Chapter 8
Everest motioned to a series of pictures of kids on the wall. “Your aunt started this bookshop to help hesitant readers discover their song. She used to say that there was no such thing as a non-reader, just someone who hadn’t found the right books. Take my brother for example. He’s a local police officer with little time to read.”
“Let me guess, crime novels?”
“No. He doesn’t want fiction to mess with his concept of reality. But you hand him a book on ballistics or true crime, absolutely.” Everest circled the aisles until he pointed at the section filled with that genre.
“My nephew, who used to prefer teething on books, now loves all the dog books he can find. I think my sister’s son will end up working with K-9 units like his uncle.”
Curious, Scarlet crossed her arms. “What about you?”
“Anything on trauma solutions. Updates on medical technologies.”
“Joy.”
“Useful. You don’t read anything related to textiles? Patterns? Art trends?”
“Articles online. Not books,” she confessed. “I’m too busy, don’t have the patience, and struggle to visualize what they’re talking about a lot of the time. Blog and journalistic writing is different from novels. It gets to the point without fluff and is regularly updated.”
“But articles are like chapters. Have you never read a blog series? Some of those end up as books. A lot of famous movies come from books. And the fluff , as you call it, is what makes it feel more real.”
She shrugged. “That’s why I don’t read them. I just wait for the good ones to become movies.”
Everest hummed to himself. “I see you’re going to be a tough case. How about we start with the backroom?”
Heat tingled in Scarlet’s body. He can’t possibly be hitting on me with as short as I’ve been. “Excuse me?”
“Ah.” Everest blushed. “The back storage room has Ann’s private collection of books and a few other secrets. If you don’t know where to look, you might miss it.” He winked.
Scarlet wasn’t quite sure what to make of Everest. He seemed like a caring person, and he’d been around for her aunt when she hadn’t. “You were here a lot, weren’t you?”
He chewed a cheek and looked outside at the pouring rain. “I got a lot of calls to visit her toward the end. So I just took it upon myself to check in on her before and after work. I walk by the shop anyway. My house is just up the hill.”
“Were you—with her?”
“At the end? Yes.” Everest cleared his throat and looked down. “All she wanted was to be sure you got the shop. She told me about you losing your father, then your mother. She didn’t blame you for distancing yourself because she knew it made it easier to lose people.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“You think I don’t see it in your behavior,” Everest said. “But it is my life’s work to be with people in their last moments and give them the best chance at life. But I can’t fix a broken heart from being forgotten. Ann felt it but understood. She feared you would become like her in that sense.”
Scarlet’s throat ached as she realized how her aunt felt when she had passed.
“My father put up a wall any time we asked about his military service. He never talked about the men and women he’d lost under his command.” Everest pushed on an unevenly shelved book’s spine until it was flush with the others on the rack.
He forced out a breath, rubbed a hand over his neck, and stretched as if squirming under some invisible pain. “Look, your aunt understood, and she told me she felt bad for leaving you and your mom. So I am here even if you don’t want me to be. It’s partly because it’s my job anyway, but also because I don’t want anyone to feel like they have to be alone in life or face the end the same way.
“We’ve all lost people. I believe we’re stronger together. So what do you say? Can you give a guy a chance and let him stick around a while?”
Scarlet was hesitant because she sensed something more stirring in his dark brown eyes.
“Want to open up the mysteries of the backroom with me?”
It was too hard to tell him no. Everest may have known her aunt the best of anyone. He knew the bookshop, the town, and even her to some degree. “Alright. Lead on, Mr. Brooks.”
Everest left the library area and entered an open room at the back of the shop. The door at the back led to a smaller room with an iron spiral staircase leading up to the apartment. He gave it a sad glance and motioned to a shelf on the wall.
“The top right corner against the wall has a little button. Just depress it, and you’ll hear a mechanical click,” Everest said.
He reached up, and Scarlet heard the click. “Your aunt was not just a shop owner; she was a teacher, a foster animal mom, and a solver of mysteries.”
The shelving unit swung open, revealing a small room stuffed with books, file folders, and antique artifacts of various origins.
Everest motioned her in after him. “The fire marshal does not like this room. But because the building is all stone, he let it slide. I think he may have had a thing for Ann. But they never dated to my knowledge.”
Scarlet admired the crystals and metal seashell sculptures that decorated the desk in the middle of the mess. “This looks more like her. Eclectic chaos, notes everywhere.”
Everest carefully pulled a large book down from a shelf. “This is what I think you need to see most.”
He laid it out before her and opened the cover. Inside were faces of people Scarlet had never met. “Did she ever tell you what she did here, behind the scenes?”
“I guess not. I don’t know anyone in this book.”
“They’re all from the area.” Everest pointed to a dark-haired teen in a photo. “That is the fire marshal’s nephew. He went missing three years ago. Your aunt figured out where he’d gone. She had a way with words and people that helped her get the information she needed to find people.”
“They found him?” Scarlet asked.
“Yep, in a lesser known cave, one that kids often dared each other to go in. But when the tide comes in, it can be very dangerous. He was pretty banged up but survived.” Everest ran a hand over the spine labels of other binders and books. “There’s a ton of information on the town in here. Ah!”
He drew a small, haggard scrapbook down from the top shelf above the desk. “Here’s why you looked familiar.”
Scarlet sank into the office chair as he handed her an open album of photos from her trip there as a child. There were blurry pictures of fingers, many of her digging in the sand, and others of her sitting on her aunt’s lap, reading.
“You look happy,” he gently remarked. “All of you.”
“Yeah.” Scarlet mused at a picture of her mom with frosting on her nose and the cake Scarlet and her aunt had baked for her mom’s birthday.
It was bittersweet to look through the pictures, but she couldn’t stop turning the pages and looking over more photos of him running through the cold ocean waves that crawled onto the shore or the tent her aunt had erected on the roof for a campout.
“Why don’t I leave you to it?” Everest asked. “I think you have plenty to keep you busy for a bit. I’m going to go check on a few friends from town.” He stopped in the doorway. “I hope you don’t mind, but I took your aunt’s pets until they could be re-homed to locals. They all went to good families: two cats and three dogs.”
Scarlet stood and thanked him as she followed him out. “I thought you wanted to stay a while.”
He patted his pocket with his phone. “I got a text. I need to check on a friend with diabetes. Sometimes, he needs help with his meds. Can I take you to the café later?”
“The café?”
“It’s just down the street, but I’d like to treat you to some local favorites.”
She laughed. “Sort of by default? It seems like there’s only one of everything here.”
“That is true a lot of the time.”
“Would tomorrow work? I have a lot to take in here.”
Everest unlocked the back door and let himself out. “Noon work? Meet you here?”
“Sure. See you then.” She watched him walk down the road and enter a house on the corner of an adjacent block, all the while wondering what made a man like Everest so open to strangers. But maybe he didn’t consider her one in the typical sense because of her aunt. Tomorrow’s meeting at the café might reveal more. Scarlet found herself hoping handsome Everest would show, as promised.