Page 21 of Promise Keeper

"Good gravy, you really are desperate."

"Hurry," he said, shooing me away from the window.

I stepped back and clicked the flashlight back on. This was insane. I'd never in a million years expect Ben to be my co-conspirator in a break in. At least it was just the old, one-room train depot building and not a home, and it wasn't like we were robbing the place. I was borrowing diaries from a hundred years ago. Nobody would even know they were gone, and I'd get them back inside on their shelf one way or another.

A tan, leather volume about half the size of the books on either side of it, sat on the bottom shelf. It were thin and small, like a memo book. I pulled it out and flipped it open. The pages were brown and brittle with faded writing in pencil. Some pages were in ink and more legible. The front cover read, Journal of Estelle Brooks, 1929.

Paul Brooks was one of the founders of Metamora and Fiona's ancestor. I'd hit pay dirt. "Got it!" I said to Ben.

"Good. Come out the front. Give me a minute to get up there. I'll knock on the outside of the door if it's clear. Shut the window."

Ben hustled around the corner of the building and I saw Roy pop into view out from behind a pine tree. He gave me the thumbs up sign and took off toward Johnna's house on the far end of the canal. Too bad I couldn't keep Anna and Logan from being implicated. It was a good thing Ben put himself right in the middle of our plan, or he wouldn't have been happy with me for involving them. He probably wasn't anyway.

The knock on the front door sounded.

I tucked the diary in my hoodie, tugged the window down and locked it, and hot-footed it to the front door and made my exit.

Despite it being the middle of the night and dark out, the large light above the door lit up most of the area in front of the depot all the way to the canal. Anna and Logan were gone and nobody else was in sight. Well, other than Metamora Mike with his head buried under his wing sitting in a pile of hay in the horse stall.

"I don't know what you'd do if we lived in a town that bothered with alarm systems," Ben said.

"It's not like I go breaking into places all the time," I said. "This was a special circumstance."

"Speaking of special circumstances, let's take a walk by Longo's tent. If anyone saw us out I can say we were up and I wanted to make sure it was secure for the night."

"Thatisa good excuse. You make a good criminal." I squeezed his hand to lighten the mood. Even though he knew I was joking, the word criminal probably had his brain in a bunch.

It was a clear night and although it was a dozen or so degrees above freezing, it was still frigid. Our breath puffed out in white clouds in front of us. Every sound seemed to be amplified in the cold still night air. Our feet crunching on the gravel seemed like a wake up call to the whole town, but the metallic bang that came from behind the Soapy Savant made me jump nearly out of my skin.

"What on earth was that?" I asked, holding my hand over my pounding heart.

"Sounded like the lid to the dumpster back there. Let's go see who's around."

"Why would we announce our presence out here in the middle of the night?"

"Because I have a reason to be out here--checking the tent--whoever's banging around in the dumpster better have a reason to be getting rid of things in the middle of the night if you know what I mean."

"You think it's the person who dumped the body?"

"It's a possibility. Stay close."

I knew Ben didn't have a weapon on him. He'd be lucky to have his badge leaving the house in a rush to find me like he did. But I stuck to his side like glue anyway.

We skirted the front of the business and approached from the side. The tall, wrought iron fence running around the property didn't hide anything going on, so when we got to the back, the dumpster was in full view. Soapy was swinging bulging black trash bags up over the side.

"Another night owl!" Ben called to him.

Soapy startled and dropped a bag on the ground.

"Oh, hello," he said. "What are you two doing out and about at this hour?"

"Cam's got a stiff back," Ben said, "so we're going for a walk to stretch it out. I figured I'd check on Steve's setup over there while we're out. What are you doing?"

"Cleaning out the shed. When you run a business it's work, work, work, then there are the mayoral duties. Things like this have to be done when you'd rather be sleeping."

"Those bags look heavy, want a hand?"

"No, no. I've got this. Living and working in the same place, things get piled up. Theresa hoards old junk like a dragon hoards gold. It'll be nice to have some room in there."

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