Small-Town Secrets

She came up with ideas; he obliged to the best of his ability. Like these pressboard saloon doors that she wanted him to paint brilliant orange.

The old Adam Snapp would have painted books on one side; after all, this was to be a used bookstore. Then he would have added real covers and used shellacked fanned-out pages for a 3D effect. He’d also have painted a caricature of Yolanda, her nose in a book, as it always was, on the other panel. He’d have glued a pair of glasses above that perfect little nose. She, all female with slim lines and slight curves, was a painter’s dream. She often displayed a Mona Lisa smile. Her hair, black and straight, would look simple on anyone else: normal, everyday. On her it accentuated big, smiling black eyes filled with determination.

Her lips had always been a challenge for him to capture. For some reason, whenever he’d painted her—and he had many times back when they’d both been teenagers working for the local animal habitat, BAA—her lips had come out bigger than they really were and always seemed pursed. She’d gotten mad at him on a few occasions, accusing him of making it look as if she’d just swallowed a pickle.

Yes, he could picture exactly how he wanted the saloon door to look. He clenched his fingers. Desire rose, fell, disappeared. It didn’t matter what his heart told him to do. Right now, when his fingers grasped the pencil so he could start to seriously sketch, nothing happened.

Nothing.

So it was best to just tighten the screws, adjust the hinges, check to make sure the doors were level, paint the stupid panels Kool-Aid orange and be done with it.

“Ahem.”

Adam looked down. She hadn’t used to be able to sneak up on him. He was really off his game. But then, in the weeks he’d been working for her, she’d been too involved with the plumbers and electricians to pay much attention to him. Almost gave him a complex.

“What was that noise? And did anyone come past you?” Yolanda demanded, all righteous indignation. When he didn’t answer fast enough, she added, “There was an elderly woman over in history and nonfiction. I turned around, and she was gone. I’ve searched the nooks and crannies of the first floor book areas. I even went upstairs to my private suite.”

Adam hadn’t been up there yet. Yolanda’s priority was the bookstore. As a result, he had a to-do list in his back pocket that would keep him busy for a year. He’d make, he figured, not even half of what he’d made the last five years painting murals, and he’d work harder. It would take longer to get it done.

Up until a couple of months ago, his life had been about creating art, murals specifically. Most of his creations had been done outdoors. Now he was indoors, hemmed in, without space to call his own. To Yolanda, creativity, when it came to her old house, was categorized as either “That’s not practical” or “Not in the budget.”

Not that Adam had much creativity himself these days. He wasn’t sure where his muse had gone off to and doubted it would come back. And right now he was too worried about his dad and his family to go after it. “Adam,” Yolanda said impatiently. “Did someone go by you?”

“No, I haven’t seen anyone.” He watched as she peered past him, as if someone really could have sidled by and taken up residence in her tiny office. “The front door was open when I got here. What about the back?”

“I thought they were both locked,” Yolanda stated.

“You should start checking.” The last five years Adam had lived in a few off-the-beaten-path neighborhoods. He’d learned to value a good door lock. When she finally focused on him again, he said, “I’m glad you’re here. Check this out.”

He opened and closed the doors a few times. “Hear anything?”

“No, but I heard something earlier. What did you drop?”

Okay, so she didn’t appreciate his handyman skills. “I tripped over the toolbox.”

She looked down. “I can tell by the assortment of tools spread out on the floor that today is ‘Get rid of loose hinges’ day.”

“Hey, I can’t believe Hallmark hasn’t thought of creating such a holiday!”

Yolanda didn’t laugh. In all the years he’d known her, she’d never responded to his humor. She’d been the straight A student who kept trying to tell him, “You should try harder,” while he’d been the class clown responding with a “Maybe later...”

And she’d been right. When later came, he’d been ill prepared. He’d had the opportunity of a lifetime the last few years and because he’d not had good business sense, he’d made one mistake after another.

Yolanda continued, “I think I’ll use that shade of orange on the upstairs baseboards. It will add a little character to the place.”

Adam shook his head. He might make poor business decisions and have no clue when it came to women, but he knew that would be wrong. This house was almost three thousand square feet of historical space and sculpture. The shade of orange she wanted hadn’t been invented when this house was built.

“Of course,” she continued, “I shouldn’t even be thinking of the upstairs until after the bookstore is a success.”

It would be a success, Adam thought, because she’d poured her heart into it. Per Yolanda’s orders, he’d painted every room—the foyer, study, parlor, dining room, bedroom, bathroom, enclosed breezeway and kitchen—a different vibrant color. The grand lady, a Queen Anne who probably missed her flowered wallpaper, had never shined so bright. Next he’d be working on the second-floor bedrooms. When he finished that she wanted him to turn the upstairs of the house’s two-story garage, which used to be a carriage house, into an apartment she could rent out.

He might not agree with her color choices, but he appreciated the work to take his mind off his mistakes and his family’s problems.

“This old dame doesn’t need any help with character. She’s loaded with it.”

“You did a great job,” she admitted. “But I’m more concerned about the woman I just spoke to. Are you sure no one went past you?”

“I didn’t see anyone.”

“She was old, really old, and tiny. She had gray hair with a hint of blond left. The cut was straight and close to the scalp. Her eyes were blue. She wore tiny pearl earrings and a matching necklace. Her face was as wrinkled as any I’ve seen, and she was smoking a cigarette.”

“I don’t smell anything.”

Yolanda frowned. “I don’t smell it anymore, either. That’s so odd. Come, help me look. Maybe you can figure out how she just vanished.”

Adam followed her into what used to be the living room. Now it housed popular fiction. From there he passed her, meandering through horror, true crime and mystery before finally stopping in the history section.

“No. No lingering smell of cigarette smoke. Are you sure she had a cigarette?”

“I caught her right here, in this area. I didn’t recognize her, and when you made such a noise—” Yolanda glared at his tool belt as if it were somehow to blame “—she somehow got past me. I’ve never seen her before, and I didn’t get her name. I was hoping she came by you so you could fill me in.”

“What did she want?”

“She wanted to know if I had any old books about Scorpion Ridge.”

“Sounds harmless enough,” Adam said, “except for the cigarette.”

“I used to catch people trying to sneak cigarettes at BAA, but they always did it in some out-of-the-way corner. This woman didn’t care that she was breaking the law,” Yolanda said.

Adam had also been vigilant about smokers during his tenure at Bridget’s Animal Adventure. He’d taken the infraction a bit personally, as his autistic brother was bothered by smoke, so much so that he often demanded to be taken home if he smelled it, no matter how important the event the family was attending.

“And,” Yolanda continued, “the expression on her face wasn’t harmless. She stood in the middle of the room as if she had a right to be here.”

“At BAA we called that attitude entitlement.”

“Yes,” Yolanda agreed. “That’s exactly the attitude she personified.”

Adam glanced around the room loaded with history books. It even smelled old. This was not a place he would normally spend much time. His taste bent more toward true crime and horror.

“You really think people will buy old school history books?” he asked.

“I used to.”

“Well, you’ve always been a bit strange.”

Her color deepened, exactly the response he’d hoped for. He bent down, picking up a book that had fallen to the ground. “Soiled Doves of the Desert,” he read. “I’m thinking these aren’t the kind of doves that squawked.”

Yolanda took the book from his hand and placed it on the shelf. “I’m being serious. Something about her wasn’t right.”