Stamped Out Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  Stamping Project

  Her first day on the job was a killer . . .

  Everyone took a step back.

  The rumbling was not coming from a fault in the earth, but from the fireplace. Mortar crumbled as if some inner flaw was about to be revealed. The noise grew louder as rocks began to slide.

  Stones dropped from the top. The bottom tier began to slide forward. There was a hesitation, and the forest was unnaturally quiet, as if all creatures were holding their breath. Then, as though tapped with an invisible mallet, the entire structure tumbled down.

  April could not stop staring at the fireplace rubble. Something looked out of place. Her artist’s eye caught an anomaly. She took a step forward, willing the swirl of dust to stop so she could identify what she saw. An object tumbled to the foreground.

  The words burst out of her mouth. “That’s a skull.”

  The hair on the back of April’s neck rose. She whirled to find no one there.

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  STAMPED OUT

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / September 2008

  Copyright © 2008 by Terri Thayer.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form

  without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in

  violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-0-425-22329-1

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design

  are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to my intrepid critique group, Becky Levine and Beth Proudfoot. Without their constant support and encouragement, I would still be writing stories in my head. And the ones I did put on paper wouldn’t be very good. From their suggestions, and by critiquing their work, I learned how to write better. I’m blessed to have great friends who are wonderful writers and editors.

  Thanks to Mary Hernan for trying to keep me on schedule. She made me laugh, which is far more important.

  To Holly Mabutas of Eat Cake Graphics for making the wonderful skull stamp and project. She captured the essence of the book. Good job!

  Thank you to my agent, Jessica Faust, for liking my writing and encouraging me to stretch. Her belief in me, and her incredible knowledge of the market, got me to this point and I’m really grateful.

  Thanks to my editor, Sandy Harding, and the copyeditors, cover artists and other professionals at Berkley Prime Crime who did their best work on my behalf. I benefited from their expertise, as did my book.

  CHAPTER 1

  “You’re killing me with these shoes, April. How many pairs does one girl need?”

  April glanced at her mother. Bonnie groaned as she pressed the small of her back and bent down to pick up a pair of sandals from the box and placed it in the closet beneath the loft. April had brought a lot of shoes. They were one of the only things left from her marriage that were all hers.

  She said, “No one asked you to put away my stuff, Mom.”

  Deana, April’s best friend, rolled her eyes and smiled. In fact, April had just asked her mother not to unpack her suitcases. April returned the grin. Deana and April had been friends since the first grade when April had traded the fancy chicken salad sandwich her mother had made her for Deana’s pb and j. Now, with her best friend helping her to move in, April could almost tolerate her mother’s overpowering nesting urges.

  “Better Bonnie touch your shoes than your art supplies,” Deana whispered. April nodded, glancing across the room, double-checking that the valises that held her sketchbooks, inks and stamps were safely under her father’s desk. She would deal with them herself when she was alone.

  “Lift,” Deana said. She and April set upright the futon they’d assembled. Her futon, which had nearly filled the second bedroom in their place in California, looked like a tiny piece of beached driftwood in the barn.

  She scanned the room. The vast expanse of hardwood floor gleamed, unbroken by furniture. She really hadn’t brought much with her. Once the shoes were put away, the unpacking would be pretty much done. She’d already unloaded her clothes into the built-in drawers, and Deana had stashed her toiletries in the bathroom.

  “Now, let’s put up your drafting table,” Deana said. “You’ll feel more at home once that’s up.”

  April smiled. These next couple of months in her home-town might not be so bad with Deana around. She hadn’t spent more than a week at a time here since she was seventeen years old. Aldenville had not been good to her.

  She’d come back only for a few months, to regain her equilibrium. A year tops. Then she’d move on to New York or Boston where no one had ever heard of April Buchert Interiors, San Francisco.

  Her energy sagged as she thought about the mess she’d left in California. A trashed reputation, a soon-to-be ex-husband, and an impossible-to-keep promise to pay back everything he’d stolen.

  Deana handed her a table leg and rummaged in the box for the caster. Even her best friend didn’t know the worst of it. Ap
ril’s face burned in shame just thinking about Ken and the way he’d duped her.

  If Deana suspected something about her problems, her mother was aware of nothing. All Bonnie knew was that Ed, April’s father, had a job for her to do with his company, Retro Reproductions, and was lending her his restored barn to stay in.

  “Plants,” Bonnie said, backing out of the closet and shutting the door. “That’s what this place needs. There’s so much square footage, it looks unnatural without some green.”

  “I like it,” April said. “Uncluttered.”

  “Nonsense,” her mother said, shaking her head for emphasis. Her tight curls didn’t move. Her hair was mostly gray now, with only a few vestiges of April’s rich brown tones left.

  “You need to get a bureau and a living room suite,” Bonnie continued. Her pronunciation of suite hit a raw nerve with April. She thought she’d left this behind. Bonnie went on pointing out possible furniture placement. “Over there, a recliner for Ken. I’m off tomorrow. Why don’t we go up to the mall and look around?”

  “Thanks, Mom, but I’ll be working.”

  “I could just go take a look for you.”

  April shot her a look that her mother would clearly recognize from April’s teens. Get out of my room, Mom, it said.

  Giving up, Bonnie hovered over Deana and April, who were nearly finished with the drafting table. Deana sat with her legs splayed out in front of her like a young deer. April preferred to squat. She grabbed the bag of screws just in time to prevent Bonnie from stepping on them.

  Bonnie watched them closely. “Lefty, loosey, right, tighty. Here, let me.”

  April exchanged a knowing look with Deana. Bonnie’s homemaking instincts were too strong. April had to find her something to do. Something that didn’t involve April’s stuff.

  “How about making some coffee, Mom? To go with those cookies you brought?”

  Bonnie leaned on the long, heavy wooden table that separated the galley kitchen from the main space. Purple pendant lights hung over the surface and she had to duck to get a good look at the kitchen.

  Every surface in the kitchen gleamed. Ed and his partner were house flippers, living in a space while they fixed it up. The kitchen was always the last room they finished, and the room they spent most of their budget on. Most of the high-end appliances looked as though they’d never been used. An espresso machine was the only thing sitting on the glittering black granite countertop.

  Bonnie hesitated. April could swear she looked intimidated. “I don’t know how to use that fancy machine,” Bonnie said.

  “No need,” April said. “I brought my French press. It’s in there.” She pointed to a box on the table. “I packed the beans and the mugs, too.” She’d made sure she’d have access to good coffee her first morning back home.

  Bonnie agreed, setting out the things April had put in the box her last morning in San Francisco. Her special stash of organic fair trade Guatemalan coffee, the beautiful mugs from the ceramics show at the Cow Palace. April’s heart ached from all she’d left behind.

  Deana noticed her sad expression and whispered, “You doing okay?”

  April shrugged. “It’s harder than I thought.” She looked in Deana’s blue eyes, so concerned. “I haven’t been on the receiving end of Hurricane Bonnie in a long time.”

  “She loves you, and wants you to be happy.”

  Tears filled April’s eyes at her friend’s simple view of things. “If only it were that easy,” she said.

  “You’re going to be okay,” Deana said.

  April nodded. She almost believed it when Deana said it. “I just need to get to work.” Work made everything better.

  They screwed on the last leg, hoisted the drafting table up and set it in place. April felt a rush of something akin to love when she touched the familiar white surface. This was the only possession April cared about. All she needed. The drafting table had been her first purchase out of art school, and even later, when she could have afforded a better one, she didn’t replace it. She was convinced her muse resided somewhere in the faux Formica top.

  “Here’s your stool,” Deana said, rolling the blue arm-less chair toward her. “You’re all set. Now you can work.”

  “Coffee’s ready,” Bonnie said. Deana and April pushed the drafting table into position, next to an oak post that dominated the center of the room. Bonnie had put out the tin of oatmeal raisin cookies she’d made and folded paper towels into napkins. She’d found sugar and creamer packets and stirrers April had liberated from a Mickey D’s in Kansas and put them into the fourth mug. The table looked almost cheery.

  “One cup and then I’ve got to scoot,” Deana said. “I’ve got six rubber stampers coming in an hour for a sit ’n’ stamp.”

  “What’s a sit ’n’ stamp?” April asked. Deana hadn’t told her about this part of her life.

  Bonnie answered, pouring coffee. “Deana’s the valley’s newest Stamping Sister dealer.”

  At April’s blank look, Bonnie continued. “You know, like scrapbooking. Rubber stamping, embossing. Stampers come work on their projects. Deana supplies everything they need. And she sells them more stuff. It’s the perfect setup.”

  “Do people around here do that?” April asked.

  Deana said, “Hey, you know there’s not a big night life around here. We have fun. I really look forward to Tuesdays.”

  April thought of a snag. “The stampers don’t object to your place?” Deana lived over the funeral home. She and her husband, Mark, had taken over Deana’s family business.

  Deana grinned. “They say they like the quiet. You should come, April.”

  The three continued chatting quietly, and April found herself relaxing for the first time in months. The barn might be devoid of any hominess, but it was a safe haven for her.

  Unfortunately, Bonnie shattered the mellow mood. “What was wrong with your life in California anyway? All that sunshine. And so much to do, there in the city. I thought Ken loved San Fran. I never thought I’d see the day when you called Aldenville home again,” her mother said.

  April struggled for an answer. Interior design was a small world. Once word spread about Ken’s proclivity to steal objets d’art, jewelry, even rolls of coins, April’s reputation, and then her livelihood, had been ruined. But she was convinced that the real source of vitriol directed against her from her clients had more to do with the emotional havoc Ken had left behind. Most of her clients could afford to lose possessions. It was the loss of Ken’s charm that they really missed.

  After that it didn’t matter that she was the only stamper in Northern California capable of doing historically accurate walls. No one called. When her father’s job beckoned, she’d jumped in the old Volvo and headed east, leaving the mess behind.

  Her mother thought her father had bullied her into coming back. Her father thought she was running away from a miserable marriage. Both were a little bit right.

  The real truth was that five years of living with Ken had left her broke, bitter and back home.

  “I’m sick of painting tussie-mussies,” April lied. “If I never see another overstuffed Victorian parlor, it’ll be too soon.”

  Bonnie’s brow furrowed. “Okay, don’t tell me. You’re just like your father. Always with the secrets.”

  Deana’s cell phone rang. She said hello in her professional voice, low and confident, and walked outside for better reception.

  Bonnie gathered up the dirty dishes. “You need to fill that gigantic refrigerator. Let’s go get a food order.”

  A food order. April hadn’t heard that phrase in years. Indigenous to the area, it had originated in the mining towns that dotted the area. Her mother’s father had been a coal miner, paid in scrip. The company store would deliver what was called an order to the tiny row house. Her mother always used the antiquated phrase.

  She didn’t want to tell her mother she didn’t have the money to go shopping.

  “Not tonight, Mom. I’m tired and I’ve g
ot work to do. I’m starting the Mirabella job in the morning.”

  Mirabella was famous in this part of Pennsylvania. It was a Tudor mansion that had been built in the late 1800s for a coal baron who had no qualms about spending money on marble floors, hand-carved ebony balustrades and a crude air-conditioning system while his miners lived most of their short lives below ground, dirty, poor and under his thumb.

  Bonnie looked at her daughter closely, clearly not diverted by April’s attempt at name-dropping. April averted her eyes. What was it about mothers? They always knew.

  “You need money,” Bonnie said flatly. Her eyes flashed with disappointment. Whether because April was broke or because she hadn’t told her mother, April wasn’t sure.

  “I’ll have a steady paycheck coming in soon.” And no Ken to spend two dollars as soon as she made one. “Dad’s promised me an advance.”

  Her mother snorted and reached for her purse. April stopped her.

  “Really, Mom, I’m fine.” Her mother’s job as cook at the country club didn’t pay much.

  Bonnie relented. “Well, come for dinner at least.”

  The barn door slid open and Deana came in, her mouth drawn into a tight line.

  “Sorry, but I’ve got to leave. I’ve got a body to tend to,” she said.

  April asked, “Who died?”

  Deana’s brow was furrowed. “George Weber.”

  Bonnie’s hand flew up to her mouth. “George? But I just saw him.”

  Deana nodded. “Another death at Forever Friends, the nursing home.”

  “That place,” Bonnie exclaimed in horror. “People are always dying over there.”

  “Well, Mom, it’s a nursing home, full of old people,” April said, looking at Deana for support.

  Deana gave her a distracted smile, but April could see her friend’s thoughts had shifted to the deceased. “There have been a couple of unexplained deaths there in the last few months. More than usual. The county coroner has talked about holding an investigation.”