Secrets Whispered from the Sea - Emma St. Clair Page 0,28

fingertips along the wood of Nana’s door.

Emily was alone in the kitchen, just taping a box shut. There were several others sealed up in a neat row on the floor.

Emily grinned when she saw my face. “I’m fast. You didn’t want to keep any of that, did you?”

I didn’t, but something still tugged at me to think about getting rid of things Nana had bought, for whatever reason. The resistance surprised me. Maybe it was all junk. Maybe it had to be done. But when it came down to it, Nana had picked out these things. She chose them, and then she placed them here.

Had there been a purpose? Was I missing some piece that would solve the puzzle of Nana’s hoarding?

“That’s fine. Where’s the inspector?”

“Outside on the screened-in porch,” she said with an eyeroll. “Want to give me a hand with these boxes? I can drop them off at a thrift store if you want.”

“Sure.”

Alec stomped back into the house, and the door to the screened-in porch slammed behind him, rattling the glass.

“Jackson is working with you on this?” he asked, his fierce ocean eyes on Emily, as though I weren’t even here.

“Of course,” she said, wiping sweat from her brow. “I mean, he’s got a new baby, but he’s overseeing. And this isn’t my first rodeo.”

“Then you know the codes and the kinds of permits you’ll need to file, depending on the scope of the work.”

“I do.” Emily sounded more businesslike now, with no trace of the sarcasm that laced her earlier words. I wondered how many times she and Alec had faced off like this.

He turned to me, running a hand through his thick, dark hair. Without the cap, I could see a few strands of gray. It worked for him.

“The house is uninhabitable,” he said. “Obviously. But as soon as your plans have been presented and approved, and you secure the proper permits, you can begin work.”

“Of course,” I said, nodding.

And then his words caught up to me, like a rubber band snapping back after being extended. “Wait—did you say uninhabitable?”

11

I refused to look at the pink slip of paper Alec affixed right next to the door before he left, though I knew what it said. Nana’s cottage was unsafe for occupancy. Because of a whole bunch of codes and blah blah and something about reinforcements underneath, which I swear he hadn’t done more than glance at.

As soon as he was gone, I stared at Emily, eyebrows raised, asking the question without asking it. Did I really have to vacate?

“He’s serious,” Emily said with a sigh. “That man is never not serious. And he’s the worst person we could have gotten assigned to us from the Crud. I’ll have to call Jackson and see if he can placate him. The man’s like a dog with a bone. A whole pile of bones. Alec, not Jackson. They’re friends. Somehow.”

“So … that means?” I didn’t want to say the words out loud, just so Emily would have plausible deniability about me staying.

Emily winked. “Alec won’t go out of his way to check if there are cars in the driveway. Or lights on at night. Satan’s spawn is way too arrogant to consider that anyone might dare defy one of his little permits.”

She spoke so vehemently that I almost wanted to defend the guy. Almost. But I didn’t. Because there was no love lost between me and Alec, but I liked Emily. I especially liked how she was telling me without outright telling me that it was okay to stay here. Or, at least, that she wouldn’t tattle, and that I probably wouldn’t get caught and arrested or something.

“Good to know.”

Besides having awesome friend potential, Emily made cleaning out Nana’s house go fast. She had no emotional attachment to anything of Nana’s and had zero sentimentality. Most of the things we unearthed were nothing special. Magazines, newspapers, and then what I categorized as thrift store “treasures.” That or trash.

Emily only stopped to ask me questions when she found things that were more personal. Items like Nana’s reading glasses. A worn pair of slippers. An envelope filled with receipts. Papers with Nana’s handwriting on them.

Most of those things went in the trash too. But only after I had looked at each one, examining them. I ran my fingers over an old grocery list, tracing the loops of her meandering cursive. I rolled a tube of lipstick all the way up and smelled it. Emily pretended not to notice when I