Page 18 of Grimoires & Glamoury

“Think it’ll be okay if I go ahead and head out for the remainder of the day?”

“Of course,” I said, rising to me feet. “No problem. You were supposed to have the afternoon off anyway.”

“Don’t worry Lorna.” He stood and gave me a one-armed hug. “It’s going to be fine.”

“I surely do hope so,” I said.

***

Ruth Thomas arrived right before six that evening. She slipped in and headed up to the second floor, while I made the final check of the sales area to make sure everyone was cleared out. I locked up, started the closing paperwork, and hit ‘run program’ for the daily sales on my point of sales program. It only took me about ten minutes, and Ruth was uncharacteristically quiet upstairs. To be honest, I’d expected that she would pop down and chat with me while I did the paperwork.

I switched off the sales floor lights and headed upstairs. To my surprise, Ruth was sitting at one of my long tables that we typically used for snacks at the monthly meetings. Before her the bank paperwork was spread out, and she was scrolling through her cell phone.

“Ruth?” I called her name softly, not wanting to startle her.

She lifted her head and turned in her chair. “Hey there,” she said, sounding tired. There were tears in her warm brown eyes.

Typically, I was not overly demonstrative with the members of the community, but right then, it was more than appropriate. I headed over and slipped my arm around her shoulders. Leaning down, I rested the side of my face against the top of her braided hair. “Crazy day, wasn’t it?”

Ruth reached up over her shoulder and gave my arm a squeeze. “I’m so sorry, Lorna. I feel responsible for all of this.”

“No, you are not,” I said, taking a seat beside her.

“I should have set up the bank account that there couldn’t be any withdrawals unless both of us signed off on it. But I didn’t do that. Because it was Shelby. Our Shelby.”

“It hurts that it was one of our own who stole from us,” I said. “I’ll admit it also makes me pretty angry.” Hearing my own words, I suddenly began to understand Charles Montgomery’s attitude.

“What are we going to do?” Ruth wondered out loud. “The majority of the money in the account was from fundraising and pre-sale tickets for the ball.” She stopped and pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I told you that already. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

“I filed the report with the police and they were sympathetic, but I don’t expect there’s much they can do at this point...and yes, they did explain to me that Shelby and her boyfriend Sawyer are both missing and that their roommate had been—” She gulped. “Murdered.”

“And have you talked about the murder with anyone?” I asked gently.

Ruth’s eyes flared. “Gods no! It scared the crap out of me. Realizing that the person who robbed us is also suspected in a murder… I went straight home and didn’t say anything to anyone in the community about that.” She blew out a breath. “I did contact the other members of the committee for the ball and informed them of the theft. I felt that was only right.”

“It was,” I said. “And as to the other matter, I imagine it’ll be all over the news soon enough. Homicides typically are.”

“Exactly,” Ruth agreed. “I did talk to my husband about the money—he’s an accountant—and while we do have event insurance for the ball, it won’t cover this. That’s more for the night of the event and so on.”

I heard footsteps on the staircase and turned in time to see Dex coming up the stairs. Since his apartment took up the back half of my second floor, I figured he was on his way home.

“Hi, Dex.” Ruth smiled at him, but her typical energy and enthusiasm weren’t there.

“Ladies.” Dex smiled as he walked over. He reached in his back pocket, pulled out a piece of folded paper, and handed it to Ruth.

“What’s this?” she asked, unfolding it. And then she gasped.

My eyes swung to what she held in her hand. It was a cashier’s check for eight thousand dollars.

“It’s a gift,” Dex said. “I wanted to help.”

“Very smooth, Dex,” I said, as Ruth jumped up and grabbed him in a big hug.

“Where in the world did you get this amount of money?” Ruth asked.

Dex patted her shoulder. “I sold some stocks recently at a healthy profit. I was looking for a charity to donate to, and I felt this was a much better use of the money.”