The Search Angel by Tish Cohen Read Free Book Online Page B

invasive,” he said. “Chokes out the roots of native plants. Grows so thick it topples trees. Takes out entire forests.”
    “Entire forests?” said Marion. “One tiny vine?”
    He made a sucking sound with his teeth. “Well documented. Look it up, if you like. Some states have made it illegal.”
    “Illegal. Honestly, Thomas.” She nobly rearranged her purse on the floor beside her feet and sat back again. “On the house, then. Up the south wall—it’s so plain on that side.”
    “Worse.” Thomas stopped playing with the radio andshot her a look. “Those little tendrils crack the mortar and then you’ve got moisture and bugs coming in.”
    They were driving back from visiting her sister in Sandwich, Massachusetts. Anna’s husband had just left her for her best friend and she had wanted support while he picked up his things. Marion sat with Anna in the kitchen, while Thomas sat on the sofa, aggrieved, and clicked from channel to channel in search of a football game that didn’t exist. It was mid-morning on a Tuesday. Football wouldn’t be out of bed until the weekend.
    In the car, Marion folded her hands in her lap and stared out the window. After studying a barn so splintered it had sunken in on one side, she grunted. “They don’t make the cracks.”
    “Ivy vines? They most certainly do!”
    “They wiggle their way into cracks that are already there. I did do
some
research.”
    “You should grow tomatoes if you want to keep busy. Can’t go wrong with tomatoes.”
    This she didn’t answer.
    Thomas slowed the wood-paneled Jeep Cherokee as they approached a dark red minivan at the side of the road. He muttered something about the van being too close to the passing traffic. “See? This is how terrible accidents happen. People don’t use common sense.”
    Marion hadn’t noticed. She was busy watching a young mother slide out the side of the van, a boy in her arms, his grasshopper legs wound around her waist. The mother hurried toward the copse of brush to find privacy for her son to relieve himself, his hands bumping against her neck as they went. The Cherokee sped past and Marion turned around.Mother and son were no longer visible. She settled back in her seat and stared down at the thinning skin on the back of her hands.
    It was never going to happen for her. The window had closed.

Chapter 7
    F DC Manufacturing Inc. She has no memory of an order from such a company. It’s happened before—that a manufacturer sends unordered product with an accompanying invoice in the hopes that the harried store owner will assume she’s ordered the pacifiers or diaper covers or pillowcases and simply pay the bill. Eleanor has made a point of avoiding such trickery, in no small part because the mystery product tends to be inferior.
    As has become usual, Queen thumps through the wall from Noel’s place.
    She punctures the packing tape with a pop and drags the knife along the length of the box. If the contents prove to be unasked for, she decides, she won’t waste the money to return them. Maybe—this might teach the sender a lesson—she’ll just place the merchandise on her shelves and sell it. Play stupid, as if she assumed it was a free sample.
    Inside the box is one pair of gorgeous, hand-knitted booties. Pale yellow with a satin ribbon woven through at the ankle. Eleanor stares at them and smiles. It doesn’t matter that Sylvie is too old for booties. Eleanor will keep them. They’re the same yellow as her room.
    It’s a sign.
    Everything is in place. She called Back Bay the moment it opened this morning. Made an appointment with Nancy for two o’clock. Jonathan swore he wouldn’t be late.
    Eleanor heads to the back of the store with her empty Mass General mug—a stocking stuffer from Jonathan a few years ago—and starts when she sees Ginny lying in a nursing chair, face blanketed with a French crib quilt.
    “Don’t tell me,” Eleanor says. “The sentimentality of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’