Chapter 13 Rose

CHAPTER 13

ROSE

Rose positioned her tote bag more securely on her shoulder, leaned her cane against the wall, and unlocked the bookshop door. The old iron key made a satisfying click before she collected her cane and went inside, the bell welcoming her as she turned on the lights and let the door close behind her. For now, she ignored the sign in the window and left it flipped to CLOSED . She still had an hour before she opened. And while she loved her customers, there was something special about this time of the morning when she was here alone. It soothed her spirit, even on restless days.

Every independent bookshop had its own personality, one established by the carefully curated stock and the caring attitude of the staff. She'd worked hard to make sure that the readers who visited her store always found a welcome atmosphere, a book (or ten) that spoke to them, and if not a cheerful smile—she had her limits, after all—at least the knowledge that she was glad to see them and loved books just as much as they did.

She limped to the counter and dropped the keys into the small dish beside the register. She set the mail to one side, to be sorted through later, and then printed up the online orders. Every once in a while, she would pause, look around, and soak in the wonder of owning this amazing place. She was blessed. Truly and wonderfully blessed.

Her gaze moved from the orders she'd just slipped into large manila envelopes to the stack of mail. Reluctantly, she picked it up and started sorting it. Her heart sank the second she saw an envelope with the word LATE stamped in red.

She glanced at the still-locked door, glad Luke wasn't around. Muttering under her breath, she tucked the letter under her arm, picked up her cane, and headed for her office. She went to her desk, opened the bottom drawer, and tossed the letter onto the dozen or so others that sat there. Then she slammed the drawer shut and dropped into her seat.

She crossed her arms and leaned back, staring with unseeing eyes out the picture window that looked onto her beloved bookshop, searching her mind and imagination for an idea—any idea—about how to handle the predicament she'd gotten herself into. I knew better, too. But at the time, I couldn't think of a way out of it.

Five years ago, an unusually strong winter storm had blown through their town and had iced up every tree and power line, leaving broken limbs and downed cables in its wake. Most of the town had gone without electricity for a week. While her old house had enough fireplaces to keep the pipes from exploding, the bookstore hadn't. It also hadn't had a decent roof, either. When the storm finally abated, the entire store had been left in shambles.

Her savings had already been depleted by her expensive-to-maintain house, so when the roof and pipes failed during the same storm, she'd been faced with necessary repairs that were far more than she could afford.

Her first instinct had been to go to the First People's Bank and talk to Zoe Bell, who'd taken over the loan portion of the bank from her father, Arnold. Rose had a personal relationship with Zoe, but knew the bookstore's income wouldn't be enough to secure a loan. So Rose hadn't bothered to ask First People's Bank for help.

Instead, she'd gone to a lender in Asheville, one known for financing risky businesses with higher-rate balloon loans. She now realized that the term "balloon" was a joke. It just meant that the entire amount of the loan would be due one day down the road. "It should be called a lead balloon loan," she muttered to herself as she aimlessly kicked at the drawer holding the late notices. "They don't float at all. They just crash to the ground with a thud."

Scowling, she rubbed her forehead where it felt tight. It was her fault and no one else's. Of course, at the time she'd gotten the loan, she'd stupidly believed that her beloved bookstore with its new pipes and roof wouldn't need any additional repairs. And yet other things had gone wrong over the years, stealing the money she tried to tuck away for the coming due date. A field mouse had chewed into some wires in the attic, which had been super costly because the resulting inspection after the repair had turned up some "irregularities" that she'd been forced to have fixed. A few months after that, the main water line to the building that serviced their one and only bathroom had rusted through, and they'd had to dig up a concrete floor in the basement for that not-little repair. And then the floor under her office began to show signs of—

Sheesh! She didn't want to think about all the "and thens." Each one hurt like a punch in the stomach. I have to find a way to pay off that loan. I have to.

Which meant she should get to work, and right now. She sighed, collected her cane, and left her office, shoving aside all thoughts about that stupid due date. For the next half hour, she kept busy. She ran a duster along the bookshelves, straightened a few stacks that looked as if they might tumble, marked some books for sale, and swept the floors.

Once that was done, she put away the broom and made her way to the front windows. She peeked through them, carefully surveying the street outside, where the first hint of spring had given the almost barren trees a faintly green look. Not a car or person was in sight. Good. Reassured, she headed to Tay's office and let herself inside. She had a nice half hour before Tay would arrive, coffee in hand, her satchel tucked under one arm.

Every morning for the past week, Rose had added this little journey to her daily chores, in which she would sit at Tay's desk and go through the notes on the yellow legal pad always left there. To her surprise, reading the letters William had written to Sarafina had softened her opinion of the man. Whatever his faults, greed or otherwise, he'd loved that woman dearly. If Rose thought that Tay would focus on that one aspect of William Day's, she'd be a lot happier. Still, Rose had to admit that she admired the younger woman for a number of reasons. She'd watched Tay over the past week and had learned a few things. For one, she was a hard worker, showing up at nine sharp every morning and working until seven at night, and sometimes later. She always took a stack of folders with her when she went home, too. Rose liked that. Hard work was a sign of a responsible adult. Luke needed more of that in his life, with his don't-like-to-work-hard personality.

Tay had passed the preliminary Lulu test, too. The two weren't close yet, but Tay had been friendly at their first, brief meeting, and it was obvious that Lulu hadn't hated her. That was promising. Lulu was slow to warm up to new people, so it would take time.

So far, after a week's analysis, there was only one thing Rose didn't like about Tay. No one could argue that the professor wasn't a supersmart and cute sort of girl. She also looked much younger than her thirty-odd years of age, too. But sadly, she wasn't much of a flirt. That was disappointing. In the past week, Luke had spent hours every day in this office helping Tay go through the old newspapers looking for God knew what. From what Rose had observed from her perch at the counter, the two usually sat at their desks, not even looking or talking to each other, but just staring at old Register s.

Rose made a face. She was sure that was as much Luke's fault as Tay's. Heaven knew Rose had done her part in getting these two together—she'd been the one to suggest that Tay use the office as a permanent base to begin with. Had they been normal human beings, the two of them would have taken it from there. But instead, nothing exciting had happened. Lord love you, Luke. There's a brass ring right in front of you. Grab it!

Sighing, Rose leaned her cane against Tay's desk and pulled her reading glasses from her front pocket to start snooping through Tay's latest notes. After ten minutes, she sat back in the noisy chair, slightly satisfied with what she'd read. It didn't appear that Tay's research was overly focused on William Day yet. True, she was looking for mentions of him and the other robbers in the newspapers, but that was all. She won't find much. I've already looked.

What was odd, though, was that Tay and Luke were also searching the old Register s for a series of phrases. Rose closed the notebook and returned it to the correct spot, her gaze moving over the other items on the desk. Four Register articles written by a V. E. Fine had been photocopied and were neatly lined up side by side, some of the phrases from the list she'd just read highlighted in yellow.

Rose frowned at the articles. They had very little in common. The first was a rather short piece on the use of vinegar as a window cleaning agent. The second was about a fight that had broken out during a town hall meeting, while the third article covered a barn that had burned down behind a house on Dogwood Street. The final article was an interview with a local man who'd been wounded during the War of 1812. I wonder who V. E. Fine was and why Tay's interested in him. I need to ask L—

"Rose?" Tay stood in the doorway, her stuffed satchel hanging from her shoulder, her eyes wide with surprise. She wore a blue jean jacket over a blue and green flannel shirt, her thick blond hair tucked behind her ears. She set her coffee on the corner of the desk. "What are you doing in here?"

Rose briefly considered lying but couldn't think of a single excuse that made sense, so instead she shrugged. "I'm sitting in this creaky-ass chair, wondering who this V. E. Fine was."

A flicker of annoyance crossed Tay's face, but all she said was "You saw those articles."

"They were right there, staring at me." Rose grabbed her cane, stood, and moved out from behind the desk. "You're early this morning."

"I couldn't sleep so I decided to go ahead and come in." Tay passed Rose and placed her satchel in her chair. "Do you do this often? Come in here and see what's on my desk?"

Every morning . "Nope. Wouldn't think of it. I came in today to use the spare desk to prep the online orders, and I happened to see the articles you have out on display. So… who is that Fine person?"

Tay didn't look enthusiastic about sharing what she knew, but she shrugged and said, "We think that's Sarafina's pseudonym."

"Oh!" Rose eyed the articles with renewed interest. "You think she wrote for the Register ?"

"Sarafina used certain phrases while writing later in her life. Luke and I marked the articles where we saw some of those phrases, and they all seemed to have been written by this V. E. Fine." Tay went to hang her jacket on the rack in the corner of the office. "Luke and I still need to find some primary corroborating sources, but it's promising."

"Interesting. You should check the Register ledgers."

Tay's eyebrows rose. "Ledgers?"

"The financial records. Luke didn't show those to you? I swear that boy never listens to me." She shook her head. "Check the ledgers for the months those articles were printed. You can't pay a pseudonym, so the real reporter's name should be listed there."

Tay's gray-green eyes gleamed. "Rose, that's so helpful! I'll look for those right now."

"Here. I'll show you where they are." Rose headed for the archive room and led the way through a maze of shelves to the back unit. She used her cane to indicate the bottom row, where a line of thin books filled the shelf. "The years are written on the first page of each ledger."

Tay bent down and selected a ledger, checked the date, and then returned it. She counted down four more ledgers and chose another. "Here it is. Rose, thank you." Tay carried the ledger back to her desk.

Rose followed. "Speaking of Luke, is he helping or getting in your way?"

"Helping. To be honest, it's been nice to have him here."

Rose could tell that Tay hated admitting that. "He's smart. Always has been. Both he and Caitlyn."

Tay sent her a curious look. "He doesn't talk much about his sister."

"It's painful for us all. She's different from her brother, always had a wild side. We got used to it over the years, I suppose, and we missed the signs that she was going off the rails." Rose sighed. "Her parents and Luke always say she got involved with some punk and lost her way, but he wasn't the cause of her problems. He was just a symptom."

"It's sometimes hard to accept that someone you love is having problems."

"It's harder to accept it when you can't understand it. Luke feels especially responsible for what happened. They used to be close, but he started having to travel for work and was gone a lot. He and Caitlyn drifted apart, so he wasn't around when she started having issues."

"Issues?"

"We thought it might be drugs, and there may have been some involved. We know she was gambling heavily, and spending money like it was water. One of the psychiatrists she saw used the term ‘manic.' Whatever you call it, she lost her way and got wilder and wilder and embezzled a good bit from her employer. The way she carried out the theft was sloppy and as obvious as all get-out, too."

"You think she wanted to get caught?"

"Between you and me, I believe that's exactly what she wanted to happen. She's always struggled with taking care of both herself and Lulu. Every time life got difficult for her, someone in the family would rush in and fix things." Rose winced. "We shouldn't have done it, but we did. We all hoped that she'd suddenly mature and start being more responsible, but she never found her balance in life. Maybe going to jail and facing the consequences of her own actions will push her down the right road, but I don't know. We've been disappointed so many times now."

Tay's gaze had softened. "It sounds as if it's been tough on all of you."

"Luke especially. He's done more than his fair share to make things right by stepping in to raise Lulu."

"He's kind."

Rose leaned a little closer. " And single."

"Rose!" Tay's face had turned pink. "He's not—I'm not—"

"Whatever." Rose had said what needed to be said. I hope I at least planted a seed. She gestured to the stacks of files on the desk. "I'd better let you get back to work. But let me ask you something. It's neat to know that Sarafina might have written for the Register , but is it really important?"

"It's very important. It's always bothered me that everyone thought she just showed up in New York City and got a reporting gig without experience of some sort. Who does that? And if she did write for the Register , it could give us an idea of the personal connections she had in town. For instance, if she worked there, then she must have known your grandfather Edward Day. Those connections can help us understand who she was and why she took the path in life she did."

Rose nodded. "Fascinating stuff. I'm glad Luke's helping out."

"He's been working hard. Besides going through all those Register s, he's also attempting to solve the great secret-code mystery."

"Ah. The poem that tells a family secret."

"Luke told you about that. I gave him the poem last week."

"No. I heard it from the postman, Mr. Robinson, when I stopped to get the mail Wednesday." She caught Tay's shocked expression and shrugged. "You can't throw a rock in this town without hitting some gossip. Personally, I think the notion that the family secret is something big is poppycock. People don't deliver big news in poems. In fact, when I stopped by the Ace Hardware, I put ten bucks down that it'll be ‘nothing more valuable than a set of china.'?"

"Ten— Rose, people are betting on that? At the hardware store?"

"Nate Stevens has the chart behind the counter. I'm surprised you didn't know about that, as I saw two of your sisters when I was there. Ava put ten dollars on ‘love affair,' while Sarah wagered twenty on ‘secret baby.'?"

"I can't believe this." Tay closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her temples. "And my own sisters, too."

Rose felt sorry for Tay. The whole town was watching—and wagering—on what that silly poem might reveal about the Doves. At least there aren't any family secrets hovering over my family. That's a blessing, I suppose.

Tay dropped her hands from her temples and managed a wan smile. "I should get to work. Thank you again for showing me the ledgers. In fact, thank you for everything you've done, especially for letting me use this office."

"Psht. It was no big deal. No one else was using it, anyway."

"It's been nice not having to pack up my things every time there was a meeting." Tay looked around the office, her gaze moving out to the bookshop. "I sometimes wonder what this place looked like back in your grandfather's day. I bet it was something."

Rose had always thought the same thing. "He tripled the subscription rate and went from a four-page edition to twelve, all by the end of his first year as editor." She nodded toward the main room of her bookstore. "My grandfather had two Franklin presses right out there on heavy tables in the middle of the room. Said they were something, those presses."

"I bet." Tay picked up one of the articles sitting on her desk. "The reporting was really good back then. It's accurate and sharp, and much better than the bigger papers."

"Grandfather did a good bit of the reporting in the early days. Later, he employed a whole slew of women from town to do it. Said they wrote cleaner copy than any man could."

"He was a pioneer in women's rights."

Rose pursed her lips. "You might call it more of a marketing move. He could pay women less, and by hiring them from different families around town, the Register got two and sometimes three new subscriptions per hire. Everyone and their mother likes to see their name in print, even a pseudonym."

"That was brilliant of him."

Rose couldn't have agreed more. According to family lore, her grandfather's investment in the newspaper had been an expense that he incurred because he considered it crucial to the health of their town. Fortunately, his other businesses generated enough to cover the cost of running the Register . Rose thought her grandfather also liked the prestige and gravitas the position of editor gave him.

She'd just started to say as much to Tay when the bell over the front door rang and Luke came in. Rose noticed that his gaze moved immediately to Tay's office. You didn't look for me at all, did you? She supposed she should feel a little scorned by that, but it was a good sign that maybe things between him and Tay were moving along better than she'd thought.

Children today were so complicated. Back in her day, when a man pursued a woman, everyone knew it. He'd bring her flowers, dress up to visit her, sit beside her in church, and then put a ring on her finger—all in public. Now it was secret text messages and Netflix and whatnot. Yet another reason our society is doomed.

Luke came into the office and cast a searching gaze in Tay's direction. "Good morning. Everything okay?"

Tay smiled. "It's all good. Rose has been helping out this morning. She showed me the ledgers."

Luke cast Tay an apologetic look before he took his jacket off and hung it over the back of his seat. "I'd forgotten about those."

"No problem." Tay was already bending back over the open ledger. "I know about them now."

Rose sniffed. "If you two are set, then I'll head out front and get ready to op—"

"Look!" Tay pointed to the ledger. "Sarafina was V. E. Fine!"

Luke jumped up and hurried to her desk to look. He rested a hand on the back of her chair as he bent over to see the ledger, his face even with hers.

"The ledgers are color coded." Tay ran her finger down the page. "There's blue ink for expenses and payroll for the Register. Black ink for a grist mill Mr. Day owned. And green ink for the photography studio—things like ‘chair prop' and ‘flowers.' See?"

Rose noticed how close Tay's and Luke's heads were. If either of them turns just the littlest bit, they could kiss.

"Tay!" Luke pointed to the bottom of the next page. "During the same month, William was paid as a photographer's assistant!"

Tay couldn't have looked happier. "Aunt Jo was right about the pictures in the tin—the man Sarafina was interested in wasn't standing in the photo with her. He was behind the camera. We need to document all of this. If we look in the other ledgers, we might find out how long they worked in the same building." She turned to smile at Luke just as he looked at her.

For one perilous second, their lips were a scant inch away.

Do it! Rose silently urged.

They both gave a start. Tay yanked her head back toward the ledgers so quickly that Rose was certain the younger woman must have pulled a muscle, while Luke straightened up as if on a spring and headed back to his own desk.

He sat down and started moving papers around, his face as red as Tay's. "I'll just, ah—" He picked up a notebook and a pen and began flipping the pages as if looking for something.

Rose stifled a frustrated groan. She scowled at both of them and then said shortly, "I'm going to open the shop." She didn't wait for a response but headed back into the bookstore, slamming the door behind her.

Something was definitely happening back there, even if neither Tay nor Luke seemed able to accept it. Come on, Luke. Don't you let me down, too. Rose went to the front door and flipped the CLOSED sign to OPEN . Then she settled behind the counter, found the box of new bookmarks, and added them to the display.

The bell rang as the first customer of the day entered. Rose smiled at Miss Tilghman and then looked back at Luke and Tay. He'd pulled his chair close to her desk, and they were bent over the ledger, talking excitedly.

Rose watched them for a while. Maybe she should follow Luke's advice and stop worrying so much about William Day's reputation and do as other people did: focus instead on the gold. She could use a fortune in gold right now. She cast an uneasy glance at her office, where the stack of notices seemed to be mocking her.

The truth was, no one needed to find a pot of gold more than she did.