Front Window

You’ll find in Front Window:

Just home from her trip to California where, once again, Alexa Hartfield managed to find herself in suspicious circumstances, Alexa is ready for life to calm down. She has a wedding to attend, a wedding to plan, and an aunt to settle into her quiet Fairbury life.

But when Aunt Faye interrupts a trip out of the country because a neighbor was burglarized, it doesn’t bode well for the cozy, homey Christmas she’d planned.

Who is stealing from the residents of Fairbury’s retirement village, and how can Faye and her cronies prove it isn’t one of them?

Unheeded warnings produce dire consequences when one of the residents turns up dead, and things heat up with Faye’s new friend is at the top of the police’s investigation!

Front Window: What you see is what he gets.

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A snippet:

He watched her—every move she made, if the prickly hair on the back of her neck could be trusted. Faye sat at the table with a pile of M&Ms that grew larger with each passing hand. I’m not cheating, if that’s what you’re wondering. It irked him every time she did it, so Faye dug through the pile for a blue one—it was, after all, blue’s turn—and popped it in her mouth before she tossed out four browns and a red. “All in.” Each chew reminded her how much she missed the days when no one actually knew anyone who was allergic to peanuts. Reese’s Pieces were so much more fun to play with than M&M’s.

Again, Faye felt his eyes on her, but she shuffled the candies in front of her and paid him no mind. Don Nelson folded. “I can’t get a decent hand tonight.”

Ginny stared at her cards in a show of studied concentration. Stop pretending you don’t know how to play. It’s anticlimactic now.

“I think… yes. I’ll call….” She shoved a fistful of appropriately apportioned candies into the pile.

Faye should have been watching, really she should have. However, her phone buzzed with an unfamiliar number, and a text message appeared. It read simply: MEET ME IN APT. 310. What woman could resist such a charming and gracious invitation?

She jumped up from the chair, shoved her phone in her pocket, and grabbed a few M&Ms for the road—er, elevator. The monstrosity began its snail-like descent from the sixth floor. Faye opted for a little exercise and prayed she wasn’t as out of shape as the mirror had hinted only that morning. By the second floor, she was winded. By the time she reached the third, an inner debate raged between whether she sounded more like a crank caller or a case study for asthma.

Charles met her at the entrance to the third-floor corridor. “Wearing your Nancy Drew shoes today, Faye?”

“Wha—? How’d—?”

“Impatience does little for the health, but it is convenient when you can’t hope to catch up to a formidable woman such as yourself.”

“Stuff it.” Faye hurried—at a wheezing half-speed—down the corridor to apartment 310. Three twenty, three eighteen, three….

“Has it occurred to you that if this thief is a resident here—?”

Faye cut him off with a growl. “He’s not.”

“I suspect you are correct, but let’s play Devil’s advocate for just a moment. If he were a resident here, he might not appreciate the aunt of a famous author who is often surrounded by mystery these days poking into his affairs. He might consider you a threat. And if he did….”

“You’re assuming it’s a man.”

That stopped him—well, that and the fact that Faye had stopped outside apartment 310. “You think it’s a woman?”

Faye jerked her thumb at the door. “Not if it’s this room. It’s either Roger or Darryl’s room—can’t remember which. Those two look like brothers to me.”

At least then, Charles had the sense to agree. “I’ve confused them myself.” He raised his hand to knock. “Shall we?”

“And just what do you intend to do in there?” As Faye spoke, she pushed his hand away.

“Listen and observe. My purpose is only to show that threatening you wouldn’t be a wise idea.”

Those words wrung a hint of concession from her. “You just saved yourself a call to security. Go ahead. Bang your knuckles instead of mine.”