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clearly replacing her grief. “She’d just been to the doctor and left with a clean bill of health. And that’s why I want to know what happened. Because this doesn’t make any sense!”
    I grasped at straws when I offered, “Maybe it was an intruder? A theft of some kind?”
    Though that didn’t make a lot of sense, even to me. Her foot had an injury I wasn’t qualified to diagnose, but an intruder made no sense. Nothing had been disturbed.
    Liza finally looked up at me, but behind those big watery eyes was something. Something I couldn’t put my finger on.
    Her frantic eyes went to the seemingly untouched register. “Then why wasn’t anything taken from the cash register? Was something stolen? Because it sure doesn’t look like it. Plus, there’s an alarm she wears around her neck. It’s a necklace, small chain, a pendant with a sapphire-blue jewel in it she can press discreetly and it silently signals a place called Senior Alert. We made her get one when she wouldn’t give up the store because we worried about her and the late hours she kept just to keep this place running. She hated wearing it. She wouldn’t have had to wear it at all if she didn’t need the money her readings brought to supplement her income because the government’s cheap idea of a pension wasn’t enough for a cat to live on!”
    Funny, I didn’t remember a necklace around her throat. You’d think for all the jewelry Madam Zoltar wore, she wouldn’t forget something so important. I wanted to ask Liza more questions, despite the fact that I had no idea what I was doing. Something wasn’t sitting well with me—or right—or whatever.
    I smiled and attempted another push toward the door, hoping I could get her safely through the crowd. “So she was a hard worker, your nana Tina? Come and tell me all about her, would you? She sounds so interesting. I mean, how many people are lucky enough to have a psychic medium in the family? Let’s grab some coffee. There’s a coffee cafe just next door, I hear. It’s new to me because I’ve been away since I graduated high school and I’m dying to try it.”
    Officer Nelson hitched his jaw in the direction of his partner Gorton, stepping in front of us. “I’m afraid you won’t be able to do that, Miss Cartwright.”
    My eyes flew to his sharply constructed face as my pulse raced. “Why’s that?”
    A voice from behind me answered my question in a cordial tone. “Because you’re coming to the station for questioning, Miss Cartwright.”
    Liza promptly dropped my hand, her mouth falling open. “Oh my God! Was it you? Did you hurt her?”
    Everyone at the door went silent and looked at me with the glare of a thousand fiery suns.
    Oh, seven hells.
    Officer Nelson stepped in before I could protest, keeping Liza from me and somehow redirecting her to another officer who’d arrived on the scene.
    My stomach sank. I didn’t need this kind of trouble so early on in my return to Ebenezer Falls. It was all I could do not to scream right then and there.
    So for sure, when I got my hands on Winterbutt, he was a dead ghost walking.
    For. Sure.

Chapter 4
    S wallowing around the thick lump in my throat, I widened my stance. “Questioning? For what ?” I shouted in disbelief, whipping around to catch my first glimpse of the newest person to enter the fray.
    The latest man dressed in blue from Ebenezer Falls’s finest was wide like a linebacker, solid and imposing, but for his openly cheerful face, which was round and pleasant, with ruddy cheeks and lively eyes, all topped with shortly cropped muddy-brown hair. He stopped and gaped at me.
    “Stevie Cartwright, is that you ? Wow, you look just like you did back in school. Haven’t changed a bit. Well, except you nixed the black lipstick and all that eye makeup you used to wear. Remember me? It’s Sandwich! We graduated together, class of 2001. Holy spitballs, long time no see!” He grinned at me, his eyes swallowed up by his round