I suspected I knew where she’d gone. But ever since we’d returned after the storm, I’d avoided going there—Althea’s shop.
A knot tightened in my stomach when I thought about seeing Althea. Trust was a funny thing—when broken, emotions tended to spill out like blood from an open wound.
Just wondering how I would act around Althea and what I would say awakened an ache that had worked itself deep into my bones. Yes, she’d lied to me. But I’d done something worse. I’d abandoned her when she’d needed me. I should have gone to see what kind of help she needed with her shop right after we’d returned from the storm. But I hadn’t. And now things felt awkward. How could I face her?
I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
I’d sit in the apartment with the elderly sisters and eat cheese while watching old sitcoms.
No. Hiding from responsibility never fixed anything. It only added pounds to my hips.
I closed my eyes and huffed angrily at myself.
“Could you move? I can’t see what Blanche is wearing,” Trixie said. She poked me in the side with her cane.
I opened my eyes to see that I was standing in front of the TV. “Sorry,” I muttered and then gave myself a hard mental shake. Yes, that was better. “I have to go down to the crystal shop. Do you need anything?”
“It ain’t open,” Barbie said.
“Could use a love potion,” Trixie said.
“It ain’t open,” Barbie repeated louder. “And what do you need a love potion for at your age?”
“What do you mean at my age? I’m two years younger than you.”
Barbie blew a sharp breath through her lips. “Next thing you know, you’ll be running around town in bright pink spandex hot pants.”
“Have you been poking around in my shopping bags again?”
“I was with you when you bought them,” Barbie screeched.
Stella wagged her tail and barked. Both sisters rewarded her with pieces of cheese, which she gobbled with greedy delight.
“Don’t feed her too much,” I warned. “She’s small and can’t afford to put on too much weight.”
“She’s such a sweet dog,” Trixie said. “Don’t know why everyone calls her such horrible names.”
“People call Stella names?” Learning that made me even more upset than I was a moment ago.
Both sisters nodded.
“Heard her called Demon Dog,” Trixie said.
“Snappy Mutt,” Barbie added.
“Barky Breath.”
“An irritating dust ball.”
“Big-Eared Brat.”
I threw my hands in the air. “Enough. I get it. Stella is sweet. People are mean. And I need to get going. Stella? Do you want to come with me?”
My dog looked at me and then she looked over at the sisters with their bright yellow cheese and didn’t move.
“If she needs to go out, her leash is by the door,” I said.
“We know that,” Trixie said.
“You tell us that every time you leave without her,” Barbie said and poked me in the side with her sister’s cane. “Go on. Get out of here.”
I dodged the cane when it came at me again and ran out the door. They were right. I had to go fix things.
“And don’t forget my love potion,” Trixie called after me.
Half a block away, I could still hear the two sisters arguing about whether Trixie should have a love life. I shook my head and laughed. Although they argued all the time, they clearly loved and trusted each other. If one of them did (or said) something stupid, I’d bet my shop the other one wouldn’t threaten to run off to Florida. But then again, they were sisters. Not friends. Not business partners.
While I was searching for Bertie, I was also constantly checking my phone for texts. It must have stopped working, because Harley should have answered me by now. He was right. He was more than my friend. Over the past several months, we’d grown close.
He was my…
My…
Um…
Oh fudge cakes.
I’d made it to the middle of Camellia Beach’s downtown and still didn’t know what to call Harley. He wasn’t my boyfriend—and what a stupid term for two fully grown adults. I refused to use it. He wasn’t my lover. We’d flirted. Shared a few kisses. Been on a few dates. Evacuated together. Society should invent a word for what we meant to each other. An adult word—one that suggested intimacy and trust.
Perhaps there was already a word for that kind of relationship, and I simply didn’t know it. It wasn’t as if I were an expert when it came to relationships. Clearly, I was much more comfortable thinking about what had happened to dead bodies than dealing with the live ones.
Speaking of the dead, was that Joe’s widow, Delilah, standing outside Althea’s shop? It was hard to tell. I was still a few blocks away. The woman kind of looked like her. Then again, from this distance, she also kind of looked like Florence. Whoever the woman in front of the crystal shop was, she glanced up and down the street before opening the still boarded-up door. A moment later she disappeared inside.
My curiosity should have made my feet move any faster. But the closer I got to the shop, the slower my stubborn feet moved. Tears were stinging my eyes by the time I stopped outside Althea’s shop. Plywood covered the large display windows that flanked the front door. The pretty turquoise awning had been ripped away. It’s twisted and broken frame looked like metal fingers, reaching out from the building in a plea for help. The First Wish, the shop’s sign that had been painted directly on the building’s red brick in purple and blue scrolling letters looked as if someone had taken a sandblaster to it, removing much of the paint. All that remained was the ghostly outline of the words.
The walls are still there, I told myself before pushing the door open. A bell chimed.
“We’re not open!” Althea called from somewhere in the darkened rear of the shop.
“I’m not here to buy anything,” I called. “Unless you have a love potion handy. Trixie asked me to pick her up one of your love potions. Do you even sell love potions?”
With the plywood covering the windows and the electricity still off in the building, the shop’s interior was eerily silent and shadowy. Shafts of blue-tinted sunlight streamed in here and there through a blue tarp that stretched across where Harley’s office should be and, above that, a roof. My heart twisted. Why had Harley lied to me? There was clearly nothing left of his office.
A breeze rustled the tarp. Its movement made the shadows dance.
“Penn? Is that you?” Althea called. She hurried toward the front of the store where I was standing next to a toppled display shelf. She was dressed in dusty overalls. Her hair was hidden under a tightly wrapped silk batik scarf that had been dyed an explosion of rainbow colors. A tool belt hung around her waist. Instead of hammers, she had an assortment of trowels hanging from the loops.
“You know it’s me. Is your mother here?” I asked her, while eyeing the damage. Her shop looked worse than what I’d heard.
“Should Mama be here?” Althea gave me an odd look. “She told me she’d be working at the Chocolate Box all afternoon.”
“I…um…she’s angry with me,” I admitted haltingly. When I saw Althea was about to ask for details, I quickly added, “You’re not doing the fix up work all by yourself, are you?”
“Some of it. I want to get the shop open as soon as possible, and it takes forever for the insurance adjusters to do…well, anything.”
“Certainly, you’re not going to rebuild the upstairs and the roof.” It wasn’t even Althea’s roof to rebuild. Bertie owned the building along with several others in the downtown.
“Mama is working on getting some contractors out here for that. Truth is, many residents in the Charleston area are in desperate need of a contractor and there aren’t enough to go around. So, it’s hard.”
“Was it a tornado that cut through here?” Most of the homes and businesses weren’t as badly damaged as Althea’
s shop. The Chocolate Box had simply needed to be dried out to keep the mold from growing. I’d been told that Althea’s cottage, which had been built on top of an ancient sand dune in the middle of the island, hadn’t even flooded. But tornados that often formed within a hurricane could tear apart a building while the neighboring structures survived unscathed.
“Yeah, it looks like a tornado did this. The other two shops and upstairs offices in this building aren’t nearly as badly damaged as this place. And Harley’s office, well, it’s gone. We also lost part of the back wall. I’m working on rebuilding it so I can, you know, lock up at night.”
“You’re building a brick wall? By yourself?” I really should have come by sooner.
She shrugged. “Harley and Gavin have been helping. Some of the other residents have been out here as well. Ethel swept up as best she could. But with the gaps in the wall, the wind keeps blowing the debris around again.”
I’d told myself that I was too busy helping others on the island to check on Althea. Harley had seemed happy enough to move his office to his apartment while he waited for what he’d called a few renovations.
I felt a spurt of anger at that but, thinking back on conversations I’d had with Harley over the past week, I think he had tried to tell me how Althea’s shop and his office had been destroyed, but I hadn’t been willing to listen. I’m too busy, I’m too busy, I’d kept telling myself—lying to myself. “I’m sorry. I should have—”
“No. You don’t get to apologize,” she said, her voice sharp. She closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. When she opened them, she appeared to be her calm self again. “The damage is more than I’d expected, but it’s not something I can’t manage. Don’t worry after me or pity me. I don’t need it.” She pulled a trowel from the loop in her tool belt and held it up like a triumphant warrior would raise her sword. “I’ve got this. Tell Trixie that if I find a love potion when I’m going through the ruins here, I’ll bring it by.”
“Sure. Okay.”
Althea turned to return to her work.
“Uh…wait. I saw a woman come in here a few minutes ahead of me. She looked like Delilah Fenton. Is she still here?” I asked before she could disappear into the shadows again.
“You must be mistaken.” She gestured to the piles of broken crystals and damp building materials. “No one has come in here. I’m not open. I won’t be open for business for a long while.”
“But I saw…” I realized that the bell on her door had chimed loudly when I’d entered the shop. It would have done the same for the woman I’d seen.
Althea looked around the shop. “What exactly did you see?”
“Nothing. I must have been mistaken. She must have gone into a different shop.”
Althea smiled as she shook her head. “All of the neighboring businesses are either still closed for repairs or closed because it’s Sunday. So, Penn, tell me exactly what you saw.”
It wasn’t the Gray Lady.
Althea would insist I saw a ghost when I described the woman. From a distance Delilah Fenton looked similar to the woman Althea and I saw talking with Joe on the beach. Who was not the Gray Lady.
“I really need to find your mother and apologize,” I muttered as I kicked a small pile of sand and insulation on the floor. Something in the pile went clank. A sliver of light had worked its way into the shop through a crack in the plywood covering one of the front windows. It glinted off the metallic object I’d kicked and struck me in the eye.
I lifted my hand to cover my face. “Ow, that’s bright.”
“Unnaturally bright,” Althea said.
We bent down at the same time. Our heads knocked together.
“Sorry.” I rubbed the top of my head.
“My fault.” She reached out and scooped up the metal object that was reflecting the beam of sunlight and sucked in a sharp breath.
“What is it?” I asked.
She dropped it into my hand. “Isn’t that the coin Joe found on the beach?”
“Stella found it,” I corrected. But Joe had picked it up and identified it. “He’d said it was a Spanish gold coin from the eighteen hundreds.”
The coin in my hand was gold. And it did look similar to the one Joe had picked up.
“Are you sure this isn’t a toy from something you sell, like a touristy treasure kit?”
“I don’t sell treasure kits,” Althea was quick to point out. “And I don’t sell coins, real or fake. The thought of a lucky coin is a lie.” That was the most reasonable thing I’d heard her say in a long time. For a moment I thought that maybe she was coming to her senses and was gradually giving up on all this magic nonsense. But then she added, “Coins are more attuned to holding bad energy than good. I don’t even like having them in the cash drawer.”
I handed her back the scarred piece of gold and rose to my feet. “It’s not the same coin,” I said. I dusted sand and bits of her shop off my legs. “Joe was found with that coin in his hand. I saw it.”
Her dark eyes widened as she turned the tiny treasure over and over in her hand. “You know what this means?”
“Not really,” I admitted.
“Well, we can’t be sure, can we? But I bet it means Joe was right. There is pirate treasure on Camellia Beach.” She paused a beat before adding with a great big grin, “And apparently the Gray Lady herself not only wants us to find Joe’s killer, she also wants us to find the gold.”
Chapter 10
Us. I hadn’t missed Althea’s use of the word.
Forget that I was still feeling all bruised and distrustful around her. Forget that I didn’t believe in the Gray Lady nonsense. Forget, also, that I’d already told Joe’s daughter that I was going to help her find out what happened to him. Forget all of that.
I honestly wanted to draw a line in the sand and start afresh with Althea. It would feel so good to smile easily with her again. Or to pop in over to her house for a glass of her sweet tea.
So, yes, I hung onto how she’d said us for a ridiculously long time.
I’d love to go on a treasure hunt with her. She’d spout all sorts of theories of magic and ghosts and probably throw in a fairy or two for good measure. I’d grump and growl while secretly eating up her kookiness.
I wanted us to be us again.
I should have told her all of that. But I’d been raised in a family where sharing feelings was akin to showing your enemy where you hid your weaknesses. So I’d pressed my lips tightly together and left her shop with nothing more than a promise to be back after I had apologized to Bertie and that I’d bring more help.
As soon as I stepped back on to the sidewalk, I sent another series of texts.
Just saw your office, I texted to Harley. You should have told me. We really need to talk.
Where are you? I texted to Bertie. Just left Althea’s shop. She agreed to let me help her get things up and running again. I wish you’d told me how bad things were. You should have talked to me. I know several contractors who can help. I’ll call them.
I stared at my phone’s screen while hoping that watching it would cause my texts to get answered quicker. The honking of a horn jolted me back to awareness of the world around me—the constant hammering of roofing nails, the whirl of a saw, and the voice of a man I knew well.
“If it isn’t my bad Penny,” the man said.
“My name is Penn, not Penny,” came my automatic reply, an unnecessary reply. He knew my name and knew I didn’t like it when he called me Penny. But it was his way of being friendly. Like a caring father, he enjoyed teasing me.
I tore my gaze from my phone. Detective Frank Gibbons flashed an amused smile in my direction. He trotted down the town hall’s front steps. Gibbons worked for the Charleston County Sheriff Department.
Chief Byrd would call in help from the county sheriff whenever he needed more manpower, expertise, or the use of the county’s criminal lab. Byrd and Gibbons were friends. That was why, more often than not, Gibbons was the one who’d get
a direct call from Camellia Beach’s police chief with a request for assistance.
Whether he was in town on business or not, I was pleased to see him. As always, he was impeccably dressed in a dark suit that had been expertly tailored to fit his large body. My fashion-designer half-sister, Tina, had told me again and again that it wasn’t the size of the person that mattered, but the clothes the person wore. I glanced down at my off-the-rack shorts that were so poorly cut that they made my hips appear much larger than they should. Those cheap shorts would have made anyone’s hips appear big.
I quickly shrugged off the thought. Since moving to Camellia Beach, I’d been learning how to relax more and not stress so much over my appearance or what anyone thought about it. Unlike nearly everyone in my father’s side of the family, very few on this tiny beach town were judging me based on looks alone.
“What brings you to town?” I asked Gibbons after giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Nothing sinister, I hope. There’s too much going on in town as it is.”
He gave his head a rueful shake. Up close, his friendly smile appeared strained. I’d known him long enough to recognize that something was troubling him. I held back from jumping to the first conclusion that sprang to mind—murder. Or more specifically, Joe’s murder. He could simply be fatigued from the aftereffects of the hurricane. The recovery efforts had put a strain on nearly everyone I’d talked to.
“Actually,” he said. “I’m glad we happened to meet up like this. I need to talk with you.”
“You just came from talking with Chief Byrd?” I glanced back at the town hall.
“Yep.”
“Of course you did. There’s no other reason you’d go there.” I paused, wondering why the police chief had called him. “Byrd told you something, and now you want to talk to me?”
“Yep.”
“What did he say I’ve done this time?” I said with a sigh. I wasn’t upset, merely curious.
“Well, for one thing, you found a dead body.”
“You sound surprised,” I said.
“More perplexed than surprised.” His brows furrowed.
“Actually, Stella found Joe’s body. Hank told me it was an accidental death.”
Bonbon With the Wind Page 8
