“Nah.”
“Hmm,” she said knowingly. “It’s always bittersweet to say good-bye. I’m choosing to focus on how happy that family will be with Agatha.”
“Or not.”
She laughed. “Luke. Have a little faith.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Luke and Finley arrived at the Chickamauga train depot at eleven a.m. on Saturday and paid the two-dollar-per-person entrance price.
One look around the Walker County Regional Heritage Train Museum housed inside the depot, and Luke’s spirits sank. It was larger than he’d expected and packed with stuff. They were going to be here awhile. “Do you remember this place?”
“Now that I’m here, yes. I remember it in a very hazy type of way.” She leaned over the first glass case. Today, she had on a long patterned sweater that opened down the middle with a simple T-shirt and jeans that fit her long legs perfectly—
“I can feel you there,” she said. “Your nearness is making it hard for me to concentrate.”
“Because?”
“Because waves of impatience are rolling off you. It’s menacing.”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“I’ll start here. How about you start there?” She pointed to the opposite wall. “And we’ll both work clockwise?”
“Fine.”
“I need to think on every detail of every item so that I don’t miss what my dad intended as a clue.”
He crossed the space and began to skim the information in the cases and on wall displays. He glanced at Finley. Fingers interlaced behind her back, she observed a painting.
Ten minutes passed. He wasn’t really a museum kind of guy.
Forty minutes passed. What if she didn’t recognize the clue? This time, Ed Sutherland wasn’t around to give out hints.
An hour and a half passed. What if, in the past eight years, the museum had gotten rid of the object Ed intended for Finley to find?
Two hours passed. What if they’d chosen the wrong depot? What if numerous stone depots existed in this region of Georgia that Melanie at the visitors bureau hadn’t known about?
He didn’t want to waste their three-hour drive this morning, the time they were spending here, and the three-hour drive home—
“I found it,” Finley whispered near his shoulder.
“Thank goodness.”
She led him to a piece of sheet music. “‘Pat Works on the Railroad’ is an old song that my dad used to play on his guitar. When I was little, we sang it together often. This is the clue.”
Sheet music didn’t seem like much. “You sure?”
“Quite sure.”
He wanted to believe that thiswasthe clue. But he also needed to think straight because, of the two of them, he was the sensible one. The one who didn’t meditate or wear felt hats indoors or ride bikes attached to big dogs. “If this is the clue, where is it leading you next?”
“Dad once gave me a piece of art with the chorus of this song written in calligraphy. It’s framed and hanging in the office at my house.”
“The next clue is at your house?”
“If I know my dad—and I do—then yes. This has his fingerprints all over it.”
