A Haunted Theft (A Lin Coffin Mystery Book 4) by J A Whiting Page B

She turned the burner’s heat down to simmer, covered the pot, and joined Viv at the counter.
    “Remember right before Liliana died and I went to meet her?” Liliana had been a friend of Libby and Anton and she and Lin shared the gift of being able to see spirits. “Liliana told me that I’d get better at communicating with the ghosts, but how? She said I would take her place. How can I ever do that? I feel like a big dummy.”
    A gentle smile spread over Viv’s lips. “You are not a dummy. Things take time. Liliana didn’t expect you to fill her shoes right away. When I first picked up a guitar or sat at the piano, I couldn’t play a song. I just plunked out notes. No one is good at anything without practice.” She chuckled. “Without a whole lot of practice. It must be the same with your talent. The more ghosts you see, the better you’ll get at picking up what they have to tell you.”
    Lin leaned on the island. “How are you so smart?”
    “I was born that way.” Viv sipped from her wine glass.
    “You didn’t need to practice to get so smart?” Lin eyed her cousin. “Doesn’t that negate your statement that every talent must be honed and practiced?”
    Viv threw her head back and laughed. “Now who’s acting like a smarty pants?”
    Before Lin jumped down from her perch on the stool, she gave her cousin a little poke in the side. “Me.”
    The girls sat on the deck with dinner plates of spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, and salad. They chattered about their boyfriends, a movie they’d recently seen, and plans to go to the beach together late Saturday afternoon. When the sun slipped below the horizon and darkness fell over the yard, Lin lit the candles on the table and brought out the chocolate mousse pie.
    Lin filled her glass with sparkling water and passed the bottle to Viv. “Anton told me that years ago, a group of people we’ve been talking about or who we’ve recently met, worked together to start the cultural museum. The finances wouldn’t work and they had to shelve the idea for a few years.”
    “Who was involved?” Viv lifted a forkful of the pie to her mouth.
    “Anton. Martha Hillman. Lacey Frye. Nathan Long. Leonard’s wife, Marguerite.”
    Viv lowered her fork. “All of those people?”
    “Anton said others were involved, but that I probably wouldn’t know who they were.”
    “So those people go way back. They’ve known each other a long time.” Viv’s eyebrows knitted together in thought. “And now, Marguerite is dead, Martha and Nathan are involved with the museum, and Lacey doesn’t seem to care for either Martha or Nathan. What about Anton? Does he have anything bad to say about any of them?”
    “No, he really doesn’t. When I proposed that one of them could be involved in the theft, he was horrified to think that it was possible.”
    “I wonder what the relationship is between those people.” Viv tapped the side of her face.
    “And I wonder what the relationship used to be between them.” Lin made eye contact with her cousin. “Does someone bear a grudge towards one of the group? Could someone have stolen the basket to make one of them look bad? Tarnish their reputation?”
    Viv’s eyes went wide and she leaned forward on the table. “Or, what if they’re all working together? What if they planned the whole thing together?”
    “For what purpose?” Lin looked confused.
    “Sell the basket and split the money? Set up someone they hate to take the fall? It hasn’t been that long since the crime occurred. Maybe the thief will try to pin the robbery on one of the group?”
    “What a tangled web.” Lin put her chin in her hand. “We need to find out what the relationships are between them. Anton is innocent. He’s only involved because he helped secure the loan of the basket from his curator friend.” Lin sat up. “Oh. What if one of them tries to set up Anton? What if one of them is out to get Anton for some reason? They must have known that