True to her word, Cora had locked the front door and left the key in the mailbox. It was likely an unnecessary precaution (no one in Jericho locked their doors) and futile anyway, because the mailbox was the most obvious place to look if someone did want to break in. Still, Juniper felt a modicum of control when she reached a hand into the letterbox and came up with an icy key. It slid effortlessly into the front door, and the lock clicked open.
The bungalow looked exactly how she imagined it would: shabby but comfortable. There was a tiny living room with a drab floral sofa and a boxy old television set that had a twist dial for channels and another for volume. The vintage piece paired perfectly with the charming avocado-colored appliances in the galley-style eat-in kitchen.
Juniper toed off her boots and lugged the carton she was holding to the off-white Formica table pushed up against the far kitchen wall. It was the only thing she had carried into the house. Her clothes and toiletries could wait—the contents of the cardboard box could not.
Dropping her cargo onto one of two padded kitchen chairs, Juniper yanked open the bent flaps. She lifted out nine slim Moleskine notebooks, each in a different color. They were labeled in her quick, willowy cursive with black, archival-quality ink. Flipping through them, Juniper confirmed nothing was missing.
Next were the binders crammed with clear sleeves protecting copies of every single blog post, newspaper or magazine article, op-ed, and mention of the murders she could find. Juniper had scoured the internet, unearthing microscopic scraps—from a comment about the Murphy murders on an unrelated case to the Facebook profile picture of the coroner who had performed the autopsies (she never did manage to get a hold of the actual reports). At the very bottom of the box were a few pieces of material evidence. A time-softened folder with a handful of glossy photographs that were just beginning to yellow. A label she had carefully peeled and pressed flat from a jar of the Murphys’ famous raspberry jam. Her high school yearbook.
When everything was laid out on the table, Juniper felt the tension melt from her shoulders. It was all there.
She knew it was an impressive collection. If she had gone into law enforcement instead of library science, her box would have included forensic reports and interview transcripts, too, but this was enough. It would have to be.
* * *
The light was thin as spilled milk when Juniper woke. Without opening the curtains, she could tell that the day was dawning chilly and gray, the sun hidden behind long strips of clouds like cotton batting.
She had crashed on the couch, a musty afghan dragged over her shoulders and a binder open on the coffee table beside her. Thrusting back the blanket as if she had something to prove, Juniper hurried to her car and grabbed the suitcases she had left in the trunk overnight. Early to bed, early to rise, her stepfather had drilled into her, and even at thirty-three years old, seven a.m. felt downright luxurious. She could almost see Law scowl.
A quick shower and ten minutes in front of the mirror were more than enough. Sweeping on her signature dark red lipstick, Juniper tried to see herself as the rest of Jericho would. Like everything else around here, she hadn’t changed much—at least on the outside—since she had last called Iowa home. Her skin was still warm as sunbaked sand, and she often wore her long tangle of hair in a thick braid that curled over her right shoulder. Freckles sprinkled her nose and cheeks, trailing stardust down her neck to where a Milky Way of constellations spread across her chest. A lover had once traced them all, drawing patterns with his fingertips.
It was just before eight when Juniper waffled at the front door. In theory, she knew exactly what she was getting herself into: she was here to help Cora, whose breast cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and lungs. The small college in a Denver suburb where Juniper worked as the Special Collections and College Archives Librarian had given her an open-ended leave of absence, a move so generous Juniper had teared up when the Director of Library Services had made the necessary arrangements. But standing with her hand on the door only a block away from the Jericho Public Library, nothing was theoretical anymore.
Cora was dying.
The reality was, Juniper’s dear friend and only remaining confidante in her childhood hometown had decided not to undergo further cancer treatment, and Juniper had agreed to come back to keep the small country library afloat. Simple. But in the light of day, her reasons for coming were as labyrinthine as the contents of her box on the Murphy murders, which was now, she realized, strewn all over the kitchen table and on the floor beside the couch. She quickly gathered up the mess and restocked the cardboard box.
Then Juniper palmed her phone and tapped out a quick text message before she could change her mind.
I made it. See you tonight?
The text box turned blue when she hit send. Such a casual greeting when her fingers were tingling with proximity. Her child was in this place, only blocks away if she had already been dropped off at Jericho Elementary, the town’s K–8 school. Lithe, lovely Willa Baker, all arms and legs and thirteen-year-old bravado and grace. Who loved winter and pink lemonade and ballet. Juniper had watched the videos over and over again, her girl in a black leotard flowing from position to position, each move so liquid, her chest ached with pride.
I can’t wait to see you, she added, shocked by her own vulnerability and afraid of how Willa would receive it. Their relationship was light and happy, filled with funny gifs and a shared appreciation for cat videos. They didn’t often tread into more serious waters. Too nervous to wait for a reply, Juniper slid her phone into her purse and stepped out into the frigid morning.
* * *
The Jericho Public Library was housed in the old mayor’s mansion, a rectangular redbrick colonial with a wide front porch and two pillars that framed a double-wide black door. It was the most charming building in town, and the library board had fought hard to preserve it.
Inside, the floors were narrow plank and the color of clover honey, and the different book sections were collected in rooms on the main floor. Walls had been removed and columns erected to give the library better flow, but there was no way to completely erase the original layout of the home. There were two stone fireplaces and a profusion of floor-to-ceiling windows that filled the library with light, and scattered between the stacks were plush chairs in blue velvet paired with mismatched tables painted turquoise and canary yellow and apricot.
A little noise escaped her lips. Everything was so familiar it was like she had taken a step back in time. But then Cora came out of the small cluster of offices, and Juniper was jolted to the present reality.
“What on earth are you doing here?” Cora demanded, glancing at her watch with brows drawn together. In spite of her sixty-eight years and grim diagnosis, Cora’s gaze was clear and blue. Still, she reached for a pair of reading glasses dangling from a beaded chain and perched them on the very end of her nose. She studied Juniper as if she were a puzzle to fix.
“Hello to you too.” Juniper smiled around the sudden lump in her throat, taking in her friend’s newly diminished form and the purple smudges beneath her eyes. They matched the lavender tips of her silver hair.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping in,” Cora chided. “I didn’t expect you until ten, at least.”
“I did sleep in. Come here.” Juniper put out her arms and waved Cora into them. How long had it been since she had hugged someone like this? Someone who knew almost everything about her and chose to love her in spite of it all? She found herself blinking back tears, but didn’t know who they were for.
It took her a moment to realize that something else was different.
“Double mastectomy,” Cora said, as if she could read Juniper’s mind. She pulled away and held Juniper at arm’s length, giving her an unobstructed view of the flat plane of her chest. “Even if I was going to continue treatment I wouldn’t bother with a reconstruction. And don’t get me started on those padded bras. Are you crying, Juniper Baker?”