Gazpacho Murder Read online

  “It does everything I need it to,” she said after a moment, not wanting to insult her daughter, who had been in charge of shopping for the device. “It is good to know that I am able to contact the outside world again. I wish I could get my old phone back, but Detective Jefferson said the chances of that are slim. Whoever bought it from Sky probably paid for it with cash, and I doubt they’ll come forward.”

  “The phone isn’t the important thing in all of this,” David said. “You are. I should never have let you come into the house with me.”

  “I made my own choice to do it. You didn’t let me do anything. Besides, you’re the one that almost got shot.”

  Her husband snorted. “He wasn’t even pointing the gun at me. I surprised him so much that he shot himself in the leg. Well, the bullet grazed him. If he had really shot himself, I doubt he would have been able to walk. It goes to show why you should always keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot. The kid was coming downstairs to see why the dog was barking, and nearly ran into me a second time. It was the surprise that saved me. If he had known I was down there, I’m sure things wouldn’t have gone as well for me.”

  Moira relaxed back into her comfortable pillows. “I’m just glad things turned out how they did. Martha will get some of her stuff back, at least. I’m sure she’ll be glad to have her sister’s bracelet returned to her. She’s usually so practical, I’m surprised she even entertained the idea of a ghost.”

  “I’m not,” David said. “She’s living in her sister’s old house, isn’t she? She misses Emilia. She may have wanted to believe that it was a ghost, her sister’s ghost, trying to communicate with her.”

  His explanation made a lump form in Moira’s throat. She knew he was right. Martha hadn’t thought some malevolent presence was haunting her. She had thought, hoped, that it was her sister, trying to communicate with her.

  Her husband took her hand and squeezed it. Moira smiled up at him. Despite her bangs and bruises, she was grateful. So much could have gone wrong, and at each turn they had been lucky. Even with the danger, she was glad that she had been at her husband’s side for the second encounter with the killer. She had promised to stand with him through thick and thin, and that included any encounters with crazy gun wielding thieves. She may not have parents or a sibling to rely on, but she had her husband, and she wasn’t letting go of him for anything.