He departed, taking away his impatience but also the energy and sizzle that had been charging the room.
She carefully considered each of the albums and objects they’d set aside. She read the song titles, the names of the artists, the lyrics, hunting for even slight points of connection that might guide her to the discovery of the next clue. Nothing jumped out.
She was going back over them yet again when Luke handed her tea. He’d poured it into a Grand Canyon mug Dad had purchased on the road trip they’d taken when she was thirteen. “Thank you.”
“Find anything?”
“Still looking.” She took a sip of peppermint tea and lifted a record calledTheatre of the Mindby Mystery. “It occurs to me that the band’s name—Mystery—might be a clue. Dad’s mom grew up in the thick of the Great Depression. She found a lot of joy in the books she checked out from the library. Her favorites were about unsolved real-life mysteries. When she’d tuck her sons into bed at night, she’d tell stories of missing people and artifacts.”
“Did she ever solve any of the real-life mysteries?”
“To my knowledge, the only mystery she cracked was how to fry okra to perfection. Every time my dad saw okra on a menu anywhere, he’d reminisce about his mom’s okra, because he’d never tasted better.” She rested the album cover on her lap. “She did succeed, though, in capturing her sons’ imagination concerning mysteries. The bedtime stories Dad told me were also all real-life mysteries. Dad loved to do his own amateur detective research. Like his mother, he never made any actual headway.”
“If ‘mystery’ is the clue, what is it leading us toward?”
“Nothing springs to mind.” She picked up the record with the circled song title. This LP was titledBarton Hollowby The Civil Wars. The song of the same name had been circled.
Wait.
Dad hadn’t circled the full title. The circle centered around the second word. Hollow.
A small seed of inspiration sprouted in her memory. She pointed to the circled word. “There’s a hollow tree here on the property that I used to go to all the time.”
“Did your dad know about it?”
“Yes. I’d make up stories about animal families who lived in the tree. From time to time, he’d surprise me by placing something in the tree for me to find. Doll furniture. A piece of fabric for a squirrel to wear as a coat. That kind of thing.”
“Let’s check it.”
Excitement battled with doubt as she buttoned her coat. She dug her mittens from her pocket and tugged them on.
They walked a path through the forest that seemed to transport her back in time. She recalled the bark of her first dog. Thethwapof her flip-flops as she ran. The riffle of her dress against her legs.
“Here.” Finley stopped before the hollow tree. It stood near the lip of a washout, surrounded by a regiment of brother oaks, looking as if it had been undisturbed for decades.
Luke went to his knee next to the large triangular opening inthe base of the trunk. He extended an arm as if to begin clearing the drift of leaves that had accumulated, then paused. “Do you want to do this without me? If there’s a clue here, it’s yours to find.”
The pirate prince was thoughtful. “Let’s work together. To my way of thinking, it’s ours to find.”
She knelt and they both swept aside leaves.
He had on his battered leather jacket but hadn’t put on gloves. The cold whitened his face and hands. The tips of his ears stained pink.
Their digging brought their profiles into close proximity. She timed her motion to ensure that her hands didn’t hit his.
They cleared a few inches of dirt. Nothing. They’d reached hard-packed earth. “I’m second-guessing this,” she said. “That circled word might’ve been a coincidence. The Civil Wars album might not even be the album he wants me to pay attention to.”
Luke pulled out his key ring and jabbed the largest key into the ground, breaking it apart.
Crunch crunch scrape. Crunch crunch scrape.
His mouth set in determination, he didn’t complain and he didn’t let up. At this pace, however, they might be here all evening. Perhaps she should go back to the house and return with a shovel—
Crunch crunch scrape.
Crinkle.
At the new sound, Luke stilled. He leaned back, silently giving her access.
