Chapter Two

Back at the bookshop, Rowan sat behind the counter for a long time.

She filled the kettle but didn't make tea, just watched the steam curl up slow. Mabel jumped onto the windowsill and watched Main Street through the glass, perfectly still. On the street, people opened doors one by one, the fruit vendor pushed his cart, Betty the mail carrier wobbled past on her bike, like nothing had happened.

But that was the thing about Hollow Creek—nothing didn't last long here.

The bell above the door jingled, and Marnie Novak came in carrying two plates of warm cinnamon rolls, flour on her skirt. Marnie ran the Pine Bakery next door, was Rowan's best friend, and at forty-something had a voice sweeter than her own cinnamon rolls and a mouth that once opened never shut. She took one look at Rowan's face, set the plates down with a little "oh, honey," and leaned in, eyes bright.

"Rowan. You heard, right?" Marnie dropped her voice. "Mr. Hale—god, poor Gilbert. The whole town's talking. I heard you were out in the garden this morning. They say you found him."

Rowan nodded.

Marnie made another sympathetic noise and slid onto a stool, pushing a roll across the counter. "You need something sweet. I just came from the post office—Betty said she saw the sheriff's cruiser parked at the garden gate at eight. And people are saying—" She paused, using that special small-town tone people used when they had a secret to tell, equal parts thrilled and reverent. "People are saying he was in your shop the week before he died."

Rowan's hand stilled on the kettle. "He was? I don't remember."

"Betty saw him. Said he carried a cardboard box in through the back, stayed a long time, and left without it." Marnie leaned closer. "Rowan, did he leave something here with you?"

Rowan's heart skipped.

He had. Three evenings ago, around dusk, he'd showed up with that old cardboard box, said he needed to "sit a minute." He'd drunk a cup of her chamomile tea and stayed a long time. He talked about students he'd taught when he was young, about the old house he lived in alone since his wife died, about a collection of sheet music he'd treasured since he was a kid. He said, "Rowan, good things belong where somebody loves them."

He'd left the box with her. "Hold onto this for me," he said. "I'll come get it in a day or two."

He never came back.

He was dead.

Marnie didn't push when Rowan didn't answer. She just kept talking on her own—about what a good man Mr. Hale was, how he'd taught every kid in town to sing, how he conducted every Christmas concert at the church; about how he'd lived so carefully alone all these years, picking up the Hollow Creek Weekly at the post office every Friday without fail, buying a bag of local beans at the farmers' market every Saturday; about how just recently he'd been saying he wanted to buy a better organ for the old church, that he'd cover most of it. Marnie's voice trailed off. "How does a man like that just... go?"

Rowan picked up a cinnamon roll and took a bite. Cinnamon and sugar warmth bloomed on her tongue, sweet with honey. Her throat tightened. She pictured him that evening, on this very stool, saying, "Rowan, you make tea better than my wife ever did." She'd thought then he was just a kind old man stopping by for a chat. She hadn't read anything into it. Now, looking back, she realized he'd stayed a long time, said a lot of things about the old days, like he was laying something out for her to see, one thing at a time, while he still could.

"Marnie," she said. "The box. I haven't opened it. He asked me to keep it, so I did."

"It's his things," Marnie said. "Of course you keep it. If you want to look, nobody's going to stop you. The man's gone—someone's got to look after his old stuff. Besides—" She lowered her voice. "Gossip in this town always starts with something you're holding. If you don't look, somebody else will want to."

After Marnie left, Rowan sat a while longer, then brought the cardboard box out of storage and set it on the counter, but didn't open it right away. She made herself a cup of tea and sat under the lamp, looking at the box.

She remembered what he'd said that evening. "Rowan, I spent my life teaching kids to sing. But some songs I sang my whole life, and never had the courage to open my mouth." He'd smiled then. "You get old, and you figure what you owe, you've got to pay back."

Rowan held her teacup and looked at the box. That quiet voice in her chest said: maybe what he owed was in there.

The bell jingled again. Marnie poked half her body back in the door and stage-whispered: "Rowan, the sheriff! He's headed this way." She grabbed her tray. "I'll get out of your hair. Come over whenever you want to talk."

The door closed behind her, cutting off Marnie's sweet voice. Jesse Crowe walked in. Those gray-blue eyes under the hat brim watched Rowan steadily. He wasn't in the crisp uniform jacket today, just the uniform shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, like he'd stepped out of some ordinary errand.

"Rowan." He sat down at the counter. "I wanted to tell you something."

"What?"

"Mr. Hale's next of kin hasn't surfaced yet." Jesse said. "He has a nephew in Portland they haven't reached. You're the person he left something with." He paused. "I heard he left a box here."

Rowan's hand tightened around her cup. "A box of old sheet music. He asked me to keep it. Said he'd come back for it."

"Can I see?"

She didn't hesitate. She got up, brought the box back to the counter, and in front of Jesse broke the seal and lifted the lid. Inside, neatly stacked: stacks of sheet music, exercise books in kraft covers, yellowed hymnals, a few choral scores covered in pencil notes, and on top, a thin hand-copied book, deep blue cover, no title.

Jesse flipped through it, didn't find anything. "That's it?"

"That's it," Rowan said. "He said he wanted to donate it to the shop. Asked me to hold it."

Jesse closed the box. He looked at her. "When his family comes, they'll probably want these back. Don't put them on the shelf yet." He stood, walked to the door, then stopped and turned, like he'd been choosing his words. "Rowan. I know you spent time in the city, saw cases. But this isn't the city. Some things, the department handles."

"I know," she said.

He left. The door swung shut behind him, carrying a draft that made the box lid rattle on the counter.

Rowan stood under the lamp, looking at the closed box, and didn't carry it back to storage right away. She just stood there quietly, listening to her own heartbeat.

He'd put it in her hands. "I'll come get it in a day or two."

He never came.

He'd left behind those unkept words, and this whole box of sheet music that still smelled like old paper and pine, like a last sentence he'd never finished, left neatly in her keeping.

She didn't move the box. She sat behind the counter, under the lamp, lifted the lid a crack, then closed it again. Mabel jumped up, circled on the lid, and curled into a corner, eyes half-closed, like she was standing guard.

Then she thought of Mrs. Roth—the old woman at the historical society. Mrs. Roth had said something that stuck with Rowan: "Rowan, everybody in Hollow Creek talks, but nobody says the important parts out loud. If you want the truth, you have to know how to look, how to listen, how to dig through a stack of old things and find the sentence somebody hid."

Rowan had nodded politely at the time, just an old woman's musing. But now, looking at the box, she thought she understood.

He'd handed her this box of sheet music without explanation. "I'll come get it in a day or two." He'd left a box of old paper like a roomful of unfinished sentences. And he'd left them with a woman who came back from the city, who'd spent eleven years in evidence archives.

That wasn't a random trust.

Rowan reached out and touched the rough edge of the cardboard box.

"Mr. Hale," she said quietly, "what was it you wanted me to give back for you?"