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Which seemed like victim-blaming to me, considering I highly doubted she’d been the seducer in that particular relationship. I didn’t comment on that, however, and only said, “Well, then, maybe Mike didn’t think he needed to hide anything from the police because he knew he wasn’t even on their radar.” I paused there and shook my head. “But I just don’t get the impression that he’s involved at all. I’m missing something — I just can’t figure out what it is.”
“It’ll come to you,” Danny said in comforting tones. He made a move as if to pat me on the shoulder, only to realize at the last moment that he couldn’t touch me, that his hand would have gone right through my body if he hadn’t pulled it back at the last moment.
“I hope so,” I replied, trying not to look relieved that he hadn’t tried to touch me. “But I should probably get back to the store.” I paused there and glanced up at the house. It seemed friendly enough, and yet I couldn’t help thinking it had to be pretty lonely to be a spirit rattling around in there. “You going to be okay here?”
“Oh, sure,” Danny said, that cheerful note back in his voice. “If I have to be somewhere, it might as well be at my house.” He hesitated for a second or two, then asked, “It’s okay for me to drop in at the store, though, isn’t it? I promise I won’t come back to your apartment.”
Another of those waves of pity went through me. “Of course,” I told him. “I’m open until five every day except Sundays.”
He nodded. “I’ll try to remember that. Time doesn’t mean the same thing for me anymore.”
“Well, if you come by and I’m not there, just try again in a little bit,” I said. “It’ll be fine.”
“Thanks.”
I waved at him and then headed back to my car. As I got in, I wondered if I’d just done anything except waste some time.
Once again, it seemed the answers I needed were bound and determined to elude me.
* * *
I swung by Cloud Coffee on the way back to the shop and got myself a sandwich and some iced tea, then went inside the store and dutifully turned the “be back at” sign around. It was so quiet that day, I honestly didn’t think I needed to worry too much about someone interrupting my lunch.
Which turned out to be the case. I ate my grilled chicken and roasted red pepper ciabatta without a single person entering the store, then disposed of the wrappers, refreshed my lip gloss, and popped a stick of sugar-free gum in my mouth to help with the garlicky aftertaste.
At another time, the utter lack of customers might have discouraged me. But I knew we were coming down off the high of Halloween, and things were probably going to stay in the doldrums until holiday shopping started in a few weeks. Despite its ups and downs, the store basically sustained itself; I’d never once had to dip into my savings to cover the cost of inventory or utilities. And since I’d paid cash for the entire live/work space, it wasn’t as though I had to worry about a mortgage or paying rent to a landlord.
The monotony was broken up at two, however, when Joyce Lewis appeared, carrying a large cardboard box. I immediately got out from behind the counter and came to help her.
“Let me give you a hand with that,” I said, and took the box from her so I could set it on the countertop.
“Thanks,” she replied with a grateful smile. “It’s not even that heavy, but it was a little awkward to lug it in here from the car.”
“No problem,” I told her, wondering once again how Henry Lewis had managed to end up with someone who seemed so, well, lovely. Today she was wearing a lightweight flowery cardigan in warm tones of brown and orange, and her curly brown hair had been pulled back into a loose ponytail. Something about her presence seemed oddly comforting to me.
Maybe it was just the massive contrast with her husband.
“I brought one of each of the smaller-size candles,” Joyce told me as she opened the box and began pulling out a collection of jar candles that appeared to be about four inches high. The jars themselves were heavy and looked like blown glass, each of them in a different soft shade to complement the wax inside. They definitely didn’t look mass-produced to me.
“They’re beautiful,” I said, watching while she lined up the candles on the counter. “Where did you get the jars?”
She set the final candle in place and then put the box down on the floor so it wouldn’t interfere with the visual impact of her little display. “Oh, I have a friend who’s a glass-blower who makes them for me. She also does vases and bowls — most of her stuff goes to galleries in Phoenix and Scottsdale, but these are easy for her, so she makes a bunch of them at once when I have an order.”
I wondered how much the custom work drove up the cost of the candles. Not that they weren’t worth it — the candles looked like little individual works of art — but I knew how price-conscious people could be. “Well, they’re just gorgeous.”
“Thank you.” Joyce pulled an Aim-n-Flame out of the purse she had slung over one shoulder. “I thought I’d light them one at a time so you could get a sense of what they smell like.”
“Perfect.”
She went to one after the other, lighting each candle, letting me inhale the fragrance, and then putting it out so the olfactory input wouldn’t get too muddled. Every single one of them was lovely, from the pumpkin spice I’d smelled at Josie’s party to the mysterious dark scent of the palo santo version. I made a mental note that I wanted a couple of those to burn on my altar.
“They’re all great,” I told Joyce after she snuffed out the final candle, a sweetly spicy cinnamon vanilla. “I was thinking I’ll take two of each in each size, and then I’ll see how they sell and base my re-orders on that.”
Her expression was a mixture of muted excitement and concern. “That would be forty candles. Wholesale for the small ones is ten dollars, and fourteen for the big ones. Do you want me to put them here on consignment?”
I wouldn’t allow myself to smile. It was nice of Joyce to be concerned about the outlay of cash that kind of transaction involved, but, thanks to my inheritance from Lucien Dumond, it was barely a drop in the bucket. “That’s really not necessary,” I told her. “I can write you a check right now. That’ll be four hundred and eighty dollars, right?”
She blinked. “Um…yes.”
