Page 78 of A Spot of Tea
Her heart fluttered into her throat. Eliza waved back. “Thanks for bringing them.”
“No problem.”
Mackenzie dropped the bags onto the floor with a clank. “It’s theleasthe could do.”
“Mack…” Mom warned, raising an eyebrow.
Mackenzie squatted down and unloaded the bags. “I’m sure you’re hungry. Granny packed four sandwiches, a bag of cookies, and a quart of soup.”
Eliza laughed as Mackenzie piled everything into her arms. “That’s nice, but I don’t have much of an appetite.”
“Granny went to talk to Margie in person,” Mom said, wrapping her in a hug from behind. “We’re going to figure this out. Don’t worry, okay?”
“I’m not,” she lied, smiling. “I wanted to call my FBI contact, Ramona, but I’m afraid to give away my location.”
Mom leaned in. “I think we’re okay. To be safe, I can wait to call her until we’re away from here.”
“I brought your laptop,” Mackenzie said, pulling it from the grocery bag. “Granny insisted you needed a copy of the local islander magazine, too, so here you go.”
She dropped it onto the desk with a thud. The cover had a glossy picture of the lighthouse at sunset. Eliza picked it up and flipped through the pages.
The smell of a fresh magazine was always nice. Better than whatever was floating around in the stale air of the room—old containers of takeout and grease.
Mom kept hovering. “You’ll hide here as long as you need to. I’ll get you a better place to sleep. Would you prefer a camping cot or a blow-up mattress?”
The magazine fell open to a story:Beloved Gift Shop to Close after 36 Years.
The cover image was of Grace, the woman whose wheelchair had been used in the robbery. The sun rose on the harbor in the background, its orange glow illuminating her face. She stared into the distance with a solemn expression.
“I’m going to miss it,” she was quoted. “No doubt about it.”
Her heart rate picked up. There was something there. Eliza kept scanning the image, her eyes searching every corner.
“Honey?” Mom asked. “Are you okay?”
She looked up from the magazine. “I didn’t see it before. She was wearing sunglasses.”
Joey leaned forward, craning to see the page. “Grace? The shopkeeper?”
She held up the picture and pointed. “Look at her eyes! Dark green, with flecks of brown and blue, gold around the pupil. Don’t you see?”
“The robber’s eyes,” Joey said, voice low.
“She’sthe robber?” Mackenzie asked, holding a bunch of bananas in one hand and a quart of soup in the other. “Let’s get her!”
“No, the robber was a man, but…she’s involved. Or someone related to her is involved. Those were his eyes; I’m sure of it.”
“See! It wasn’t me!” Joey said. “Look at my eyeballs!”
“Keep your eyeballs to yourself,” Mackenzie said, shooting him a look. “If I find you anywhere in her family tree, I’m going to have you arrested.”
He sighed. “If I find myself in her family tree, I’ll arrest myself.”
Eliza read the article, hopping and skipping, unable to absorb the words. She stopped at a picture of Grace and her husband from twenty years ago.
Mrs. Donovan and her husband raised five boys while running the gift shop.
“She has five sons,” Eliza said. “He has to be one of them.”
