The Whispered Word Read online

  “The game is on,” Jed said and ordered a sample of white lightning as well as summer orange moonshine.

  The pair moved to the tasting area. A dozen high-top tables were covered with vinyl cloths, and the table they chose was sticky with spots of dried liquor.

  Nora speared her cherry with a toothpick and held it aloft. “As Lord Byron once said, ‘What’s drinking? A mere pause from thinking!’”

  Jed saluted her with his tiny sample cup, which appeared to hold a thimbleful of liquor, and downed its contents.

  Nora popped the moonshine-soaked cherry into her mouth and studied Jed. He closed one eye and grimaced. He looked like an angry pirate.

  To keep the cherry from going down her throat whole, she pushed it toward her cheek with her tongue and bit down. She’d expected something sweet. Something akin to a maraschino cherry, but with a little bite. The bite on this cherry was big. Very big. Nora winced, chewed again, and quickly swallowed.

  Jed blew raspberries with his lips and murmured, “That was false advertising. The menu described summer orange as tasting like an orange candy. I figured it would be like Fanta on the front end and an amaretto-in-your-coffee kind of warmth on the back end.” He held up his hands. “I didn’t taste any candy. It was all atomic orange from the get-go. My mouth still doesn’t know what hit it.”

  Nora pointed at his second sample cup and arched her brows. “You’re going to lose all trace of sweet with the pure moonshine. Are you sure you want to go there?”

  Jed shrugged. “My mouth is partially numb already. What’s the harm in another shot?”

  How many times have people asked that question before doing something really stupid? Nora thought and picked up her cup.

  She sniffed the contents and was surprised by the pleasant apple aroma. She could also detect a subtle hint of cinnamon and, if she wasn’t going crazy, a faint buttery scent. It was like walking into a room where someone had just taken an apple pie from the oven.

  How bad can it be when it smells this good?

  She was about to drink when Jed held up his hand to stop her.

  “Another toast,” he said. “I like your toasts.”

  Nora tried to think of a second literary toast, but all she could come up with was a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald. It didn’t exactly inspire joviality, but she said it anyway. “‘Here’s to alcohol, the rose colored glasses of life.’”

  They touched rims and Nora knocked back her drink. She tasted apple, cinnamon, and buttery piecrust. But for only a second. The enjoyable tastes were overshadowed by heat. Too much heat. It felt like she’d swallowed a shooting star. Through watering eyes, she could see that Jed was having a similar reaction to his sample.

  They both started chortling with laughter.

  “I feel like I just emasculated myself,” Jed said after regaining his composure. “I think I should try that again.”

  Nora gestured at the line. “Go right ahead. I’m done with my moonshine-tasting experience, so I’ll just hang out on that bench by the hard cider booth until you’re armed with your second round.”

  She sat on the bench, feeling the apple pie moonshine continue to spread warmth through her upper body. There were no lights shining on her area, which allowed her to watch people from the shadows. It was nice to simply sit, undetected, and look at people. She enjoyed seeing their clothes, their gestures, their expressions—everything. It was a unique kind of voyeurism, but a harmless one.

  She was watching a gaggle of teenage girls walk toward the food truck row when she heard a man shouting from somewhere behind her bench. If the voice hadn’t sounded familiar, she wouldn’t have bothered to turn around. Listening to an eruption of hostility and anger, Nora knew that the voice belonged to Kenneth Frye. She couldn’t see the person he was yelling at, however, because a thick tree trunk blocked her line of sight.

  “I already told you—the deal’s off! You have nothing to offer me. You failed to do what you promised and we’re done!” He jabbed his pointer finger toward the unfortunate recipient of his wrath. The movement made him sway unsteadily, but he managed to stay on his feet. “And just so you know—when I find whatever it is that you’ve been pretending not to be looking for—I’m keeping it. It’s mine. Now piss off!”

  A beer bottle sailed through the air and crashed somewhere in the darkness.

  Nora stiffened. A sober Kenneth Frye was bad enough. She couldn’t imagine having to face a drunk Kenneth Frye. Alcohol and rage were dangerous bedfellows. No one knew that more acutely than Nora.

  Still, she wanted to know who Frye had been yelling at. To do this, she needed to move so that the tree was no longer obstructing her view.

  Before she could stand up, a voice said, “I hope this seat isn’t taken.”

  Nora glanced up to find Jed gazing down at her. Even in the relative darkness, his eyes sparkled. “This sample will never be as good as the time I could have spent with you, but I’m determined to restore my manly rep. Are you ready for my poker face?”

  Jed downed the shot. Other than a telltale clenching of his jaw, he gave no sign that the moonshine had set his mouth or throat on fire.

  “Your macho-ness is restored,” Nora said. “You’re almost on par with Ernest Hemingway.”

  “Don’t mock me,” Jed scolded solemnly. “That guy was a stud. He ran with bulls, hunted big game, drove an ambulance in the Great War, and survived a plane crash.”

  Nora was impressed. “You’re a Hemingway fan?”

  “I wrote a paper about him in high school. I picked Hemingway because he wrote the shortest book on the reading list. The Old Man and the Sea. I hated the book, but I liked the author. The guy was good at so many things”

  “Except relationships,” Nora said and turned to see if Frye was still there.

  He wasn’t.

  Nora stared into the shadows, hoping the other person would step into the light. After a moment, it was clear that no one was there.

  Jed, who hadn’t noticed Nora’s lapse of attention, kept talking about Hemingway. “I remember him saying that writing was a lonely life. I thought that was strange because he’d been married so many times. So many women wanted to be with him, but he wasn’t happy with any of them for long.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice carried a hint of sadness. “Do you think some people are meant to be alone?”

  The question brought Amanda Frye to the forefront of Nora’s mind. She pictured Amanda’s humble house with its aged appliances and sagging furniture. She saw the row of dresses in her closet. Her outdated but tidy kitchen. Her wonderful books. And then, though she tried not to, Nora saw Amanda suspended in a pool of green muck. She remembered how the flies had gathered around the dead woman’s bloated body.

  “Sorry.” Jed waved his hands as if erasing his previous question. “No heavy stuff. Tonight’s about fun. You pick the next event.” He passed the map to Nora.

  She chose to visit the local beekeeper’s booth. Though she and Jed tasted several varieties of honey and were treated to a lively cooking demonstration, the festival’s spell had somehow been broken. And Nora had no idea how to rekindle the magic.

  After Jed had seen her home, Nora stood on her deck and stared at the high, distant stars.

  “Leave it to Hemingway to put a damper on the first date I’ve had in years,” she complained to the pinpricks of light.

  As expected, they had no solace for her.

  Chapter 10

  He could feel how fast he was falling, and he knew what was waiting for him down there.

  —George R. R. Martin

  Even though it was a Saturday, Nora set her alarm for six thirty because she wanted to hike through the woods before hitting the flea market.

  As usual, she brewed coffee while getting dressed and drank a cup before heading outside. She also grabbed her trusty walking stick. It would be many weeks before the snakes would slither into their burrows or hollow logs for the winter, and Nora didn’t want to step on a copperhe
ad or timber rattler.

  Nora’s walking stick was one of her favorite possessions. It was also one of the few items she’d purchased from the flea market that she hadn’t immediately repriced to sell in Miracle Books.

  Her walking stick was special because of its literary theme. The artist who’d carved the stick was not only well-read, but also incredibly skilled. He’d created a vertical scene showing a fox running through a field of flowers and butterflies. The fox ran from the bottom of the stick to the top, where he was forever captured in the act of leaping over a bubbly stream.

  When people took a close look at Nora’s walking stick, they tended to see the fox, the flowers, and the trees. What they usually failed to spot were the words etched into the tree trunks. The words spelled Now here is my secret, a quote, albeit an incomplete one, from The Little Prince.

  Nora shared the quote in its entirety to anyone expressing curiosity about her stick. The line was simply too important not to share.

  “‘And now here is my secret,’” she’d say, “‘a very simple secret: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.’”

  Her walking stick became a topic of conversation only if she paused to enjoy the scenic view from one of the lookouts along the Appalachian Trail and another hiker climbed up on the cluster of massive boulders. Hikers were a friendly lot and many tended to travel with sticks of their own. Although Nora wasn’t big on talking during a hike, she liked to hear the stories behind other people’s sticks. These exchanges were usually brief and interesting, which was how Nora thought all conversations should be.

  She didn’t plan on stopping at the lookout today, however. She had too much to do before opening the shop. By the time she crossed the railroad tracks and entered the woods, it was just shy of seven o’clock.

  The forest was filled with nature’s white noise. Nora liked these sounds. She found their predictability comforting. As she moved, she was surrounded by the drone of insects, squirrel chatter, and leaf rustle. There had been little rainfall in August and the leaves were starting to dry out and separate from their branches. They drifted down from the treetops like brown and gold confetti and, every so often, Nora would reach out and catch one.

  Nora made noise too. She snapped twigs underfoot and excited the nagging of squirrels. The squirrels, who lined up on the limbs and stared down at Nora, reminded her of a group of old ladies who’d booked their wash-and-set appointments together so they could gossip for an hour or two. Estella was fond of these women, despite the fact that they whispered about her behind her back.

  When Nora had asked Estella how she could possibly enjoy the company of such women, she’d said, “It’s just what their type does. They’re not malicious, but bored. I’m glad I’m not related to any of them, though. The things they say about their family members are the worst. Sometimes, having your only relative incarcerated is a good thing. Daddy only knows what I want him to know.”

  Estella’s comment reminded Nora of all she hadn’t shared with Deputy Andrews last night. She didn’t regret her choice, but omitting what she’d omitted meant she’d have to investigate Abilene on her own.

  Nora walked on until she came to a fork in the trail. As she always did at this spot, she checked her watch. She could continue hiking and spend less time at the flea market, or take the loop that wound behind the Tree House Cabins and back into town. If she took the loop, she’d have plenty of time to shop for shelf enhancers and still open Miracle Books by ten.

  She decided to take the shorter route and made it all the way to the edge of the Tree House Cabins property when she realized that she hadn’t run into anyone on the trail. This was surprising, especially since the lodge offered daily sunrise hikes, complete with a mountaintop yoga or meditation session.

  After taking a downhill path from the main trail and stepping into a clearing near the first section of tree house cabins, Nora quickly understood why her hike had been solitary.

  Something had happened in one of the smaller cabins, which were grouped together in the center of the property. Through the trees, Nora saw three patrol cars with flashing light bars, and a parked ambulance. Though its lights were also flashing, its siren was silent. The presence of emergency vehicles inspired dread, but the absence of a siren made it worse. It was as if the lights were repeatedly casting a message into the trees that said, too late, too late, too late.

  Nora had no choice but to walk toward the scene. There was only one path through the rental property. One path and a narrow dirt road. Eventually, the two converged, which put Nora two cabins away from where the vehicles were parked.

  As she proceeded, she saw Sheriff McCabe descend the last two stairs of a tree house cabin and duck under a length of yellow crime-scene tape secured to a pair of tree trunks. Nora didn’t have a line of sight to the ground below the cabin yet, but the moment she did, her pace slowed so dramatically that the sheriff immediately spotted her.

  Sheriff McCabe raised his arm, signaling for Nora to stop. She complied, too shocked to do anything else. Her gaze was drawn to the body on the ground below the cabin. She nearly tripped over a root as her mind took in the impossible angles of the dead man’s right leg and neck. He didn’t look real. He looked like a crash-test dummy jettisoned from a car.

  “Ms. Pennington?” The sheriff came right up to her, effectively blocking her view of the body. He folded his arms across his chest and gave her a disapproving stare. “Why are you here?”

  Nora pointed behind her shoulder, hoping one of the deputies had told the new sheriff about the walking path. “I was hiking. This is how I go home.” She gestured toward the body. Though she’d caught only a brief glimpse, she thought she recognized the large bearded man. “Is that Kenneth Frye?”

  The sheriff’s look of disapproval morphed into a deep frown. “Do you know him?”

  “I don’t know him, but we’ve met,” Nora said. “He came to my bookstore looking for a free appraisal.”

  Something changed in the sheriff’s face. “Deputy Andrews told me about that meeting. Have you seen Mr. Frye since then?”

  Nora had to force herself to concentrate on the sheriff’s question. She was still trying to absorb the fact that the bent body on the ground was Kenneth Frye. Questions were tripping over each other in her head and it was hard to focus on just one.

  “Ms. Pennington?” Sheriff McCabe prodded.

  “I saw him last night,” she said, finally gaining command of her thoughts. “At the festival. He was standing behind the hard cider booth—way back behind it. And he was yelling at someone. He sounded drunk and he seemed unsteady on his feet. I couldn’t see the other person because a tree blocked my view. I wish I’d looked when I had the chance.”

  Her remorse wasn’t feigned. If she could identify the recipient of Frye’s wrath, she might be able to help the sheriff understand why his body was splayed like a discarded doll at the base of a tree house cabin.

  “Could this cabin have been rented by the person he was arguing with?” Nora asked, her glance moving upward to the cabin, which was built on a platform thirty feet off the ground.

  The sheriff shook his head. “Kenneth Frye rented it.”

  This caught Nora off guard. Andrews had told her about the sheriff’s visit to Frye’s hotel, and none of the locals referred to the Tree House Cabins as a hotel. Of all the places to stay around Miracle Springs, the most famous properties were the lodge and the Tree House Cabins. There were a few quaint B and Bs and chain hotels too, but there was only one place where people could stay in a log cabin perched in the tree canopy.

  Kenneth had rented a single-occupancy cabin. These were the least expensive cabins on the property because they had the smallest square footage, but all the cabins included a balcony furnished with two chairs and a side table.

  Nora pointed at the balcony of Frye’s cabin. “Did he fall from there?”

  “Looks like it,” Sheriff McCabe said and turned arou
nd to respond to a question from one of his deputies. When he turned, Nora saw Andrews jog down the cabin’s wooden stairs. The sheriff raised his arm and hailed Andrews over.

  “Ms. Pennington.” Andrews touched his hat in greeting. He looked a little peaked and Nora wondered if he’d been first on the scene.

  “Would you show Ms. Pennington an image of the book we found in Mr. Frye’s cabin?” the sheriff asked his deputy.

  Andrews produced his phone and scrolled through dozens of photos before passing the device to Nora. Taking the phone, she immediately recognized the image.

  “It’s the other missing book. Catherine Cookson’s The Mallen Litter.” She pointed at the cabin. “Is the Tolkien novel up there too? The Two Towers?”

  Andrews nodded.

  “Why?” Nora murmured to herself. To the sheriff and Andrews, she said, “I didn’t catch most of what Frye said last night. There was too much competing noise. But it sounded like he was firing someone. He said that the deal was off and that the other person hadn’t kept their promise. The last thing I heard didn’t make much sense.”

  “Tell us anyway,” the sheriff said.

  Nora didn’t blame McCabe for his impatience. Behind him, Kenneth Frye’s broken body silently demanded attention. Kenneth Frye. He’d come to Miracle Springs because his mother had suddenly died. Now, he was dead too. His death was also sudden. And unexpected. McCabe, the interim sheriff who’d been hired to rebuild the department following a scandal, had to investigate two suspicious deaths within days of accepting the job.

  “Frye told the other person that if he found what he or she had been looking for, he was going to keep it,” Nora said. “I don’t think Frye had any idea what it was.”

  “Could it be another book?” Andrews asked the sheriff.

  Nora fixed her gaze on McCabe. “There’s something special about Amanda Frye’s book collection. I don’t know what it is because I haven’t examined all the books, but there must be a reason Kenneth tried so hard to stop them from being given to the person named in his mother’s will.”