I couldn’t wait to interrogate Ophelia, so I grabbed my sandwich and raced to my old Jeep Cherokee in the parking lot. The bookstore wouldn’t suffer too much if I kept it closed for a few hours over lunch.

The day had warmed to an invigorating seventy degrees. The fresh mountain air gave me a burst of energy as I pulled out onto Main Street. I drove past the early 1900s storefronts. Some were brick, some clapboard, but all had been recently renovated so as to keep the nostalgia of the town’s past while looking neat as a pin.

Withington Real Estate wasn’t much more than a mile’s drive. I munched on my sandwich as I drove, enjoying the mountain vista view revealed by the steep drop to the left. On the right, the stark granite face of the mountain jutted up into the sky.

I pulled up in front of my destination just as I swallowed the last of my sandwich. The building was an old colonial Ophelia had purchased and retrofitted into office space. I recognized her Beamer in the parking lot.

Brushing the crumbs off my lap, I trotted up to the door and opened it, revealing the wide pine flooring of the reception area that used to be the living room of the house.

An antique oak desk sat at one end of the room. Comfortable looking upholstered chairs and a sofa sat along the walls. It almost looked like a regular living room, except for the receptionist sitting behind the desk.

I approached the young girl. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, but the way she caked on the makeup made her look older.

“Can I help you?” she asked through bright red lips.

“I was hoping to talk to Ophelia.”

The girl looked at me uncertainly and I got the impression she was about to give me the brush-off, so I said, “Tell her it’s Wilhelmina Chance. I know she’ll want to talk to me.”

I knew Ophelia would want to talk to me because she’d been pestering me to sell my grandmother’s thirty-five-hundred square foot Victorian on twenty acres since I’d inherited it. If she got the impression that’s why I was here, it certainly wasn’t my fault.

The receptionist picked up the phone, told Ophelia I was there and replaced the receiver, then stood up. “This way, please.”

She scooted out from behind the desk and I followed her down the hall. I couldn’t help but notice her skirt was a bit too short, but if I still had legs like hers I’d probably wear one that short, too. Not that my legs were that bad, especially for pushing fifty. I exercised a lot and was still slim, but they were scarred up from the accident and I didn’t like to show them off anymore.