by Eryn Scott
Asher’s concern for Lois was palpable. “Thanks for working so hard to find her.” He smiled even though I was sure he didn’t feel happy.
We sat in silence for a few beats. I even found a piece in the puzzle. Once I clicked it into the correct spot, I looked back up at Asher.
He wore a contemplative expression. “So we still have no idea what killed Murray.” His eyes slid to the right and then up to the ceiling as he thought.
I didn’t care that he was obviously attempting to pull me into talking about the case again or that it meant he didn’t believe Geoff to be the killer. Now that I thought about it, it did seem too easy to be true.
Setting down the puzzle piece I’d been holding, I said, “I keep going back to what Murray said right before he died, after taking a gulp of that matcha. He said it tasted like grass. I know there are some tasteless poisons out there, but doesn’t it make sense that a plant-based poison would taste the most like tea? It could’ve been made into its own tea and added to the matcha so there would be less of a taste difference.”
“Or it could’ve been a tincture.” Asher rubbed his hand over his jawline.
“A what?” I asked.
“A tincture. It’s like a concentrated syrup of a botanical specimen. We used them back in my day to cure ailments.”
My ears perked at the mention of the word botanical. Mom had said she’d learned that Abigail, Asher’s fiancée, had studied botany. I wondered if this was knowledge he’d acquired or something he’d learned through her.
Thoughts of Abigail brought a renewed bout of frustration at the fact that he’d not shared his engagement with me. We told each other everything. He knew all about my insecurities from my disease, my fight with my grandmother, and my complicated relationship with my mother. In turn, he’d shared with me about his father’s expectations for him to take over the family fishing business even though he had no interest in it and how he felt it like a constant weight. I knew how he’d hoped going to war would help take away the sting of him choosing to go to college and major in English.
And yet Asher had mentioned nothing of Abigail.
“Did you study botany in college?” I asked, testing to see if he would talk about her when specifically given an opening.
Asher’s face went slack for a moment as he surveyed me. “You found out about Abigail, didn’t you?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about her before?” I asked.
Asher sighed. “It was complicated.”
Exhaling a grunt, I gestured to myself. “Right, and I’m the queen of simplicity here. Dad dies in a car accident when I’m eight. I almost die too, but I live only to find out I have childhood leukemia. My mom and my grandma fight about how I should go through treatment for said disease and end up not talking for the rest of my grandma’s life.” I tipped my head. “So simple.”
Asher chuckled, but I could tell he remained uptight. He was obviously very worried about telling me about her. Mom’s discovery that Abigail had been the only one not to question his desertion status came to mind. Had it been a loveless engagement? Did they still have arranged marriages back in the early 1900s?
“Abigail and I … were confusing,” Asher said quietly.
I smiled encouragingly. “I also have a lot of experience with confusing.”
He fidgeted in his seat. “I’m not sure why I didn’t tell you about her before. I think after some time I blocked out that part of my life, decided it didn’t happen.”
The comments Asher made about women being deceitful when Carl had first come over to implicate Tabby in Murray’s murder came to mind. Leaning forward, I wished I had a mug of tea while I listened to this story. But there was also no way I was going to leave while he was telling it, so I was stuck without.
Asher sighed. “Abigail and I met the year I graduated from high school. We hit it off. As someone who felt like I never fit with a town full of fishermen, she was the person I could talk to about literature and dreams that reached further than Desperation Cliff.”
He stood and began pacing.
“But whereas I was set to attend a university, her family was too poor to send her to study botany like she wanted. And so I had to leave her behind. We got engaged before I left. When I was away, I would write her, and she would write me back. I would send her books, articles, anything I could find on botany. And at first, she soaked it up.” His face darkened in a frown. “She took longer and longer to respond to my letters, sometimes not even writing back at all.”
My heart hurt; the emotions on his face were still so raw almost a century later.
“When I graduated and moved back home, I discovered she no longer loved me. She’d changed. She didn’t want to stay up and have lengthy discussions. She’d fallen in love with another man while I was away. A man named Sully.” Even though Asher said the name like he would any other, a pain flashed behind his eyes. “I told her we could break off the engagement, but my family was prosperous and hers was not, neither was Sully’s. Her father forbade her from breaking our engagement.”
An exhale lifted his chest and let it settle.
“Before we could wed, they called me up to the army. I didn’t have the heart to move up the wedding date, to force her to marry me when I would leave again. I should’ve done so. She would’ve been protected, would’ve inherited this house.” He glanced around the room. “As it was, she—”
A knock at the front door interrupted Asher. I chewed on my bottom lip in frustration. I wanted to know what had become of Abigail. But the person on the other side of the door could also be the chief with news or questions about the case.
Holding up one finger, I went to see who it was.
A man on the older side of middle aged stood outside. He looked like he hadn’t slept for the last year, and his eyes shifted warily. He ran a hand over his balding head, the wiry, graying hairs still left sprang up as he did.
“Hello, can I help you?” I asked, propping the door open with my foot. “The teahouse is closed right now.”
He cleared his throat. “I’m not here for tea. My name is Geoff Byer.”
16
Red flags waved in my mind like a group of kites in a storm. Alarm bells rang in my ears, real enough that I wondered if he heard them too.
Geoff! Geoff the arsonist, Geoff the killer was standing at my doorstep.
I sucked in a quick breath. Asher came up behind me.
“Rosie, I need you to take two deep breaths,” Asher told me, his face a mask of worry. In my peripheral vision, he tensed, ready to jump toward Geoff.
My mind calculated whether or not I could close the door and lock it faster than Geoff could stick a hand or foot out to stop me. But movement on the walkway behind Geoff stopped me.
Carl walked up, grumbling something inaudible before calling out, “Okay, I’m here. I’m here.”
I blinked in confusion, looking at Geoff. He dropped his gaze. “I wanted to talk to you, but I didn’t want to scare you, so I asked Carl to come with me.”
Carl gave me a curt nod as if checking that I was okay.
Glancing between the two men, I took a moment before saying, “Uh … okay.”
I stepped back, moving aside so they could come in. Asher’s manner, while still serious and vigilant, calmed at Carl’s presence. He stayed close to me as I closed the door, and we walked into the shop.
We sat around one of the larger tables near the tea bar. Asher settled into the empty chair once the living people took seats. As we sat there in silence, all attention on Geoff—who was concentrating heavily on his fingers—I recognized something I didn’t expect.
Sadness. Had Geoff come to apologize?
At the moment that word came to my mind, Geoff met my eyes. His were full of tears.
“I didn’t burn your shed. I need you to know that.” His voice shook, but I couldn’t tell if it was from pent-up anger or tears threatening to fall.
“What?” I asked, the word intertwined with a brea
th.
“I don’t have a lot of time. Chief released me yesterday because he didn’t have enough evidence for the judge to make his charge stick. It’s only a matter of time before one of these people in town says they saw me murder Murray, and I’ll be back in prison.”
“But it wasn’t you?” I asked, wondering if this was a weird dream. “The flame was green, though, and everyone said you were mad at my grandma.”
“I was mad, back at the time it happened. Heck, if I’d gotten out within five years, even ten, I might’ve tried to get retribution.” Geoff ran a hand over his head again. “But I’ve learned that the only thing I can do is forgive and move on.”
“Forgive?” Asher asked.
“Forgive yourself?” I repeated his question, adding my own clarification. “I heard the fire was only meant to be the boat. You didn’t know Stephen would be on there.”
Geoff shook his head. “I didn’t start that fire either. I had nothing to do with Stephen Joliffe’s death.” Shock must’ve been written across my face as bold as a Sharpie, because he held up a hand. “Had I been setting other fires for years? Yes. Did I use Borax to turn them green? Yes. My mother always said I should’ve been one of those people who makes and sets off fireworks instead of a fisherman. Did I give someone else the perfect way to frame me? Absolutely.”
Carl looked like he was dealing with a stubborn pine needle in his shoe. His face flattened into a frown.
Geoff kept going. “I didn’t kill Stephen. I didn’t set that fire that night. I didn’t kill Murray, and I didn’t burn down your shed.” Anger seemed to be rising in him. He took a deep breath. “Years inside bars taught me to take responsibility for my part. I was a dumb kid. I was mad and impulsive. Murray and I definitely took our feud too far a few times. But I would’ve never hurt him or anyone else.” He slammed his hand down on the table.
Carl tensed, his own hand shooting out to grab Geoff’s arm. He gave him a warning scowl. When I looked away from them, I noticed Asher poised to attack Geoff as well.
This was all too much. Geoff was a decade or so younger than Carl. While Carl was a gritty old seafaring man, Geoff could probably take him. Had he brought him with as an illusion of safety, knowing he could overtake him and get to me?
Geoff’s muscles relaxed. “I’m sorry. Like I said, there’s still some anger in here.” He pounded on his chest. “Twenty years in an iron and concrete box will do that to you.”
And suddenly, I saw myself in the man in front of me. I remembered back to the sick girl I once was. The woman who’d grown from that girl, the one who was terrified that people could never see past who I used to be. Geoff may not have been sick, but he was caught in the same cycle.
I reached forward, placing my hand on his. “I believe you.”
The words felt strange but also right. Our hands touching did not feel right, though, and I pulled mine back as quickly as seemed polite. The relief in his face, how it softened and lit up at the same time, made my heart swell.
“The problem is,” I said warily, hating to remove the hopeful expression from his face, “the chief seems positive you did this. All of this.”
Geoff pushed back his shoulders. “I know. Apparently, they’ve got a witness that said he was in jail with me. When they find that guy, I’m not sure what he’ll say. He’s not a good person.”
“So you were in prison with him? The one with tattoos?”
“Yes, we were released on the same day. We were talking, and I told him about my hometown, how I wasn’t sure if they wanted me back, but that I wanted to try. Other than that, I’d never talked to him before during my time there. He was into bad stuff, running guns down to Central America, I think.”
“So he followed you here?” I tapped my fingers on the table, glancing over at Asher.
He looked like his mind worked through what this could mean. This wasn’t a tourist town. It made little sense that this random guy would come kill Murray either.
“And they can’t find him?” I asked.
Geoff sighed. “They have pictures of us leaving the prison together, talking. The chief shoved them in my face.”
I glanced at Carl for a moment before continuing. “Geoff, Carl and I are under the impression there’s someone else with a motive to kill Murray. And if you say your arson calling card has been used against you before, it’s possible that person could’ve used it on my shed to point the finger at you.”
He sat up a little straighter.
A question that had been sitting in the back of my mind finally crept forward.
“Before we go forward, I need to know something. Why me?” I asked.
Geoff stared at me blankly.
“Why’d you come to me? You know the people of this town better than I do. Why come to me instead of one of them?”
He dipped his head, showing he understood my concern. “That was the problem. They all think they know me. None of them can get past the person I used to be to see who I’ve become. This is exactly why I went to prison. They knew me as an angry, immature kid who set fires when he was upset. They couldn’t see anything different. You’re the only one I can trust to be impartial.” He exhaled. “Well, that, and all they’ve been able to talk about is how the new girl caught a killer a few months ago.”
My spine straightened. “That’s what they’re saying about me?”
He nodded.
Giddiness flooded me at the news that my identifiers, for once, had nothing to do with my childhood illness. The reminder brought on a bout of sympathy for Geoff. If anyone knew about people's inability to let go of the past, to let someone grow beyond who they used to be, it was me. I understand that having a disease differed from being an angry teen prone to arson, but the sentiment was the same.
“What else can you tell me about this guy from prison?” I asked, leaning forward.
Geoff and Carl left thirty minutes later. I had a list of facts about Mike Smith, the tattooed man from prison. Other than the fact that Geoff had heard Mike was in for arms dealing, the rest of the list came from information he’d learned in the few minutes they’d chatted as they left prison.
When Geoff had told him he was going home to Pebble Cove, Mike had shared that his family had a house on the Californian coast, though most of his family was still in Panama, where he’d been born. And when Geoff had shared his plans to take up fishing again, Mike had also mentioned his family’s many boats and their shared passion for fishing.
Other than that, Mike was as mysterious as the disappearance of Lois Butler. Another mystery I still needed to solve. I thought through what we’d learned. Asher came up beside me.
“Where should we start?” he asked, sounding as defeated as I felt. “Want me to go ask the other ghosts if they’ll keep an eye out for Mike? Finding him is the first step to clearing Geoff’s name, I’d say.”
“I agree.”
Before he left, Asher stopped and eyed me. “And what are you going to do?” he asked.
I smiled, forming a plan. “I’ll do more research on our dear Tabitha.”
Asher frowned. “I thought the chief threatened you to leave her out of this. Isn’t he going to be mad if he finds out you questioned her again?”
I inclined my head. “He did, but I don’t need to talk to her, so they’ll both be none the wiser.” Seeing that Asher still didn’t understand what I was talking about, I gestured to the computer.
“When I visited, Tabitha showed me pictures of her travels. She also told me she runs a travel blog.”
I typed in Tabitha Joliffe and then travel blog to the search engine and waited. A few results showed up, but the first one looked like her personal blog.
“I’m going to search through this and see if this gives me any insight into who she is and what she’s doing back in town.”
Asher disappeared off to do his own investigation, and I leaned closer to my computer as I clicked on Tabitha’s blog. The moment the page loaded, my mouth opened in disbelief.
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Tabitha traveled like she was part of the royal family. I replayed our conversation when I’d visited her at Murray’s house. She’d said she’d run out of money. And while she could’ve burned through money with all the champagne drinking and hot-stone massages, this kind of lavish travel seemed more fitting for someone who had millions in the bank and wasn’t worried about it ever running dry.
Which meant that maybe Tabitha’s newfound lack of money had more to do with being cut off from this money in some way: a job lost, a relationship over. Either way, it made sense that she would run back home.
I just wondered who had followed her.
17
I was scrolling through Tabitha’s third blog post this year about “the magic of waterfalls” and how their tumbling beauty related to her journey finding herself, when Asher returned.
He settled into his favorite armchair in the library. I had my laptop set up at the small desk in the corner. I turned in my seat to see him better. The way he frowned and his rigid shoulders didn’t bode well about his conversation with the other ghosts.
“They’ll keep an eye out for anyone who’s not a local and who has tattoos.” Asher stuffed his hands into his pockets. “That’s about the only positive thing I can report.”
I sucked in a breath through my teeth. “What’s the negative report?”
“Lois is still missing. Max looked everywhere. Tim’s stationed himself outside Doc’s house and is peering in the windows constantly, but he hasn’t seen a whisper of evidence she’s back inside. Max is checking the rest of the places he thinks she might go.” Asher shook his head. “Nothing.”
My heart fell while worry pulsed at the edges of my vision. It wasn’t as if I’d forgotten Lois; her absence was definitely on my mind. But I’d foolishly hoped a sudden solution to the mystery surrounding her flickering would present itself as I learned more about this case.
“How’d you fare with Tabitha’s travel blog?” Asher asked, gesturing to the screen in front of me.