by Unknown
Sam released a long breath of resignation. “Emma.”
“Please, Sam.” She knew she was begging, but she couldn’t sell, not this quickly, even if they got an offer they couldn’t refuse.
He paused, his features drawn. The bleak look on his face assured her he didn’t like what he was about to say. “We keep the house on one condition.”
Her pulse leaped. “Anything.”
There was the slightest hesitation. “That you move back here and run the business.”
“Anything—but that.”
“Then no deal. It’s not feasible to keep it. I can’t look after it—I don’t want to look after it. I have enough headaches trying to keep the kids clear of it.”
Hope abandoned her. “That’s not fair. I have a job, a life, in Seattle.”
“One of us would have to oversee the business. You won’t. I can’t. It won’t work, Emma.” His gaze searched her stricken face. “So what are you going to do? It’s up to you.”
It was always up to her. There was no one to help her, no one to give her advice. Only ultimatums. She couldn’t sell the house, but she couldn’t stay here either. She wasn’t going to mention Janice until a last alternative. Sam seemed to sense that she wasn’t up to a fight or a decision.
“Keep Ned out of the basement for fifteen minutes. That should give me enough time to look around.” He kicked the towel away from the bottom of the door and opened it. Emma held her breath, half expecting a hoard of furry things to fall out onto the floor, but nothing happened. It was light enough down there now that he wouldn’t need the single bulb that hung in the center of the room with a pull string. Sam stepped onto the stairway and closed the door.
Emma filled a glass with cool water and drank, and then headed toward the steps leading upstairs, wondering how she was going to keep Ned away from the basement.
Suddenly the basement door burst open and Sam rocketed out, slamming it behind him.
The commotion brought Ned to the stair landing. “Everything all right down there?” he called.
“Okay,” Emma sang back. “Just the wind.”
“Spiders,” Sam hissed, grabbing Emma’s shoulders.
“You saw them?”
“Get out of the house. Get Ned out without letting him know why. I’m calling Pete Lansky to get him over here right now.” He shoved her toward the front door.
She stumbled over the clean house slippers she’d put on. “What do I say to Ned?”
“Think of something.” He turned her to face him, his expression grim. “I don’t know how they got down there, but there’s a lot of them. Don’t come back into this house until Pete gets here.”
“Don’t worry,” she managed, her gaze straying toward the second floor where Ned surely was about finished measuring.
“Get rid of Ned, and … and go somewhere. Take the dog.”
Sam strode out the front door, and she could hear gravel spurt from beneath the squad car’s tires as he sped down the lane. Emma shoved the towel back beneath the basement door, shivering. Exactly how did he expect her to get Ned out of the house before Sam returned with the exterminator?
Elizabeth Suitor’s eyes widened when she saw Emma dragging Ned Piece into the store by one arm, talking a mile a minute.
“Have you read the latest Patterson?”
“Not really.” Ned tried to pull from Emma’s grasp. “I don’t read much, honest.” His gaze darted toward the door as if looking for a way of escape. “I really just want to list your house and be on my way.”
Elizabeth left her teacup. “You’re a bit early,” she commented to Emma.
“Morning, Elizabeth. I brought Ned.” Emma smiled gamely, still holding to the man’s arm.
“Yes, I see you did. What can I do for you, Ned?”
“Nothing. Nothing.” His gaze darted around the shop. “I was measuring Emma’s house. She and Sam are listing it. All of a sudden, Sam leaves, tearing off in the squad car, lights flashing, and Emma decides I need to get an early start on Christmas shopping. Books, she said.” Ned gave Elizabeth one of those I-don’t-have-any-idea-what’s-going-on kind of looks.
Emma shrugged off her coat and hung it on a coatrack. “Coffee, Ned?”
“No thanks. I need to finish that measuring and get back to the office—”
“Nonsense,” Emma said.
Elizabeth stood up, smiling. “Might as well drink a cup, Ned. Since you’re here.”
Emma dragged the realtor to a shelf. “Do you like Grisham? Robin Cook?”
“No, no,” Ned mumbled, taking the cup Elizabeth handed him. “My wife’s the reader in the family. I read the sports page and comic strips in the newspaper. That’s about it.”
Ignoring Ned’s protests, Emma steered him up and down each of the aisles, pointing out books on a wide variety of subjects, chatting with him as if he’d chosen to come in. Not satisfied with the progress, Emma introduced Ned to the candle section of the shop, handing him a vanilla-scented taper.
Ned sneezed and pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and blew his nose. “Allergies,” he mumbled around the snow-white cloth. “Can I appraise the house now—it’s getting close to my lunch time.”
“Sorry about those allergies. Terrible time of year for … molds.” She maneuvered him toward the candy section and the colorful jack-o’-lantern suckers standing among fake tombstones, which were inscribed with REST IN PEACE and DYING TO GET HERE.
Ned shook his head. “Wife’s on a diet.”
By the time Emma released Ned, with a promise to let him finish measuring at some unnamed future date, he had bought, among other books, a devotional by Charles Stanley on people relationships and a comic book.
An unmarked van pulled up and parked in front of the Mansi house. Sam’s cruiser pulled in behind. Doors slammed. Equipment rolled out of the back of the van and men rushed up the cracked sidewalk. Sam and Pete Lansky disappeared inside the house, slamming the warped door behind them.
Pete peered down the basement stairs, shaking his head. Furry blackish brown spiders crawled back and forth across the floor, attempting to climb the stacks of boxes or find a foothold on the bottom step.
“Those aren’t from around here,” Pete observed.
“Didn’t think so,” Sam returned. “How did they get here?”
Pete unrolled a coil of tubing. “Beats me. Seems to me they’d have to be put here.”
Sam’s lips pursed. “Someone would have had to purposely put them here?”
“Can’t think of any other way they’d be here and in such a large number. Ray keeps one in a fish tank over at the nursing home, but Lully wouldn’t have let him bring them there. Never seen anything like this.”
“This is the kind of stuff horror movies are made of,” Sam observed.
Pete’s gaze swept the basement, lingering in the number of corners and angles. “I’m gonna have to fog the whole area. Might have to do it twice to get them all.”
Sam nodded, adjusting his Stetson. “This is one for the books.”
Pete nodded. “Tell Emma we’d better keep this to ourselves. Halloween being close and all, the kids would have a heyday with the mystery.”
Sam nodded in agreement. Halloween at the Mansi house was always a headache. This would make it a catastrophe, and Emma didn’t need that.
“I’ll get on this,” Pete said.
“I appreciate it.”
Sam left the house and got in the squad car, sitting there for a minute before starting it. Put there. Pete’s observation rang in his ears as he drove down the lane. Where would the Crouch boys get that amount of spiders? In town he saw Ned Piece hurrying down the sidewalk toward his office as if hounds were on his heels, an Elizabeth’s Corner bag flopping against his leg.
Emma and Elizabeth looked up from where they were sitting on a settee at the front of the shop when Sam stepped in.
“I saw Ned running for his life. What did you say to him?” Emma grinned and Elizabeth laughed out l
oud.
“Sam, you should have seen it,” Elizabeth said. “Emma dragged that man in here and wouldn’t let him go. He said he didn’t need a key chain or a framed edition of the Lord’s Prayer written with tiny seashells from the Sea of Galilee, but Emma wouldn’t listen to him. He kept saying, ‘I just want to list your house,’ over and over like some kind of litany. Honey,” Elizabeth said to Emma, “it’s only a spider—every old house has them.”
“Not like these, Elizabeth. Spiders.” Emma emphasized the plural.
Sam frowned. “But he bought something. I saw the bag.”
“A devotional,” Emma said. “I think he may have thought he needed one on dealing with Emma— and an older addition of a Spider Man comic.”
Sam chuckled. “I’ll talk to him later. Tell him we’re not ready to list the house, that it needs work.” He winked at Emma.
“Yes,” Emma agreed, glad for the reprieve. “It needs a little work.”
Sam straightened the brim of his hat. “Besides, maybe we should have thought about the repairs before we brought Ned in on this.”
“Thanks,” Emma said softly, her gaze meeting his. “For everything.”
He smiled. “You’re welcome. We have to stay out of the house until late afternoon. Any problem with that?”
“No,” Emma smiled. “I’ll keep Elizabeth company.” She wasn’t going back into the house until the spiders were gone anyway.
Chapter Eight
When Emma finally got around to going home it was already dark. She’d helped Elizabeth unpack new stock, and then accompanied the store owner to Brisco’s for a bite to eat after the establishment closed. Sam’s cruiser was parked in front of the house when she arrived.
She found him in the basement sweeping up spiders. Shuddering, she stood on the top step and watched him methodically whisk mounds of dead furry stuff into a dustpan. Dozens of the creepy crawlers still littered the concrete floor, tiny feet poking straight up in the air.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she called. “I can sweep up my own spiders.”
He paused, extending her the broom.
She backtracked. “But if you insist.” She grinned lamely. “Thank you. I’ve been dreading the chore all afternoon.”
“Just thank you? No, ‘Oh my, Sam, I love you! I was dreading the thought of coming down here with all those scaly things running around. I will eternally and forever be your slave—’”
“Don’t get carried away. I appreciate it, okay?”
He shrugged and winked at her. “Okay. But I get a cup of coffee later.”
“Fair enough.” Her heart sang. “Maybe I’ll throw in a Halloween cookie.”
“Maybe you’ll throw in a sandwich, too. I haven’t eaten.”
She smiled. “Maybe. Like Elizabeth says: ‘It’s only spiders.’“ Gratitude swept Emma. Sam didn’t have to sweep up the spiders. As cool as she’d been to him lately, he had every right to make her do the unpleasant chore.
“I’ll be investigating the incident,” Sam told her. “It’s only a prank, but I’m not laughing.”
“Neither am I.”
Emma turned from the basement door and went into the kitchen to rummage around for a box of cookie dough. “After all,” she explained to no one in particular, “it’s the least I can do.”
“No doubt about it.” The glazier slid the new glass pane into place the next morning and held it with his knee while he puttied it in place. “Kids and Halloween are a real headache in this town.” Wiping his putty knife on his jeans, he jotted a number in a small spiral notebook. Emma peered over his shoulder, trying to read the entry.
“Fifty-two,” he said.
“Fifty-two?”
“Fifty-two times I’ve replaced this particular pane.”
Emma stepped back. “That explains where some of Lully’s money went.” She kicked a missed dead spider under a box before the glazier spotted it.
“Slows a little toward fall. Kids go back to school, and that keeps them busy for a month or two. Then Halloween rolls around and they’re back to their old tricks.” Dwayne Potter wiped his hands on a putty-stained cloth. “Lully took most of the pranks in stride, other than the broken window. Rarely got upset until the afternoon Randy Baggers dug up a grave.”
He shook his head, his gaze distant with the memory. “It was a hot mid-August. Rained just enough to make the sidewalks steam; the town hadn’t seen a good soaker in months. Gardens and lawns fried in the ninety-plus temperatures. School started the first week of September and the kids needed a last fling. Milt Stars, editor of the Serenity Local, posted a warning on the front page that Sunday morning: ‘Authorities Warn Cemetery Vandalism Must Stop.’
“Well, that reprimand should have been a little stronger and should have included the Mansi house, but it didn’t. From what I heard, Lully stepped out on the porch about sunup, carrying a small garden tray with a trowel and hand rake. Her little dog was with her. They started down the steps and that dog—” Dwayne pointed at Gismo, who cocked his head to one side as if to say, “Who, me?”—“that dog froze in his tracks, his hair standin’ straight up. He commenced to growlin’ and Lully, well, Lully was cautious. She peered over the porch rail and right there—” he pointed at the floor—“right there in her eternal slumber was the body of Luella Ludwig, former Serenity librarian until her death fifty-three years earlier. Bones mostly, but her pink hat and gloves were still in pretty good shape.
“Well,” he continued, “folks heard Lully’s screams two blocks away. Somebody called Sam right off. He came on the run. Folks said Lully was nearly prostrate, her tray of gardening stuff scattered across the lawn. Sam called a town meeting and promised that the culprit would be caught and dealt with severely. ‘This whole prank thing has gotten out of hand,’ he said.”
The glazier resettled his baseball cap on his balding head and went on. “It wasn’t a week before Sam arrested that Crouch boy and two of his friends. The boys spent six months in a juvenile detention center, and when they got back home, they had to mow the cemetery for the next three summers straight. Yessir, Saturday afternoons, rain or shine, them boys did odd jobs for Lully and for Percy Ludwig, Luella’s husband. Percy, you know, was too old to get around by then.”
Dwayne started putting his tools back in his box. “Didn’t stop the pranks though.” The glazier straightened, dragging a handkerchief out of his back pocket. “Mercy. You got her plenty warm in here.”
Emma shrugged. She’d opened every window in the house a crack and still the heat was insufferable. “I haven’t gotten the hang of that old woodstove yet.”
Dwayne wiped his hands. “Well, that should do ’er.”
Emma paid for the repair and walked him out to his truck. It was nine thirty when he rattled off down the street, so she got her coat and walked to the bookstore. Hard maples sported their colors of blazing reds and gold. Multicolored oaks lined the sun-drenched street. Halloween was right around the corner. She dreaded the holiday this year.
She drew in crisp mountain air. It was one of those mornings when she felt radiantly alive. Had Lully and Sam experienced the same euphoria? She knew her sister loved to work outside in the early morning. Surely the glorious air influenced her habit. And Sam must have loved his town because he’d chosen to live here when he could have gone anywhere else on earth.
As she entered the bookstore, she spotted Elizabeth crouched on the floor behind a stack of new novels, sorting titles. The shop owner peered over tortoiseshell rims when the bell over the door jingled.
“Emma!” Grunting, Elizabeth got to her feet, right hand pressed to the small of her back. “Glad you’re here. These old knees feel like rusty doorknobs against this wood floor.”
Emma stripped out of her coat and hung it on a peg in the back room. Returning to the front of the store, she smiled and took a stack of books from Elizabeth’s hands. Glancing at the authors’ names, she shelved the titles, setting aside the paperback best-sellers for the front r
ack.
“Everything settle down over at your place?” Elizabeth asked.
“Everything’s fine. Sam even stopped by and swept up the dead spiders.”
The store owner winked at her. “Mighty nice of the sheriff, don’t you think? Most folks don’t get that kind of personalized treatment.”
Emma grinned but didn’t answer.
Elizabeth poured a cup of coffee and shook a dab of flavored creamer into the steaming brew. “I imagine you’ll be relieved to get rid of that old place.” She sat down at her desk and leafed through a Christmas catalog.
Emma stopped shelving books for a moment. “It’s funny. I thought so, too. I used to think I hated that place, resented Lully. I couldn’t wait to leave Serenity and get on my own. And I did. I thought everything would be fine when I left, but it wasn’t. Not exactly.” She studied the stack of books. “I was away, but I took a lot of it with me. That was scary. Not everything was as simple as I thought it would be. I still haven’t found everything I was looking for.”
Elizabeth sipped her coffee. “Nobody ever does.”
“Don’t they? Maybe not. We think, if only I had this or that. If I could lose twenty pounds or change my hair color or grow a prettier perennial. Or if my eyes were green or brown instead of blue and if my forehead was narrow instead of wide—”
Emma paused. “I thought if I could leave Serenity and forget my childhood, then everything would be wonderful. Life doesn’t work that way, does it? We’re always us, no matter where we are or what the circumstances are.” She picked up a Mary Higgins Clark novel. “Maybe that’s not so bad.”
“I’ve never thought so. Life at its worst is still good when you think about it. All the blessings we’re given mixed in with the bother.” Elizabeth smiled at Emma over the rim of her cup. “Maybe God intends for us to be content with who we are. You think? In my sixty-seven years I have yet to find a better way.” She turned a page in the catalog and studied it. “Sam was by earlier.”
“Oh?”