The Whispered Word

by Ellery Adams

  “Andrews, we’ll need a statement from Ms. Pennington. I also want you to find out who interacted with Frye last night. We can finish up here. Ma’am.” The sheriff dipped his chin at Nora before heading over to where the paramedics were standing around Frye’s body.

  When McCabe was out of earshot, Nora whispered, “Did Frye fall or was he pushed?”

  Andrews didn’t respond, but Nora saw the muscle in his jaw tense. Whatever the evidence, he believed Kenneth Frye had been pushed. To Andrews, this was a murder scene.

  “Could someone get so drunk that they’d fall off a balcony?” she asked, looking up at the cabin.

  Wishing she could pull the words back into her mouth, she felt a knot of shame form in her throat. How could she, who had such an intimate knowledge of the harmful power of alcohol, voice such a question?

  “Are you okay?” Andrews was studying her with concern.

  She looked into his kind eyes and nodded. “I’m not trying to gather juicy details to spread around town. I’m genuinely worried. It’s been an unsettling week with two deaths combined with newcomers to town. It feels like life is unbalanced—like it was earlier this summer. ”

  Andrews cocked his head. “Newcomers? Don’t tell me that you think there’s a connection between the Virtual Genie folks and this?” He waved his hand at the crime scene.

  The newcomer I was thinking of was Abilene, Nora thought.

  She didn’t share this with Andrews, as she planned to hunt for Abilene online as soon as she got to the bookstore. If she couldn’t find any hits, Nora would mention the dress to Andrews. She had no choice. If Abilene was somehow involved in the events leading to Kenneth Frye’s death, Nora couldn’t stay quiet any longer.

  Andrews was discussing where and when he’d obtain her statement, but she wasn’t listening. She was staring up at the balcony, trying to envision someone pushing Frye from behind.

  Frye was a bear of a man. Even inebriated, it wouldn’t be easy to get him to go over the rail without a forceful shove. Did Abilene possess that kind of strength? Nora didn’t think so.

  If not her, then who?

  “Does that work for you?” Andrews asked.

  Since Nora hadn’t been listening, she simply said, “I have to go. I’m already running late.”

  She walked away from the flashing lights, the men and women in uniform, and Kenneth Frye’s corpse. Questions swarmed her, filling her mind with an incessant buzz. And no matter how fast she moved, Nora couldn’t escape the noise.

  * * *

  Though she didn’t have as much time to shop at the flea market as she would have liked, Nora rode her bike to the renovated barn where it was held anyway. She needed the flea market this morning. She needed the din of the crowd and the aroma of popcorn and candied nuts wafting out of the snack bar. Most of all, she needed the vintage treasures to distract her from the deaths of Amanda and Kenneth Frye.

  Nora had her favorite vendors at the flea market. They were men and women who’d grown accustomed to her scars and no longer noticed them. When they spoke to Nora, they looked her in the eye and bartered with her with polite fierceness.

  Because she couldn’t afford to listen to the history of each item today, Nora informed the vendors that she was running late and got right down to haggling. When she was done, she pedaled away with both her bike basket and a backpack filled with new treasures to display at Miracle Books.

  She loved cleaning, pricing, and arranging new shelf enhancers. The moment she entered the bookstore, she switched on the lights and the radio, and unwrapped her finds. She carefully removed price stickers from a scrimshaw tooth, a Limoges vase decorated with daffodils, a porcelain tobacco jar in the shape of a sea captain, a carved stone snuff bottle, coasters rimmed in silver, and a Japanese rosewood box.

  After brewing coffee and unlocking the front door, Nora was ready to rearrange all the shelf décor. This was a customary Saturday morning activity, but one she had to postpone today because a familiar family entered the shop. It was the young mother with her three children. It hadn’t been long since Nora gave the Time Warp Trio book to the oldest child, the boy. Hoping he’d talk to her about the book, she sat behind the checkout counter and started cleaning the stone snuff bottle.

  The boy waited for his mother and siblings to head to the children’s section before shyly approaching Nora.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” Nora replied and smiled warmly at him.

  The boy shoved his hands deep into his shorts pockets. “I really liked the book you gave me. I was wondering if you had any more.”

  “Yes, I think I do. And I’m glad you liked the first one.” She laced her hands together and asked, “Were the gross parts funny?”

  “They were so funny!” the boy exclaimed. “I read it in two days, but we couldn’t come back until today.”

  Nora led her young reader to Scieszka’s books. “If I’m missing the next book in the series, I can order it—”

  “You’re not! It’s right here!” His face shining with joy, the boy reached for The Not-So-Jolly Roger. He also pulled out The Good, the Bad, and the Goofy.

  “You can’t have two!” his sister immediately protested from the next bookcase over.

  “I’m using my own money,” the boy said. He proudly pulled a few bills from his pocket and showed them to his sister. “I worked in Mrs. Pope’s yard.”

  Her eyes went round. “Not fair!” She turned to her mother, who was in the middle of reading Make Way for Ducklings to her youngest child, and said, “Harry has his own money! Why can’t I work for Mrs. Pope?”

  “Because you’re afraid of worms, Delilah, and Mrs. Pope’s garden has lots of them.”

  At the mention of worms, Delilah grimaced.

  “You can have two picks in a row,” Harry said magnanimously. “It’s my turn, but you can have it.”

  Delilah threw her arms around her brother before hurriedly letting go. Harry blushed, embarrassed by his sister’s gratitude.

  Later, as Nora totaled the family’s purchases, she noticed that Delilah had chosen Aliens Don’t Wear Braces as her pick. This was the very book her brother had wanted the last time they’d been in the shop, but it hadn’t been his turn to choose.

  “Your children have good hearts,” Nora said to their mother. “I wish I had lollipops or something. I’d like to reward them.”

  The woman smiled at Nora. “What you give them is better than candy,” she said. “This bookstore is their magic carpet ride. The stories can take them anywhere they want to go, and every journey makes them better people. This bookstore is a circus, magic show, candy store, and amusement park rolled into one. I should be giving you a lollipop each time we come.” With a laugh, she ushered her children toward the exit.

  The family’s visit reminded Nora of all that was good in life. It also woke the hibernating ache in her heart where she’d tucked away a long-dead dream of being a mother like the woman who’d just left. Nora was surprised by the ache. It was like someone throwing a rock into a well that was supposed to be dry, only to hear a splash of water from the lightless depths below.

  Eager to turn her thoughts elsewhere, Nora poured a cup of coffee and carried her laptop and mug back to the checkout counter. She took a sip of coffee and began an online search for a woman named Abilene Tyler.

  She’d been working for about forty minutes when one of Nora’s regular customers approached the counter.

  “Do you have any book pastries left?” the woman asked. “I’m having friends over for afternoon tea, and I’d love to serve those darling treats, but I didn’t see any on display.”

  “I haven’t gotten my delivery from the Gingerbread House yet,” Nora said. “Do you mind browsing while I call over there and find out what’s going on?”

  “It would be my pleasure,” the woman said and wandered off.

  After many rings, Hester finally answered the phone. Nora hoped she wasn’t interrupting Hester during a midmorning rush
. Saturdays were her busiest days.

  “I’m sorry to bother you.” Nora was contrite from the get-go. She didn’t want Hester to hang up the moment she recognized Nora’s voice. “I have a customer looking to buy a bunch of book pockets. What should I tell her?”

  “If she’s willing to wait a few minutes, Abilene can bring you a box. There’s only apple this morning because that’s all she had time to make. We’re slammed.”

  “Thanks, Hester.”

  Nora could hear people talking in the background and imagined the line in front of Hester’s display cases growing longer and longer by the second.

  “Just be nice to her when she shows up,” Hester said.

  Sensing Hester was about to end the call, Nora said, “Hester! I’ll be nice. I will. And I know you need to go, but I want to ask you one thing. Have you made her a comfort scone?”

  “Not yet,” Hester said tersely.

  “Will you? Will you make her one today if you can?”

  Hester didn’t reply and, after a few seconds, the line went dead.

  Nora wanted Hester to bake one of her customized scones because it might allow her to view Abilene in a different light. She might be able to see beyond the young woman in need of shelter and protection. Nora wanted Hester to work the magic only she could work. Hester had a way of teasing memories from people through her comfort scones. The ingredients Hester chose transported each person back in time to a powerful memory. The scent of oranges, cinnamon, peppermint, hazelnut, blackberries, lemon, coffee, chocolate, and whatever else she added to one of these scones became a means of time travel.

  Nora found it telling that Hester hadn’t made a comfort scone for Abilene. After all, wasn’t comfort the very thing Hester wanted most for her new employee? Even before safety or a means to make a living, Hester longed to give this mysterious girl comfort.

  Nora was placing the snuff bottle on a shelf when Abilene came in through the bookstore’s back entrance. Nora took the large box of pastries from her and thanked her for coming.

  “My customers love these,” she added. “They also love your window display. Do you think you could come up with a theme for autumn? Something really colorful and imaginative?”

  Abilene, who’d been avoiding Nora’s gaze, looked toward the front of the store. “Sure,” she said. Her voice was guarded.

  “If you let me know what materials you need, I’ll buy them. Construction paper or poster board or whatever.”

  Though Abilene nodded, she was already walking away.

  Nora let her go and returned to her laptop. After another forty minutes of scanning social media profiles, obituaries, and small-town newspaper articles, she grew frustrated.

  She was about to abandon the search when a random result caught her eye. It was a map showing the distance between two Texas cities. Tyler and Abilene. Nora felt a slight tingle in the space above her pinkie knuckle.

  Clicking the link, Nora opened the map image. Interstate 20 ran through both cities.

  She stared at the map and considered different theories and possibilities. Even when the sleigh bells banged against the door, she didn’t look away from her screen.

  She kept thinking that Amanda Frye had left her book collection to a former neighbor.

  Nora had assumed that this person was from Miracle Springs, but with the map looming in front of her, she realized how silly this assumption was. Maybe it wasn’t the neighbor who’d moved away, but Amanda.

  Nora had been a librarian long enough to know that it was difficult to hide either current or previous addresses, and it took her less than a minute to find a short list of places Amanda had lived.

  The air above Nora’s knuckle tingled again and she grabbed her right hand with her left. The sensation stopped, but adrenaline surged through her as she stared at the address where Amanda had lived for fifteen years. The residence was on Bluebird Lane in Lubbock, Texas.

  Switching to the map of Texas again, Nora searched for Lubbock. She saw that it was a straight shot down Route 84 to Interstate 20.

  Though Nora couldn’t draw an immediate conclusion from this information, she wondered if Abilene had fled from Lubbock.

  Is Abilene Tyler a fictitious name taken from two Texan cities? she thought. Is there a chance she and Amanda Frye knew each other?

  Nora copied Amanda’s Lubbock address and pasted it into Google’s search box, hoping for hits from real estate sites. She found multiple results that included images.

  The house, a one-story ranch, had been built in the early sixties. An enormous tree dominated the front lawn and the shrubbery beneath the windows was lush and looked freshly trimmed. An American flag flew from the pole mounted to the stucco next to the garage, and flower pots flanked the stairs leading to the door. It was a pretty house—far nicer than the Miracle Springs house where Amanda had spent the rest of her too-short life.

  Nora wanted to see what the neighboring houses on Bluebird Lane looked like, so she plugged the address into Google Maps and was immediately drawn to the house on the left. It was impossible not to be drawn to it because its image had been entirely blurred. It looked like someone had taken an eraser to the photo but failed to obliterate the whole image.

  Nora had heard that people could request a blurring of their residence, especially if the photo threatened their privacy. If a child, a person’s license plate, or anything else that threatened a person’s privacy appeared in the photo, a request to blur was usually granted.

  Nora didn’t believe a child lived in the house. She didn’t believe a car was parked in the driveway. She believed there was another reason for the owner to request a blurring of their house.

  She believed they were hiding.

  Chapter 11

  Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people—people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.

  —E. B. White

  “I don’t want to hear about towns in Texas,” Estella said, taking a seat in her favorite Miracle Books chair. “I want to hear about your date with Jed. And don’t be shy. I’m on a dry spell on the man front, so I need to live vicariously through you.”

  Nora shot her a dirty look. “It’s not like you’ve been abstaining for months. It’s been a few weeks at most.”

  Estella fanned herself with her clutch purse. “Don’t remind me!”

  At that moment, June entered the circle of chairs, and Nora was relieved to see Hester trailing behind her. Hester sat down and immediately began to pick at the piece of duct tape covering a tear in the cushion.

  “Thanks for coming,” Nora said. Though she was including all three of her friends in this remark, she directed it at Hester. “I know things have been a bit strained in our little society. That’s my fault. I’m sorry for being hurtful or insensitive. Especially to you, Hester.”

  Nora waited for Hester to meet her gaze. When she didn’t, Nora went on. “I feel protective of you in the same way you feel protective of Abilene. I feel like your older sister. I’m not smarter or better than you. Just older. I worry about you, Hester. I worry about June and Estella too.” She shrugged. “That’s what happens when you care. Caring and worrying go hand in hand.”

  When Hester still didn’t look at her, Nora glanced between June and Hester, silently asking for help.

  Estella sighed. “I guess you’re not going to give us the dirt on your date. Other than that, you have nothing to be sorry for. I feel the same way you do. And Hester?”

  Hester finally looked up to meet Estella’s eyes.

  “We don’t feel as strongly as you about Abilene,” Estella finished. “How could we? We don’t know her. My question is, do you?”

  Hester’s brow furrowed in anger. “I know she’s a good person. Bad people can’t bake the way Abilene does. She and I don’t just pump out loaves of bread or batches of cookies at the Gingerbread House. We put ourselves into everything we bake. Our food would never taste as sweet and light if there
was evil in us.”

  “Evil?” June was nonplussed. “No one thinks of her like that, honey. But Estella is asking a bona fide question. Do you know Abilene any better than you did the night she showed up in this bookstore?”

  Hester bolted to her feet. “Is this your agenda? Is it gang-up-on-Hester night? Because I’d rather be at home, watching TV, than here, playing this game.”

  June rose to her feet too. Very gently, she said, “We’re looking out for you. It might not feel that way, but we are.” She took hold of Hester’s hand. “Sweetheart, has all of this made you wonder about your daughter? Has she been on your mind a whole lot more since Abilene arrived?”

  Hester crumpled. She dropped into her chair like a stone, hid her face in her hands, and began to sob.

  Nora stared at June in astonishment. How had she known? She was adept at reading people, it was true, but how had she known that Hester had been thinking about the baby she’d given up for adoption nearly two decades ago?

  And then, it hit her.

  Abilene was about the same age as Hester’s daughter. When Hester met Abilene, she saw a lost girl. Maybe she’d seen her lost daughter in Abilene.

  “We can help you find her if you want,” Nora said, kneeling at Hester’s side.

  “I don’t know what I want!” Hester shouted. The pain in her voice swept over the circle of chairs like a storm surge. Nora could almost imagine the liquid in her coffee mug forming whitecaps and Estella’s red hair whipping around her head like a fiery funnel cloud.

  “That’s okay,” June soothed. “Listen to me, honey. You don’t have to deal with these feelings all by yourself. They’re too big. They’re mountain-sized. You don’t have to deal with this on your own. We’re right here. Talk to us.”

  Nora didn’t think Hester would respond to June’s cajoling, but she did. After accepting a wad of tissues from Estella, she wiped her face and took several deep breaths.