Framed Read Online Free Page B

find a note?”
    “Not that I ever heard of.”
    “Tell me what you remember,” Sue urged. “Tell me everything. When did you first hear about it?”
    Ginny considered. “You know, I thought about it all last night, trying to get it straight in my head. I think the first thing I heard was that Abby was missing. It was in the papers, I know that, because she went missing the day of the big snowstorm that December. It was a nor’easter, we got about forty inches of snow on the coast and a lot more inland.” Ginny grinned at her exaggeration. “Well, okay, it was probably about ten inches on the coast and about sixteen inland, if I remember right. Mike Bingham was frantic, as you might imagine.”
    “He’s the one who scared Elsie so much, sitting here in the dark with a gun in his lap,” Sue prompted.
    “Yes. Well, that happened about two weeks later, I think. After they found Abby’s car at Jerry’s place. Nobody thought to look there at first, from what I remember. I mean, she wasn’t scheduled to go there for a sitting. They checked all the hospitals and police reports at first, thinking because of the storm maybe she was out someplace and got hurt. Then they checked with her relatives and friends, even though Mike insisted there was nothing wrong between them, to see if maybe she left him after a fight.”
    “Had they been fighting?”
    “Not according to Mike. According to him, everything was hunky-dory.”
    “You sound doubtful.”
    Ginny shook her finger at Sue. “Don’t you go putting words in my mouth,” she scolded, only half-serious. “I don’t know anything.”
    “But you suspect something.”
    Ginny sighed and her half-smile faded away. “You know how you get a feeling? Sometimes when Abby came in here, I thought something was wrong. She was sad a lot. But then I put it down to not having kids. She would’ve been a great mom.” Her eyes focused inward as she looked back in time. “One time she said something about adoption, but Mike didn’t want kids who weren’t his. I wish I could remember exactly. After that, she began taking on projects.”
    “Like what?”
    “Oh, she did a lot of things. She started the garden club in Westford, and then she got the elementary school to plant a garden. She worked on getting land set aside for conservation, sponsored a boy from the high school to go to a special leadership training course. Things like that. Things to improve the town, help people out. She was in the Big Sister program for a while.”
    “But she and Mike never adopted.”
    “No.”
    They sat for a moment. Sue was about to ask another question when the door opened to admit a customer. Ginny sat up straighter and shot a quick glance at Sue. “Hello, Sunny!”
    Though Sunny had been coming to Brush & Bevel since her teens and was now in her early thirties, her taste had not improved. She was a prolific spender, very friendly—and very high maintenance. She always needed special attention and tended to take days to make up her mind on a framing job, only to change it again a week later. Brush & Bevel had learned by bitter experience to hold off on ordering supplies for any of her framing pieces.
    “Oh, good morning, Ginny,” she called out. “Hello, Sue, I’m glad you’re here today. Look what I’ve found!” She bustled up to the design table and began to unwrap a long narrow piece of art. “The frame is hideous, but I just fell in love with the image,” she gushed as the paper fell away. “Don’t you just love it?”
    Sue could not meet Ginny’s eyes. To tell the truth, the driftwood frame was the only worthwhile part of the piece. The two mats were inexpensive ones, the wrong colors entirely. They already showed the telltale stains of unbuffered acidity, terribly damaging to artwork. The picture, a cheap print of an amateur painting, made Sue want to shudder: a languorous curve of sandy tropical beach, a rocky breakwater straight out of Bar Harbor, Maine, palm trees