The Bookstore on the Beach - Brenda Novak Page 0,48

“We’ll need a place to hold it. Someone to gather other items to put up for auction. Someone to set up and break down the room. Someone to be in charge of the food and drink. Someone to act as MC and auctioneer. Someone to promote and sell tickets. In other words, we’ll need an army to pull this off. These things don’t come together overnight.”

“Most everyone here knows Beth,” her mother said. “I doubt we’ll have a hard time finding people to step up.”

“Did he and Mike set a date?”

“I got the impression it needed to be sooner rather than later, that the Vanderbilts are struggling more than they care to admit. He mentioned a week from tomorrow.”

“That’s crazy!” Laurie cried. “We’ll never make it.” She consulted a calendar. “Besides, that’s July third! Won’t too many people be out of town for the holiday weekend?”

“He said he considered that but felt as though plenty of people would be in town to celebrate on the beach. And they might be feeling more festive and willing to help.”

“I can help.” Autumn almost couldn’t believe it when those words came out of her mouth. She’d vowed to stay as far away from Quinn as possible. But this wasn’t for him. It was for his mother, who was dying of cancer. How could she not step up when she had the time and, after running several school fundraisers over the years, the experience, too?

Mary reached out to touch her arm. “That’s nice of you, honey. I’m sure the Vanderbilts will appreciate it.”

“Helping someone else will be good for me.” What would it hurt? She already spent her afternoons working for her mother and her aunt for no pay. She could organize this fundraiser before she came in or at night. “It’ll be a lot of work,” she added. “But we can manage a nice event if we pull together.”

“So it’ll be the three of us?” Laurie still looked a little shell-shocked and uncertain.

“And whoever else we can get to help,” Mary said.

“Even if no one else will lend a hand, we’ll make it happen,” Autumn said, feeling more committed as she thought about it. Part of her was even eager for the challenge. It would be good to get back to doing something productive again.

“Okay. I’ll start looking for a venue right now.” Laurie clicked away from the list of website changes she’d been making to open a browser.

Autumn heard the bell again and went out to serve their new customer. The store was busy for the rest of the afternoon, but whenever there was a break in traffic, she spent a few minutes making a list of what had to be done for the event.

“I booked the Rotary Club building,” Laurie announced a couple of hours later. “They normally charge two hundred dollars, but they’ve agreed to waive the fee for this.”

Mary, who seemed even more distracted and reserved than Laurie had earlier, murmured, “That’s wonderful. See? It’s a start. We can do it.”

Autumn hoped her mother was right.

She also hoped that throwing all of her time and energy into this event would keep her from obsessing about things that were better off forgotten.

11

Mary had been too afraid of what was in Tammy’s letter to read it. She’d shoved it in her purse when she left Mr. Owens at Starbucks, then drove back to Sable Beach and worked the rest of the day like an automaton while trying to come to terms with the news that Nora was out of prison and that Tammy had something important enough to say to her that she’d hired a private investigator all these years later.

Don’t let Nora’s release throw you, Mary had admonished herself again and again. She’d expected Nora to get out one day; she could cope with that.

She hoped.

But this letter...

She sat on the lid of the toilet in the bathroom after everyone else went to bed and turned it over in her hands, staring at her name in what was presumably Tammy’s handwriting. Depending on what the Skinners’ daughter had to say, this letter could cut her more deeply than almost anything else, and Mary knew it.

Tammy had been only six when Mary was held captive in the Skinners’ house, so Jeff and Nora would put Tammy in the locked basement where they kept Mary whenever they needed a babysitter. They couldn’t give anyone else free rein of their home, considering what they were hiding, which meant Mary spent a lot of