Celeste seemed to swim back to the surface. There was a fierce light in her eyes as she gasped, “Wolf . . . wolf . . . bay . . . not spells . . .”
“Is he the reason you left Still Waters? Were you trying to protect the book? And Bren?”
Celeste could only manage a slow blink.
“What’s his name?” Nora asked even though Celeste was probably beyond hearing. She seemed to be receding deep inside herself to a place where she felt no pain. A place of weightlessness and light. A place where her daughter waited.
“If you tell me his name, I’ll stop him. I promise.”
Celeste’s lips trembled. It was barely more than a twitch, but Nora put her ear up to Celeste’s mouth.
Wisps of air and noise drifted out of the dying woman’s throat. The words were so faint that Nora almost didn’t catch them, but as every cell in her body homed in on these fragile sounds, the words sank into her like raindrops on sand. She heard, “Book . . . in . . . room.”
And then, Celeste was gone.
Her spark of life had winked out, leaving the room feeling colder and emptier.
*
When the paramedics entered the apartment and shouted for her, Nora didn’t respond. She didn’t look up when they rushed into the bedroom to find two women on the floor, facing each other. One woman was dead. The other was crying into her hands, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed.
One of the paramedics touched Nora’s arm and said, “We need to examine your friend, okay?”
He helped her sit up.
Nora hugged her knees and stared at Celeste. “Too late,” she murmured. “We were all too late.”
Suddenly, McCabe was there.
He sat down next to Nora and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. He didn’t speak. He just sat very close and rubbed big, slow circles over her back.
As he watched the paramedics check Celeste for signs of life, Nora turned to the sheriff. She studied his frown lines, the bracket around his mouth, and the broken capillaries on the side of his nose. She saw a tiny scar just under his left brow and another on his jawline, close to his ear. As she looked at him, she felt the quiet strength in his presence. Grant McCabe was solid. He was a rock. Something to grab hold of when the world tilted.
McCabe read the need in Nora’s eyes. He slipped an arm around her waist and gave her a comforting squeeze.
She put her head on his shoulder. He smelled of Ivory soap and coffee. The heat from his body added to the blanket’s warmth, and Nora began to feel a little less at sea.
Deputy Andrews came into the room. When he saw Celeste, he let out a low moan of dismay. He looked at his boss, sitting on the floor with Nora, and asked, “What should I do?”
Instead of answering, McCabe turned to Nora. “Are you ready?”
Nora thought about it. Was she ready to leave Celeste? To tell McCabe what she’d seen and heard? To let him and his team get to work? To do what she could to help catch a killer?
After placing a hand on Celeste’s arm in a wordless pledge, Nora said, “Yes.”
*
Miracle Books always opened at ten in the morning. Monday through Saturday, Nora unlocked the door at ten o’clock on the dot. For over five years, she ran the business on her own without closing the shop for any reason. Not even sickness.
Of course, there were times she longed to take a two-day weekend, have a leisurely lunch at a restaurant, or spend the day at home, reading. But these times were rare. Nora loved her bookshop. And though her heart hurt, and she was still in shock over Celeste’s death, she needed to be in her shop. She needed to lose herself in the business of selling books. She needed soft conversations and the hiss of the espresso machine. She needed to tap register keys and stack credit card receipts. She needed to pull books from shelves and slide them into bags. Miracle Books was the only place she could bear to be, so that’s where she went.
Nora had called Sheldon before leaving McCabe’s office and was relieved to hear that all was well at Miracle Books.
“I really want to see the sidewalk display, but I should probably come in through the back,” she’d told Sheldon. “If one of the protestors insults Celeste, I’ll snap, and you’ll spend the rest of the day by yourself because I’ll be in jail.”
But when Deputy Fuentes announced that he’d be escorting her to Miracle Books, Nora decided to honor Sheldon’s request.
Now, as Deputy Fuentes drove down Main Street at a snail’s pace, Nora gazed out the passenger window and marveled over the number of people milling about on a Friday morning.