Spells for Forgetting(78)

He went to the pub three times a day, for coffee in the morning, a pint at noon, and whiskey in the evening. As soon as the clock’s long hand moved to the ten, he would leave his little hole of an office, and I could even tell you what he would order—a pastrami sandwich with mustard and brown ale, his first public drink of the day. But anyone with half a brain knew about the bottle of bourbon he kept in his desk and tipped into his coffee cup.

He appeared right on time, pushing through the old metal door and out into the rain. The few parking spots in front of the building were empty, so Abbott Wittich, who ran the Saoirse Journal, was probably also out. But Sophie walked to work every day, rain or shine, and she ate her lunch at her desk.

Jake walked straight across the parking lot without so much as looking up from the set of keys in his hand, and as soon as his truck turned onto Main Street, I set out from the corner of the building. He’d be gone for at least an hour, maybe longer if he got caught up in conversation at the pub. That was plenty of time.

August had offered to come with me, but the moment Sophie laid eyes on him, she’d pick up the phone and call someone. Jake’s niece, on the other hand, wouldn’t give her much to talk about.

My reflection was bright on the big glass windows before I pulled open the stubborn door, and Sophie squinted behind her glasses as she looked up at me over the desk. “Em? That you?”

“Hey, Sophie.” I smiled. “Is Jake here?”

She peered around me to the empty parking lot. “You just missed him, honey. He’s headed to lunch.”

“Oh.” My gaze went to the hallway that led to his office. “He must have forgotten I was coming by.” I glanced at my watch. “He was supposed to meet me.”

“Well, anything I can help with?”

“No”—I sighed—“just some paperwork I need to renew a county permit. I know where it is.”

Sophie opened her mouth to object, but I was already walking, disappearing on the other side of the wall. By the time she made up her mind whether she was supposed to let me in there without Jake’s permission, I’d have what I needed.

I closed the door behind me, eyeing the brown glass bowl under the lamp in the corner. His other set of keys. That was another thing that never changed about Saoirse. No one but shopkeepers locked their doors, and even the town marshal had the keys to his file cabinet sitting on a shelf four feet away because he’d misplaced them too many times to bother hiding them.

I fished the keys from the bowl and fit the one with the red plastic head into the lock of the third cabinet. When the heavy drawer rolled out, I caught it with the palm of my hand, skimming through the tabs as quickly as I could read. The files were filled with reports of theft blamed on tourists, vandalism, or neighbor disputes about property lines, but I was looking for one name—Morgan.

I found it in the second drawer, in the very back. It was the thickest of all the files and I had to use two hands to wedge it up from between the others. When I finally had it out, I swallowed hard, the weight of it heavy in my hands.

I pushed the drawer closed with my hip and locked it, dropping the key back in the bowl. The file barely fit into my jacket, but I doubted Sophie had updated her glasses prescription in years. I snatched up a blank piece of paper from the corner of the shelf.

She was leaning over her desk as I came back down the hallway, the sunlight reflecting off the lenses of her cat-eye glasses. “Everything all right?” She frowned.

“Guess he didn’t forget.” I kept one arm pinned to my side to hold the folder in place as I smiled, waving the sheet of paper in the air. “Had it waiting for me.”

“Oh, good.” She grinned, unwrapping the wax paper around her sandwich. “You know how he is. Would forget his head if it wasn’t attached.”

“Yep. Thanks, Sophie.”

“Bye-bye, honey.”

I pushed back out of the door, letting the breath pent up in my chest escape through my lips. My face was hot, my hands slick as I searched my pocket for the keys to the truck parked around the corner. When I got inside, I pulled the folder from inside my jacket, setting it on the seat beside me.

I stared at it as I turned the key. The thick manila paper was stained and scratched around the edges, like it had been handled a thousand times. It likely had. Even when the news stopped talking about it, and the Seattle Police stopped showing up on the ferry, Jake had continued to pore over the details of Lily’s murder. But the only answer he’d ever come up with was the wrong one.

I’d never blamed him, like everyone else had. And now, looking back, it was clearer than ever that no one had all the facts from that night. The only person who did was Lily.

My hand tightened on the gearshift before I wedged it into reverse, but as soon as the truck started rolling backward, my eyes went again to the folder.

Maybe I didn’t know Lily either, like Dutch said. But I was sick of this town thinking they knew me.

I hit the brake, changing my mind, and put the truck into park. The papers slid as I pulled the folder back into my lap, opening it. For one of Jake’s files, it was very organized, with tabbed sections separating everything from printouts of interviews and ferry manifests to what looked to be Lily’s class schedule at school.

But I narrowed my gaze when the word Blackwood appeared on a sheet I was flipping past. I went back, thumbing through the corners until I found it, and pulled the clipped section from the others. My heart skipped when I saw my own face looking back at me. It was my school photo from my senior year. A young Emery smiled at the camera shyly in a simple blue dress. It was the same photo my mother kept at the shop.