Page 5 of Piece By Piece

He walked over and squeezed her shoulders. “I’m looking into something that might help with all the inn stuff, so you can focus on writing.”

“What do you mean, looking into something?”

“You let me worry about that. In the meantime, please go get some sleep.”

She watched him walk out and then turned back to her laptop.

She stared at Chapter 12 for a long moment, the accusatory cursor blinking at the end of an unfinished sentence. The character on the page was standing at a crossroads, trying to decide whether to stay or go.

And Julie honestly had no idea which direction to send her.

She closed the laptop and added one more thing to her list.

Figure out how to be in two places at once.

It was almost eleven o’clock at night when Liza finally stepped out onto the balcony. The town square was pitch dark, except for the streetlights and the glow from a little seafood restaurant down the block that stayed open late.

Somewhere nearby, she could hear crickets that seemed to be putting in overtime. She leaned on the railing and breathed in the salt air. There wasn’t a car horn or a siren to be heard anywhere.

She knew this was temporary. She had to keep reminding herself of that. She had two weeks to help Dixie, and then she had to get back into the real world to figure out a direction, a career, and a reason to set an alarm in the morning.

She wasn’t staying here. Staying was what you did when you had something to stay for, and right now, all she had was herself and a stack of bills.

A light came on in the shop next door.

She tilted her head. It was past 11 p.m. on a Wednesday, so who in the world would be working at this hour?

Through the window, she could barely make out a figure moving behind the brown paper. He was tall and broad-shouldered, carrying something that looked like a box. He set it down and then stood still for a moment, as if he was deciding where everything should go.

She thought about how interesting it would be to set up a store and get to make all those choices at the beginning.

She lifted her hand and waved, but he didn’t wave back. Maybe he couldn’t see her through the paper. She waited another second, then shrugged and turned to go inside.

She supposed that some people were friendly and some weren’t, and she’d never had any trouble telling the difference, but she had also never had any trouble being the friendliest person in the room.

Tonight, she was just too tired to try.

She walked back inside, brushed her teeth, and climbed into the soft bed. The sheets smelled like lavender.

Before she turned off the lamp, she reached for the crossword puzzle book on the nightstand and opened it to a random page.

She found one of her father’s margin notes in blue ink that had faded a bit but was still legible.

W. Elliott, if you’re out there, you are the only person who might understand how my brain works.

She smiled, tracing the letters with her fingertip.

She then closed the book, turned off the light, and allowed Seagrove to pull her into a deep sleep.

Twenty feet away, through a shared wall, the light in The Puzzle Post stayed on for at least another hour.

***

Grant Whitmore had a system for unpacking his boxes. It had served him very well throughout four apartments, two storage units, and a cross-country move that he’d rather not think about.

Step one: Open the box. That seemed pretty simple.

Step two: Remove each item individually.