The Whispered Word Read online

  “I think book people do that too,” Estella said. “Isn’t that the real reason people go to book groups? Sure, they want to talk about the book. But they’re looking for so much more than that. They want to be a part of a community of like-minded people—of people who will accept them as they are. Book people will do that for each other.”

  June grunted as a way of acknowledging Estella before directing a warning finger at Nora. “The cops need to bust Amanda’s boy now, before he jets back to Chicago with a suitcase stuffed with books. Once the Fruits of Labor Festival starts, the lawmen and law ladies will be too busy breaking up fistfights and tossing people in the drunk tank to give you the time of day.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll call as soon as I’ve had my first cup of coffee,” Nora promised.

  Estella tapped June’s shoulder. “Can you back out of this driveway now? I feel like a million eyes are watching us.”

  “That’s because every spider has eight,” June said, putting the car in reverse. She knew Estella had an aversion to bugs and enjoyed teasing her about them.

  Estella glared at June’s headrest. “At times, I really do not like you, June Dixon.”

  * * *

  After Nora said good night to her friends, she popped back inside Miracle Books to clean up the ticket agent’s booth. While she tidied, she tried to think about how she’d reply to Jed’s question. She needed to send her response in the morning or he might come to the conclusion that she didn’t want to go to the festival with him.

  And though she wasn’t sure if pursuing a relationship with Jedediah Craig was a good idea, she was going to do it anyway. Whenever she ran into him or heard his voice, common sense and logic fled and other parts of her took over. Parts that wanted to laugh too loud. Parts that wanted to get lost in a long kiss in the rain. Parts that remembered the pleasure of a suppertime conversation. Of movie nights and weekend hikes.

  She wanted all of these things. She wanted new experiences too. And she wanted to have them with Jed.

  As she tried to come up with a creative and memorable way to say yes to Jed, she spied Estella’s tomato platter next to the espresso machine. Nora decided to wash it and leave it under the checkout register until Estella could pick it up.

  Nora turned on the tap water and picked up the platter. The white porcelain was marked by a pinkish stain. The same stain June had seen on Amanda’s counter.

  Instantly, Nora was transported back to that day. She could see every detail of Amanda’s kitchen as if she weren’t standing at her sink in Miracle Books, but at Amanda’s sink. She also remembered the view through the window. She saw the garden, the overgrown grass, and the housedresses hanging from the clothesline.

  At the time, Nora hadn’t known if they were nightgowns or housedresses, but she now knew that they were housedresses. She was sure of this fact because she’d seen another dress just like those hanging from Amanda Frye’s clothesline. Only this dress had been hanging off the malnourished frame of a mysterious young woman.

  Nora stared at the steam rising from the sink, She felt hypnotized. Unable to move. She stood in a state of total confusion as a name echoed over and over inside her head.

  Abilene. Abilene. Abilene.

  Chapter 7

  A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it.

  —Edward P. Morgan

  Nora had aspired to a more creative response to Jed’s beautiful breakfast, but with her mind divided between Amanda’s books and Abilene’s dress, she had to make do. So she rode to the grocery store at six thirty, filled her bike basket with fresh fruit, and pedaled to Jed’s house.

  Tiptoeing up to his front porch with the bags of fruit in hand, Nora fashioned the letter Y out of bananas and the letter E from limes. She made a curvy S using oranges. Nora had deliberately chosen those three fruits because she could use them to create end-of-summer mocktails. Having recently fallen off the wagon after years of sobriety, Nora distrusted her relationship with alcohol. For now, she decided it was best not to have it at all.

  After finishing her produce-themed reply without being spotted by Jed or his neighbors, she headed to the Gingerbread House.

  “You’re too early,” Hester protested when she answered Nora’s knock on the back door. “The book pockets are still in the oven.”

  “That’s okay,” Nora said. “Can I come in and wait?”

  Hester studied Nora for a moment before stepping aside. “Sure. Have you had coffee?”

  “No, but I’d kill for a cup,” Nora said. “I was at the grocery store at half past six this morning.”

  Hester raised a brow. “If you skipped coffee, it must have been an emergency.”

  “It was for a good cause, which I’ll tell you about in a minute. But first—”

  “Coffee,” said Hester with a smile.

  Hester served Nora a mug covered with pastel macaron designs. Nora poured half-and-half into her coffee and watched the white curlicues blend into the dark brown liquid.

  Abilene, who’d been arranging cinnamon twists in the display cases in the front room, came into the kitchen and froze when she saw Nora.

  Nora raised her cup in greeting. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” Abilene replied and began kneading a ball of dough resting on the flour-dusted worktable.

  In the warm light of the bakery’s kitchen, Abilene looked markedly different from the pale, skinny, and frightened girl who’d cowered in the stacks of Miracle Books not too long ago. In a week’s time, her sickly look had vanished. Her cheeks were rosier. Her hair was shinier. And though she was still painfully thin, she wasn’t gaunt. After seven days in Miracle Springs, she was blooming like a late summer flower.

  If Nora was startled by how quickly Abilene had adapted to her new life, she was even more shocked by how the rest of the women in the Secret, Book, and Scone Society had accepted her into the fold.

  Hester reemerged from the walk-in carrying a pound of butter and a carton of eggs. Catching sight of Nora’s expression, she asked, “So tell me what’s going on. Is this about last night?”

  When Nora didn’t answer right away, Hester put the food on her butcher block and retied her cherry-print apron. She then repeatedly smoothed the apron, despite its lack of wrinkles. This behavior was a sign of anxiety.

  Though Nora disliked being the source of that anxiety, she had to proceed. “Can Abilene take a quick break? I need to ask her something.”

  Hester was clearly confused but gave her assent with a nod.

  As for Abilene, she kept her eyes on the dough. “We can talk while I work,” she said.

  “No, we can’t.” Nora’s tone was gentle but firm. “I want us to look at each other while we talk.”

  A timer began beeping and Hester moved swiftly to the oven to turn it off. Grabbing an oven mitt, she pulled out a tray of book pockets and moved the tray to a cooling rack.

  Like the air escaping from the oven, tension was slowly filling the room with heat. It was a prickly, uncomfortable kind of heat, and spots the color of ripe raspberries appeared on Hester’s cheeks.

  Abilene wiped her flour-covered hands on a dish towel and shot a glance at the exit. For a moment, it looked like she might make a run for it. But she pulled her gaze back to Nora and perched on the stool across from her.

  “What I have to ask you is very simple,” Nora said, staring fixedly at Abilene. “Did you know Amanda Frye?”

  Abilene’s expression was completely inscrutable. It was as if she’d gone to another place inside her mind.

  “No,” she said.

  Nora decided to rephrase her question. “Okay. Have you met Amanda Frye? Have you ever been to her house?”

  “I don’t know why you’re asking me these things.”

  Hester opened her mouth to protest, but Nora raised a hand to stop her. She sensed deceit in Abilene. Deceit by omission. She could feel its presence. It was like an animal. A low, slinking rodent. A creature
that lived in the shadows, surviving off scraps.

  “Answer the question, please.” Nora’s eyes never left Abilene’s. Keeping her tone conversational, she went on. “It’s just one question. Have you ever been to Amanda Frye’s house?”

  Abilene turned to Hester. “I don’t understand—”

  “Don’t do that,” Nora interrupted. She was losing patience. “Don’t try to deflect. Don’t you realize that your unwillingness to answer this question makes me wonder what else you’re hiding? Considering Amanda died recently, it’s alarming that you can’t give a straight answer when asked if you’ve ever been to her house.”

  Folding her arms across her chest and glaring like a defiant child, Abilene spat out the words, “I’ve never been to her house. May I go back to work now?”

  Hester couldn’t contain herself any longer. “Okay, Nora, she gave you an answer. Are you going to tell me what this is about? If the work is going to come to a dead stop in my bakery, I have a right to know why.”

  Looking at her friend, Nora was suddenly overcome with doubt. What if Abilene was telling the truth? What if the dress she’d hidden in the dumpster hadn’t belonged to Amanda Frye?

  But Nora’s instincts were screaming that Abilene was putting on an act. She’d probably become accustomed to acting, to putting on different faces as a means of self-preservation. But Nora suspected there was more to it than that.

  “I wish I could explain everything, but I can’t.” she said to Hester. “Only Abilene can tell us where she got the dress she was wearing the night we found her in Miracle Books.”

  The defiance in Abilene’s eyes winked out. In its stead, Nora saw fear. Quick as a lightning flash, Abilene looked away, hiding the fear. But it was too late. Nora had seen it.

  So had Hester. She rushed to put an arm around Abilene. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “You’re safe. It’s okay.”

  Abilene didn’t respond. She stared down at her lap and pulled herself inward as if trying to make herself smaller.

  The weighted silence in the kitchen was abruptly disturbed by the beeping of the second oven’s timer.

  “That’s the rest of your book pockets.” Hester cast an accusatory glance at Nora. “I’ll let them cool for a minute before boxing them. After that, you should probably go.”

  Having been given her marching orders, Nora waited outside until Hester handed over the box of warm pastries. “I have no idea what’s gotten into you, Nora, or why you’re doing this to Abilene. We’re supposed to be helping her, not harassing her. We’ve stood where she’s standing, remember? In that isolated, scary, horrible place? The cliff’s edge?

  Nora was about to share her theory about the dress when a loud crash came from inside the kitchen.

  “Sorry!” Abilene called out. And then, “Nothing’s broken!”

  Hester was already turning toward her protégé, so Nora let her go.

  As soon as she entered the bookstore, she dropped the pastries in the ticket agent’s booth and called Deputy Andrews.

  “I’ve had two visitors asking about Amanda Frye’s books in two days,” she said when Andrews got on the line. “Don’t you think that’s a little odd? And yes, you were one of the two.”

  There was a pause as Andrews processed what Nora had said. “Who was the second?”

  “Kenneth Frye. He wanted me to appraise a book he’d stolen from his mother’s house.”

  “Stolen? That’s—”

  Nora didn’t let him finish. “Would you take me to Amanda’s? I can prove the theft. I still have a good hour before I have to open the shop.”

  “Why do I feel like I’m being manipulated, Ms. Pennington?” Andrews asked without ire.

  Nora shoved Abilene’s dress into her handbag and said, “You’re not. I promise that I’m trying to help. I don’t even need to handle Amanda’s books. If you open to the copyright page, I can compare two of the books in her home with the book Mr. Frye showed me. That way, I can confirm that the book he had is from Amanda’s collection.”

  Andrews made a contemplative noise. “All right, Ms. Pennington. I have my own reasons for revisiting the premises, so you might as well tag along. I’ll be in front of Miracle Books in five minutes.”

  Andrews was a man of his word. Nora had time to arrange the book pockets on a platter, cover them in plastic wrap, and print out a description of The Two Towers Kenneth Frye had shown her, by the time the young deputy pulled up to the curb.

  “Every able-bodied law enforcement officer in the county is gearing up for this weekend’s festival except for me. I’m going to look at books.” Deputy Andrews smiled at Nora as she slipped into the passenger seat.

  “Trust me. You didn’t draw the short stick. Time spent in the company of books is time well spent. Besides, I think Amanda’s collection is worth a closer look.” Nora told him the estimated worth of her Fellowship of the Ring trilogy.

  Andrews whistled. “Didn’t she have, like, a hundred books in her collection?”

  “Whatever the number, they don’t belong to her son.”

  “He’s contesting the will,” Andrews said with a frown. “He let us know that he hired a lawyer and told us to stay out of his mother’s house. But the house doesn’t belong to him and the sheriff hasn’t closed Mrs. Frye’s case, which is why we’re going in.”

  Andrews drove through town. As the shopping and business district fell away and the sun-dappled woods, rolling hills, and verdant fields of the countryside spread out all around, Nora thought of how Tolkien’s hobbits would have loved this part of North Carolina. His dwarves and elves would have felt at home too. Most of this region was still pristine land—land unblemished by interstates, strip malls, and cookie-cutter housing developments. It was this untainted beauty that drew the hikers, artists, tourists, and those searching for healing, to Miracle Springs.

  Recalling another series in Amanda Frye’s collection, Nora reflected on Philip Pullman’s characters. They wouldn’t care for Miracle Springs and would likely try to escape a town supporting a local government and multiple places of worship, just as Lyra Silvertongue had escaped in The Golden Compass.

  From the recesses of her memory, Nora recalled Pullman’s description of Lyra. She was thin with dirty-blond hair and pale blue eyes.

  Like Abilene.

  Nora hugged her handbag and glanced at Andrews. “Is the sheriff viewing Amanda’s death as a suicide? I know it was written up in the paper as an accidental death, but I assume tests have been run since that piece was printed. I saw the bottle of painkillers in Amanda’s kitchen. Did Amanda swallow those pills before wandering outside to drown in that horrible pond? Because that seems pretty far-fetched to me.”

  Andrews set his jaw. “I can’t discuss that with you, Ms. Pennington.”

  Since Nora wanted to maintain a positive relationship with the young deputy, she didn’t press him.

  At Amanda’s house, Nora stood to the side as Andrews unlocked the door. She felt a twinge of doubt. The feeling wasn’t unlike the doubt she’d experienced interrogating Abilene at the bakery. What if Kenneth had already returned The Two Towers? If he had, Nora would lose her credibility with Andrews. She’d also lose her chance to learn more about the woman they knew as Abilene Tyler.

  Andrews held the door open for Nora. She entered the living room and spotted the space between the Tolkien books. She sighed in relief and Andrews stared at her in confusion.

  “I was doubting myself,” she explained. “It’s a little messed up to be relieved when you confirm another person’s crime, but the gap between books proves that I’m not crazy.”

  Taking the printout out of her bag, she handed it to Andrews before squatting next to the other Tolkien novels.

  “Please don’t touch anything,” he warned.

  Pointing at the other two books in the series, she said, “If you could compare the copyright information on the printout to what’s on the copyright pages of each of these volumes, I think we’ll be able to conclude th
at Kenneth has the missing book from this series in his possession.”

  Andrews gestured toward the driveway. “I’ll just grab my kit from the car.”

  Nora stood up. “Um, is it okay if I use the bathroom? I had a really big cup of coffee this morning . . .”

  “Sure, sure,” Andrews said and hurried outside

  Nora hustled back to Amanda’s bedroom. She used a tissue to open the pocket door of Amanda’s closet and reached for a dress, triggering a burst of fresh scent from a sachet with a frayed purple ribbon. Nora, who’d never been fond of the smell of lavender, wrinkled her nose and retreated from the closet, dress in hand. She carried it over to the window to examine the label.

  After replacing the dress exactly where she’d found it, Nora looked at three more dresses. Amanda wore a size fourteen and had a preference for cotton blends. She also liked pastel floral patterns. All her housedresses were made by the same brand, a company called Casual Her.

  Nora heard Andrews moving around in the living room, so she slid the closet door shut and tiptoed into the bathroom. She ran the sink water for several seconds while pulling out the dress she’d stuffed into her handbag. Like the others in Amanda’s closet, it was a size fourteen and had been made by Casual Her.

  Nora stared at the dress. Though she had no idea what to make of it, she felt suddenly repelled by it. She didn’t want to touch it.

  She stood in Amanda’s bathroom, furious with Abilene for lying to her, and gazed at the dead woman’s angel soap dish until she’d calmed down enough to rejoin Andrews.

  When she reentered the living room, he showed her the copyright page of The Return of the King. “Is this from the same series as the book Mr. Frye asked you to appraise?”

  After inspecting the page, Nora said, “Yes.”

  Andrews tried to suppress his excitement, but failed. Though he kept his voice under control, his eyes were shining. “Is anything else missing?”