Chapter 8

Rowan read through the old newspapers Toby had brought her, late into the night after closing.

He'd copied over twenty pages of the Hollow Creek Weekly from 2002 to 2004. The photocopies of the bound volumes smelled like old ink. Some edges were smudged. Rowan turned them one by one under the lamp.

There were only two articles about Sarah West. One on the day she got the scholarship, one on the day it was "postponed." The first was on the front page, with the black-and-white photo, the tone proud: Hollow Creek Girl Wins Full Scholarship to State Conservatory—County Proud. The second was short, a side column, three lines: the scholarship had been postponed pending an "audit of finances," and the community's understanding was requested. No explanation. No follow-up.

Rowan laid the two articles side by side under the lamp and looked at them for a long time.

Audit of finances. Four words, and a five-thousand-dollar scholarship was lightly, gently, closed in a girl's face. She thought of Ruth's line—what I fear most is a clean set of books. She thought: those four words were the cleanest, coldest thing about the whole account. It didn't need an explanation. It only needed a postponed—and a girl waiting for her acceptance letter quietly fell back to where she'd started.

Toby was scrolling on his phone beside her. "Rowan, why would a scholarship get postponed? If they were auditing, they'd say something, right?"

"Because somebody's books," Rowan said, "didn't survive an audit."

Toby paused, then went quiet. He scrolled for a while, then said softly, "Rowan, I found a filing in the state records database for this scholarship. It says the funds, after May 30, 2003, were 'expended for capital equipment purchase, settled.'"

Rowan's pen stopped. Capital equipment purchase. Settled.

She thought of the invoice. Oak Bay Piano Gallery. May 30, 2003. Five thousand dollars.

"Toby," she said, "can you check—below that line—is there a name? Whoever processed it?"

Toby tapped the screen, then shook his head. "No name. Just that line. Clean. No extra words."

Clean. Always clean.

Rowan pulled out the photocopy of the invoice and looked at it again. The path the money had taken from the scholarship account was too smooth. Capital equipment purchase. Settled. Postponed for reasons undisclosed. Every line was casual. Every line left nothing to trace.

This wasn't the work of a panicked person in a hurry.

This was a carefully laid, airtight set of books.

She flipped to the middle pages of the blue manuscript. At page forty, something slipped out—not an invoice, not a newspaper clipping, but a black-and-white photograph.

A group of young people standing in an auditorium, the chorus risers behind them. In the front row was Mr. Hale, much younger, his hair still dark, smiling warmly. Beside him were several students—one of them Sarah. She had a ponytail, a music folder under her arm, smiling shyly, standing among the group like a young tree just putting out its first leaves.

And in the corner of the photo, standing at the far edge, hands behind his back, head slightly bowed, Rowan recognized him.

It was Leonard Pritchard, younger. His hair wasn't gray yet. He had a polite, restrained smile—the look of a man who wasn't used to being in a photograph, trying hard to look like he belonged.

Rowan turned the photo over. On the back was a line in pencil, in Mr. Hale's handwriting, faded by years:

Autumn 2002. Choir. Everything was still all right that year.

Everything was still all right. Rowan held the photo and felt something tight in her throat. Mr. Hale had tucked it into the sheet music and left it there for twenty years. That autumn, everything was still all right. The money hadn't been postponed yet. The girl hadn't left town yet. The secrets hadn't been buried yet.

She put the photo back and was about to close the manuscript when she stopped.

She remembered the first page—the title space above the staff had been blank. She hadn't thought about it at the time, but a man who'd taught music for thirty years, who was this organized—why would he copy an entire piece and leave the title blank?

She opened to the first page again. Above the staff, the line was indeed empty. She leaned into the lamp and saw a faint, almost erased pencil mark—not a word, a symbol, a scribbled-out note.

She squinted. It wasn't a regular note. It sat on the staff at a specific pitch. She flipped through several more pages. At the same position at the start of each piece, she found the same lightly scribbled marks.

Five notes. Together, they made a melody—very short, just a few notes, like the opening of a song.

Rowan sat down at the old upright piano in the shop—the one the previous owner had left behind, out of tune but still playable. With one finger, she pressed the five notes, one by one.

The melody was familiar. She listened for a moment and recognized it.

It was the opening notes of Amazing Grace. The old hymn Mr. Hale had taught her to sing when she was a child.

Rowan froze, her finger still on the key, the last note fading in the empty shop.

Amazing Grace. Mr. Hale had used an untitled book of sheet music to hide a message only someone who knew music would think to look for.

She understood why he'd chosen this piece. Amazing Grace was a hymn about being lost and then found. A man who'd taught music for thirty years, who'd carried a secret for half his life, using this piece as a clue—he'd been trying to say: he'd been lost for a long time, and now, at last, he was going to find his way back.

She thought of the old newspaper. Under Sarah's photo, the end of the article—she'd only glanced at it before. Now she read it again, and her finger stopped on the last line.

The line read: Scholarship provided by the Hollow Creek Community Music Fund, jointly administered by Treasurer Leonard Pritchard and Advisor Gilbert Hale.

Jointly administered.

Rowan slowly set the paper down. Outside, a fine autumn rain had started, tapping against the shop's glass, one tap after another, like an awkward knock.

She thought of Mr. Hale's last line in the manuscript: five thousand dollars, it wasn't your fault, it was mine. She thought of Ruth's both signatures. She thought of the circled P on the invoice. She thought of Leonard Pritchard at the edge of that old photo, the man who wasn't used to being in pictures.

A respectable old man who'd taught music for thirty years had handed a box of old sheet music to a woman who ran a bookshop. Inside: money that had disappeared twenty years ago, a girl who never made it to conservatory, and a scribbled-out five-note melody almost nobody would recognize.

She understood now. The untitled blue book was one song from start to finish—not an etude, not a hymn, but Amazing Grace. Mr. Hale had copied it again and again, from the summer of 2002 to the spring of 2003, as if he were repeating the words to himself.

I once was lost, but now am found.

His whole life, he'd been trying to find his way back from under that clean set of books.

Outside, the rain picked up. Rowan closed the blue manuscript, held it against her chest, and sat on the piano bench without moving.

She was certain of one thing: Mr. Hale's death was not an accident.

And whoever had led her to all of this—whoever it was—clearly knew she'd gotten close enough.

She looked at the old newspaper again under the lamp. Sarah West. She thought: this girl, standing on that chorus riser, the pride of the whole town—she never could have guessed that waiting for her was a clean set of books, and a life that had been "postponed" ever since.

Mr. Hale had left her the blue book. He'd left her the five-note melody. He'd left her the invoice.

Now all of it was in Rowan's hands.

"Toby," she said softly, "tomorrow, go to the church first. Ask the office if they kept any old bylaws or old account books from the scholarship. Churches usually keep those."

"Okay," Toby said.

From outside, in the wind and rain, came a very faint sound—almost swallowed by the rain.

Rowan spun around.

Something had been slipped under the shop door.