Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
The ladies managed to get the back door boarded up and then sat down for coffee.
“Two men. Diamonds in a flour bag. No shipping label. They knew exactly what they were looking for. Which means someone put diamonds in the bag deliberately, but why was it at Lexy’s door?”
“I think the bag was meant for someone else,” Helen said quietly. “Someone nearby.”
“Someone whose back door looks a lot like Lexy’s back door,” Nans agreed. “In the dark. Let’s take a walk.”
They locked up the bakery front door and went around the block to the alley behind the buildings on that stretch of Main Street.
Each building had a back door facing the alley, most of them identical — plain metal, painted gray or brown, marked with small address numbers you’d have to squint to read in daylight, let alone at four in the morning.
Nans looked down the alley. To the left: a dry cleaner.
To the right: a vacant storefront, and beyond that, a small restaurant called Bella Notte.
It was one of those places that seemed perpetually on the verge of opening — a hand-painted “Coming Soon!” sign in the window, a faded construction permit, and a general air of abandonment that suggested “soon” was a flexible concept.
Bella Notte’s back door was almost identical to Lexy’s. Same gray metal, same concrete delivery step. Two doors down. In the dark, at four in the morning, you’d never know the difference.
Nans cupped her hands against the window and peered inside. The kitchen didn’t match a restaurant under renovation — no tarps, no sawhorses, no debris. It was clean. Unusually clean. Bare stainless steel counters. Swept floor.
“This isn’t a renovation,” Nans murmured.
“What kind of restaurant has a kitchen that clean?” Ida said, peering over her shoulder.
“The kind that isn’t actually a restaurant,” Ruth said. She was examining a placard by the front entrance. “Registered to something called Starlight Dining Group.”
“That sounds made up,” Helen said.
“Most shell companies do,” Ruth said.
Nans stepped back. “This is where the bag was supposed to go. Let’s go to my place. I need to think.”