Death Threads (30 page)

Leona nodded sadly.

“He really is better off here.” Tori rested her head briefly on her friend’s shoulder before letting her hand drop to her side.

“How should I do this?” Leona asked, her voice barely audible over the chirping of the birds and the whir of Ella May’s air conditioner clicking to life.

“Just set the bag down. Let him hop out just the way he hopped in.” Tori gently wrestled the bag from Leona’s clutches and set it on the ground.

Moments passed. The bunny remained in the bag.

“See?” Leona asked, her mouth widening in a smile. “See. He loves me.”

Seconds later a second bunny appeared, hopping its way past the bag and toward the house. Paris emerged and followed suit, stopping every once in a while to munch on something green and leafy.

Tori laughed. “He really is your bunny, isn’t he?”

“Why is that, dear?”

“He’s interested in that one”—she pointed at the rabbit who’d lured Paris from the bag—“yet playing coy at the same time.”

Leona’s hands found her hips. “I don’t play coy, dear.”

“Oh, yes, my mistake.” Tori turned on her heels and walked toward the car, looking back over her shoulder as she did. “Leona? Aren’t you coming?”

“No.”

She stopped, her shoulders slouching. “Why not?”

“Because I have a gift to deliver, dear. Remember?”

“How could I forget,” she mumbled under her breath as she retraced her steps. “Couldn’t you just wait until there’s an actual date for the wedding? Give it to her then?”

“And miss all the fun?” Leona shook her head. “Not on your life, dear.”

Tori trailed her friend as the woman made her way toward the wide front porch that spanned the front side of Ella May’s Victorian, her thoughts skipping ahead to the work that awaited her at the library that morning—cataloguing, ordering, reading to a summer school group, and making her first delivery out to the nursing home.

Yet as they mounted the stairs, she couldn’t help soaking up every detail of the woman’s home—a woman who was both sweet and a tad bit odd all at the same time. When they reached the top step, she looked around, noted the two rocking chairs that stood side by side, positioned to watch the sun as it set over Sweet Briar. A window overlooking the porch stood open a few inches, the glimpse of the country kitchen it afforded lit only by natural light.

“I don’t think anyone’s home, Leona.”

Leona knocked, first quietly and then more insistent, the sound bringing curious bunnies from around every corner.

“I don’t think anyone’s home, Leona,” Tori repeated, looking over her shoulder at the driveway that was empty save for her own car. “There’s not another car anywhere.”

“Ella May doesn’t own a car, dear.” Leona rolled her eyes while simultaneously shaking her head as if Tori’s lack of knowledge in that area was due to pure stupidity.

“Still, I don’t think she’s home. There aren’t any lights on.”

“It’s daytime, dear. And Ella May believes in natural everything.” Leona placed her hand on the door and turned the knob to the right.

“What are you doing?” Tori hissed through clenched teeth. “You can’t just walk inside.”

“Didn’t you see, dear? The door was partially open . . . I’m just being a good neighbor and calling it to Ella May’s attention.” Leona stepped inside, gestured for Tori to follow.

“It was not! You just turned it. I saw you!”

“I most certainly did not. It was open.” Wrapping her hands around Tori’s forearm, she pulled her inside the large country kitchen decorated with a blue and white border of bunnies. “Hmmm, isn’t this quaint? Ella May is quite the interior decorator.” Leona pointed at a picture in the middle of the table. “And, as it seems, an artist.”

Tori leaned forward and studied the beautifully illustrated picture of a family of bunnies frolicking in a knoll. Despite the use of crayons, the attention to detail was impossible to ignore. “Wow, she’s good. Really, really good.”

“It’s okay, I sup—”

A fast rhythmic thumping from upstairs cut Leona off midsentence.

“What was that?” Tori whispered.

The mirrored surprise on Leona’s face morphed into a knowing smile as she shooed Tori back outside, the rhythmic sound increasing not only in speed but volume as well.

Feeling Leona’s hand beneath her arm, Tori looked a question at her friend.

“Don’t they know about the birds and the bees in Chicago, dear? Or must I teach you that as well?”

“The birds and the bees?” Tori asked as she felt Leona’s pace quicken, urging her forward as well. “Of course they . . .” She slapped a hand over her mouth as she peeked back over her shoulder. “Wait. You think . . . you think that was them?”

“Yes I do. And a good southern belle respects the privacy of her fellow belles.” Leona reclaimed the passenger seat as Tori slid behind the wheel.

“Since when are you a proponent of privacy, Leona?”

The woman reached across the center console and gave Tori’s leg a mothering pat. “There’s a time and place for everything, dear.”

“A time and place for everything,” she repeated as she backed her car slowly from the driveway.

“You’d know that, dear, if you’d stop being so rigid around Milo.”

She hit the brakes. “Rigid? Did you just say I’m
rigid
?”

“Yes, dear. Rigid.”

“One minute you tell me I’m too rigid, the next you tell me I wear things that show too much bosom,” she said as she bopped her head against the seatback in frustration.

“There’s a time and place for bosom, dear.”

“And when, Leona, is that?” She lifted her head, looked both ways over her shoulder, and then backed onto the main road, her mind whirling from the outlandish conversation taking place inside her car.

“Why don’t you ask Ella May? She seems to be well versed in the subject.”

She probably should have felt guilty for leaving Leona standing in the library parking lot without a way to get back home, but she didn’t. She’d spent far too much of her morning traipsing all over God’s creation when she had a mountain of work to do.

Rounding the corner of the information desk, Tori flung her backpack purse onto the lowest shelf. “I’m sorry I’m a little late, Nina. I got . . . sidetracked.”
Bamboozled
was a better word but it would have resulted in questions. Questions she had neither time nor desire to answer.

“Not a problem. We’ve only been open ten minutes, Miss Sinclair.” The woman she’d come to count on as far more than a part-time assistant moved effortlessly between piles of books. “It was just enough time for one visitor to return some books and another to ask a question.” Nina pointed toward a forty-something woman with dark brown hair and a high schooler in tow.

“I’m glad.” Tori looked from pile to pile, noting the slip of paper Nina had placed on each one. “Are the orders all ready?”

“Yes, Miss Sinclair. And only one of the requested books was already checked out. So I made a substitution with a similar book and tucked a note inside saying we’d send the requested book when it comes back.” Nina leaned against the counter long enough to eye Tori closely. “Are you okay, Miss Sinclair? You look a little . . . tired.”

“Long morning.” She squatted down in front of a large binlike drawer and slid it open, a stack of homemade bags springing into view. “I guess we better get these orders bagged up and ready to go. I’ll take them over to the nursing home on my lunch break.”

Nina took some bags from Tori’s hand, examining them carefully. “These are wonderful, Miss Sinclair.”

She couldn’t help but smile. For as crazy as the past week had been, some good had come of it, too. “They are, aren’t they?”

The door opened, followed by the sounds of young children who didn’t have a firm enough grasp on the concept of quiet voices. Looking quickly at the clock on the counter, Tori’s eyes widened as they met Nina’s.

“The summer school group.”

She nodded along with Nina’s words, her own voice dipping to a near whisper. “They’re early, aren’t they?”

“By almost thirty minutes,” Nina whispered back. Pushing off the counter, Nina rubbed a hand on Tori’s shoulder. “I can read with them if you’d like . . . give you time to take care of the bags.”

She hoped her sigh wasn’t too obvious, especially to the approaching ears of the overanxious summer school teacher who’d run out of things to keep her charges busy. “That would be great. My mind isn’t really in the right place to make exciting voices and sound effects.”

“I’ll take care of it.” Nina left the desk area, her shy smile greeting the students on the other side. “Hello, boys and girls. Let’s head on into the back for some fun with books, okay?”

A chorus of agreement rang out as the children followed Nina down the hallway toward the children’s room Tori had created in an old storage area. The hard work that had gone into transforming the room had paid off as the addition was one celebrated throughout Sweet Briar.

Forcing her attention onto the stacks of books in front of her, Tori began the slow process of matching a bag to each order form—the nursing home director’s description of each resident making the process somewhat easier. There was the bag with the fishing motif for Mr. Donaldson, the floral pattern bag for Ms. Thomas, a pastel colored bag for Mrs. Richmond, and the cartoon characters for Mr. Zane. Eunice Weatherby, an avid painter, would adore the bag boasting an artist’s palate and a rainbow of paint colors.

She opened Ms. Weatherby’s bag and placed the first two books inside, her throat constricting as she stared at the third—
In a Split Second
by Colby William Calhoun. Setting the bag down on the counter, Tori reached for the book, turning it over in her hands to look at the publisher’s name that had captivated her two days earlier.

If only she’d been right. Then maybe Debbie wouldn’t have to hurt any longer . . .

“But you weren’t right,” Tori whispered to herself as she shoved the book into the bag and set it aside in the plastic bin she’d purchased specifically for the purpose of transporting the bags to the nursing home.

One by one, she went through each pile, placing the correct order form and books into the bag she’d selected for that particular resident. When she’d finally placed the last bag in the container, she scanned the counter for anything she may have forgotten, her gaze coming to rest on a stack of books with oddly familiar titles to the right of the computer.

Scooting the stack to the side, Tori searched for its order form and accompanying resident description but to no avail.

“Things are going well, Miss Sinclair. The kids are delving into the dress-up trunk to act out the story I just read to them.” Nina peeked over the counter. “Could you hand me my purse. One little girl wants to clip her hair up to look like a princess.”

“Yeah, sure.” Tori pulled her attention from the unmarked pile long enough to grab Nina’s purse and hand it over to the woman. “I’m almost done up here. Except I can’t find the order form to go with this pile,” she said, pointing at the stack of books containing everything from a Stephen King horror title to a Beatrix Potter storybook. “Do you have any idea where it might be?”

“Oh, that’s not one of the nursing home piles.” Nina scanned the empty countertop to the left of the computer. “Looks like you got all of those.”

“Then what are these?” she asked.

“Those are the books Ella May Vetter dropped off just before you got here.”

“Oh, okay.” She pushed them off to the side and returned to the bin of book bags on the floor beside her feet. “I’ll shelve those later.”

“I set those aside so you could take a look at the top one. It has a slight rip in the cover.”

Tori looked back at the stack of books,
Misery
looking no worse for the wear. “I don’t see a tear.”

Nina shrugged. “I told Miss Vetter the same thing. But she insisted on jotting you a note of apology anyway.”

She studied the tiny tear more closely. “What happened?”

“It got caught on those gloves she wears. Anyway, here’s the note.”

“What’s with the crayon?”

Nina shrugged. “It’s what she grabbed when I handed her the pencil holder and that piece of paper.”

“Oh.”

“She said something about starting your day with a splash of color.”

Nina tapped her hand on the counter before turning back toward the hallway. “I better get back. I’ve got a show to watch.”

“To start my day?” Tori whispered, as she glanced up at the clock, her eyes confirming what she knew to be true. “Nina . . . Wait!”