Chapter 10 #2
Amie looked around to see if David was nearby.
Between this and Andrew sharing the police’s theory about the murderer being a thief, she had a feeling that David no longer had to worry about being a prime suspect.
But seeing as how Amie wasn’t ready yet to grapple with her primary, guilt-motivated reason for looking into Savannah’s death, she decided to ignore that feeling for the time being.
“Were you able to sort out Savannah’s order?” she asked absently, her mind already wandering as she tried to determine her next steps.
“Oh, yeah.” Winston began picking out the flowers he needed. “The system glitched the day before and canceled her regular order. She had me put the order back in and schedule the next delivery for the following morning.”
Amie recalled the fresh flowers scattered about the shop the day before. Little did Savannah know the flowers from that order would be used to decorate her own memorial.
“Then she called back later and rescheduled them to be delivered that evening.”
Amie jerked her head up to look at Winston, who was still delicately selecting pussy willows from the bucket. “What?”
“She called back later to reschedule. I put in the change right before clocking out.” Finishing his selection, he headed back to the front counter with an implicit invitation for Amie to follow.
“I was just relieved she didn’t come back in to do it.
I don’t know if I would’ve been able to handle seeing her twice in one day. ”
“Did she say why she was rescheduling?” Amie asked. “What time was this?”
“A little before three? And no, she didn’t say.” Winston reached the counter and began placing the pussy willows into the bouquets. “Just gave her name and said she wanted her flowers delivered at seven.”
Amie’s mind raced as she circled back around the front of the counter. This was why Savannah had returned to the shop that evening, to retrieve the rescheduled flower order. Andrew must have seen her outside of their building right before she remembered she’d changed the delivery.
Either that, or …
“What’s that?” Winston asked, giving her a concerned glance as he continued arranging. Amie realized she’d been muttering under her breath.
“Sorry, um …” She took another moment to organize her thoughts. “Is there some sort of alert or something your customers get when their flowers are delivered?”
Winston nodded. “Yeah, they get an email confirmation when the flowers are dropped off.”
“And would they have just been dropped off?” Amie continued eagerly. “Or did someone need to sign for the flowers?” Had the delivery person seen Savannah right before she died?
“That’s above my pay grade,” Winston said, shaking his head. “Or, at least, it’s a lateral move from my pay grade. Either way, not my job.”
The disappointment on Amie’s face was seemingly effective enough to make him add, reluctantly, “I can see if I can ask someone about it, if you want.”
Amie perked up. “Really?”
The man opened a drawer underneath the counter and began digging around. He extracted a pen and a sticky note, placing them on the counter in front of Amie. “Write down your contact info. I’ll let you know if I can find anything out.”
Amie frowned, picking up the pen. She was hoping he’d be able to go ask someone, like, right then. Not wanting to turn down what could possibly be useful information, she wrote her phone number and email address on the sticky note.
“Ooh, are those my flowers?” exclaimed a voice from behind Amie. A woman was approaching the counter, beaming happily at the arrangements sitting on it.
“Thanks for your help,” Amie said to Winston before stepping out of the way. Relief washed over his features as the woman began cooing over the flowers. Amie felt almost proud of him.
She found David closely comparing the prices of two jars of salsa.
“All done?” he asked, pulling his gaze from the shelf as she walked up.
“All done,” she confirmed.
“Success?”
“A little. Are you buying anything?”
David scoffed in the direction of the salsa, his disdain signaling to Amie that no, he was not buying anything at these prices.
As they exited the aisle, Amie nearly ran into what on first glance she could only describe as a pile of party supplies come to life.
“Whoa, sorry.” She jumped out of the way, getting a clear look at the human behind the vibrant pile of plastic.
“Oh, hi!” Raina shifted slightly to prevent a pack of noisemakers from sliding out of her arms. “Sorry, I have very low visibility right now. Should’ve thought to grab a basket.”
“I can get you one,” David offered, setting off toward the front entrance.
“Oh, thank you!” Raina called after him, losing a stack of conical party hats in the process. “Shoot …”
Amie crouched down to retrieve the runaway stack of hats, their escape foiled by the very nature of their existence as they rolled in a lazy circle.
“Big party?” she asked, straightening. “Or is this all just for a chill night at home?”
Raina laughed. “Bachelorette,” she explained. “For my best friend. We’re going to this rooftop bar on Spring Street.”
Amie held out her arms in a silent offer to take some of the items off of Raina’s hands.
“Oh, thanks,” Raina said gratefully.
“Are you the maid of honor?” Amie asked, careful not to knock anything over as she relieved Raina of four packets of balloons.
“You’d think, right?” Raina asked wryly, pointing her chin at her cargo. “Just a bridesmaid. I thought twenty-plus years of friendship would be enough to get me maid of honor, but she asked her sister. Who she only talks to, like, three times a year. Family pressure, I guess.”
She sighed. “Unfortunately, the sister isn’t really much of a planner. Which is how I find myself here, the day of the bachelorette, buying a white plastic sash that says ‘Bride’ and as many gold balloons as I can find. Next stop is the mall to see if they have any phallic-themed candy.”
“They don’t have that here?” Amie asked, widening her eyes in mock surprise.
Raina laughed again. “God, I wish. That’d make my life so much easier.”
Amie decided to go for a third laugh. “At least you’re already stocked up on granola.”
Her stomach swooped as Raina’s smiling face transmogrified into a look of confusion. It only took Amie a second to catch her error. She hadn’t gone to the grocery store the last day of the time loop. To Raina, their interaction over the granola never happened.
As the other woman opened her mouth to question Amie’s non sequitur, Amie’s eye was drawn to movement over Raina’s shoulder.
“Oh, there’s David with a basket!” Amie exclaimed, steamrolling over the moment. Maybe try thinking before you speak, for once, she internally scolded herself as Raina turned.
The mental self-flagellation was pushed to the side by another thought.
Raina had been at the grocery store the day David and Savannah had their argument.
And she worked at the bookstore—in fact, she was one of the last people to see Savannah alive.
It was very likely the police had spoken with her.
Had she been the one to point a finger at David?
And if so, had it just been an innocent mention, or something more nefarious?
Amie cast her mind back to her conversation with Grayson at the bookshop, fighting through the growing fog in her memory toward a flickering light within.
Grayson had said that Raina wanted to run the store once Savannah retired, maybe eventually own it.
And he had appeared to be under the impression that Savannah saw this future for Raina as well.
After laying off most of the staff, it didn’t seem like she was planning on letting Raina go any time soon.
So it wouldn’t have made sense for Raina to kill Savannah … unless …
Raina had been encouraging Madeline to talk to Andrew about buying the store.
If Shelf Starter became a part of Eons Café, Raina wouldn’t be able to own it one day.
But maybe Raina was more concerned about the financial future of the bookshop than one day owning it herself.
If she’d thought Savannah was running the store into the ground, she might have figured she had a better chance at keeping her job if Madeline bought the place.
Could Raina and Madeline have been working together?
“—gotta get going. Thanks again. Bye, Amie!”
Amie automatically raised a hand in farewell as she emerged from her thoughts, realizing too late that she was saying goodbye to Raina, a person who she now had many questions for.
“Are you okay?” David asked, giving her a quizzical look.
“I … yeah.”
“I only ask because I took those balloons from you a full thirty seconds ago.”
Amie looked at her hand. Her fingers were gently curled around phantom packs of balloons.
She dropped her arm. “I was just thinking.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Ha. Let’s leave.”
As they exited the store, Amie summarized what she had learned from Winston at the flower counter.
“So that was why Savannah went back to the store that night,” she said. “But here’s what I think. I think—”
“—the person who rescheduled the delivery wasn’t Savannah,” David finished.
“Yes!” Amie exclaimed, glad that they were on the same page.
“It makes sense, right? Whoever killed her wanted to make sure no one else was in the store when they did it. So they rescheduled the flower delivery. Savannah received the delivery notification just as she got home, when Andrew saw her arrive. She went back to the store, and the killer followed her inside and …”
She waved her hands to substitute saying the words “killed her,” which in that moment was strangely difficult to say despite how similar it was to the word “killer.”
“It does make sense,” David agreed. “Though it’s looking less and less like your prime suspect is this mysterious calculating schemer you’ve conjured up.”
Amie frowned. “Benny? I mean, the timing works out. I saw him smoking a little after eight. Andrew saw Savannah outside the building at seven. If she went straight back to the store, that’s enough time for Benny to kill her, return home, and go out to smoke in time for me to run into him.”
“I wasn’t talking about the timing,” David said.
“I was questioning if Benny has the capabilities to pull something like this off. I really can’t imagine him meticulously planning all of this out.
He seems more like an ‘act now, think later’ kind of guy.
Besides, would he have known about Savannah’s regular flower order? ”
“Anyone who’d ever been to the store could see how much Savannah loved those flowers,” Amie pointed out. “It wouldn’t be difficult to figure out when and from where she had them delivered.”
She gasped, a new theory hitting her. “What if Savannah was the one who rescheduled the order, and when she got back to the store, she caught Benny looking for the photos? Then maybe he lashed out without thinking and killed her.”
“So you’re dropping your first theory?”
Amie rolled her head back with exasperation.
“I don’t know. Benny seemed like the most likely suspect, but we don’t really know who’s blackmailing him.
Or if he even knows who’s blackmailing him.
The only thing that made him suspicious was all his sneaking around, but maybe he was just looking for the bathroom at the bookshop.
Maybe he was just in the Harlows’ apartment looking for a package Savannah stole. ”
Amie’s mind had returned to the bookshop, trying to remember how Benny had looked before infiltrating the back of the store. Had he been keeping a careful eye out for an opening? To her, it had seemed like he only had eyes for the cheese and cracker spread.
As she continued trying to sharpen the memory, the pair walked by Shelf Starter.
Glancing through the window, Amie spotted Andrew sitting behind the counter, looking at his phone.
In the aisle furthest from the cash register, Grayson was lounging against a shelf, also on his phone.
A stack of books sat at his feet as he seemingly hid from Andrew to avoid doing work.
Hiding among the books …
“At the memorial,” Amie said slowly, remembering, “Raina was supposed to refill the iced tea. But she stayed away from the refreshments until Benny had left.”
“You think she was avoiding Benny?” David asked.
“Maybe. I don’t know why. I’m not even sure she knows him. But the more I think about it, the more sure I am that she was avoiding him.”
“Juicy drama,” David commented drily, “but what does it have to do with Savannah?”
“I think there’s more going on with Raina than we know,” Amie said. “I’m not sure if it has anything to do with Savannah’s death. But I’m gonna try to find out if it does.”
Amie paused as David fully stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “No more breaking and entering,” he said firmly. “I’m not saying this for your sake. It’s for me and my poor nerves.”
Amie raised her eyebrows. “What if I do it and just don’t tell you?”
“My poor nerves would still know. They’d sense it.”
“I’m not going to break into her place,” Amie assured him as they continued walking. “I’m going to crash a bachelorette party.”