I glanced across at the cash desk, where a man in jeans, a black T-shirt and a pair of bright red running shoes was standing, one hand resting possessively on the top of the silver candleholders.
“They haven’t been polished,” I said. “I haven’t even logged them into our inventory yet.”
“I can do the cleaning,” Rose said. “And you can take a picture of them. Then Avery can do all the rest of the computer work later.”
Avery was Liz’s granddaughter and another of my employees. She’d been taking on some of the work of logging in new stock and doing it much faster than I could.
I hesitated.
Rose leaned her head close to mine. “Four hundred dollars,” she said. “But he has to have them today.”
“Why?” I asked, eyeing the man, whose head was now bent over his cell phone.
“They’re a gift for his wife.” Rose glanced in the man’s direction, too. “So it has to be today.” She patted my arm. “You know how some men are. They never do these things until the last minute.” She gave me a little smile. “Not every man is as organized as Alfred.”
“I think I should talk to Mr. . . .” I looked expectantly at Rose.
“Cameron. Jeff Cameron.” She handed me the man’s business card. Jeff Cameron worked in client services for Helmark Associates. He looked up then, as though he’d heard his name, and smiled in our direction. “He and his wife are new in town,” Rose added, as though that explained everything.
North Harbor sits on the midcoast of Maine: “Where the hills touch the sea.” The town stretches from the Swift Hills in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the south. It’s full of beautiful old buildings and eclectic little businesses, as well as several award-winning restaurants. Our year-round population is about thirteen thousand people, but that number more than triples in the summer with summer residents and tourists.
Occasionally one of those seasonal visitors fell in love with the town and relocated permanently. I wondered if that was the case with Jeff Cameron and his wife. It was kind of what had happened with me. Growing up I’d spent my summers in North Harbor with my grandmother. When my radio job disappeared, it was the place that most felt like home.
We walked over to join Jeff Cameron at the counter. I offered my hand.
“Mr. Cameron, this is Sarah Grayson,” Rose said before I could introduce myself. “She owns Second Chance.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” he said. His handshake was firm but not obnoxiously strong. He was several inches taller than me—maybe five-ten or so—with blond hair and the lean, angular build of a distance runner, which explained the flame red running shoes.
“You as well,” I said. I gestured at the counter. “You’re interested in the candlesticks.”
He nodded. “Mrs. Jackson tells me they aren’t for sale yet, but I’m hoping you’ll make an exception. I’ll give you four hundred dollars for the pair. I recognize that they’re Kirk & Son.”
I hesitated. From my research I felt the pair was worth between four and four hundred and fifty dollars. And it seemed likely, I’d discovered, that they had at one time belonged to the late Purves Calhoun, though how they’d ended up in that cardboard box was anybody’s guess. Given what I’d paid for the contents of the box, Jeff Cameron’s offer was more than fair. But I hated to send the candlesticks out looking less than their best. I didn’t like to let anything leave the shop that wouldn’t reflect well on the quality of our stock.
“If tomorrow would work for you, then yes,” I said. “That would give us time to clean them, and it would give you the chance to get a better look at what you’re buying.”
He started to shake his head before I’d even finished speaking. “I know what I’m getting. That’s not a problem. But I have to have them today.” He pulled a hand back through his thick hair. “Ms. Grayson, my wife’s grandmother had a set of candleholders that, based on the photographs I’ve seen, were identical to these ones. They somehow disappeared after her death.” He raised his eyebrows when he said, “disappeared.”
“My wife was very close to her grandmother, and if she were still alive, today would have been her eighty-third birthday. I know Leesa is missing her and I know what those candlesticks would mean to her. I’ll give you four hundred and fifty dollars.”
I felt Rose’s elbow dig into the small of my back. “Sarah dear, I can polish them for Mr. Cameron as soon as Charlotte gets here,” she said.
I turned to look at her. She gave me a sweet smile. “It’s no trouble,” she added.
“Thank you, Rose,” I said. I turned back to Cameron. “All right. We have a deal.”
“Excellent,” he said. “Could you deliver them late this afternoon?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. We don’t deliver.”
Cameron made a face and glanced at the expensive Polar sports watch on his arm. “I have a meeting in Portland this afternoon and I’m not sure when I’ll be back. Can you make an exception?”
I reached behind me and caught Rose’s arm before her elbow jabbed me again. “Sarah, Alfred and I could deliver Mr. Cameron’s gift to his wife,” Rose offered, undeterred.
I didn’t bother turning around to look at her because I knew she’d be the picture of innocence. “Where are you living?” I asked Cameron.
“We’re still house shopping, so for now we’re renting a cottage at Windspeare Point.”
I did turn to Rose then. “It’s too far to walk,” I said quietly, hoping my expression told her that I wasn’t going to argue the point with her.
She eyed me for a long moment, then let out a soft sigh and nodded.
I faced Jeff Cameron again. “Northridge Taxi also runs a delivery service, and their drivers are bonded.”
“I can take care of all that, Sarah,” Rose said. She moved past me, around the back of the counter, holding her upper body straight and a bit rigid, which told me that even though she’d given in with grace, she was still annoyed with me.
* * *
The parking lot for the medical center was just ahead. I took a ticket from the machine, and the barrier arm went up. I spotted a parking space at the end of the fourth row of cars, close to the emergency room entrance. I was glad that Rose was all right. I should have remembered that she never gave in, and certainly not gracefully.
I stopped at the security desk just inside the ER doors. The lobby area had recently been renovated. The walls were now painted a warm, pale yellow, the color of late summer corn, instead of the bilious green they’d been before.
“I’m here to see Rose Jackson,” I told the young man on the other side of the Plexiglas panel. He was wearing dark blue hospital scrubs and his muscular arms were tattooed from his wrists as far up as I could see.
“You’re Sarah Grayson?” he asked.
I nodded, wondering how he knew my name.
“Your mother is in Observation 5.” He pointed over my right shoulder. “Go through those double doors and turn right at the nurses’ station.”
My mother? I suddenly had a pretty good idea of why the young man had known my name. Ahead I could see Liz, standing by the nurses’ desk. She had the handles of Rose’s blue-and-white L.L. Bean tote bag over her arm. As always, she was beautifully dressed in a pale pink cotton sweater and cream trousers, her blond hair curled around her face.
I walked over and gave her a hug. “You told them I’m Rose’s daughter?” I said.
Liz waved my comment away. “I said you were like a daughter to her. Is it my fault people don’t listen?”
I looked at her, shaking my head.
“You keep making that face, missy, and it’s going to freeze like that,” she said.
“That didn’t work on me when I was seven, and it’s not going to work now,” I said. “You lied to them. What if someone asks me for ID?”
Liz gave a snort of derision. “And what exactly are they going to ask for? Your birth certificate? I don’t think so.”