Snuffed Out (Book 2 in the Candlemaking Mysteries) (13 page)

I lifted the kayak out and headed for her
office at a dead run.

“
I’m so sorry I’m late,” I
said as I burst in. “I got lost in my thoughts.”

She was frowning over one of the lumpiest
rolled candles I’d ever seen in my life. Beside it were two more,
each worse than the one before. She didn’t even glance at the
clock. “Okay, I admit it, it’s harder than it looks.”

“
Do you mind some advice?” I
asked as I stored the paddle in its rack.

“
I don’t have much choice,
do I?”

I picked up the candle closest to me and
said, “It looks like the wax was a little stiff when you started
rolling. That’s not your fault at all. You don’t happen to have a
hairdryer around here, do you?”

“
Are you kidding? I can’t go
a week without someone tipping over and getting drenched.” She
retrieved one from the bathroom as I rolled her effort back out.
The sheet kept a concave shape and refused to flatten, but the wax
itself was intact, so I figured it would be fine. I ran the
blow-dryer over the wax and stopped as it relaxed into a flat
sheet. Taking her wax, I pinched the leading edge over the wick and
was satisfied with the way it rolled as I started it.

“
Try it now,” I told her,
and watched carefully as she finished rolling the candle. It was
too loose to burn very well, but it was an absolute improvement
over what she’d done before.

“
Look, it’s perfect,” she
said.

“
Not quite. Now let’s try it
again. This time, try to roll it as tightly as you can. The better
you do, the longer it will burn.”

“
But I can’t just mess it
up. It’s so pretty.”

“
Keep it if you want to, but
I wouldn’t burn it.” I reached for one of her other efforts and
started the process over again. She watched raptly, and refused
when I offered her another try. “You do it. Let me learn at the
feet of the master.”

“
I’m hardly that,” I said as
I quickly pinched the wick into the softened wax and rolled a tight
candle.

She took it when I offered my effort and
compared it to her own. “Okay, I see what you mean. I’ll practice
more.”

“
That’s all it takes,” I
agreed.

“
I wouldn’t say that. I
think you’ve got the knack, Harrison. Did you have a nice time on
the river?”

“
It was glorious. The leaves
are beautiful, aren’t they?”

“
Absolutely.” She looked at
the clock over her desk and said, “Is that the time? I’m late.
Sony, Harrison, but I’ve got to go.”

“
Do you have a date?” I
asked casually.

As she shooed me out the front door, she
said, “That is none of your business, sir.” To take the edge off
her words, she added, “Thanks for the lesson.”

“
Thanks for the row. I’ll be
back.”

“
I’m counting on
it.”

As I headed back to River’s Edge, I found
myself wondering who Erin was meeting. It was frankly none of my
business, she’d made that clear enough on more than one occasion,
but there was a part of me that wished she’d been rushing around to
meet me.

Pearly was just finishing up mounting the
last security light when I drove back to River’s Edge.

I said, “They look good.”

“
If you don’t mind the irony
that we’re putting them up a day late, I suppose you’re
right.”

“
Do think this is a waste?”
The bill for the lights was pretty healthy, but I didn’t feel I’d
had any choice.

“
No, Harrison, don’t pay any
attention to me. I’m in a dark mood, and I’m not afraid to admit it
to the world. The only company I’m fit for tonight is my
own.”

“
I’ll leave you to it,
then,” I said as I excused myself.

“
Now don’t go off like that.
I wasn’t talking about you. It’s the finer gender I’m
discussing.”

“
If you have problems with
the woman in your life, I’m the last one to discuss it with. 
I’m going through a bit of a dry spell myself.”

“
Dry spell? Don’t I wish. I
happen to be in the awkward position of having three different
women vying for my attention at the moment.”

“
Why Pearly, I never would
have taken you for a ladies’ man.” I hated to admit it, but I was
enjoying some of the man’s discomfort.

“
Laugh if you will, but it’s
serious enough. Harrison, since my dear sweet wife died, I haven’t
been involved with anyone. The hole where she isn’t is still
entirely too large. I believed, in my naïveté, that if I dated
several ladies at the same time, I wouldn’t be confronted with any
one of them getting too close. I wasn’t necessarily trying to keep
secret the fact that I was seeing them all, but confound it, they
somehow managed to find out about one another anyway, and now
they’ve given me an ultimatum. I’m to choose one or lose all
three.”

I patted him on the shoulder. “Pearly, I
wish you the best, but I wouldn’t trade places with you for
anything in the world.”

“
I’d say you’re a wise man
for that decision alone, Harrison. Well, I’m finished here. What
say we give them a test?”

“
What do I do?” It was
nearly dark, with the hours of sunlight lessening with each passing
day.

“
Stand here in the shadows
and we’ll check them. Let me throw the breaker first.”

He came back a minute later, and I said,
“Sorry, it didn’t work.” It was as dark as when he’d left.

“
Ah, watch this.” He stepped
off the porch and the lights suddenly came on in all their
intensity, nearly blinding me.

‘
They work on motion
sensors,” he explained. “That should scare off any would-be
vandals, don’t you think?”

“
It should do the trick. I
know it will certainly get my attention upstairs.”

“
The perils of living at the
establishment you own,” Pearly said as he put his tools away. “We
each have our own problems, and I trust we haven’t been given more
than we can handle.”

“
I hope you’re
right.”

I left him to his own dilemma and headed
upstairs to my apartment. It had been a long day, and though the
kayaking had been an even bigger treat than before, I was feeling
the strain of that last sprint in my shoulders and arms. A quiet
night was what I needed and hoped beyond reasonable expectation
that I would have one.

I was jarred awake in the middle of the
night by a horrific shrieking. It took me a few precious seconds to
realize it was coming from a smoke alarm outside my apartment.

Stumbling into a pair of sweats and a
T-shirt, I put on my bear slippers, a present I’d received from an
ex-girlfriend, and rushed out into the hall. I’d expected the place
to be full of smoke, but there were just a few wisps of it coming
up the stairs. The candleshop! A fire would burn for weeks with all
the wick and wax there. The place was an absolute haven for
combustibles.

At least I was the only full-time tenant in
the building.

Then I remembered that Markum’s late hours
nearly made him one, and before I headed downstairs, I rushed to
his office. It was dark inside and the door was locked. Short of
breaking the door down, I had no choice. Chances are he was off on
one of his salvage missions. At least I hoped so.

I found the reason for the screaming alarm
at the bottom of the stairs. Someone had taken one of the outside
trash-cans and put it at the foot of the door. The fire had almost
burned itself out in the can, but the smell was absolutely awful. I
started to drag the can outside so I could hose it off, but the
heat from it was too much.

First things first. I reached up and reset
the smoke alarm, and was rewarded by sudden, blissful silence. I
was suddenly glad Belle had invested in loud ones, though my ears
would probably be ringing for weeks. I debated climbing back
upstairs for a hot-pad to drag the trashcan away, but it was late,
I was tired and in a foul mood. Someone was messing with me, and I
didn’t like it one bit. There hadn’t been enough trash in the can
to catch the walls on fire. It was a nuisance prank, no more and no
less. I pulled off my shirt, wrapped it around my hand three or
four times, then grabbed the handle and pulled the can outside.
There was a hose nearby, tucked away in a stylish, little planter
Pearly had built, so I turned the water on and heard a satisfying
sizzle as the stream hit the remaining embers.

At least the security lights worked. The
second I moved for the hose, the place lit up like a used car lot.
So why hadn’t I noticed it before, when the culprit had been there
lighting the fire? So much for my early-warning system. I’d no
doubt slept right through the earlier lighting. It had taken a
full-scale alarm to rouse me from my sleep.

As I started to put the
hose back up, I glanced at Heather’s front door. The sign
announcing her moving sale was gone. In its place was one that
said,
back in two weeks
. When had she changed it? Was it related to the fire in the
stairwell? I knew Heather was upset when I’d leased Sanora the
pottery space, but I couldn’t see her doing such a childish thing
as dragging a trashcan into my building and setting it on fire.
Still, she’d been acting strangely lately. I wished she’d talk to
me and stop running away.

But there was nothing I could do about it
until the next time I saw her.

I pulled the trashcan, now cool to the
touch, to the back of River’s Edge, but kept it away from the
building, just in case, though there was more water than ash in the
can at the moment.

I walked back into the building headed for
my apartment when the smell hit me. Though the fire had been a
minor inconvenience, the odor of burned rubbish was a genuine
problem. I propped open the front door downstairs, then opened the
two windows at the top of the landing upstairs, hoping for a cross
breeze that would get rid of the smell. I sniffed at my clothes,
and sure enough, they reeked of smoke. I jerked off my clothes and
buried them in my hamper, then got into the shower and scrubbed
until I was sure the smell was gone.

Unfortunately, I was as awake as could be,
and I had three hours before the world around me came alive.

That was one benefit of owning my own
business. It was never too early to go into work.

Chapter
10

I’d been studying a
dip-cut-curl candlemaking technique from one of my books, so I
decided that would be the perfect distraction. There was no way I
considered myself accomplished enough to actually pull it off, but
it was an intriguing process, and I looked forward to tackling it.
I was surprised by how the time flew. Millie opened at 6:00
a.m.,
and I’d planned to
be there when she unlocked her door, but it was half past the hour
when I realized how long I’d been working.

She met me with a grim expression as I
walked in. She said, “So you heard the news.”

“
Heard it? I’m the one who
put it out. How did you find out, though? I didn’t think anybody
else knew.”

Millie said, “What are you talking
about?”

“
The fire in the stairwell.
It was just a prank, but it nearly scared me to death. How did you
hear about it?”

Millie said, “Let’s back up and start over.
Did you hear someone tried to run Sanora over this morning?”

“
Tell me what
happened.”

Millie explained, “Vera Quimby called me
early this morning. She’s got a fondness for her police scanner,
don’t ask me why. She says it soothes her to have voices in her
apartment. So she jolts awake when she hears Sanora’s name being
broadcast to the dispatcher, and naturally she felt the need to
call me and wake me up. George was not a happy camper when that
happened, until I filled him in. You know he volunteers with the
rescue squad, so he made a few calls for me and it turns out
Sanora’s okay. She was jogging two hours ago on Hickory Lane and
some nit in a Wee Haul rental truck forced her into the bushes.
She’s got some cuts and scratches from the fall, but other than
that, she’s fine. The thing is, Sanora claims it was
deliberate.”

“
I can’t believe it. It’s
kind of a conspicuous weapon, isn’t it?”

Millie shook her head. “Harrison Black, it’s
serious business, if it’s true. Now you know I’m no fan of Sanora
Gaston’s, but that doesn’t mean I wish ill of her either. The
sheriff’s tracking down rentals in the area, and you’ll never
believe who’s name popped up on the list.”

“
I couldn’t even guess,” I
said.

“
George heard this through
the grapevine, so it’s reliable enough, though I’m having trouble
swallowing it.”

“
Who was it?” I
pressed.

“
Our very own Heather Bane.
Now is that an odd coincidence or not? Of course I doubt it was
her. Last I heard, she was in Charlotte staying with a
friend.”

I knew better. After all, she’d been in town
sometime the night before to change that sign on her door. Could
she have rented the van to move some of her stock? Had she planned
to run Sanora down, or was it an accident too good to pass up when
she’d seen her rival jogging alone down a dark, deserted road? No,
I couldn’t believe any of it, no matter how logical it sounded. But
did I owe it to Sheriff Morton to tell him that Heather had every
reason to be driving that van, and a few motives of her own to send
Sanora off into the bushes?