Someone to Love Read online

  Jace had to walk around to the other side of the car to get into the driver’s side. It was going to take him a while to adjust to the steering wheel being on the opposite side of what he was used to.

  He backed out of the garage, looked for the device to close the door but couldn’t find it. Out of nowhere, Mick appeared and pulled the door down. Jace put the window down, stuck his head out, and said, “Tell Gladys yes. Tuesday will be fine.” Mick smiled and waved thanks.

  On the road into Margate village, Jace’s cell phone—or mobile as it was called in England—rang. Nigel said that the owner had said emphatically that he’d never lent the house to anyone. “Thank you,” Jace said and hung up.

  Either someone was lying or Stacy and whomever she’d met had broken into the house. Or had they? Jace had no proof she’d kept her meeting. Maybe she’d gone to the house, waited for the person, but he didn’t show up. Maybe in despair she’d taken her own life.

  “But if she loved him so much, why was she marrying me?” he said out loud, then swerved to miss an oncoming car. Out of habit, he’d moved to the right side of the road.

  Jace pulled his Range Rover to the side, stopped, and put his head on the steering wheel. Short of taking Stacy’s photo into the village and asking questions, he wasn’t sure how to proceed. He’d read the reports on her death. No one had visited her at the pub that night. She’d arrived late, the owner’s wife said she’d given Stacy a key, and that she’d nearly fallen on her way up the stairs. The woman also said Stacy looked as though she’d been crying. The owner had asked if she could help. “No, I’m fine,” Stacy said. “I just need a good, long sleep.”

  When Jace had driven to the house before, he’d turned into Priory House before reaching the village, so he’d not seen it. Now he saw that it was quaint and cute, but then most English villages were. All the grocery shops were divided, so there was a butcher shop, a bakery, a fruitier, a greengrocer, and a wine shop. At one end of the main street, named High Street as it was in most villages, was a pub and another one stood at the other end of the street.

  Which pub was it? Jace wondered. His copy of the police report was hidden in the back of his photo of Stacy and he hadn’t thought to bring it. Maybe he could visit the place where Stacy had…died—he could hardly even think the word—and find out…Find out what, he didn’t know.

  When he passed a small brick building that said Margate Historical Library, Jace had an idea.

  He parked his car on the street and walked toward the library. Everyone he passed stared at him, then nodded. He had no doubt that they knew he was the latest owner of Priory House. He could almost hear their wanting to ask if he’d seen the ghost yet. He thought he’d answer, “Yes, but she got scared of me and vanished.”

  When he got to the library door, he realized he hadn’t so much as a pen with him. He couldn’t pretend to be an author doing research if he didn’t have pen and paper.

  Turning, he looked about the village, and across the street was a stationer’s shop. He crossed the street and went inside. As with most shops in English villages, it had two of each item rather than twenty-five of each as American stores carried, and there wasn’t a piece of Plexiglas in sight.

  “Here you are,” said a tall, thin, gray-haired woman from behind the counter as she shoved a box toward him.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “It’s all there,” she said. “Take a look.”

  “I think there’s been a mistake. I haven’t purchased anything.”

  “Alice Browne called and said you’d seen the ghost outside in the garden. No one’s done that before, so we knew your next stop would be the library to find out about her, and of course you’d be wanting something to take notes on, so here’s everything you need.”

  When Jace didn’t move, she pushed the box until it was about to fall off the counter.

  “Go on,” she said. “It’s been put on your account and I’ll send young Gladys Arnold a statement at the end of the month. Mind you, though, I don’t take kindly to her buying some of her supplies in Aylesbury. You can tell her from me that it doesn’t pay to antagonize the local vendors.”

  When Jace still didn’t move, she looked impatient. “Is there something else you want?”

  “No,” Jace said slowly, then took the box and headed for his car. Shoving the box onto the passenger seat, he got behind the steering wheel. He needed some time to calm himself. Even though he’d told Mrs. Browne that he had not seen the ghost in the garden, she hadn’t believed him. She’d called the local stationer’s shop and told the clerk that Jace would stop in there on the way to the library.

  His impulse was to call Mrs. Browne and tell her off, even to fire her. How dare she blab to the whole village what he was doing?

  After a few minutes of anger, it occurred to him that this was good. He wouldn’t have to work to make people believe he was interested in the ghost and thereby cover his real interest. No, it was assumed that Jace was just like everyone else.

  “Good,” Jace said. “This is good. A premade cover.”

  Relaxing his tight muscles, he looked at the box on the seat beside him and began to go through it, shaking his head in wonder. It was filled with all that a researcher could want: six black pens, four colored pens, two notebooks, one with lines, one without. On and on. There was even a little battery-powered book-light in the bottom.

  Jace took out a large paper wallet with a string tie, and stuck in the unlined notebook and two black pens, then headed toward the library.

  The librarian, a woman about the same age as the stationer clerk and Mrs. Browne, greeted him with, “I have everything you want right here.” She pushed a box toward him. “We call it the Priory House box and we don’t even put the books away anymore. I hope you have a video player. Alice said you don’t have much in the way of furniture, just the leftovers of the last owner. If you need video equipment, we can rent some to you.”

  “Thank you,” Jace said as sincerely as he could, but it was difficult not to make a smart retort. “I have video equipment on order.”

  “Oh? Alice didn’t tell me—”

  “Mrs. Browne doesn’t know everything about my life,” Jace said stiffly.

  The woman blinked at Jace a couple of times. “I see. Perhaps you don’t want these books,” she said and started to take them off the counter.

  In spite of his intentions, it seemed that Jace had offended yet another English person. “I very much want the books,” he said, picking up the box before she could take it away. “And it was kind of you to assemble this for me.”

  She didn’t soften. “I didn’t do it for you. I put them together for Mrs. Grant.”

  “Oh?” Jace asked, smiling, trying to ingratiate himself. “I don’t know her.”

  “Of course not! She was four owners ago.” The woman was glaring at him as though he was taking up too much of her time. “Now, if you don’t need anything else…”

  “Actually, I’d like to look around. At other subjects. If I might be allowed to do so, that is.”

  She didn’t answer, just turned away. Jace took the box and set it on a table. What he really wanted to see was a local newspaper for the day after Stacy died. He wanted to know what had been written about her and who had been involved.

  He knew the librarian could answer many of his questions about where to start looking, but he also knew she’d probably call Mrs. Browne five minutes later. And ask her permission? Jace wondered. Would the librarian ask Mrs. Browne if it was all right for Jace to look at three-year-old newspapers?

  He found what he wanted without asking and put the newspaper on the microfilm reader.

  The day after Stacy’s body was found, the headlines had been about the local garden contest, so her death was on the bottom of the second page. He felt some resentment that her death wasn’t front-page news, but he was also glad that speculation about Stacy hadn’t been made the center of attention. Her death had been dealt with quietly and with