The Key in the Attic(46)
“I know. You want me to call her up and talk.”
“Could you, Amy? Just give it a try? Nothing serious. Nothing hard. Put all the difficult issues aside for a while and just have a nice talk.”
“But … what would we talk about? I mean, I don’t have any particular news for her. I don’t need anything. Life’s just been going on as usual. What would I say?”
“I don’t know, honey. Ask her about her trip to Milan, or what new lines she’s working on, or how she’s feeling. It doesn’t matter. Just let her know you want to connect with her again. Tell her about Everett taking you to Les Miserables, and about going to the zoo. Let her know you want things to be better than they have been.” Mary Beth paused. Maybe she’d stepped too far now. “You do want things to be better, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” Amy’s voice was just a little more than a whisper. “Yes, I do.”
“Maybe we both can take some little steps that will improve things. And if she’s not interested, at least we don’t have to feel bad for not trying, right?”
“Right.”
“Don’t do it if you don’t feel like you’re ready, honey. It’s just something to think about.” Mary Beth put a smile into her voice. “Now, tell me all about Les Miz.”
15
Frank Sanders heard the shop’s front door open and shut, and the telltale chatter of two young women. Customers. He let them look around for a minute and then came around to their side of the display shelves. They were just girls really. The younger of the two, the one with the long blond ponytail, was giggling and texting furiously on her hot-pink cellphone. The other girl was looking around the shop as if she were hunting for something in particular.
“Good afternoon, ladies. Is there something I can help you with?” He paused, thinking for a moment. He’d seen the older girl before. He couldn’t place her for a minute, and then it came to him. “You were in here two weeks ago with Mrs. Dawson, weren’t you?”
“That’s right. We came in so I could look for something for my mom’s birthday.”
His smile hardened. “You mean, so she could grill me about that clock that was stolen from her friend.”
The girl smirked. “Yeah, I guess that was the main reason. I do still need to get something for my mother though, and we didn’t stay long enough for me to really have a chance to look around. You have some pretty awesome stuff here. My name is Jennifer, by the way.”
He gave her the most suave of his smiles. “You don’t think I took that clock, do you, Jennifer?”
“No, though it’s funny you should ask, because I work at the repair shop it was taken from,” Jennifer said. “Mr. Malcolm’s in Brunswick. Have you ever been there?”
“No.” He shook his head thoughtfully. “No, I don’t believe I ever have.”
“Well, Mrs. Dawson brought me here to see if you were the one who picked the clock up. I never even saw her before that day. And of course, I had to tell her you weren’t the guy, because you weren’t.”
He chuckled. “True enough. I’m glad you were able to help clear my name about that. Now how about this present for your mother. Just what kind—”
“Was Mrs. Dawson the lady who was asking you about the trees, Jennifer?” the blond-haired girl asked, overhearing the conversation. “I didn’t understand why she’d call Mr. Malcolm asking about trees.”
“Trees?” Sanders looked at the dark-haired girl. “Mrs. Dawson was asking about trees?”
Jennifer nodded. “It was the funniest thing. I don’t mean funny like a joke, but funny strange, you know? Anyway, she called the shop asking if we ever took pictures of the clocks we fix. I thought it was a weird thing to ask.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Did she say why she wanted to know? And what did that have to do with trees?”
“Yeah, it was really strange. I don’t know what it was about the pictures. She thought the clock had some kind of code or something on it, and she said something about some trees that are going to be cut down in Virginia somewhere.”
He forced a bemused laugh. “Trees in Virginia?”
“And a path,” the blonde added, her ponytail bobbing as she nodded her head.
The other girl shrugged. “I didn’t get it. She said she had to find the path before ‘Angeline’s trees’ were gone. Sounded like she was in a big hurry too.”
Again he forced a laugh, forced himself to sound only mildly interested despite his churning thoughts. “Did she say why?”