"That's — you can't just—" Wren looked at the letters, then at Bea, then back at the letters. "You've been reading for twenty minutes."
"I've been reading for twenty minutes and thinking for forty-five seconds." Bea tapped the ninth letter. "He visits every week. Regular as the tide, and he reads everything you recommend. You've mentioned it yourself; he always comes back having done the reading. He's local. He has access to the shop. He was here last Tuesday. He's a veteran; which the first letter indicates if he was at little Eli's birthday party."
Wren opened her mouth.
"And," Bea continued, with the energy of a woman reaching the good part, "three weeks ago — I was here, you weren't, I was covering the afternoon — he came in for a recommendation and when I said it looked like rain, he said—" She pointed at Wren with the authority of someone landing an argument. "He said, and I am quoting directly: it's the kind of afternoon worth writing about."
"That's—" Wren started.
"Circumstantial. Yes. And also exactly the kind of thing a man says when he's been writing letters. I'm not saying I'm certain. I'm saying Oliver Hartley is our prime suspect, and we proceed accordingly."
Wren looked at the nine letters laid out on her counter, and she thought about Oliver; kind, easy Oliver with his Land Rover and his genuine interest in every book she'd ever put in his hands and his complete willingness to stand at the counter for twenty minutes discussing whatever she'd recommended. She thought about the kind of afternoon worth writing about.
She thought:It could be.
She also thought:I'm not convinced.
She said, because the argument was structurally sound even if her gut was withholding full ratification: "All right. Provisionally."
Bea's expression indicated that provisionally was a reasonable position for Wren to take and that she, Bea, was going to quietly proceed as though it meant definitely.
"We don't embarrass anyone," Wren said firmly. "No confronting. No hinting. No conspicuous behavior that could be traced back to?—"
The bell above the door chimed.
Both of them looked up.
Freddie Gallagher stood in the doorway of Pages & Prose looking as though he'd arrived somewhere unexpected and was taking a moment to recalibrate. He was in his usual work clothes; dark canvas trousers, a slate henley under the heavy apron that always covered his broad chest. His eyes moved across the shop with the quick, cataloguing quality she'd noticed in him before, that particular attentiveness that he otherwise went to considerable lengths to present as indifference.
It was, Wren realized, the first time he'd ever been inside the shop.
His gaze landed on Wren. Then it moved briefly to the counter.
Wren became aware that all nine letters were spread across the counter in plain view. She gathered them in one smooth motion and put them under the counter with the calm of a person who had not just done something that looked exactly like what it was.
"Can I help you, Mr. Gallagher?"
"Freddie."
"I beg your pardon?"
"No one calls me Mr. Gallagher. It's either Gallagher or Freddie."
That, Wren realized, was the most words this man had said to her since she'd met him the first time she'd gone out to get coffee from him the first week her shop was open.
Freddie came in two steps, which brought him to the edge of the front display table. He looked around the shop with the expression of a man in an unfamiliar room who was not going to admit it was unfamiliar. His attention snagged briefly on the fairy lights. She watched him not comment on the fairy lights.
"I need a pen."
Wren stared at him. "A pen?"
"A pen." He held up a pen. "Ink ran out."
Wren reached under the counter and produced a pen. It was a blue ballpoint, perfectly ordinary. She held it out.
He crossed to the counter, took it from her hand without quite touching her fingers, and said: "Thanks."
"You're welcome."
