“Good, then let’s go!”

“I’ll rinse these dishes and put them in the dishwasher, and meet you downstairs,” Angelica said.

An hour later, the idea of searching the shelves didn’t seem like such a good idea. Angelica had brought her cookbooks back down and left them by the door before she attacked a set of shelves in the back of the store. She’d amassed a pile of books around her and was reading the cover flap on the one in her hand. “Hey, this Dorothy Sayers sounds like a good author. Have you ever read Gaudy Night?”

Tricia sighed and sat back on her heels. “Only ten or twenty times. I thought you didn’t like period pieces.”

“I’m open to all fiction, although I prefer cooking and decorating books. I’m reading this wonderful book right now-”

“We’re supposed to be looking for the diary, remember?” Tricia interrupted.

Angelica poked her tongue out at her sister.

Tricia reseated herself in a more comfortable position and resumed her search. Red cover. No words on the spine. She squinted in the bad light. Perhaps Angelica was right. Perhaps she did need to add more lighting so that customers could better see the bottom shelves.

“How long are we going to keep up the search?” Angelica asked.

“Until we find it.”

“What if it isn’t here?”

Tricia didn’t want to think about that. If the diary wasn’t hidden in Haven’t Got a Clue, it could be anywhere-if it still existed. And what was she supposed to tell the voice the next time it called? “Sorry, but I don’t have it. Never did. Don’t know where it’s at. Please stop bothering me.”

That and five bucks would get her a double latte cappuccino with hazelnut and cinnamon at the Coffee Bean across the street.

Tricia pulled out another two or three books, noting that none of them had any dust on them. Mr. Everett was truly serious about his dusting. Thinking of Mr. Everett reminded her that he and Grace were about to get married, and that he’d need a week off right at the peak of the fall foliage season, when Stoneham would be filled with tourists.

“Red cover,” Angelica muttered. “No type on the spine.” She held up a book, waving it in the air. “It’s not a diary with a lock, Trish. It’s a journal.”

Tricia’s head snapped around. “You found it?”

“I’m almost as good as Saint Anthony when it comes to finding lost items. Remember, it was me who found the missing cookbook after Doris Gleason was-”

“Don’t remind me,” Tricia interrupted, holding up a hand to stave off another round of “I told you so,” which Angelica had probably been about to make.

Tricia crawled across the space between them until she was inches from her sister. She made to grab the book, but Angelica held it out of her reach. “Hey, I found it, I should be the first to read it.”

Tricia scowled but sat back, extending her arms behind her, palms down, on the floor.

“Uh-uh-uh!” Angelica tut-tutted, pointing at the circle of books around her. “Don’t get comfortable. You can put these back while I read aloud.”

“You took them out-you put them back.”

Angelica looked down her nose at Tricia and cleared her throat. Then she grabbed the reading glasses that hung around her neck on a chain. She stared down at the book. “Hmm. Somebody obviously wanted to get rid of this thing. Look.” She held the book out for Tricia to see.

The edges of the pages had been singed.

“Looks likes someone tried to burn it and changed their mind, or someone tried to burn it and someone else rescued it. Wow, there must be some juicy stuff inside.” Angelica opened the cover and turned to the first page. “The first entry is dated August seventh, twenty-one years ago.” She frowned. “The author would not win points for penmanship.”

“Read!” Tricia commanded.

Angelica squinted at the cursive handwriting. “Bunny and I went shopping on Saturday, but nothing in my size fit. I knew then that I was probably pregnant. Just my damn luck.” She looked up. “Oh, Trish, this is delicious. A scandal on page one.”

Tricia frowned. “Being pregnant is hardly a scandal, even in the nineteen eighties.”

“How do you know? Maybe this woman was a society maven.”

“We don’t even know who the author is. Unless there’s a name on the flyleaf.”

Angelica looked at the inside front cover. “No such luck, honey.” She flipped through several pages, skimming the handwriting. “Oh, my, I may have been wrong. This looks deadly dull. Here’s a weather report: Rainy and gloomy today. I think I’ll clean out the kitchen cabinets. That ought to keep me out of trouble for at least the afternoon.” She pulled a face. “I’ve changed my mind about reading this. Here.” She handed off the book. “You can have it. Pick out the more salacious parts and give me a capsule update.”

Tricia flipped through the pages. “Fine. I’ve got nothing better to do tonight.”

Angelica struggled to her feet. “Oh, yes, you have.” She nudged one of the books on the floor with the toe of her shoe. “I told you, I’m not putting these away. I’m going home.” She headed for the shop’s front exit, and picked up her bag of cookbooks. “Good night, dear sister. See you tomorrow.”

Tricia, too, pulled herself to her feet, and crossed the store to lock the door behind Angelica. She didn’t want to put the books away either, but if Mr. Everett was going to be scarce for the next couple of weeks, she didn’t want to overwork Ginny.

Twenty minutes later, Tricia and Miss Marple headed up the stairs, the formerly missing journal in hand. As Tricia entered her loft apartment, the phone began to ring. “Not again,” she groaned. She let the answering machine take the call. Sure enough, it was the same voice. What that person wanted, she now had. She waited until the caller hung up before she turned down the volume on the phone. She poured herself a glass of wine and sat down on the comfortable leather couch in the living room. Miss Marple deigned to accompany her, settling herself on Tricia’s lap.

The phone rang three more times while Tricia read the contents of the journal. Angelica was right: most of it was pretty dull. Its unmarried author chronicled her pregnancy-the morning sickness, the expanding waistline-and her firm determination to hook the baby’s father; she wasn’t prepared to settle for just child support. Not surprising, the love of her life was not about to leave his comfortable lifestyle for the likes of an unwanted lover. And not once in the hundred or so pages of rather sloppy cursive handwriting did the author ever mention the name of the baby’s father-let alone her own. What good was this as an instrument of blackmail? But someone thought the journal was worth killing for. And now that someone was hounding Tricia for it.

Well, “hounding” was a strong word for the relatively benign calls she’d received so far. If so, maybe that was why the threat wasn’t explicit, nor the calls all that frightening.

The author’s water had just broken, but Tricia was yawning, and decided she could wait until tomorrow to read the rest and find out the sex of the baby. Miss Marple had fallen asleep long before, and was startled to awareness when Tricia’s hand slipped and she nearly dropped the journal on the cat. Miss Marple stretched her legs and jumped from Tricia’s lap, heading for the bedroom.

“I’m with you, Miss Marple.”

Tricia set the journal aside and turned off the living room lamps. As she entered her bedroom she paused, looking over her shoulder to see the book once again.

If the journal’s contents weren’t worthy of blackmail, could there be something else about the book that warranted further investigation? She crossed the darkened living room to retrieve it.

In her bedroom, she turned on the bedside lamp, sat down, and examined the book in greater detail. There was nothing special about it. It hadn’t been expensive and was probably purchased in a discount store. She held the book by its spine and shook it. No loose pieces of paper fell out. No secret compartment revealed itself.