Scotched Read Free Page B

back.”
    â€œRight. Conference.” It was on Sherri’s radar, as was the Saturday-afternoon book signing. Both were only distant blips, since she did not expect any problems with traffic or crowd control. “Have fun.”
    â€œI plan to.” With a cheerful wave, Liss drove on.
    Sherri resumed her trek to the coffee shop. She didn’t have far to walk. The small restaurant was right next door to the municipal building. Less than a minute after she’d seen Liss on her way, Sherri pushed open the door and walked in. Pete was waiting in a corner booth, the same one he always chose if it wasn’t already occupied. She slid across the bench seat toward him and lifted her face for a quick kiss.
    â€œHello, handsome,” she murmured after he complied.
    Black-haired and brown-eyed, at five-ten Pete Campbell had the tall and dark down pat. As for handsome, he wasn’t a classic Adonis type, but he suited Sherri just fine. He was built like a linebacker, square and solid, and he looked a treat in his brown deputy sheriff’s uniform. He was working the two-to-ten shift this week, patrolling Carrabassett County’s rural roads to keep the community safe.
    â€œHiya, gorgeous,” Pete replied with a grin. “How’s your day going?” At her grimace, his smile faded. “You want to talk about it?”
    â€œNot till after lunch. I don’t want to ruin my appetite.”
    Pete had already ordered ham and cheese subs for them, along with chips and the diet root beer Sherri had lately become addicted to. When the last chip was gone, she felt calm enough to repeat her conversation with J. Nedlinger and share the discoveries she’d made on the Internet.
    â€œSounds to me like she might be doing a story on small-town police forces,” Pete said, “and since she seems to go in for the negative, I’ll bet she’s planning to argue that they’re useless in this day and age.”
    â€œOh, that’s a cheerful thought!”
    Sherri turned her gaze from the dregs of her soda to the view through the plate glass window of the coffee shop. From that vantage point, she could see two sides of the town square. Directly opposite Patsy’s place was Stu’s Ski Shop and, next door to it, Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium. Then came Liss’s house. Sherri’s gaze rounded the corner, lingering only briefly at the post office. The Clip and Curl took up the back half of that building. Upstairs there was an apartment. Their apartment. The place where Sherri now lived with her brand-new husband and her precious son, Adam, a boisterous seven-year-old. And, best of all, they lived there without her mother.
    Cheered by that thought, Sherri was almost smiling when she continued her visual survey. Next to the post office stood what had once been The Toy Box and, before that, Alden’s Appliances. Now it was a jewelry store that featured items made with Maine tourmaline. Beside it, on the corner, sat Preston’s Mortuary.
    Sherri couldn’t see the side of the square she and Pete were on, but she knew what it looked like well enough. The bookstore came first, then the municipal building at the center—the only building of red brick in a sea of white clapboards. Patsy’s Coffee House occupied the corner lot. The remaining side of the square likewise had three structures. First was the house of John Farley, an accountant. Then came Dan Ruskin’s place, which wasn’t a business yet but would be once he converted his first floor into a showroom for the custom woodworking he did in his spare time. And finally, around the corner from the ski shop, was a building that had once been a consignment shop. It had recently been sold to a young couple Liss knew from her days as a professional dancer. They were going to open a dance studio there.
    All in all, Sherri thought, Moosetookalook was a nice quiet little village with a charming, picture-perfect