I left Barney’s shop shortly thereafter, my thoughts racing. Because of the nice weather, I decided to walk the long way back to the store. I’d be sitting most of the afternoon and cataloguing new books into my software system once Hanna went home, so the exercise would do me good.

So, Desmond had tried to sell Barney stamps from Albert’s collection before they’d even had the funeral. Then he’d turned around and tried to implicate Barney. And now Nathan Anderson was involved in some deal gone bad with Desmond too. I didn’t know much about Nathan, except he was involved with Felicity Bates—a woman of wealth and means and mystery who lived in a huge mansion on the outskirts of Mystic Notch. She’d inherited her wealth from her husband, who’d died a while back, and the mansion was actually his family home. Felicity lived there with her son and in-laws.

I wasn’t exactly sure what Felicity did all day. She didn’t work. That was for sure. I knew she fancied herself to be a witch and usually made an appearance when there was anything reputed to be magical around. She’d been after that recipe book that Elspeth now had and an old vial of some goop that Hester Warren had buried on her property three hundred years ago. Not that I believed in magic, but Felicity apparently did. I wasn’t particularly fond of Felicity or her cat, a long-haired white feline named Fluff who seemed to rub my Pandora the wrong way.

I’d had several run-ins with Felicity and her cat after my return to Mystic Notch, and frankly, I wouldn’t put murder past that woman. After all, one of her kids was in jail for the same crime. Maybe it was genetic.

As I rounded the corner, I spotted my sister, Gus, standing outside the bookstore. I made a beeline for her, hoping maybe she had some new information on Albert’s case. But as I got closer, I could tell by the look on her face that she was not pleased. Not good. Not good at all.

“Hey,” I said as I drew up beside Gus. “What’s going on?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” Gus said, removing all doubt about her temper. She would have been more formidable if she didn’t look like a Barbie in sheriff’s garb with her hourglass figure and delicate features. Even pulling her long blond hair back into a severe ponytail didn’t do much to make her look fierce. The gun at her hip and her dour expression did, though. “Are you sticking your nose into my investigation after I expressly told you not to, Willa?”

While Gus went off, reading me the usual riot act about danger and being a civilian, I glanced inside the shop. Pandora was perched on the back of the purple sofa, staring at me with those emerald eyes of hers, and I’d swear I saw a smirk on her little feline face. I wasn’t sure cats could smirk, but if they could, my cat was definitely doing it.

Gus was still going strong, and I crossed my arms. “I’m not butting into your investigation.”

“Yeah?” My sister stepped closer, her expression unconvinced. “And where were you just now?”

“At the antique store.”

“Barney Delaney’s place?”

“Unless there’s another one in town I don’t know about, yes.” My toe tapped incessantly against the sidewalk, a small concession to the irritation growing inside me. I was a grown woman. A business owner. I did not need to stand here and be lectured to by my sister, sheriff or not. “Why?”

“Why did you go over there?”

“Well, I…” Darn. I tried to come up with some plausible excuse for leaving the bookstore in the middle of the day to go antique shopping but came up empty. Didn’t matter anyway. Gus wasn’t buying my excuse. She never did. “Fine. I went to talk to him about Albert. But I’m not poking into your case. I swear.”

“You better not, Willa.” Gus clenched her jaw. “I’m telling you to stay out of official police business. Leave it to the trained professionals who know how to work a case. I’ve got it covered.” With that, she turned on her heel and headed back toward her squad car parked at the curb. I waited until she’d pulled away before I went inside.

Hanna finished up her shift then left for the day. I took a seat behind the counter and gave Pandora a skeptical look. She purred loudly and went back to sleep. Things were slow around the shop, so I reshelved for a while then opened a few boxes of new stock we’d received and set about making a new display. Out of the blue, Pandora sat up and hissed.

“What’s the matter, girl?” I asked, glancing out the front windows of the shop. The window looked out on Main Street, running from two feet off the floor to the ten-foot-high ceiling. Standing on the sidewalk right outside was none other than Felicity Bates, and she was arguing with… Nathan Anderson! Speak of the devils.

Whatever they were fighting about, they both looked heated—their hands flying and their faces flushed. I sidled closer, hoping to perhaps overhear some of their conversation without being too obvious about my snooping. Unfortunately, the big plate-glass windows really did dampen the sound. I scooched over to the edge of the window, leaning closer. I couldn’t hear a thing except the odd snatch of words—something about a note or letter and stamps. My eyes widened, and my pulse sped. Could they be arguing about Albert’s missing letter?

I was trying to work out how Felicity’s interest in magic might translate into stamps and letters when Fluff leapt up on his hind legs, his face smashing into the window right in front of Pandora. He hissed nastily, his leash dangling from the matching pink collar around his neck. I supposed I would’ve been upset too if I were a male cat, made to wear a ridiculous fuchsia-and-rhinestone monstrosity like that.

Pandora was caught off guard and tumbled off the windowsill to the floor, poor thing. At the sound of the cat hissing, Felicity and Nathan both turned to stare at Fluff then through the windows into the shop at me. I jumped back, praying they hadn’t seen me spying on them.