Page 74 of Night Falls on Predicament Avenue
Anderson took a deep breath and went on sharing what he knew, Effie hanging on his every word as the truth became clearer with each moment that passed. “With my position back home, too much can be used against me in recovering her. Gus is in regular communication with my brother in London. No ransom notes have arrived there either.” His eyes became stormy, volatile. “I curse the man who coerced Isabelle into such a heinous act. If she needed more money, I would have given it to her. But to take my child? To dishonor my dead wife in such a way?”
Effie didn’t know that it would help him, but it was the only thing she could think of to lessen the burden Anderson bore alone. “But she still brought you here. With her letter. It speaks of some goodness in her. I’m sorry you’ve felt obligated to try to protect me while you’ve been searching for your daughter. Please don’t feel such...” Effie winced as she swallowed. “Please go find your daughter.”
Anderson crossed the distance between them, gripped her upper arms, and while lightly holding her, he said, “You arenotan obligation. You have given far more in Cora’s behalf—in mybehalf—than you should have been asked to do. You are innocent in all of this, and I will not allow you to be harmed again.”
Effie didn’t know how to reply. The possessiveness in his tone didn’t balance with the time they had spent together or the missing pieces of themselves they’d yet to share. She couldn’t expect romance or fairy tales from this preposterous kinship she felt with the Englishman. An Englishlord! But she couldn’t deny the invisible thread that pulled them together. It seemed unbreakable as much as it was inexplicable.
“I’ll be fine,” she whispered. Not really believing it herself, and not truly wanting Anderson to set her free—though she couldn’t have explained why if she’d been asked. Not reasonably or logically anyway.
The lines in Anderson’s face gentled. His eyes narrowed as his hand came up, knuckles brushing the length of her cheek. “Yes. Because I will destroy anyone who attempts to hurt you again. Anyone who hurts Cora. That is the way of it. That will be their consequence.”
26
NORAH
Present Day
HOWDARELEROYSUGGESTNaomi hadn’t told the family about him—about her pregnancy—because of Norah!
“Don’t listen to him,” Ralph groused as he shut the door firmly on LeRoy as the man headed back to his car parked on the street. Ralph turned to glower through saggy eyelids at Naomi. “You weren’t that bad.”
Naomi blinked at Ralph’s choice of words. “Thatbad?”
Ralph had the decency to flush through his stubby white whiskers. He waved her off as he lumbered into the kitchen and away from her. His left overall strap threatened to slide off his sagging shoulder.
“Ralph.” Norah raised her voice in warning. “Ralph, you come back here!”
The old man ignored her and exited like an ashamed puppy dog. The screen door slammed shut behind him.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Norah grumbled, slipping her feet into a pair of sandals and hurrying after him. She shoved open the screen door and chased Ralph into the cemetery, where he was picking up a rake that was lying next to a grave dated 1894. “What do you mean I wasn’t ‘that bad,’ Ralph?” Norah stood, hands on her hips, demanding he answer her.
Ralph was the quieter one of the two brothers, while Otto was the more expressive and affectionate one. If Norah needed comfort, she went to Otto. But she could always trust Ralph for his blunt honesty, his crotchety defense of her and Aunt Eleanor, and his loyalty. Always loyal. Norah had never questioned why the brothers didn’t live in the same house. They were alike in so many ways and yet different enough that they likely would have imploded. Ralph wanted his privacy, and Otto wanted his toolshed. They needed some distance from each other, their own space.
But now? Now Norah wanted Ralph’s honesty. Well, truthfully, she didn’twantit, but she felt she needed to hear it anyway.
Ralph laid the rake over a wheelbarrow, then squatted to pick up a stick that was tarnishing the grave of Katherine Humperdink, who’d died in 1873. What a name,Humperdink.
“Ralph?” Norah pressed.
“Fine.” He tossed the stick into the wheelbarrow and faced her. “You’ve always been a worrier, a fretter. So much so that you can’t leave people alone sometimes.”
That didn’t fit with Norah’s view of herself. In fact, she avoided people. Had for years. It seemed Ralph saw through her.
“Oh, sure.” He waved her off. “You don’t hound folks now, but back in the day when it was you two girls runnin’ around here, you just didn’t know when to let up when you were worried about somethin’ or you didn’t understand. It was like you couldn’t find any peace until you had control, and you couldn’thave control unless you pestered the heck out of people for explanations to help you stop frettin’.”
Norah felt that gnawing in the pit of her stomach that came with hearing the truth, but not wanting to admit it was the truth. She challenged Ralph further. “Give me an example.”
Ralph grabbed the rake, planted it, and leaned against the wooden handle. “How ’bout that time Eleanor wanted to send you to church camp, paid for it and everything, but you ended up not going ’cause she couldn’t tell you all the details. Which cabin you’d be stayin’ in, who your counselor would be, if they’d make you eat eggs for breakfast or if they had a cold cereal option.”
“Okay, well, I was only eleven. A new place? New people? Any young girl would have questions.”
“Mm-hmm.” Ralph adjusted his grip on the rake. “All them times you tried to follow Otto home to his place?” Ralph adjusted his voice to sound high and like a child’s. “‘What if your tools aren’t hung up right, an’ they fall on ya an’ cut off your head?’ Or ‘You know there’s such a thing as killer bees, an’ if they make a nest in your shed, we’d best get them out.’”
“Both are rational concerns.” Norah pursed her lips.
Ralph gave her a cockeyed look. “How’s it rational that a teenage gal can hang tools better’n someone like Otto, who’s been doin’ it for years?”
“Maybe it wasn’t worry so much as curiosity. Maybe I just wanted to have a look inside the man’s shed.” Norah crossed her arms over her chest.
