Page 58 of Night Falls on Predicament Avenue
Ralph snorted and looked peeved. Grumpy. “Goin’ to beat up that ghost lady myself if she doesn’t leave our Norah be. What kind of poppycock is this?” He gestured at the wallet. “Leavin’ a wallet on Naomi’s grave!”
“Didn’t you say...?” Harper’s question hung in the air as she looked at Norah.
Norah sank onto her chair. Otto shuffled toward her, and she felt his comforting grip on her shoulder. She quelled the nausea churning in her stomach. “It’s exactly like Naomi’s wallet.”
“Is it hers?” Harper asked quietly.
Sebastian glanced at Norah, then at Ralph.
Ralph held his hands up, palms out. “I didn’t open it. Just found it and brought it in the house.”
Sebastian pressed his lips together as he reached for it. The checkbook wallet was brown and tan with the standard Coach logo and symbol. It was worn at the corners but otherwise looked in good condition. As he opened it slowly, Norah steeled herself for a shock. It came seconds later.
“Naomi Elizabeth Richman.” Sebastian read the driver’s license inside the wallet. His nostrils flared as he looked to Norah. “I’m sorry, Norah. It’s your sister’s wallet.”
“What kind of sick prank is this?” Otto’s hand dropped from Norah’s shoulder. His words equaled the rising angst in Norah that she didn’t even know how to express. “Where again did you find it?” he snapped at his brother.
Ralph mirrored Otto’s anger. “Some tomfool left it on Naomi’s grave.” He swept his hand over the case files spread across the table. “You’re here digging up the past while someone out there is mocking you with it? Ain’t right. Ain’t right at all!”
Norah shoved back her chair. “I can’t. I can’t...” And she couldn’t. She couldn’t stomach seeing Naomi’s case files, her library card, and now her wallet? She fled the room because that was what emotionally mature people did when they were confronted with something they didn’t want to see. She charged from the house into the backyard. Her feet pounded across the lawn as she marched into the cemetery, weaving around the gravestones until she got to Naomi’s resting place. Isabelle Addington’s grave—or what was believed to be hers—was in line with Naomi’s, set back near the woods. A simpleI.A.
“What do you want from me?” Norah screamed to the trees, the words ripping from her throat.
Let the spirits hear her. Let the ghosts rise from their graves and haul her down into hell. There was nothing to live for, andjust when she thought she might see a tiny pinprick of hope, might conjure the smallest amount of tenacity to reopen the questions around Naomi’s death, this happened.
The woods were silent, the brisk wind blowing Norah’s dark hair around her face. She wrapped her arms around herself, her short-sleeved shirt doing little to provide warmth against the cool spring morning.
“I can’t do this...” Norah’s cry turned into a whimper as she dropped to her knees by Isabelle’s grave. It was more of a declaration to God than to anyone else. Then she felt a sweater settle around her shoulders, and knowing God hadn’t miraculously shown up in person, Norah waited until Sebastian knelt beside her at the graveside.
He studied her for a long minute before clearing his throat. “I won’t even ask you if you’re all right.”
“I’m not all right. I’m a mess, and I’m ... not helping anyone. Not you with your podcast, not Rebecca with the information she needs in case of a lawsuit, not Naomi—”
“Don’t be bothered about anythin’ to do with my podcast. It’s not important now.”
“Sebastian...” Norah lifted her eyes to his. There was comfort in his expression, tenderness. And right now she could use that warm teddy bear type of guy.
Somehow he knew, for in a moment Sebastian reached out and pulled her into his chest and half in his lap, considering they were both on the ground. Norah breathed him in, soaking up the warmth and strength of the arms that embraced her. Platonic or not, there was something magnetic about him. But it wasn’t romance, it wasn’t attraction—it was need. It was the human need to be held, to be told everything was going to be okay even when Norah knew it would never be okay. Not really.
After a few silent minutes, Norah shifted, pulling back from him. Embarrassment flushed her cheeks. She hadn’t been weeping.She’d just been ... well, snuggling with the man and siphoning comfort from him like a hungry, lost animal.
“I’m sorry,” Norah sniffed.
“Don’ be.” Sebastian’s smile was soft, even though the rugged lines of his face made him appear a bit weathered. He adjusted his glasses. “Fact is, this is no small thing. The wallet. Someone was here last night. You can’t convince me it was a ghost. No. Not Isabelle Addington. But why put the wallet here. What’re they tryin’ to say?”
“Should we call Detective Dover?” Norah wiped her nose with the back of her hand, tugging the sweater Sebastian had brought her closer around herself.
“Yes. The wallet might get ’em to reopen Naomi’s case. Wouldn’t that be somethin’, I mean to find that someone out there is maybe tryin’ to come forward with new information? Evidence?”
“You think they’re trying to help?” Norah hadn’t thought of that. She’d interpreted it as taunting, as mockery.
Sebastian shrugged. “I don’t know. But it is no ghost. An’ if it does have somethin’ to do with this old graveyard and Naomi, and even Isabelle Addington, then it’s time to dig deeper. Who was she really? Does the Anderson name have somethin’ to do with it all? An’ are you safe here?”
“What?” Norah stared at Sebastian, perplexed.
“Are you safe here?” Sebastian posed the question again. “There’s been two killin’s over time, an’ now someone has your sister’s things that would’ve been with her the night she was killed. Norah, that means the person who left the wallet here, and who probably left Naomi’s library card in your bedroom, was with Naomi the night she died. All these years they’ve either been hidin’ the killer or”—he screwed up his face in a wince—“they’re Naomi’s killer. Either way, lass, you aren’t safe. An’ I don’t intend to leave you be now.”
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