A Timely Vision by Joyce and Jim Lavene Read Free Book Online Page B

her rocking in her chair. Using her kitchen phone, I called the deacon at her church and explained what had happened. He arrived at the house less than ten minutes later.
    “I didn’t like the way she sounded,” the chief said as we walked out to his car.
    “It’ll sink in on her,” I assured him.
    “I hope so. She scared me. I don’t mind admitting it. I’d hate to see her taken out of her home. She might not be able to live alone anymore after this. I’ve seen it happen with folks her age.”
    We climbed into the car and headed back to my house, weaving around fallen tree branches and patio furniture that had been swept into the street by the storm. I looked out the side window at the ocean. There were still some whitecaps, but the surf was mostly calm and the tide level was back where it belonged. “She knows what we were saying. She’s not crazy or senile. She couldn’t take it all in, but she’ll be fine.”
    “In the meantime, we’ve had a murder.” He shook his head. “Those SBI boys are gonna come down here and tear up our community.”
    “If they find out who killed Miss Elizabeth, I guess it’ll be worth it.”
     
    The storm had caused substantial damage up and down the Outer Banks. Duck was hard hit, but we’d seen worse. As soon as it passed, everyone was out cleaning up the mess and putting the town back together. It was a way of life for us. This coast wasn’t called the Cape of Storms for nothing.
    I was lucky there was no real damage to Missing Pieces. Rain had come in through a broken window in the back storage room, but the water hadn’t reached anything of value. Gramps and I used a wet-dry vac and a mop to clean it up. The power came on shortly after we’d left Miss Mildred’s house. I was glad she had that much anyway.
    Everyone was devastated by the news of Miss Elizabeth’s death. After the weekend, I sat in the town hall listening to people talk about it as they waited for the town meeting to begin. It had been the topic of conversation on everyone’s lips for the past two days. No one could believe anyone in Duck would hurt Miss Elizabeth. But there were always outsiders here. The same tourists who provided so much of our livelihood came from across the world. There was no way of knowing anything about them.
    “I heard she was robbed and raped,” Althea from the library in Manteo whispered loudly to Trudy. “She didn’t have her purse on her. No one’s found it either.”
    I didn’t tell her that Chief Michaels said it didn’t look like robbery at all. Whoever attacked Miss Elizabeth had left her mother’s expensive watch on her arm when he or she had buried her. That wasn’t like a robbery. It was true they hadn’t found her purse. But the ocean could’ve taken that away before we got there.
    “Did you hear anything about Miss Elizabeth being raped?” Trudy asked me after Althea had moved on to have the same conversation with Mary Lou on the other side of the town meeting room.
    “No. I haven’t heard anything other than what Chief Michaels announced two days ago. I think he’s waiting for the medical examiner’s report before he releases any more information. Althea’s only speculating—she doesn’t know anything for sure.” As I spoke, I kept one eye on the rapidly growing group entering town hall for our monthly meeting. This large of a crowd was unusual. Normally only a handful of residents showed up. No doubt it was a sign of how worried everyone was about what had happened to Miss Elizabeth. With no real answers, the whole town was on edge.
    I was on edge too, worried about who’d do such a terrible thing, of course, but also heartsick because I was the one who’d found her buried in the sand. My gift led me to her. The idea of that frightened me.
    Since the storm, I’d spent some time sitting alone in the dark, wondering whether this was the start of something far worse than being a finder of lost things. I didn’t want to find dead bodies. I