The bakery’s OPEN sign wasn’t lit yet, but she could already imagine the yeasty warmth waiting inside. A chalkboard signon the sidewalk still advertised yesterday’s fresh cinnamon rolls and apple crullers.
Next door, the hardware store’s display window was a jumble of snow shovels that people in the mountain town knew better than to store away until summer hit full blast. Alongside the shovels was a stack of metal buckets illuminated by the single string of fairy lights swagged across the window.
She paused to allow two teenage boys in letterman jackets to cross the road on their way to school. Their hands were jammed in their pockets, and they puffed steam as they shared a laugh.
She passed the Rusty Spur, the bar where she and her employees went to dance and unwind. Occasionally, her sister Honor and Willow Malone joined them. She looked away before her mind could run through what went down the last time they were there.
Finally, she passed the feed store and the sign for Willowbrook that listed to one side like a ship in a stiff wind. Then she turned down the alley behind her bookshop.
The asphalt back here was patched and re-patched in a quilt of repairs. The familiar light blue wood siding of her shop rose in front of her as she eased into her usual parking spot.
She killed the engine and sat there for a beat, eyes already stinging at the mere sight of her beloved store and knowing she would be running it all alone from now on.
She grabbed her bag, her keys jangling in her hand, and stepped out. The alley smelled faintly of wet cardboard. A few blocks over, a dog barked once.
Her boot hit the step up to the rear stoop at the same moment her eyes registered it—the back door was ajar.
Not wide—just enough for a blade of darkness to show between the jamb and the wood door.
Not the way she left it.
She stopped cold, heart cracking in her chest and then shooting off in a sprint. Her mind swirled through reasons that door would be open.
The lock didn’t catch when I closed up.Shehadbeen a little distracted by her own depressed thoughts surrounding the boxes of unopened books.
But she always checked it twice, a habit as bone-deep as breathing.
Her mouth turned to a desert, and her fingertips tingled as if she wasn’t getting enough oxygen. She stood frozen. Should she run or cry out for someone?
Neither would help.
She swallowed hard and squared her shoulders. Raising her voice, she made it carry through the open door the same way she’d learned to project while breaking up a group of rambunctious teens in the YA book club meetings.
“I’m coming in!” Good. Her voice came out steady. “And I’m not alone.”
Silence seemed to swell, and she swore she heard the walls of the shop creak.
“I have a guy with me!” Her claim was ridiculous and brave at the same time. “My boyfriend. He has a gun.” She pushed the door with two fingers and let it swing inward. “He’s military.”
The words tasted metallic, or maybe that was fear.
She stepped over the threshold, skating her fingertips along the wall until she found the switch. Warm lights flickered on. The back room wavered in her vision, and her stomach dropped out.
The place wastrashed. Boxes of backstock books were scattered, the cardboard ripped open, books spilling out like fish jumping from a net. Her desk had been ransacked, all the drawers torn open or tossed carelessly on the floor. Her cheapfiling cabinet was pried open and folders belched out. Bills and receipts littered the floor, and a pottery cup of pens her sister made her as a gift lay shattered.
“Hello?” she called louder, then listened hard for any sound at all. The only thing that answered was the murmur of the heater and a car whizzing by on the street.
She forced her lungs to expand and stepped into the main shop. A cry caught in her throat.
It looked like a storm passed through. Like those tornadoes that leveled towns in the Midwest or hurricanes off some tropical coast that devastated…well, everything.
The heavy bookshelves were still standing, but every book had been pulled free, tossed in heaps on the floor with some pages crumpled. An avalanche of titles cascaded into one another—romance into westerns into cookbooks.
The chalkboard boasting the books and crafts event lay on its side, the easel’s hinge bent backward, the hand-lettered sign smudged. A small, framed print she’d hung behind the counter had been knocked off, the glass smashed.
She brought a shaky fist to her mouth, pressing hard enough to feel her lips sting, then she let it drop.
No one was here.
