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“As far as Uncle Alec could tell from the text messages on her phone he was looking for a reconciliation. He said he still loved her and couldn’t stop thinking about her in spite of the divorce, and he wanted to try and heal the rift and put the past behind them.”

“And apparently she felt the same way or else she wouldn’t have flown all the way out here to see him.”

“Apparently.”

They were both silent for a beat, then Dan rapped the door with his knuckle and said,“Keep up the good work, Poole, and write me a killer article, will you? I have a feeling this might be our biggest issue yet.”

“Will do, sir,” she said dutifully, and bent over her laptop to pound out the rest of her article. She looked up when the outer door to the office swung open and the bell jangled.

“Where is my granddaughter?” a familiar voice rasped. “I demand to see my granddaughter!”

“In here, Gran!” she yelled.

Her grandmother came striding into the office. She was out of breath, and had twin circles of crimson dotting her cheeks. The elderly woman was wearing her large-framed glasses, had her hair done up in tiny white curls, and as usual looked the spitting image of a sweet old lady, ready to dole out candy to kids. In actual fact she was anything but sweet. Vesta Muffin could be pretty caustic if she wanted to be, and she often wanted to be.

“What’s all this nonsense about you going out on a case and not inviting me along?” she demanded, planting her fists on Odelia’s desk and leaning over so far her head was almost touching her granddaughter’s.

“I didn’t know you worked here,” Odelia quipped, but Gran wasn’t having any of it.

“You know as well as I do that a true flogger, in order to be successful, needs to upload fresh content all the time.” She tapped the desk impatiently. “I need you to let me in on this case, Odelia. I’ve lost so many followers over this Yellow Parka MacGyver Gang fiasco it’s not pretty. Ineed a big hit—pronto!”

“Don’t you mean vlogging?”

“That’s what I said. Flogging. I need this, Odelia. I need this bad.”

“You sound just like my boss,” said Odelia. But Gran was eyeing her so intently she quickly relented. “All right, all right, you can tag along. But there’s no case this time, Gran. Just a murder to cover for the paper.”

“What do you mean there’s no case? A woman was murdered, right?”

“Yes, she was, but Alec already caught the killer.”

“So fast? That’s impossible!”

“It was Jeb Pott. He was caught practically red-handed. Literally, actually.”

“Oh, darn it. I liked that kid.”

Odelia refrained from mentioning that that kid was a fifty-five-year-old man. Instead, she said,“So you see? There is no case. No murder to solve. No killer to catch.”

Gran plunked down on the chair opposite hers.“At least let me interview Jeb Pott. Big star like him—my follower count will shoot through the roof.”

“What do you care how many followers you have?” Odelia asked. She didn’t understand this obsession with followers. At all.

“I need to beat Scarlett Canyon,” Gran said, looking grim now. “That jerk has started flogging, too, and she’s got more followers in one week than me in a month.”

“She’s also fighting crime now?” asked Odelia, wondering when this enmity between her grandmother and Scarlett Canyon would finally be over. All of Hampton Cove would sleep more easily when it was.

“She’s giving beauty tips,” said Gran, frowning darkly. “Which in her case means sitting in front of a camera wriggling her cleavage and pretending to know something about cosmetics. Next thing I know she’ll be doing a striptease act. Anything to get more followers.” Catching Odelia’sinquisitive look, she added, “The more followers you have the more chances of landing one of those lucrative influencer deals. L’Or?al or Lanc?me will pay big bucks to push their products on the channels of people with lots and lots of followers.”

“They won’t be pushing L’Or?al on a YouTube channel about murder.”

“Of course not, silly. But then Scarlett isn’t on YouTube. She’s on Instagram. But it’s the thought that counts. I can’t let her best me, so I need more followers. Otherwise she’ll never let me live it down.”

Scarlett Canyon and Gran had been mortal enemies ever since Gran caught her doing the horizontal mambo on her kitchen table with Grandpa Jack. Things had gone from bad to worse ever since, especially since Scarlett had been Gran’s best friend before the incident.

“So are you going to let me interview Jeb Pott or not?” Gran insisted.

“I don’t even know ifI’ll be able to interview Jeb. Uncle Alec gives me a lot of leeway but he draws the line at actually jeopardizing a conviction. But I’ll see what I can do,” she added when Gran pulled one of her unhappy faces.

Gran got up and patted her cheek.“Good girl. And if you stumble across another dead body, this time let me know, all right? I need all the flogging I can get.”

And after uttering these immortal words, she strode back out of the office.

Chapter 10