Liz leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Nice job not picking sides, kiddo,” she said, a knowing gleam in her eyes.
I realized that no matter what Liz had said, in the end she would have gone along with the Angels taking Mike Pearson’s case even if his attorney hadn’t called and made her second-guess her initial no. Family mattered to Liz and as she liked to teasingly remind me, we were all family, whether we liked it or not.
“Love you,” I called to her back as she reached the door, waiting for the reply I knew I’d get and did.
“Yeah, yeah, everybody does,” she said with a wave of her hand and then she was gone.
I turned back around and for the first time remembered that Avery was in the room. She was dusting the shelves of a squat bookshelf I’d painted a delicate shade of blush pink before she restocked it with more of the map-embellished pails. They surrounded her as she knelt on the floor. In one she’d piled children’s wooden ABC blocks. Another of the small buckets held facecloths that had been rolled and tied with ribbon. A third was filled with fizzy lavender-scented bath bombs that Avery herself had made. I realized she had heard everything that had been said from the moment Mallory Peterson walked in the door.
“Well?” I asked.
Avery set down the microfiber cloth she’d been using on the shelf and the stack of bracelets she was wearing slid along her arm. “Well, first of all I agree with Rose,” she said.
That didn’t surprise me. While Avery loved her grandmother, she and Rose were kindred souls in many ways—both up for trying new things like green smoothies and Japanese art movies—and they were very close. Avery’s mother’s last name was also Jackson, which the teen insisted meant she and Rose had some kind of family connection. Avery had even briefly used Jackson as her last name when she’d been fighting with her father.
“It’s just weird that someone in jail would turn down help to get out.” Something on the shelf right in front of her caught her eye. She grabbed the cloth and rubbed vigorously at a spot before she turned her attention back to me. “But before that lawyer guy called Nonna I pretty much was on her side.” She glanced at the stairs. “Don’t tell Rose that.”
“My lips are sealed,” I said.
Avery set the bucket full of blocks on the middle shelf, considered it for a moment and then moved it to the top one. “I might be able to find some stuff out,” she said.
As a general and unspoken rule we tried to keep Avery out of the Angels’ investigations. That didn’t always work.
“What kind of stuff?” I asked warily.
She set two other little pails on the middle shelf of the low bookcase. “Just stuff about that family,” she said with an offhand shrug. A little too offhand for me. “I kinda know her brother.”
“Mallory’s brother?”
She glanced over at me. “Yeah. His name’s Greg.”
“What does ‘kinda know’ mean?” I asked, trying not to sound like an adult giving her the third-degree even though that’s exactly what I was doing.
“He goes to my school,” she said. “And he’s in two of my classes. So I know him, but we don’t exactly hang out.”
She seemed to be using a lot of qualifiers.
“Maybe I could talk to him.”
I reached over and straightened the edge of a quilt. “Maybe you could,” I said. “And if you do find out anything—”
“—tell Rose or Mr. P. and don’t do anything stupid,” she finished.
“Exactly,” I said.
Rose came down the stairs then with a fresh cup of coffee for me.
“Thank you,” I said. I looked over at Avery. “I’m just going to make sure everything from the storage unit has been unloaded. Rose and Charlotte will be in the workroom. Yell if you need help.”
“Okay,” she said. Most of her attention was once again focused on the collection of little pails.
Rose followed me out to the workroom. Charlotte had set a cardboard carton on a Mission-style wooden chair that had come from the first storage unit, and was packing it with the boxes of tea. Rose joined her and peeked inside. Then she looked at me, her eyes sparkling. “This is a splendid find, dear,” she said, clasping her hands together. “Although I can’t imagine why anyone would have left all this lovely tea in a storage unit.”
“Do you think it’s possible someone was smuggling tea in from Canada?” Charlotte asked, a twinkle in her dark eyes.
“Maybe,” I said. “The thought had crossed my mind.”
Rose shook her head. “If they did, it’s very disrespectful behavior.”
“So does that mean you don’t want to keep all this tea?” I asked, gesturing at the carton, which was already half full of Red Rose boxes.
“Of course it doesn’t,” she said. “That would be even more disrespectful.”
Charlotte gave her a nudge with one elbow. “Did you see those?” she said, indicating the blankets. “I think they’re the real thing.”
Rose reached over and ran one hand across the cream-colored wool. “I think you’re right.” She looked at me. “These blankets might do very well on the store Web site.”
“All right,” I said. I glanced over at the door. I needed to see how Liam was doing. I hadn’t meant for him to get stuck with all the unloading. “Could you go over them and see what condition they’re in? They’ll need to be cleaned and then Avery can take pictures.”
Since I’d discovered Avery’s artistic side I’d been letting her take more of the photos for items on the Web site. I was convinced it had helped sales, which is one of the reasons I had given her more hours and a small raise.
Rose nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks,” I said. “By the way, the tea is all yours.”
She beamed at me and leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. “You are a darling girl. Thank you,” she said.
I stepped outside to discover that Mr. P. had arrived earlier than expected. He was standing by the now-empty trailer behind my SUV talking to Liam. He smiled as I joined them. “Hello, Sarah,” he said. “Liam and I were just talking about the plans to winterize the sunporch.”
The Angels had been using my sunporch as a base of operations since they took on their first case a year ago. The problem was that the uninsulated space with its old, drafty windows was too cold to work in during the winter months. Rose had raised the idea of finding office space somewhere else, which had struck me as a very, very bad idea.
I figured that doing some work in the space would actually kill two birds with one stone. It would add to the overall value of the building—not that I was planning on selling it—and I’d still be able to keep an eye on whatever investigation the Angels had going on. When I’d explained my reasoning to Liam he’d immediately agreed to do the work and to see what deals he could find for me on supplies.
The Angels already paid me a monthly rent. I’d objected to the stipend and been firmly informed that if I wouldn’t take the money the Angels would be setting up shop somewhere else. So each month half the money I received went to the Friends of the North Harbor Library and the other half to the Mid-coast Animal Shelter. I felt better about taking the money and I reasoned that since Rose didn’t know what I was doing, she couldn’t argue with me over it.
Instead of paying me more rent for the space once it was essentially winterized, I’d suggested a trade. Mr. P., with his superior computer skills, could do background checks on some of the vintage guitars and the owners of those instruments, which seemed to be showing up at the shop on a semiregular basis. I’d said no to two possible sales because the backstories of the guitars seemed a little sketchy. One of them was a 1966 Martin D-18 with mahogany back and sides and a spruce top. I still regretted letting that one go. So the Angels and I had made a deal and since Liam was in town he’d offered to get started on the sunporch work.
“I was just telling Alfred about the windows,” Liam said.