Miss Carmody shook her head. “No, and no. I wish I’d asked.” She paused. “Can I get your autograph?” she said to Sylvie.
“Of course.” Sylvie grinned. “What do you want me to sign?” She patted her pockets. “I don’t even have a pen. I wish I had something to give you, some swag or something like that, but?—”
I wondered if Sylvie was going to tell her that everything she owned had blown up, but she stopped short of giving that much away.
“I’ve got a pen,” Miss Carmody said.
Sylvie turned to me. “Eli, do you have a business card or anything I can write on?”
“I might.” I pulled out my wallet and fished around. “I was going to give you this anyway, in case you heard anything.” I set it on the counter, turning it over so the blank back left room for Sylvie to sign. I hadn’t planned until right then to leave my card, but after seeing Miss Carmody again, I realized I was okay being recognized, at least by her. If there was even the slightest chance it could help me find Silas, I was willing to put up with whatever memories Miss Carmody might dredge up.
“My first name is Gertie,” she said. “Gertie Carmody.” She handed Sylvie a pen, and Sylvie hesitated, tapping the pen against her chin while she thought, before she wrote:
Thanks for being a fan, Gertie!
Sylvie Calloway
“This makes my day.”
Miss Carmody picked up the card and tapped it on the counter, then went stock-still when she saw my name on the other side.
I had the fleeting thought that I should have sent someone else to Hollow Creek before she said, “Eli? Eli Bishop?” She squinted up at me, studying my face. “Well, I’ll be. You’re the spitting image of your mama. I don’t know why I didn’t see it when you walked in. Those curls, those brown eyes. You’re so tall it threw me off. I bet you don’t remember me.”
Even though I’d been expecting the emotional hit, it was still a shock to have her bring up my mother. I shoved my hands in my pockets and ducked my head, suddenly feeling all of ten years old. “I do, ma’am. I just…”
She nodded soberly. “Haven’t been back since, huh? Must be hard.”
I nodded, my throat suddenly tight.
“We miss your family around here, Eli,” she said gently. I nodded again, and Gertie Carmody, taking pity on the child she’d known, let it go. “Well, I’m glad to see you again, looking so well,” she said, “and with my favorite podcaster. What a treat. Are you helping her investigate?”
“In a way,” I said. I mustered up a semi-authentic smile. “We’re partners. Kind of.”
“Except when you boss me around,” Sylvie said with a grin, poking me with her elbow.
Glad for the change in subject, I leaned into the jab. “Well, you’re a podcaster. You know about podcasting. I know about everything else.”
Sylvie rolled her eyes and shared a glance with Miss Carmody.
“Not at all full of himself, I see that.” Gertie beamed up at me. “Truly, it does my heart good to lay eyes on you again, Eli.” She straightened abruptly. “Saying your name out loud just reminded me, and I didn’t put it together until just now. Did you know you have a box here?”
That was unexpected. “A box?”
“You signed up for it five, six years ago? I remember noting the name at the time, wondering if you were coming home, if it was the same Eli Bishop. The box has been collecting junk mail ever since. I was about to send you your annual bill.”
“My bill?” I asked, this piece of the puzzle not fitting, no matter how I turned it in my head.
“Well, I guess I wasn’t sending it to you if you didn’t know you had the box and haven’t been paying for it.”
“Can you tell me where you’ve been sending the bills? Because I definitely didn’t know I had a box.” I wasn’t sure what to make of this new development. Was it connected toEmily Shaw? How could it be, when the box had been rented five years ago?
“I need to see your driver’s license,” she said abruptly.
“All right,” I agreed. If it had been anyone else demanding my license, I might have hesitated, but Gertie Carmody was not at the center of some kind of crime ring. She definitely hadn’t blown up Emily Shaw.
She took it from me, glanced at it, and then turned around. “Stay right there.” She disappeared into the back of the post office and returned with a file. “We do all this on paper. But look—” She handed me a copy of a driver’s license. My license from five years ago. She compared it to my current one, which she placed on the counter. “Same one, same number, same name, same picture—it’s your box.”
She flipped the page over. A billing address was printed there, in Gertie’s neat handwriting, a P.O. box I recognized.
