by S. E. Babin
"What about my inner peace?" my mom whined.
A laugh escaped me. "I'm not sure yoga is your thing, mom, but it was nice that you gave it a try."
She harrumphed. "Maybe I'll go back just to spite the woman." Her voice lowered. "She's French," she whispered.
"Umm ... okay?" I shook my head as I got off the couch and padded into the kitchen.
"We don't have anyone French here!" She said it like being French was scandalous. I thought it was glamorous, and I made a note to stop by her studio to meet her. Maybe I'd even sign up for a class if I could squeeze it in.
"Diversity is the spice of life, Mom." I grabbed a glass of water and chugged it as she continued to talk.
"Well, she is awfully pretty," she said. "It won't be no time before some handsome man comes in and snatches her right up."
"Even though she's mean?" I said, unable to keep the grin out of my voice.
She had the grace to laugh. "Dakota Adair! You shouldn't make fun of your mother. What I wish would happen is for some eligible gentleman to come snatch you up. I'm not getting any younger, you know."
I rolled my eyes. "I'm not interested in anyone coming to snatch me up, Mom. I've got more than enough to keep me busy." I was serious. My biological clock was not ticking, and I wasn't sure if it ever would. Sure, it would be nice to settle down with someone. It did get kind of lonely in this little house. But I didn't immediately want to jump into kids. I wasn't even sure I wanted kids. When they came into the bookstore, I found them to be slightly terrifying with their sticky hands and their crazy grins.
"I'm sure you do, darling, but eventually I'd love to have some grandkids."
I changed the subject before it could escalate. At least once a month, Mom would drop the baby bomb. I didn't have the heart to tell her grandkids were not on the horizon for the foreseeable future.
"I wanted to tell you something before you heard it from anyone else." I began.
Mom quieted down and listened. She didn't interrupt and when I finished, I heard her soft exhalation over the phone. "Oh, honey, that's terrible. Do you want me to come over?"
Tears filled my eyes, but I kept the emotion out of my voice. "I'd love it if you came over for dinner tonight. I was thinking about making pasta. Does that sound good?"
She tsked. "Of course, it does. If you come over here, I can cook."
I shook my head even though she couldn't hear it. "I'd like to stay in if you don't mind. I have all the stuff to make it here."
"Okay, honey. I'll bring a loaf of bread and some wine, then. Should we say 7?"
"That sounds good, Mom. I'll see you then."
We disconnected the line and I let my shoulders fall. I was thirty-three years old, but I knew when to admit I needed my mom. I rummaged through my pantry and pulled out everything I needed to make a balsamic cream pasta. It was one of my favorite recipes, but I'd ended up making it better once I started tweaking it. I loved to cook, but it wasn't always fun cooking for one. I needed to figure out how to pare my recipes down, so I didn't end up with so many leftovers, but since Mom was coming tonight, I knew I'd have just enough left over to take to work tomorrow.
Smiling, I got out the cutting board and set it on top of the counter. From the fridge, I pulled out a shallot, a clove of garlic, and a pack of baby bella mushrooms. Once I'd finished cutting everything up, I heated a little avocado oil and a pat of butter up and started sautéing everything. A quick glance at my cell phone had me speeding up the pace a little bit. I didn't want Mom to have to wait too long when she came over. It was already six, so I was lucky I'd caught her before she ate. It seemed like the older you get, the earlier you ate and went to bed. If Mom was coming over at seven, I needed to be shoving food at her as soon as she came in so she wouldn't fall asleep at the table.
I snickered to myself as I stirred the veggies. Mom was wonderful, but she was cantankerous about her bedtime.
* * *
The doorbell rang right at seven. I took my apron off, fluffed my hair, and answered the door. Mom stood there holding a bottle of wine and an enormous baguette. I took both from her and she swept in before I even had the chance to open the door all the way.
"It smells wonderful in here! Is that the balsamic cream sauce?" She walked into the kitchen and leaned over the pan to inhale it. "I swear. That dish is the best, isn't it?"
"It really is. I had no idea how delicious vinegar was until I finally started to cook with it." I messed with the cork until I got it out of the bottle, making a mental note to buy a new wine opener as soon as I paid myself. The one I had was ancient and given to me by Mom whenever she'd gone through all of Dad's old things. I didn't drink a lot of wine, but I did drink it often enough to get a better opener.
Mom took the bread from me and started to slice it. In only a few minutes, we had bowls filled to the brim with pasta and grilled chicken and a glass full of wine.
I let her take the first bite because I liked cooking for my mom, and I knew she appreciated it. After all, she'd spent half her life cooking for me.
Everly Adair was still a beautiful woman, though the grief of my father's death had etched small lines into the corners of her eyes and mouth. She would be fifty-seven this year, though she looked to be in her mid-forties. Her hair was still dark, just like mine and her eyes still a clear glass blue. Her figure was trim and kept that way through a dogged devotion to exercise. She claimed she liked to eat and if you liked to eat, you had to like moving your body because it was the only way you wouldn't get sluggish. Mom practiced what she preached, though I didn't know if yoga would be in her repertoire anymore after the run-in with the French lady.
Mom sighed as she chewed the first bite. "You might be a better cook than me, honey," she said after she swallowed.
"Doubtful," I said, even as pink colored my cheeks. "I learned from the best."
We sat there for over an hour, drinking wine and chatting, and I realized that my mom was wonderful. I mean, I knew she was, but I'd neglected our relationship because I'd gotten caught up with the bookstore. I vowed right then and there to spend more time with her. After all, I liked my mom as a person. She was cool to hang around with and not much rattled her.
After we finished and poured one more glass of wine, Mom stood and went into the living room. "I love this carpet, Dakota. I didn't think the dark gray would work, but you've proven me wrong. It looks really good with the wall color." She peered at the walls. "What is it again?"
"It's pewter. The color changes depending on the lighting." Sometimes it looked taupe and other times it looked gray. It was one of my favorite neutral colors. The rest of the rooms in the house had gotten more color, but I wanted to keep this one an open palette so I could redecorate whenever I wanted to.
"Irma keeps bugging me to put some color on the walls," she murmured. Irma was her long-time best friend, a feisty woman with a tendency to say whatever she was thinking, no matter how inappropriate it was. She made me laugh all the time, but that was probably because I didn't see her a lot. She could really annoy Mom, but my mother loved her and so she put up with her. That wasn't to say Mom didn't drive Irma crazy too. I could see how those two would butt heads, but they worked through any issues like that and managed to still wreak havoc on Silverwood Hollow on any given day. "I don't know how I feel about some of those colors she's picking out, though." Mom made a face of distaste. "Green is so hard to gauge. Some of those just look like I splashed baby puke on the walls."
A snort escaped me. "It's your house, Mom. Make it whatever color you want."
She sat on the couch and kicked her shoes off. "That's the thing. I don't know what color I want. I just want it to be pretty. Magically." She waved her hand. "Like in five seconds. Boom. I didn't even have to break a sweat."
"If you pick out your colors, I can help you. If it's on a weekend," I added. I was too tired and grumpy to paint during the week, although I would if she absolutely needed it. "I can come over and help you choose. Just get
some paint samples that you think you might like so we can narrow it down."
"I'll do that," she said. Her eyes took on a faraway look. "I was chatting with Irma about Marcy. We both vaguely knew her." Mom rolled her eyes. "Carrie was the one we knew more simply because she was kind of a nasty character, you know. Her mom used to come into the old beauty salon. You know the one on the outskirts of town?"
"Wanda's?" I asked.
Mom snapped her fingers. "That's the one. She was the sweetest little thing. And she had those two little girls. Carrie was always so bossy."
I lowered the wine glass I was holding. "You knew them for that long?"
She nodded. "Oh yes. It was a terrible tragedy what happened to them."
My brow furrowed as I waited for her to continue, but Mom just took a sip of wine. "Mom!"
Mom blinked. "What, Dakota? My goodness. Sometimes you have terrible manners."
I snorted. "You can't just say something like that and not elaborate."
Her brow furrowed. "You don't know?" She clucked her tongue. "I thought everyone knew about that."
"No, Mom. I don't pay attention to much that goes on in this town." I was fibbing a little bit about that. People who came into Tattered Pages loved to gossip, so I heard almost everything going on. Most of it I forgot soon afterward now, especially since it didn't affect me.
"Their parents were killed in a car accident a few towns over. On their way to a play, I think." She shook her head, her dark hair moving against her face. "The girls were left without parents and went to stay with an aunt down the road. Terrible business that."
Curiosity made me sit up straighter. "What did their parents do?"
Mom chewed on her bottom lip. "I think the mom was a writer or something. The father was a professor down at the local college. English Lit if I'm not mistaken."
That would explain Marcy's love of reading. "She came into the shop right before she died and had me track down an Alice in Wonderland book," I said. "Marcy wasn't overly concerned about the value of it, but Carrie was. She wanted Marcy to get the most expensive collector's edition on the market."
Mom sipped her wine. She was a reader, but she wasn't as avid about it as I was. Once a week, she'd pop into the store and grab something new. She'd just joined a book club, but so far it seemed like they drank more wine than they read.
"That doesn't surprise me," Mom said. "Carrie always acted like the world owed her. Her aunt would pop by the salon sometimes with them after their mom passed away. If anything, Marcy got sweeter and Carrie got worse. That's a shame. I wonder what Carrie is going to do without her sister."
I shrugged. "They seemed joined at the hip when they were in my store."
Mom nodded her head. "They've been that way for years." She set down her wineglass and gathered her purse. "I gotta go, honey. I have a trainer coming over at 6:30 in the morning."
At my shocked look, she grinned. "I gotta keep in shape and it won't be with yoga, so I hired a guy named Dan to come rouse me out of bed in the mornings and run me around the park for a while. You should come."
At my look of horror, laughter burbled from her. "It would do you good, Dakota. You're wasting away surrounded by books when your lungs are screaming for fresh air."
"That sounds like I'd rather die," I said and stood to hug her. "Besides, I like my books."
She gathered me in her arms like she used to do when I was a kid, almost suffocating me with the fresh scent of her perfume. "People are better," she said. "And stranger than fiction sometimes." She glanced over to the kitchen. "Need any help with the dishes?" she asked.
I shook my head. "No thanks. Be careful on the way home, Mom. Text me when you get there."
She opened the door and stepped into the hallway. "I will. Try to set aside the events of today. Tomorrow is a brand new one." A grin lit her face as she turned to go.
Mom and her peppy sayings. I sighed and pushed the door shut. Getting to bed at a decent hour sounded like an amazing idea. I had a busy day tomorrow.
5
The shop phone rang at five past nine. Distracted, I leaned over and reached for it, my attention still on balancing everything I was holding. If I was out of the shop, I had the phone set up to divert to my cell unless it was normal after business stuff. Most things could wait until the next day, but with everything going on, I was setting the call forwarding up whenever I left the store. At least until all of this was over.
"Dakota," I barked, annoyed that someone would be calling me when I'd just gotten into the shop.
"Miss Adair?" a rumbly, familiar voice said.
"Yes," I said, trying to balance my cup of coffee while bending my head to chat on the phone.
"This is Detective Cavanaugh. How are you this morning?"
I almost dropped my drink. Why in the world was he calling me? "I'm ... well," I drawled, confusion dripping from my words.
A snort escaped him as if he knew what I was thinking. "Listen, I'm sorry to bother you so early in the morning, but I was wondering if you'd be able to drop by Marcy's house today. There's something I want you to look at, and my understanding is that you're the only one in town qualified to do it."
"Do what?" I asked, finally setting my coffee down. "I don't want to see anything disturbing," I said. "I had quite enough of that yesterday."
Cavanaugh chuckled. "Nothing weird, I assure you. After we went through the house, we found an enormous number of books scattered in a few of the rooms. One of my co-workers is a big reader and was astounded at some of the books the deceased had. She suggested we call in someone who might help us fully understand the value of what she had. If we have a roundabout number, it would help us in the investigation. The house is still closed off, but I can get you in if you have some time. Maybe around one today?" he concluded brightly.
I wasn't interested in going back to Marcy's house, but I'd also never been asked to assist on an investigation before and my curiosity was killing me.
"One,” I agreed. “I can't be gone for more than an hour. Harper isn't here today so I have to get back to the shop."
"Great," Cavanaugh said, and I could hear the relief in his voice. "I'll swing by and get you."
Frowning, I looked at the clock across the room. I had a few hours. "I'd rather drive myself if you don't mind. It's a small town, and I'm not really interested in answering questions about why I got into a police car."
His amused chuckle rumbled through the line. "Detectives don't drive cruisers, but I understand. I thought it might be easier for you than having your car show up at an active crime scene."
I blinked. He was right. "Err ... Fine," I said and sighed. "As long as your car doesn't look like a police car."
"It's a dark sedan, Miss Adair. I might be a detective, but I'm not a wizard. I'll keep the lights and sirens off."
"Ha. Funny," I said.
"I'll see you at one," Cavanaugh said, amusement in his voice. He hung up, and I laid my cell down, shaking my head.
This was certainly odd. Exactly how many books did this woman have to call in someone like me? After I graduated from college, I'd gone on to receive certification in rare books, simply because I had a passion for them. I'd kept up with it and it had come in handy once I opened my own shop. I was one of the few people in the entire state who was qualified, but I usually only got called in when something was worth over a few grand.
Frowning, I picked my coffee back up and took a sip. I knew Marcy had some books, but I didn't realize she had quite that many. Maybe that was what the funny smell was when I was in her house. Sometimes older books had a musty smell to them, especially if they weren't properly cared for.
Harper had taken the day off to run errands, so it was just me here. The shop opened up at ten and I rarely shut it down for anything other than lunch. Firing up my laptop, I posted a quick message on our Facebook page that I'd be gone for about an hour today, then scrawled out a quick note and taped it on the door.
People would still
get annoyed by my absence because that was just the nature of the beast, but at least I'd done my part to keep people informed.
Carrying my cup, I did a quick walk around the store, taking the time to tuck books back in that might have been pulled out too far. If I saw anything amiss, I reshelved it. I straightened up the front display with the newest books we had to offer and dusted off the window display. We'd need to change it soon, especially with the colder air coming in.
A quick glance at my cell told me I'd wasted enough time. With five minutes to spare, I opened up the shop and flipped on the lights. No one was waiting outside, but I knew we'd have our first customer in just a few minutes.
The bell jangled just as I turned to walk back to the office for a quick sec. I pushed the sliver of annoyance at being interrupted down and greeted the person with a smile. It was a young woman holding the hand of a little blonde-haired girl. I waved at her and she rewarded me with a dimpled smile.
“Come on in,” I said. “We’ve just opened so you have the place to yourself for now.”
The mom smiled gratefully. “The children’s section?” she asked.
I pointed toward the back. “There’s a seating area back there, too.”
The woman tugged the little girl’s hand gently, and I watched as they walked back together. Longing pierced me right in the stomach and I sucked in a breath. I had no desire for a kiddo, especially right now, but watching that little girl put all her trust in her mom … well, that kind of got me.
Shaking my head, I went back behind the counter and settled in for a few hours of work. I pushed down the anticipation of meeting Detective Cavanaugh. Being excited over books was fine, but the only reason I was going over there was because of something far more tragic. I needed to remember that when the excitement of the books got to me. And they would. Books had been my life ever since I was a kid. Sometimes I had to remember to pull my nose out of one and get to living.
