Chapter 2
Nana took off, and I followed, sprinting with the sheriff and my sisters down the block toward the corner.
The afternoon sun glared off the windows, and the familiar painted sign, Celtic Moons Herbals, came into view.
Smoke coiled from the back of the building, a dirty gray thread unraveling into the pale blue sky.
“My shop,” Gloria called out. “Oh no.”
She had a health and supplement store in the optometrist’s office, right next to Nana’s building.
When we rounded the corner and ran to the rear of Nana’s shop, I stopped cold. The back door was gone. Obliterated. Flames clawed at the frame, orange tongues snapping at the splintered wood.
“Ah, crap,” the sheriff muttered, scanning the scene. “Everyone get the hell back.”
Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder by the second.
The fire crew must have already been notified, because the truck swung into view a moment later.
My cousins Quint and Knox jumped off the truck, hoses already uncoiling as they hit the ground running.
They’d both volunteered with the department since high school, whenever they were in town, and now they looked grimly focused as they doused the flames.
I looked down to see Nana beside me, her face pale beneath her curls. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, trying to anchor her.
“Why would anyone—” she began.
“Just hold it,” Sheriff Franco said, his tone calm but sharp enough to cut through the panic.
Another voice joined in. “He’s right. Just hold it.”
I turned and found my man, Aiden Devlin, striding toward us. My breath caught before I could stop it. He’d been helping with parade logistics earlier, and now here he was, all tall and Irish-sexy with dark hair, blue eyes, and that slow, capable confidence that gave me the tingles.
He worked for the ATF, which meant explosions were part of his job. And right now, he looked every bit the man who knew what he was doing, even wearing faded jeans and a dark T-shirt, looking casual.
Aiden was very rarely casual.
“Let me check this out.” He followed the sheriff through the wrecked doorway and disappeared into the smoke.
A few tense moments passed. The firefighters were stamping out the last of the flames when Aiden reemerged, his expression grim. “Everyone get back,” he said, motioning with his hands. “Now.”
The sheriff emerged and stood at his side, his eyes fierce. “We have more dynamite in there. Everyone move back to the stage area, or I’m arresting you. Now.”
The crowd instantly scrambled away.
Nana O’Shea looked like she wanted to argue, but the thought scattered across her face before it took root.
She was still rattled from the explosion and, maybe, still thrown by Nonna defending her earlier.
The two women shared a long look, something cautious passing between them.
I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted them to be united.
That force scared the crap out of everyone I knew.
We remained in place.
The air smelled of burned wood and something metallic. Ash drifted down like gray snowflakes, settling on the green banners and shamrock balloons still bobbing around in the wind.
Nonna squinted toward the smoke. “Aiden? Do you need Three Hens on this?”
I gulped. The last thing anyone needed was Nonna’s new detective agency anywhere near actual dynamite. The Hens could handle a missing cat or a shady boyfriend, but high explosives? Not their genre.
Aiden’s blue eyes glittered against the hazy spring light, all steel and calm competence.
“Thank you, but no, Mrs. Albertini,” he said, voice low but threaded with authority that made even Nonna blink and take a step back.
Then his gaze cut to me, sharp and direct with no room for argument.
“Take your grandmothers back to the stage. Away from here. Now.”
Yeah, he was bossy. Usually I liked that about him. Well, sometimes.
“What about you?” I asked, my pulse doing stupid things.
“Calling for backup,” he said, already moving toward the smoking debris.
The sheriff lumbered up beside him, brushing powdered sugar off his flannel like it might help. “You telling me somebody set charges in my town?” His gravelly voice carried over the murmurs from the disappearing crowd.
Aiden crouched near the blackened patch of earth, one hand brushing aside a twisted bit of wire.
“Not charges, exactly,” he said, gaze on the debris.
“Looks like old commercial dynamite. Maybe forty years. Whoever planted it didn’t know what they were doing.
The blasting caps weren’t seated right, and the line wasn’t even connected. ”
The sheriff leaned closer, peering over his shoulder. “So it’s not live?”
“Not anymore,” Aiden said. “It’s sweating nitro, so I wouldn’t go poking it with a stick, but I kicked the ignition flare delayed blasting caps, and firing leads clear. There’s no continuity left in the wire. It’s effectively dead.”
The sheriff gave a slow nod, jaw tight. “That’s a relief. I’d hate to evacuate the whole town again. Last time we lost half the funnel cakes to raccoons.”
Aiden didn’t even crack a smile. “Still, we clear the area until the Explosive Detonation Unit gets here from Spokane. They’re on the way.
I don’t want anyone breathing this residue or stepping on stray shrapnel.
Plus, the dynamite is unstable. Evacuate for a couple of blocks, Sheriff.
” His voice remained calm and clinical, but the tension around his jaw told me he was running through worst-case scenarios anyway.
Two deputies were already stringing yellow crime scene tape around the smoldering section of street. Aiden gave them a nod, then turned back to us, one brow arched.
I gulped, not wanting to physically pull my Nana away.
She shivered and stared at him. “If the dynamite had gone off, would the entire shop have been destroyed?”
His gaze softened. “The entire block might’ve been in trouble, Mrs. O’Shea.”
She clucked. “Now, Aiden. I told you to call me Nana.” Yeah, she was hoping that Irish hottie would make an honest woman of me.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, turning to me again. “I’ll need to interview all of you later today.” Man, those eyes could talk. “Go,” he said quietly. “Now.” With that tone, the one that sounded like both a command and a promise, I moved, gently turning Nana toward Nonna. “Let’s go back to the pies.”
The sheriff stalked toward us. “Since the ATF is taking over the situation here until the EDU arrives, I’ll interview you about your shop now, Fiona.”
Gloria leaned her bulk around the building, only her head and shoulders visible. “And about my pie, Sheriff,” she yelled.
Sheriff Franco sighed. “Yeah. About the pies and lotion as well.”
Crap.
I’d spent more than my fair share of time lately in Sheriff Franco’s office—ever since I became a lawyer.
Sure, I usually worked in the larger Timber City, but I’d grown up in Silverville, which was sixty miles through a mountain pass.
I settled into a chair next to Nana as she once again claimed she hadn’t put lotion into Gloria’s pie.
Sheriff Franco sat back in his beaten leather chair, long and lean, his eyes a sharp even at his age.
Pictures of his family and softball teams lined the bookcases behind him.
We’d already been in his office for more than an hour, and he’d worked up to the questioning, going from the explosives to the lotion and back. Was he trying to keep Nana off balance?
If so, it was working. I totally felt off balance.
He kept his gaze on Nana. “Who had access to your building to plant the explosives?”
Nana shrugged. “Just a few family members. We have a security system in place.” She pushed her reddish-gray hair over a shoulder. “It’s a fingerprint thingy that actually opens the back door. Rory Albertini set me up with it. It’s bio, I mean, bio…”
“Metric,” I finished for her. Rory worked for the CIA. Even though he was my cousin on the other side of the family, well, family in the valley was family. “There’s one on the front door, too.” That didn’t look good. The biometric system had been calibrated only to a few of us.
Franco scratched his forehead. “Somebody got in today to plant dynamite. Did you let anybody in earlier?”
“Of course not,” Nana said slowly. “So, how did they get in?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure Aiden is taking a good look. I suppose somebody could’ve broken in through a window?” Franco asked.
I shook my head. “Rory installed a top-of-the-line alarm. I think it should’ve gone off.” Sure, alarms could be skirted, but from the sounds of it, the bomber had been a moron with the dynamite, so how capable could he be?
Franco reached for a pen and scratched something on a notepad. “Tell me about what’s supposed to be in the shop.”
Supposed to be? I stiffened. “Sheriff—”
“Fiona?” He cut me off.
She glanced at me and then back at him, looking diminutive in the worn guest chair.
I’m only about five foot four, and even I dwarf her.
“Not any money. The shop’s grand opening is Saturday during the actual St. Paddy’s Day parade, and I haven’t stocked the cash register yet.
But my lotions, candles, tarot cards, teas, games, and the rest of my inventory are all in place.
” She clasped her hands in her lap. “My lotions are the best, as are my crystals, but I can’t see anybody stealing them. Unless—” She paled.
“Unless what?” Franco asked.
She blinked, her green eyes darkening. “Please tell me they didn’t steal my gold nugget boxes.”
My heart sank. Oh no.
Franco didn’t twitch. “What boxes?”
She took a deep breath. “In the center of the shop, on a pedestal covered in glass. Please tell me the seven boxes were there.”
I studied the sheriff.
He studied my Nana. “The glass was shattered and the pedestal empty.” His gaze flicked to me and then back to her. “Did you say nuggets?”