Page 134

“You were meant to,” Honey says.

I follow Honey into the back with my notebook open. Bond echoes. Close when far. Far when close. Scent lag. Started after reopening? Worse after fire?

My pencil slows. Ezra isn’t the only person experiencing something wrong with bond recognition. The thought scares me, but it also steadies a small, fierce part of my brain.

I don’t know yet whether these bond echoes are the same thing happening to Ezra, but it sounds familiar. If people are hearing, smelling, or feeling bonds at the wrong time or distance maybe there is a connection. And Mrs. Delaney says the reports have gotten worse since the museum reopened. I jot down another note: Town bond echoes — related to Ezra, or separate symptom?

The storage room behind Sweet Tooth smells like vanilla, cardboard, old sugar, and lemon cleaner fighting for its life. Junie sits cross-legged on the floor with three boxes around her and a powdered sugar doughnut in one hand.

She looks up. “Please tell me you came to save me. I’ve resorted to reorganizing by drama level.”

Honey stares at her. “Junie.”

“What? Chronological was boring.”

“No rescue attempts. We’re coming to join you.” Scarlet crouches beside the first box. “We’re looking for anything tied to dock receipts, water deliveries, flood-year festival storage, or charity ground lilies.”

Junie’s face lights. “I found several almost crimes against filing. Does that count?”

“That isn’t a category,” I say, already kneeling.

“It is when somebody labels a receipt book ‘Miscellaneous Wet Stuff.’”

I pull on gloves while Scarlet opens the first receipt book. Most of the pages are useless in the way old paper enjoys being useless.

Sugar invoices. Candle bundles. Flour deliveries. A handwritten complaint about soggy ribbon. Two receipts for boatmen who moved porch garlands after the roads flooded.

I find a receipt half stuck to the page beneath it, and the ink has bled along the lower corner. Scarlet holds the paper steady while I angle my phone light.

“Wait,” I say. “There’s a notation on the back.”

Junie leans too close with her doughnut.

Honey catches the back of Junie’s shirt and pulls her away. “Crumbs and archives don’t mix.”

The note is faint but readable in pieces. Green cloth book returned with keeper materials. Route florals cross-indexed. East dock delivery, caretaker house. Copy made for J.V. See notebook, back pages.

I reread the receipt, and my pulse jumps. “Copy made for J.V.,” I say slowly. “Jessamine had her own copy.”

Scarlet’s eyes cut to mine. “And it tells us where to look. Back pages of her notebook.”

“What if the green cloth book is the missing ledger from Theo’s cabinet?” I ask aloud. Then I realize they haven’t heard the whole story. “The one someone stole after they opened the old keeper records at the cemetery. Roman noticed it was missing and Theo remembered it being green.”

Scarlet nods once. “Sounds like it could be the same one.”

“Hold on and back it up.” Junie’s eyes widen. “Was this break-in recent? While you were with them, Pepper?”

I sigh and give them the short version. Scarlet adds in a few details, and together, we try to bring them up to speed.

Honey sighs. “Jeez, Pep. That’s a lot.”

Junie sits back and crosses her arms. “This town is getting too weird for me.”

Scarlet rolls her eyes. “We can debate that later. Right now, we need to focus.”

We all go back to the receipt, quiet while we think it over.

Junie shakes her head in exasperation. “But this receipt is really old. How would anyone know to look for it or the notebook?”