Pay the Price (Harmony Grove Book 3) by Carol Post (which ebook reader txt) 📕

him access to her home was quite another. She’d known him for all of one week. Usually, it took months for someone to earn her trust. But there was something different about Shane. Though he was happy, carefree and without roots, he had a serious side, the part of him that empathized with her and somehow connected with her pain.

And he went to church. He even had a Bible sitting on his coffee table. She’d seen it when she’d gone over to his apartment Saturday night for pizza and a movie. It wasn’t just there for decoration. He actually read it, as evidenced by the worn leather cover and the dog-eared pages. Maybe there was one man on the planet who wasn’t out to use her.

He was special, but in the one way that mattered, he was just like the other men in her life—three fathers followed by a short string of boyfriends. One morning she’d get up and he’d be gone.

Jessica stopped in front of the next door, stenciled letters identifying the space beyond as BethAnn’s Fabrics and Crafts, then retrieved the key from the back pocket of her dress jeans. Saturday night’s movie had been as good as the pizza. The attempts to identify the third guy in the picture had been disappointing. He didn’t look at all familiar. Of course, after eight years, a lot of people didn’t look familiar.

Shane had saved the photo to his laptop. He’d claimed he was good with faces, that if he happened to run across the guy, he’d recognize him. That had been fine with her. Getting help from the local police wasn’t likely to happen, not as long as Branch was in charge.

She swung open the front door and flipped the bank of light switches to her right. Fluorescents came to life above, chasing away the shadows at the back of the store. All the customers who’d stopped yesterday had already spoken to her at Prissy’s funeral. So the raised eyebrows at seeing her back in Harmony Grove and condolences for her loss had already been dispensed with before the start of her work week.

BethAnn had spent the day teaching her how to cut fabric, stock and straighten shelves and use the cash register and credit card machine. She’d even entrusted her with keys. This morning she’d get the crash course. BethAnn had a doctor’s appointment and would be more than an hour late.

Jessica headed for the back of the store where a large room housed a refrigerator, sink and small cabinet. A long wooden table sat in the center, surrounded by chairs. This was where BethAnn offered her craft classes. Fortunately, conducting classes wasn’t part of Jessica’s job description. She’d never been crafty enough herself to teach anyone else.

Midway to the refrigerator, she froze. Shards of glass littered the vinyl tile floor next to the fridge, and several slats in the blinds were cocked at odd angles. Goose bumps cascaded over her, and she swiveled her head to cast an uneasy glance behind her. With a single index finger, she swung the blinds away from the window. The lower pane had been raised, covering a fist-sized hole in the upper pane. She backed away, heart pounding. Someone had broken into the store.

She called the police, then walked up and down the aisles, checking the shelves. Nothing looked touched, no product obviously missing. The intruder evidently hadn’t been interested in items to pawn. Maybe he’d been looking for cash. If so, he’d been out of luck unless he had safe-cracking skills. The cash drawer was emptied every night, all monies locked in the safe.

When a large uniformed figure filled the doorway a few minutes later, her heart fell. Not Branch again. Since she’d come back, he’d responded to every call she’d made. It was as if he was waiting, poised and ready.

“What seems to be the problem?”

She bristled at the patronizing tone. The man had a knack for making a simple question sound like a reprimand. “The store was broken into last night. I came in this morning and found a shattered window in the back.”

He stared down at her with that blend of condescension and disdain he had mastered so well. “Have you noticed how trouble seems to follow you?”

“Only here in Harmony Grove. I’d say someone’s trying to run me off. Why don’t you tell them something for me—they’re wasting their time.”

His puffy lips turned upward in an irreverent smirk, and he pulled a spiral-bound pad from his shirt pocket. “Show me this broken window.”

She led him to the back and watched as he attempted to lift prints from the glass and surrounding wall. In spite of his rudeness on first arriving, he seemed to be taking extra care with dusting on the fine black powder, transferring what he found to tape and identifying the location of each print. His attention to detail was likely for BethAnn’s sake, not her own.

“It looks like I got some good prints. They may belong to BethAnn, but we’ll see.” He walked back into the main part of the store. “Does anything seem to be missing?”

“Not that I’ve discovered. BethAnn doesn’t leave cash in the drawer overnight, and I haven’t noticed anything missing from the shelves.”

He walked toward the U-shaped counter near the front of the store. One side was the area for cutting fabric, with the cash register and credit card machine occupying the bottom of the “U.” Beneath were four long drawers. Branch pulled open the top drawer with one latex-clad finger.

When she leaned forward to look inside, she gasped. Someone had rifled through the receipts. Before leaving last night, she’d put them in a neat stack and paper clipped them together. They were still paper clipped, but none of the sides lined up anymore, and several of the corners were dog-eared.

“I don’t know if any are missing, but the receipts have been gone through.”

“Any idea why?”

She shook her head. As far as financial information, only the name and last