Snuffed Out (Book 2 in the Candlemaking Mysteries) Read Free Page B

name was Patricia, but she’d told me the
story that when her younger sister had been a toddler, she couldn’t
say that, so she came up with Tick instead of Trish. Tick was in
her early fifties and had been selling antiques for the twenty
years since her husband had died, leaving her with his inheritance
from his own family, an old Victorian mansion stuffed full of
antiques.
    I felt like a ghoul passing the word around
to the folks at River’s Edge, but my tenants had a right to
know.
    After unlocking the door to At Wick’s End, I
found Eve Pleasants already there, though she wasn’t due in for
another hour.
    “ Going for some overtime?” I
said with a smile as I locked the door back behind me.
    “ I wanted to be sure you
were ready for this lesson. Harrison, I don’t mean to put any extra
pressure on you, but we can’t afford to lose Mrs. Jorgenson. Not
now.”
    “ Are you worried? She seems
happy enough.”
    Eve said, “Let’s just keep her that way,
shall we?”
    I finished up the last bite of my doughnut
and said, “There’s something I need to tell you. I’m afraid it’s
bad news.”
    “ Something besides Aaron’s
death? Is this place cursed, Harrison?”
    “ How did you hear about it
already?” I asked.
    Eve looked sheepish for a second, then said,
“We live in a small town.”
    “ News travels fast in
Micah’s Ridge, doesn’t it? What did you know about the man? I
wasn’t around him enough to get much of an impression one way or
another.”
    “ He was nice, I suppose, but
you should really ask Heather. They were quite close.”
    “ So I’ve heard.” I took a
sip of coffee, then asked, “How close were they, would you
say?”
    Eve started to say something, then obviously
changed her mind. “Why don’t you ask her? I’m not comfortable
discussing this with you.” Eve frowned, then added, “Aaron’s death
is going to leave you without a tenant. Have you thought about that
at all?”
    “ It never occurred to me,” I
said. “I suppose I’ll put an advertisement in the paper or
something.”
    Eve shook her head. “Belle never advertised,
and she managed to keep full occupancy here. She even kept a list
of tenants on a waiting list. Didn’t you find it in her
apartment?”
    “ I never saw it,” I
admitted, “But I haven’t gone through all her papers, either. It
can keep.”
    “ You shouldn’t tarry on
this, Harrison.”
    I patted her hand gently. “You worry too
much. Everything’s going to be fine.”
    I hoped. I never considered the prospect of
any of my tenants leaving, certainly not by dying on the premises.
Would anyone even want a store where the owner had died on site?
That was how I’d inherited my shop, but I wasn’t sure just anyone
would be willing to do it. What would happen with Aaron’s
equipment? Was there an executor, or was that something I was going
to have to take care of? I’d have to call Gary Cragg, an attorney
with an office on the second floor of River’s Edge. Knowing Cragg,
he’d probably charge me for the advice, but I had to ask
someone.
    That was all I needed, more details to muddy
my mind when I should have been focusing on dipping candles.
     
    I had just finished practicing my third
dipped candle of the day when Heather came in.
    Eve saw her and said, “I’ll go see what she
wants, Harrison. Finish your candle.”
    I studied the slim tapers in my hand. My
previous attempts had all been singles, dipped with one strand of
cotton wick dangling down into the melted wax atop a reservoir of
very hot water. This time I’d decided to try a tandem. Both ends of
the wick were dipped into the wax at the same time, leaving a
narrow strip of untouched wick for me to hang on to. A couple of
the dips had come rather close to immersing my fingertips, and I
was beginning to see Eve’s point that I should have been using a
wire holder instead of my own precious hands. Knowing Mrs.
Jorgenson, though, she wouldn’t sit still for it. The closer she
could