Sealed with a Kill by Lucy Lawrence

coffee.
    “Brenna, would you . . . ?” she asked, but Brenna interrupted with, “Of course, go!”
    The Porter twins and Brenna watched Tenley race out the front door and across the town green toward the police station. The wind was blowing, and stray leaves pelted her as the wind tossed her long blond hair around her face.
    “Poor thing.” Ella tsk ed. “Her own father a murderer.”
    Brenna gave her a narrow-eyed glance. “Don’t start. He is innocent until proven guilty. We don’t know anything more than that.”
    Ella gave her a dubious look but said nothing more.
    She and Marie stored their purses in a cupboard in the break room. Marie went to sweep up the shards from the mug while Ella cleaned up the spilled coffee. Obviously, they were planning to stay and help Brenna whether she wanted them to or not.
    “I wonder if Lydia Lester knows yet?” Marie asked.
    “You’d think the chief would tell her first,” Ella said. “I mean, if her husband’s business partner . . .”
    “Don’t start spreading any rumors about Mr. Morse,” Brenna interrupted. “You have no idea why Chief Barker wants to talk to him.”
    The sisters exchanged a glance, and despite her better judgment, Brenna was sucked in.
    “What do you know?” she asked.
    They gave her matching self-satisfied smiles. When it came to gossip, the elderly twins were more cutthroat than dueling bidders on eBay. Brenna knew she was going to have to pony up some dirt if she wanted the skinny on Lester and Morse.
    “Fine, don’t tell me,” she said.
    She tried to play it cool, as if she didn’t care. She’d done this dance with the sisters before, after all. The racks of specialty papers needed straightening, so she led the way to the wall where she began to neaten the racks.
    The two sisters followed, as Brenna knew they would, and the three of them worked silently. It was a test of wills to see who would crack first.
    The only sound in the shop besides the shuffling of paper was the ticktock of the wall clock, marking the minutes since Tenley had left, since her father had been brought in for questioning, since Brenna had found the body.
    “Oh, all right,” she said. She shoved the last handful of paper into the rack. “I give. What do you want to know?”
    Marie and Ella exchanged an awkward high five. First they missed each other’s hands completely, and then Ella tried to make up for it with a little too much oomph, causing Marie to wince when their hands smacked. Brenna shook her head.
    Ella turned to face her and said, “First tell us what’s going on between you and Nate Williams.”

Chapter 7

    “No!” Marie cried. “That’s not what we want to know. We want to know what’s happening between her and Dom Cappicola.”
    “No, we don’t.”
    “Yes, we do,” Marie insisted. “I mean, Nate is handsome and all, but Dom is positively magnetic.”
    “He’s a mobster,” Ella protested.
    “Actually, he is trying to turn the family business legit,” Brenna said, feeling the need to defend her friend.
    “See?” Marie said. “Now, I know you went on a date with him a few months ago, and I’ve seen you meet him for coffee at the Willow House, so are you dating?”
    “No,” Brenna said. “We’re just friends.”
    She didn’t feel the need to add the information that Dom would like to be more than friends and that she would happily date him if it weren’t for the fact that she had a deadend crush on Nate. No, that humiliating information was not for public consumption.
    “Excuse me,” Ella said. “Who was the one who climbed into the van with the dead body? Oh, yeah, that would be me. I get to ask the questions.”
    “Marie already asked, and I answered,” Brenna said. “Now tell me what you know.”
    Ella looked ready to balk, but Marie chimed in, “I still think you should date Dom.”
    Brenna gave her a dark look.
    “Okay, okay,” she said. Marie walked across the room and sat at the worktable. Brenna took the