Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
I grab her hand and squeeze it. “I love you, sweetheart, but do not ever refer to me as mush again.”
She giggles, places all the books—with the exception of my mother’s—back into the box, and grabs another.
Meanwhile, I’m still going through my box, which is mostly old clothes. Another dead end.
“Bingo!” Rory pulls out an old shoebox. “It even has Patty written on it in permanent marker.” She begins to lift the lid.
But I stop her, placing my hand on hers. “Wait a minute.”
“Why?”
“I feel like we should have a moment of silence or something. I feel like we’re disturbing this woman’s grave.”
“I hate to tell you, Brock, but if those bones you found on your property are hers? Her grave was disturbed long ago.”
She’s right of course. But for some reason, I feel like this is a sacred moment. I’m not a religious person, but shouldn’t we say a few words?
I’m being silly, I know. For all we know, the disappearance and death of Patty Watson has nothing to do with what’s going on with my family now. With the dead bodies, the GPS coordinates left for Donny, the sudden reappearance and then disappearance of a ring that once belonged to my grandmother, and the various documents found at Brendan Murphy’s place.
But perhaps we can at least give Ennis Ainsley some peace. It’s a long shot, but if there’s something in this box that can tie those bones to Patty, he will finally be able to say goodbye.
I move my hand from Rory’s. “Go ahead.”
She pulls the lid off the box. The first thing she pulls out is a pair of white cotton panties. She grimaces. “I don’t want to think of Ennis Ainsley as a dirty old man or a panty sniffer, but this is kind of…you know.”
“He wasn’t a dirty old man when he kept these,” I say. “He was a dirty young man. Except that that’s not such a dirty thing. If I lost you tomorrow, sweetheart, I would need something to remember you by, and…your scent would be on your panties. It’s not like he pays to sniff women’s underwear. This is a memento. Something that probably gave him a little bit of comfort at the time.”
“If you say so.” She sets the panties down and takes the next item from the box. “What do you know? It’s an old cassette tape.”
“Say what?”
Rory holds it up. “My dad has a few of these that were my grandfather’s. They’re audio recordings. There’s writing on the top. It says Patty’s favorites.”
“Music she liked?”
“Most likely. We can ask Ennis, although I don’t know that we’d get any clues from her favorite tune.” Rory pulls out the next item. “Here’s the perfume he mentioned. It’s called Fresh and Light.” She spritzes a little into her wrist and sniffs. “Ugh. Smells mostly like alcohol.”
“Well, it’s over half a century old.”
She sets the perfume aside and pulls out the next item. “Eureka! It’s a hair tie…and there are a few red hairs on it.”
“Are you kidding?” My heart jumps.
“Nope.” She hands it to me.
“This is a hair tie?” It’s made out of a thin elastic type material, and it has two plastic balls on each end.
“Yeah,” she says. “I had to think for a second, but yeah, it’s a hair tie. First of all, it has red hairs on it, and second of all, I remember my mom talking about hair ties like this when she was a kid. She said my grandma would pull her hair back into a tight ponytail, and sometimes she’d lose hold of the tie, and the plastic balls would hit Mom in the head. She said it hurt like hell.”
“And they don’t make these anymore?” I ask.
“Why would they? They sound like torture devices to me. Besides, you’ve never seen one.”
“Well, no, but I’m not a woman, and I didn’t grow up with any sisters.”
“Fair enough.”
“But this could be a gold mine. I have no idea if these hairs are viable, but at least it’s something. Is there anything else in the box?”
“Yeah,” Rory says. “Take a look.” She scoots the box over to me, and we both glance inside together. “I was right. Ennis was definitely a romantic.”
Dried roses. The petals line the bottom of the box, but one or two of the buds are still intact.
“These are short-stemmed roses,” Rory says. “For the thrifty romantic. Long-stemmed can sometimes be too expensive.”
“Or one of them could’ve picked them,” I say. “My mom picks roses all the time from her gardens.”
“Could very well be. We’ll have to ask Ennis.”
“Let’s put everything back in the box,” I say. “I hope he’ll let us take the stuff with us so we can have it all analyzed.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“Then we have to respect his wishes,” I say. “This is his stuff.”