Read Online Clock and Dagger by Julianne Holmes - Free Book Online Page B

strangers tonight, and some might decide to explore. I worried less about a burglar than I did a curious visitor letting Bezel out.
    The steps down to the shop were wide and not terribly steep. The entire building was designed with hatches, trapdoors, and movable walls. I needed to explore the history more, and kicked myself for not asking my grandparents more questions while they were alive. I’d spent a lot of timewith them, especially during high school, but I’d always taken the marvel that was, and is, the Cog & Sprocket a little for granted. No longer. During the renovations, Pat Reed and I had agreed that not a single hatch was to be nailed shut and any wall safes were to be kept in use. Though we’d configured the attic space to be storage and office space, we both were surprised by the number of hiding places we hadn’t known about. We hadn’t finished exploring loose floorboards and boarded-up eaves upstairs, and exploring and archiving the contents of the basement had been delayed. The onus had been on getting me moved back in, and the shop open, and we’d met those goals, or were pretty close. Who knew what treasures we still had left to discover?
    I stepped off the final step to the stunning wide pine planks of the shop floor and felt the now-familiar pang of joyful pain. Joy at being at the Cog & Sprocket, and the pain of not being able to share the joy with G.T. His death, his murder, was still a fresh wound. That his murderer was behind bars was of some comfort, and I was pleased that I had played a small role in making that happen. But the ache was still there for me, and I know it was still fresh for Caroline. We’d left the wooden pegs by the back door, and one of G.T.’s plaid wool work shirts still hung there. The sight gave me comfort, and last week I’d caught Caroline burrowing her face in the fabric, undoubtedly looking for the scent of Old Spice, pipe smoke, and machine oil that were the memory markers of the man who’d worn the shirt.
    I walked through the workroom and then took a left into the showroom. This space had been a forgotten pocket a few months ago, but now it showcased some of the more beautiful clocks, while giving customers a place to sit whilewaiting. We’d even added a restroom and small kitchenette toward the back for both customers and staff. Family story had it that my great-grandfather had served “special tea” in this room during Prohibition. I looked over at the picture of Harry Clagan from the ’20s, smiling at the mischievous grin on his face as he stood in front of the Cog & Sprocket. From what my grandmother had told me, he was not as gifted a clockmaker as his father or his son, but he was a gifted town leader and a wonderful man. His was one of the many ghosts I wanted to welcome back to the Cog & Sprocket.
    I looked around at the old family pictures interspersed among the impressive clock collection. Deciding what to put in the showroom had been a difficult decision. Because of the two estate purchases G.T. and Caroline had made last winter, we had a lot of inventory, including some really stunning pieces that were worth a great deal of money. But, as Nadia kept reminding Caroline and me, the Cog & Sprocket wasn’t a museum, it was a shop. Customers needed to see a range of clocks, some of which they could afford, others which they needed to aspire to. Caroline had pushed me to include a couple of my own creations—part clock, part art pieces. I’d created one I called the Cog & Sprocket, a large piece that evoked the spirit of the shop. I’d started working on it before I came back to Orchard and finished it right after I’d moved back. To the outside observer, it looked like something a clockmaker would create instead of scrapbooking. But looking more closely, there was more to it. The clock was an eight-day mechanism that worked perfectly. Each cog had a name, or memory, or date etched on it.