Chapter 12
Sweet Briar Books stood in the middle of a strip of local businesses fit for Del Rio: an upscale clothing boutique, a hair salon, a baby store, and a vegan café. Each had an awning, hand-painted sandwich signs luring customers, and dog bowls full of slobbery water outside the door.
It was way too cute and welcoming for the fear fizzling in my veins from last night.
Even though I’d told him to stay out of my way, I half wished I’d taken Bray up on his offer to accompany me in talking to Brittany the ex-nanny, because at least then I’d have someone with a gun nearby.
The only reason I hadn’t skipped town after seeing the ghost in the street was because of our deal.
Finding out what happened to Wallace was even more pressing now.
If I’d called him at two a.m. to tell him what I’d seen—who I’d seen—he’d have pulled me off the case right then.
But Bray didn’t have the clearance to know why, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell him.
A happy little bell jingled when I pushed open the bookstore’s bright red door.
The signature smell of bound paper and book jackets hit me like a salty breeze at the beach.
I may not have had as much formal education as most, but reading was one thing I held sacred.
I escaped into stories of other people’s lives whenever I could, whenever the web of lies of my own life got to be too much.
Which was often. Unfortunately, I hadn’t come to browse the adult fiction.
I’d come to glean information from the young woman behind the counter.
Brittany Condor looked friendly enough from a distance.
She was younger than me, mid-twenties, I knew from Bray’s file on her, and was a graduate student at one of the local universities.
She wore her blond hair in a thick French braid, and hoop earrings, which glinted as bright as her smile when she moved.
She rang up an old man buying a gardening book who looked like he might have come in only for her company.
The store was a long, narrow galley with the register on the north wall, floor-to-ceiling shelves lining everything but the front window, and parallel rows of free-standing shelves like giant equal signs down the center.
I casually wandered past the short shelves of adult fiction toward the wall of children’s books at the back.
I knew the Browning children had mountains of books already, but I needed an excuse to visit Brittany and figured showing up for work with gifts after my abrupt departure from the park would only earn me favor.
Plus, it wasn’t my money I was spending.
I eyed the old man at the counter still chatting up Brittany, who was being nothing but polite in return. Another woman wandered the romance section with a stack of pastel-colored paperbacks in hand. A teenager in a hoodie scoped the young adult section while tapping his phone at the same time.
I squatted in front of a children’s rack and randomly pulled out one of the thin spines.
An illustrated unicorn stared back at me, and I imagined Karli Browning would appreciate the attention to detail in its sparkly tail.
I kept one ear on Brittany’s conversation while I searched for something for Kaden.
The old man was telling her about his garden and offering to drop off some carrots next time he came in.
When Brittany politely thanked him and said goodbye, I dove on an opportunity to beat anyone else to the register.
I hastily chose a book with a smiling dragon on the front and moved for the counter.
Thankfully, the other customers appeared to be wrapped up in shopping.
“Hi there,” Brittany greeted me with a warm smile. “Find everything you were looking for today?”
“I did, thank you,” I said and placed my books on the counter. Little racks of bookmarks and pens and book-y trinkets lined the wooden slab. “I’m new in town and just started a nannying position. I figured I’d bring bribes.”
Brittany’s lips pulled up into a tight smile, which looked forced. “That’s a good idea, though a gift for the parents will probably serve you better in this town.”
“Good tip. Got any recs?”
She pointed her scanner at the barcode on the back of the unicorn book. She shrugged. “Oh, you know, just the standard: booze, your undying allegiance. Maybe a blood sacrifice.”
A genuine laugh bubbled from my lips. I did not expect to find Brittany Condor entertaining. “Do you speak from experience?”
She sighed a long breath as she scanned the dragon book with a beep. “Unfortunately.” She slipped a Sweet Briar Books bookmark into each book and neatly stacked them. I sensed she was closing off and not going to say more, so I pushed an obvious button.
I leaned in and lowered my voice like we were sisters-in-arms. “Listen, I’m totally new here, but I get the sense this is a tight community. I just started with the Browning family, and I—”
Brittany’s eyes shot up at the name in a way too obvious to cover up.
“Do you know them?” I asked.
She swallowed. The bell jingled and her eyes darted to the front door before she looked back at me. Realization settled into her gaze as she put the pieces together to understand I had taken over her old job. “They moved quickly, didn’t they.”
Of course I had to play ignorant. “Sorry?”
Brittany sighed again. “Your total is $36.30. Would you like a bag?”
She closed off. The conversation was falling off track and I needed to get it back. I spotted a solution on the shelf behind her. “Actually, I was hoping you would gift wrap these? Separately?”
Brittany looked down at the books and forced another smile. “Sure.” She turned and tore off two sheets of wrapping paper from the roll behind her and got to work.
I tapped my nails on the countertop while I waited. “So, do you know the Browning family?”
Brittany neatly placed the unicorn book in the center of the sheet of shiny red paper. “Everyone knows the Browning family.”
I tapped my nails again and tried to ignore the ominous note in her voice. I laughed with a not-so-forced dash of nerves in it. “So, should I like, be afraid of them or something?”
She folded the paper and carefully taped it down against the book. “Just don’t piss off Melanie and you’ll be fine.”
I laughed again, desperately wanting to know what more there was to the story and finding it hard to pretend I knew nothing to begin with. “What does that mean?”
She finished with the first book and tied a white ribbon around it.
She reached for the dragon book and started the process over.
She glanced side to side. “Look, I’m not really comfortable talking about this, but I used to work for the Browning family.
We didn’t part on good terms, so just … be careful, I guess. ”
I gripped the countertop so I didn’t lunge across the counter and grip Brittany and demand more information. “Can you be more specific?”
A flush curled up her neck. She looked up with only her eyes. “Not really, no.”
I feigned another nervous laugh and leaned into the counter. “Come on, help a girl out. I’m new here, and I want to know what I’m getting into. I mean, do I need to quit before I even start?”
Brittany shook her head and finished the dragon book. She tied it with a gold ribbon, and I was certain I would forget which was which the second I left the store. “No, the kids are actually great. I mean, Kaden has tons of energy, but what five-year-old boy doesn’t?”
I shriveled at the comment.
“But Melanie,” Brittany went on, lowering her voice so much I had to nearly climb on the counter to hear her, “Melanie is pretty intense. She likes things certain ways, and she has a lot of boundaries.”
“Boundaries like what?”
She snorted. “Well, don’t overhear her phone calls, either on purpose or accident.”
I cringed, thinking of how I already had, and wondering if Brittany heard something even more incriminating than I had. “Why, is she like, a secret criminal or something?” I went for broke and made another joke.
Brittany’s eyes jumped to my face once more. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but maybe it’ll spare you some trouble. If you ever hear her mention someone or something named Montrose, ignore it. Don’t ask any questions. Pretend it never happened, just trust me.”
I stored the name in my memory and wondered what it referred to. Their supplier? A shipping company? A location?
“Did you ask?”
Her face burned again. “Yes, and it cost me my job. I still have no idea what it refers to, so I can’t tell you anything else anyway. Just know once you’re on Melanie Browning’s bad side, you’re pretty much exiled in this town. I’m lucky I got this job. Your total is $36.30.”
That was all I was going to get, I knew it. And it wasn’t nothing.
I reached in my wallet for forty dollars just as the doorbell jingled again. “Thanks for the info, and sorry things didn’t work out for you.”
Brittany took the money and made my change with a shrug. “It’s fine. I just need something to help cover rent for the rest of this semester, and I’ve always loved books, so it all works out. Good luck.” She handed me a handful of loose bills and coins, then pushed the wrapped books at me.
“Thank you,” I said as I stepped away, juggling the change, to make room for the woman shopping for romance novels who had queued up behind me.
I took two steps into the young adult shelves when I stopped dead in my tracks.
My change fell from my hand, the bills fluttering to the floor and the coins dropping like heavy rain on the carpet.
The man who had been outside my window the night before stood in the middle of the aisle, staring right at me.
The ghost.
My brain could not make sense of it. I hadn’t seen him for a decade, and he was dead.
But there he was.
My body went rigid with fright. An icy-hot blast of adrenaline hit me so hard, my fight-or-flight response turned into freeze-and-gape.