
“Did you happen to notice any customers going in or out of her shop on Wednesday?”
“Only earlier in the day. There was a busload of shoppers from Maryland who came in around ten and left around three.”
“But you saw the necklace after that. Later in the day.”
“Closer to four.”
“So if the necklace was in the shop on late Wednesday afternoon, where is it now?” Sean rubbed his chin. “A souvenir, maybe . . .”
“I’m sorry?”
“He could