Chapter 1

Elvis had left the building, but he hadn't left the parking lot. He was sitting on the front passenger seat of Liz's new car and the two of them were engaged in a staredown. Seeing as how Elvis was a very confident black cat with a scar across his nose that only added to his rakish charm, and Liz was Elizabeth Emmerson Kiley French, CEO of the Emmerson Foundation, I knew it would probably take a while. Luckily, it was warm for late May in coastal Maine.

Liz wanted Elvis in the backseat on a flattened cardboard box that she had taken out of my recycling bin. The cat continued to calmly look at her, seemingly without blinking, and I had the sense that he thought Liz's idea was ridiculous so he wasn't going to dignify it with any response other than to stare at her until she relented.

Liz's granddaughter, Avery, stood by the front bumper of the car, arms crossed and a scowl on her face. She was deeply offended by the idea that Elvis should be sitting on a cardboard box on the backseat. Liz and Avery often butted heads, but they loved each other fiercely. They were very much alike, although both of them would have vehemently denied it.

"Nonna, cats are very clean in general and Elvis is in particular. He isn't going to get your new car dirty."

Liz's "new" car was a 1976 sable black Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, bought from a collector who had spent more time lovingly caring for it than actually driving it.

Elvis just continued looking at Liz.

"That is neither here nor there," Liz said. "If you plan on eating supper anytime soon pick up that furball and put him on the backseat."

I knew that look in Avery's eyes. I'd known Liz all my life and I'd seen the same look on her face innumerable times. I'd seen it more than once from Avery, for that matter. "Not until you apologize to Elvis," Avery said, a flash of defiance in her eyes.

Liz's chin came up. "I am not apologizing to a cat," she said. To be fair, Liz didn't like apologizing to anyone.

Avery squared her shoulders. "Then it's going to be a long time until supper."

Avery had been living with her grandmother for several years now because she had a difficult relationship with her parents. She was about to graduate from her unconventional private school and had been accepted at Benton College, a small private college about forty minutes away, where she was going to major in physics and minor in art because she hadn't decided whether she wanted to be an astronaut or an artist.

Liz looked at me as I moved past her carrying a large cardboard box. "Do something," she said.

"I am doing something," I said. "I'm putting this box in my SUV."

"Well, stop doing that and come get this insolent animal of yours out of my new car."

I laughed. "And why should I do that? If you want Elvis out of your car then pick him up yourself."

"I might just do that," she said. "Or I might just leave him here to fend for himself all night."

She looked at Elvis again as though he could somehow understand her threat-which, given how smart he was, wasn't totally unlikely. The cat was unfazed.

"Threats don't work on Elvis," I said. "He lived on the street, remember? He's perfectly capable of taking care of himself."

Mr. P. came out of the shop then, his messenger bag over one shoulder. Alfred Peterson was pretty much the smartest person in the room no matter the company. He was also kind and humble and scarily skilled behind a computer keyboard. On top of all of his many other skills he was a private investigator, licensed by the state of Maine, a fact that often surprised people because he looked like a sweet little grandfather who played chess at the park. And as a matter of fact he did play chess, including at any given time, a couple of correspondence chess games by email with top chess players from all over the world.

Mr. P. walked over to the car, excusing himself as he made his way past Liz. He picked up Elvis from the front passenger seat, and then sat down on the backseat, on top of the piece of cardboard Liz had put there. He set his messenger bag at his feet and settled Elvis on his lap. The cat seemed to smile at Mr. P. and then went back to looking at Liz.

The old man smiled. "While I do concede I am stretching the definition of transitive property, I do believe that Elvis has now met your conditions for riding in your new car." He leaned forward to look over the front seat. "It is a splendid vehicle, one of Detroit's best, and you have, as always, impeccable taste." He turned to look at Avery. "Would you please go help Rose with her things?" he asked.

"Sure," she said. She gave him an admiring smile. Then she turned her attention to her grandmother. "Nonna, if Mr. P. is sitting on the cardboard and Elvis is sitting on Mr. P., then Elvis is sitting on the cardboard."

"If A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C," Liz said tartly "You don't have to explain Euclid to me."

Avery started for the back door. "Probably because he was one of your teachers," she muttered.

"I heard that," Liz retorted.

"That was the point of saying it out loud, Nonna," Avery said as the back door closed behind her.

I could see from the hint of a smile that pulled at the corners of her mouth that Liz wasn't really annoyed. She looked at Elvis, pointed one exquisitely manicured, lavender-tipped finger at him and said, "Don't think you've won."

The cat tipped his head to one side and almost seemed to give Liz a smug smile. I had the feeling he was certain he'd won.

I put the box I'd been carrying on the backseat of my SUV, then walked over to Liz and put my arms around her shoulders, leaning my head against hers. Liz and my grandmother had been friends since they were girls. She was family. "Alfred is right," I said. "This is a fabulous car."

Liz shot me the side eye. "And you are not driving it."

"I'm a good driver," I said.

Liz gave a snort of derision. "You drive like your grandmother."

I raised my head and gave her a wide-eyed look of innocence. "You mean well and responsibly?"

"I mean like the devil himself is on your tail."

My grandmother was the one who had taught both me and my brother, Liam, how to drive and all three of us had been known to stretch the speed limit from time to time but I still maintained we were good drivers. I gave Liz my best wheedling look. "Please. Maybe just a couple of laps around the parking lot?"

"Maybe the twelfth of never," Liz said.

"Okay," I said. "Just one little lap around the parking lot."

"No."

"Can I just sit in the driver's seat?"

"No. And for the record, missy, I told your grandmother the same thing when she asked."

I leaned over and kissed Liz's cheek. "You're very mean," I said. I headed for the back door. "But I'll wear you down. I always do."

She gave another snort of skepticism.

"Love you," I said. I waited for her usual response and after a moment it came. "Yeah, yeah, everybody does," she said.

I stepped inside the shop just as Mac was coming out, carrying a large box. Mac was second in command at Second Chance and first in my personal life. The box was filled with books from the Magic Treehouse series. I needed to go through them to see which books were there and what kind of shape they were in. I had purchased the books from Teresa Reynard, one of the pickers I bought from regularly for the shop, and given the luck I'd had with two boxes of Babysitter's Club books I had purchased from Teresa a month ago, I felt optimistic about selling these ones.

My shop, Second Chance, was a repurpose store, a place where everything from furniture to housewares to musical instruments to, yes, books-most items from the '50s through the '70s-got a second life. It was one part thrift store and one part secondhand shop. Some things even got new uses altogether, like the china cups and saucers that were now tiny planters or the maps that had been turned into lampshades.

Second Chance was located in an old brick house, built in the 1800s in North Harbor, Maine. "Where the hills touch the sea" was the way the town had been described for more than two hundred years. It stretched from the Atlantic Ocean up to the Swift Hills. Being on the ocean we were often battered by winter storms with piles of snow and bitterly cold temperatures.

The town had originally been settled in the 1760s by the Swift family. Its population more than tripled in the summer and early fall. North Harbor was full of history with beautiful old buildings, award-winning eateries and unique small businesses like Second Chance.

"Is there anything else besides this box?" Mac asked. He was tall and lean with dark skin and dark eyes. He wore his hair cropped close to his scalp.

"That's it," I said. "I just need to get my sweater and my bag and I'm ready."

"Is the Liz-slash-Elvis skirmish over?"

I nodded.

"Who won?"

"Who do you think?" I said.

He thought about the question for a moment, his mouth twisted to one side. "I'm going to give the edge to Elvis," he said.

"We have a winner," I said with a grin. "They're just getting ready to leave."

Liz was taking Avery, Rose and Mr. P. to Rose's apartment, where she was making supper for all of them. Elvis was going because Rose had invited him. Like Avery and Mr. P. she saw the cat as part of our rather eclectic family. We were very late leaving the shop thanks to two tour buses that had shown up just before closing time.

Rose and I were next-door neighbors because her apartment was in the house I owned, a restored Victorian in a quiet downtown neighborhood. It was divided into three apartments. I lived in the ground-floor front unit. Rose had the apartment that looked out over the backyard. My grandmother, Isabel Grayson Scott, and her husband, John, lived on the second floor. The whole situation shouldn't have worked and most people got a look of mild horror on their faces when they heard about it, but the thing was, it did work. Neither Rose nor Gram were judgy people and I knew they would always take my side no matter what I did. Plus Rose kept me in cookies.

Mac and I weren't going for dinner, although we had been invited. We were headed across town to the garage where Mac had been working on building a small wooden boat for the past three months. The garage rental had been my Valentine's gift to him. Mac had wanted to build a wooden sailing dinghy for a long time. Memphis Guitard, the brother of Cleveland Guitard, another one of my pickers, had bought a house near the water at the far end of town. Memphis had been happy to rent the garage space for six months once he knew why I wanted it. I hadn't seen the boat-in-progress in over two weeks and I was eager to get a look at it. It made me happy to see how much Mac loved working on it.

Memphis was one of those people who had never come across an electronic device he couldn't figure out and he and Mr. P. had become fast friends after Cleveland had introduced them. That friendship sometimes made me a bit nervous because Mr. P.'s computer skills, and Memphis's facility with small electronic devices, left me half expecting to wake up someday and find out the two of them had quietly and benevolently taken over the world while the rest of us were all sleeping.

Rose and Avery came into the workroom. Avery was carrying one of Rose's canvas tote bags. I knew it held a large metal cake tin, two tablecloths with tea stains Rose insisted she could get out and a teddy bear she had decided needed a new sweater.

Rose smiled at me. "Have fun," she said. She gestured toward the shop over her shoulder. "We need to figure out a new window display some day this week."

"I have some ideas," Avery said, turning from the box of books she'd been looking inside.

"Good," Rose said. "I was hoping you would say that."

Avery smiled and headed out to the parking lot, holding the door for Mac.

"I assume that figuring out a window display is code for planning a grad party for Avery," I said.

Rose patted my arm. "You've always been quick on the uptake, sweet girl," she said. "I'll need your input on the cake."

"I'll force myself to help you with that because I'm a giver," I said solemnly.

Rose laughed.

I picked up my bag and my hoodie and we stepped outside. I stopped to lock the door.

"Let's go, Rose," Liz said. "We're burning daylight."

"We'll talk tomorrow," Rose said to me. She headed for the car, stopping to pat Elvis on the head and smile at Mr. P., who she called her gentleman friend because she thought boyfriend sounded silly at her age. She gave the car a long appraising look and then nodded her approval. "You have wonderful taste," she said to Liz. "This car is a classic."

Liz gave her a small smile. "Thank you," she said.

Avery was already in the back with Mr. P. and Elvis, and Rose slid onto the front passenger seat. "I feel a bit like a movie star," she said.

Liz walked around the front of the car and got in the driver's side. I watched them pull out of the parking lot and thought how much I wanted to drive that car.

Mac came up behind me and rested his chin on the top of my head. "She's not letting you drive that car, you know," he said.

I turned and looked up at him. "I can wear her down."

He shook his head and smiled. "I can see this is going to be entertaining if nothing else."

I made a face at him.

He laughed. "You ready?" he said.

I nodded. "Let's go."