Hush-Hush

by Elizabeth Spann Craig

  “How is everything going here?” he asked, looking around the library rather grimly as if expecting murderers to come leaping out at him any second.

  “Much quieter than it has been,” I said wryly. “The only excitement of the day was our tech repair drop-in event.”

  Burton nodded. “That’s a good thing. Y’all have had way too much excitement around here and not the positive kind.” He paused and asked casually, “How’s Luna doing?”

  I hid a smile. I was ready for Burton to finally take the plunge and ask Luna out. He’d been admiring her from afar for a long time but had always been hesitant to take the last step.

  “You should go over to the children’s section and ask her. I’ve been caught up in the tech drop-in and haven’t really had a chance to spend time with Luna for a while.”

  Burton flushed a little and I continued, “You know how Luna is. You should just ask her to go to lunch with you or grab a coffee or something. She’s so laid-back—she’s not going to think anything of it.”

  Burton sighed. “That’s exactly what I’m worried about—that she’s not going to think anything of it.”

  “Well, you won’t know if you don’t try. It would give her the opportunity to see you in a different setting. She really only sees you here. Plus, she frequently only sees you when there’s some sort of problem here at the library. It would be better for you to have a conversation with her when she wasn’t at work . . . that way, she could see you in a different light.”

  Burton shook his head, making a face. “I don’t want to really go out on a limb and invite her out unless I’m sure I won’t get turned down.”

  “I really don’t think she’s going to say no. She might just think you’re asking her to lunch as a friend, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of,” said Burton morosely.

  “But that gives you the opportunity to turn it into something else, Burton. You can talk about things besides work.”

  Burton seemed to want to move on to other topics so I said, “How are things going with the cases?”

  Burton shook his head. “They’d be going a whole lot better if people just told us the truth when we were asking them questions. Who knows—maybe Frank would still be alive if he’d just leveled with us.”

  I gave him a questioning look and he said, “Frank’s alibi for the night of Ellie’s death doesn’t really pan out.”

  “Does that mean Frank killed Ellie? Then someone else killed Frank?” I frowned. I could definitely imagine Frank murdering Ellie because she threatened to expose him. But I had a harder time imagining someone killing Frank out of revenge for Ellie’s death. Ellie didn’t seem especially close to anyone—not close enough for someone to do that, anyway. Ted had been trying to back out of their relationship, from what he’d said. Pris, although it definitely seemed like she cared about her sister, didn’t seem the type to be vengeful. At least not over her sister . . . her daughter might be a different story.

  Burton said, “I’m not really sure if that’s what it means or not. It could mean that while Frank was out and about that night, he saw something.”

  “Something that made him realize the identity of Ellie’s killer?”

  “Exactly. Frank’s financial situation was shaky. In some ways he was sort of like Ellie—looking at blackmail as a way to make extra income.”

  We were suddenly interrupted by my phone ringing. I apologized and picked it up. Luna, who was at lunch, was on the other end and sounded breathless.

  “Ann? Hey. My car finally broke down. I knew it was coming—it kept making all these crazy noises. Anyway, I’m stranded.” She gave a slightly hysterical laugh. “It’s starting to rain again and I’m supposed to be taking my mom to her physical therapy today. I’d call Wilson, but he’s at a board meeting today.”

  I glanced across at Burton, who was oblivious. I said, “Unfortunately, I’m still scheduled to work until you come back in, but I’ve got an idea.” I thrust the phone at Burton, who looked startled. I murmured, “Luna is stranded with car trouble and she and her mom need a lift to the doctor.”

  Burton quickly got on the phone. “Luna? Hi, it’s Burton here. I’ll pick you both up and take you to her appointment.”

  There was apparently surprise at the other end of the line. I could just barely hear Luna saying something about Burton going above and beyond his call of duty and then Burton said in his charmingly old-fashioned diction that always seemed to come out around Luna, “I’d be honored.”

  He handed the phone back to me and I put it to my ear. Luna sounded a little bemused. “Gosh, with a couple of murders, you’d think he wouldn’t have time to help me out.”

  “You know Burton—always a gentleman,” I said, smiling at Burton, who colored a bit.

  After I hung up, I said sternly, “Be sure to make this time count! If she starts talking shop with you about the case, redirect her.”

  He grinned at me, looking sheepish as he made his way to the library exit. I had hit the nail on the head because Burton always lapsed into whatever was most comfortable for him to talk about when he was with Luna. Inevitably, this was work.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The next day, I realized maybe I needed to take my own advice. I was going on my hike with Grayson and definitely wanted to make the time with him count. I’d always carefully kept our conversations casual, preferring to comment about the landscape and less about anything of any consequence, mainly because that was my comfort level. And yes, I definitely talked about work from time to time.

  The nice thing about going out somewhere with Grayson is there were no surprises. I know surprises are supposed to be these cool, fun things, but I’d never really enjoyed them. As boring as it was, I liked to pencil something in on my planner and know what to expect. I knew what we were going to do. I knew where we were going, and I knew what to wear.

  So I put on my stretchy hiking pants and a cotton top with a light jacket in case it was breezy at the top of the mountain. That was it. I was completely ready. I had so much extra time that I decided to run by Keep Grounded and get a cup of coffee to go. It would also give me a great excuse to check in with Tara, who I really liked and hoped wasn’t mixed up in all this.

  The best thing about the coffeehouse, I decided, was that the coffee, while certainly more expensive than if I’d made a pot at home, wasn’t outlandishly priced as long as I didn’t get anything too fancy. Fortunately, it was quiet in there this time, too. So I ordered a large cup of regular coffee and then settled in to chat with Tara for a few minutes.

  “How are things going?” I asked.

  You could actually tell a lot about a person from the way they answered that very innocuous question. Most people, including myself, would answer ‘fine.’ But Tara seemed to look at it as an invitation to get a few things off her chest.

  “Oh, it’s okay. I had kind of a rough evening yesterday and ended up calling my sponsor to convince me I didn’t need to drink or use drugs to get rid of my stress,” said Tara with a sigh.

  “But talking with your sponsor helped?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah. She’s an older woman and she’s just so funny. It’s hard to feel down when you’re talking to her.”

  I took a sip of my coffee then said, “I’m sorry it was a rough day.”

  Tara shrugged. “You know, most of our customers here are awesome. But there were a few yesterday that were just so rude. Then Burton checked in with me again and I started worrying that I was going to somehow end up in jail.” She glanced around as if a customer might somehow be listening in, but the place was completely deserted for once.

  I shook my head. “I think Burton is checking in with everybody. He really wants these cases solved. Two murders in the space of a week in a small town is two murders too many in his book.”

  “Maybe.” But Tara looked a little more cheerful.

  I said, “The best bet is to try to give the police information that helps wrap the ca
se up.”

  Tara said wryly, “I totally agree, but the problem is that apparently I know absolutely nothing. Which the police don’t seem to really believe.”

  “I totally understand that. After all, we don’t know when we’re supposed to be paying attention. We’re just working our job or out running errands and then suddenly someone needs to know what we’ve seen or heard. We may know nothing.”

  Tara rubbed her temple. “Exactly. I mean, the kind of stuff that I knew didn’t even end up making any sense. I thought Frank had killed Ellie because she was blackmailing him. I knew about Frank’s dark side. But that doesn’t make any sense now in the context that Frank was murdered.”

  “And you didn’t see anything the evening that Ellie was killed.”

  Tara gave a short laugh. “Well, I saw Frank out. Again—lots of evidence against Frank, which doesn’t do us a lot of good. Besides, everybody was out that evening. I even thought I saw Ellie out the night she died.”

  I frowned. “Did you? Because she was on her own at the library that night.” Would Ellie have left the library to run an errand or something? I quickly dismissed this idea. Ellie could definitely be irresponsible. But it was one thing to come back late from lunch and something totally different to leave the library unattended when no one else was working there.

  “No, it wasn’t her. It was her sister, driving her car. But she made me look twice, that’s for sure.”

  I put my coffee cup down on the table, focusing all my attention on Tara. “That’s funny. Ellie told Pris she couldn’t drive her car that day.”

  Tara snorted. “Sounds like something my sister would say. Well, obviously she must have changed her mind. Pris doesn’t even look that much like her sister—it was definitely her.”

  The bell rang on the door as a couple came in. I glanced at my watch. “Good catching up, Tara,” I said quickly. “Take care of yourself.”

  Back at home, I grabbed my daypack, filled a water bottle, and poured my coffee into a thermos. I finished just in time as Grayson tapped on my front door.

  “Hey there,” he said lightly, leaning against the front door frame. “Got everything you need?”

  “I think so. I’m kind of leaving the daypack packed up except for my water bottle to make sure I don’t forget things. I even threw in an old pair of sunglasses that can just live in the bag.”

  He chuckled. “Threw them in there? It sounds like you afford your sunglasses about the same respect that I do. You must get cheap ones, like me.”

  I grinned back at him, feeling relaxed and happy. “Of course. I can’t be trusted with nice sunglasses. I’d end up leaving them on the front seat of my car and then plopping down on top of them when I climb in. I don’t deserve nice sunglasses, considering how I treat them.”

  Grayson smiled at me and I felt a frisson of warmth. We headed out in Grayson’s car. I showed him a shortcut to the trail and we parked near the trailhead.

  He glanced up the path as we climbed out. “Wow, that looks pretty steep. Glad I decided on my hiking boots today instead of my athletic shoes.”

  “Sorry . . . I should have told you. I’d forgotten it was this steep at the beginning. It does level off the more we go up, turning into a gradual incline. That’s going to be something you’ll want to point out to readers.”

  He nodded, tightening his laces and then gave me a teasing look. “Or maybe you were hoping to watch me stumble along?”

  I shook my head with a laugh. Inside, my heart was thumping happily. Was it my imagination, or did Grayson seem to be flirting a little with me? We always had a nice, easy rapport . . . at least, we did after I stopped freezing up and falling all over myself when he was around me, but it never seemed quite this relaxed.

  We made it up the steep incline without getting too winded. Just the same, it was nice to have the trail level off a bit and allow more conversation. We paused a few times so Grayson could take a couple of pictures for the newspaper—some fat blackberries, black-eyed Susans, and rhododendrons made for good photos for the accompanying article.

  “How are things going at the paper?” I asked. At least this way I wasn’t talking about my work, anyway.

  “Surprisingly, it’s going pretty well. Most newspapers are struggling right now because of print, but we’ve still got the same advertisers and the same subscribers that we had when I became the editor.” He shrugged and gave me a smile, which gave me a warm flush. “I guess people in Whitby are creatures of habit.”

  “In every way,” I said dryly. “I can totally believe that the subscribers wouldn’t even consider stopping their subscription. After all, they’ve always subscribed. It would never occur to them to stop. Maybe we’re all creatures of habit that way. I know my mornings have a very particular routine and so do my evenings. It’s almost comforting to stay in the same patterns I always have. Although, lately, I have been trying to shake things up a bit.”

  A cloud crossed over Grayson’s face. I wondered if I’d imagined it because he quickly turned away. Maybe he was frowning at the very healthy patch of poison oak that was looming on the side of the path. He said, “That can be a good thing, right? Pushing ourselves to do new things? With new people?” He paused. “It must be nice to reconnect with someone from your past like that.”

  I shrugged uncomfortably. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m starting to think that Connor may not be the right choice for me to expand my borders with. He’s just a little too unpredictable. He was probably just as unpredictable as he was when we were teenagers, but that was less of a problem for me back then. Or maybe I’m just a fuddy-duddy.”

  “You’re definitely not a fuddy-duddy,” said Grayson, sounding a little miffed on my account. “You just like things to happen in a particular way.”

  We walked on for a few more minutes, enjoying the cool breeze that was blowing down on us.

  Grayson hesitated. “Do you enjoy music?” He added hurriedly, “It’s just that there’s a small concert that’s coming up at the local theater soon. I was interested in going, but it’s not as much fun going by myself. I’d enjoy it a lot more if I could talk about it with someone else.”

  I was watching him curiously. It wasn’t like Grayson to stumble over his words like he was. It was more like me.

  “Who’s playing?” I asked. Then I laughed. “Actually, let me just take a flying leap for once. I will go. Thanks for asking. If my goal is to push myself more, I shouldn’t even care who’s playing.”

  Grayson relaxed a little. “It’s a group called The Picket Fences. They were a college radio band while we were in college.”

  “I think I remember them,” I said thoughtfully. “I used to hang out in school with some of the college radio DJs.”

  This moved our conversation into music and we discovered we had a lot in common with our musical tastes.

  When we reached the top of the trail at the peak of the mountain, we stood for a few moments in silence, taking in the vista in front of us. The distant mountains rolled out ahead, creating that smudge of blue that gave the Blue Ridge Mountains their name.

  Grayson again seemed a bit hesitant. “I know you just spoke about your love for routine, but I planned something a little different this time.”

  I watched as he opened up his backpack and removed a blanket and a small cooler with fruit and food inside. He grinned uncertainly at me.

  “What a perfect idea,” I said warmly.

  And it was. We sat on the blanket, took in the view, and enjoyed his mini-banquet with a warm feeling of companionship between us. And, perhaps, something slightly more.

  We reached for the potato salad at the same time and I felt a warm tingle as our hands brushed against each other. We laughed but I noticed Grayson didn’t draw his hand away that quickly.

  Grayson took some more photos before we left. I realized, if Grayson were indeed trying to make overtures, I may not seem to be making as many of my own. I hesitated. “Do you want to try some exercise again?” I chuck
led. “Not that we haven’t just struggled up a mountain, or anything. But it might be good to keep up the pace, at least for me. Maybe tomorrow? Just a light jog around the park?”

  I immediately got the impression Grayson wanted to. “How flexible is your day tomorrow?” he asked. “I definitely would like to go, but I’ve got some work meetings and interviews planned, too.”

  “I’m off, so I can go whenever suits you best.”

  “Do you mind if we meet up first thing in the morning?” He made a face. “Sorry. I don’t even know if you’re a morning person. I hate to mess up your ability to sleep in on your day off, but one of my meetings is over dinner tomorrow, so that’s going to run late.”

  “That’s perfect,” I said with a smile. “I have to get up early for work every day, so when I’m off, I’m still on that same routine. Besides, if I sleep in too long, Fitz will make little hints that he would like to be fed.”

  He grinned at me. “I bet that’s cute.”

  “It is cute,” I admitted. “He’ll snuggle right up against my face on my pillow and purr loudly. If I’m still comatose, he’ll pat his paw super-gently against my face to get my attention. You’d think it would be a little irritating, but he’s so careful and gentle that it always just wakes me slowly up.”

  Grayson was thinking about getting a puppy, so we talked about that for a while as we finished up our picnic, packed up our trash, and then started heading slowly back down the mountain. I realized again how different it was being out with Grayson than Connor. I felt really energized right then, despite having had a pretty strenuous hike. When I was out with Connor, it wasn’t that I was exhausted, but more that I could feel my energy being depleted. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him, it was just that his energy seemed to sort of dominate mine.

  After Grayson had driven me home, he gave me a warm smile. “Hey, thanks for doing this with me, Ann. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” He watched me as I walked into my house before driving away.