"That's all she said?" Grace Miller's voice came through the phone, thin and steady.
Eleanor leaned against the kitchen counter and watched the October light fade over Poplar Street. "Let sleeping dogs lie. Then she told me the old records were a hopeless mess and best left alone."
"That does not sound like the Lillian Gaines I know. She usually talks until someone interrupts her."
"The Blackwood name changed that."
"It changes a lot in this town."
"I'm not trying to stir up trouble. I only want to trace the boundary change."
"Have you tried the tax assessor's office? Those maps are separate from the deed logs."
"I thought of that after I left the assisted living center. Maybe Friday."
"I can check the library's index tomorrow morning and leave a note on your desk."
"That would help. Thank you, Grace."
"Don't let Lillian frighten you off."
"I won't."
Eleanor set the phone back in its cradle and pulled on a gray cardigan. Her notes were still spread across the kitchen table: "1994 deed logs—water damage," "Lillian—asked about Blackwood—wouldn't talk." She folded the page and slid it into the cardigan pocket. The house felt too quiet. Outside, the valley beyond Poplar Street had gone blue with dusk, and the lights of Laurel Ridge blinked on below. Next door, Owen Brady stood on his porch, tapping mud from a boot heel.
"You look like you lost a fight with a filing cabinet," he called.
"Close. A retired clerk told me to let sleeping dogs lie."
"That sounds like Lillian. The coffee's fresh if you want some."
"At this hour?"
"I'm old, Eleanor. I drink it when I want."
"Then lead the way."
She crossed the strip of lawn between the two bungalows and climbed his porch steps. The screen door clapped shut behind her. Inside, Owen's kitchen smelled of coffee and something sweet enough to be a pie.
"Regular or decaf?" he asked.
"Regular, please."
"I made a pot an hour ago, and the carafe still has some heat. Ingles had the Colombian on sale. I think the receipt said six dollars and forty-nine cents."
Eleanor Vance took the heavy mug he offered. "This is kind of you."
"Nonsense. Sit down before you fall down." He set a plate of pimento cheese on saltines on the table between them. "Now tell me what the courthouse said."
Eleanor settled into a chair. The chair creaked under her, a familiar sound from a house built in the 1960s. "The clerk in records showed me the shelf. The labels had water stains, but the boxes looked dry."
"And the books?"
"Gone. Or so she said. She did not open them."
"Interesting."
The fluorescent light at the assisted living center had left a dull pressure behind her eyes. Halfway through the story, Owen got up to turn on the kitchen light. The overhead bulb made the dented table look older than it was.
"Water damage," he said. "That doesn't surprise me. The flood got into everything. Filing cabinets, record books, even the piano at the church."
Eleanor took a saltine. "The clerk sent me to Lillian. She was friendly until I mentioned the Blackwood boundary change."
"Then the curtain came down."
"Fast. She said the old records are a hopeless mess and best left alone."
Owen nodded slowly. "Lillian was a careful clerk. If she's warning you off, she has a reason."
"That's the part I can't settle. I only asked about a land line."
Owen tapped a saltine against the plate. "You asked about Silas's land line. That's different."
"Mariah told me the families settled it after the flood. Silas handled the paperwork."
"He did." Owen said it without surprise. "He took charge of everything. For a week, he was the only Blackwood left to handle it."
Eleanor looked up. "What was Thomas like?"
Owen sat back and folded his arms. He looked past her toward the window. "Stubborn. Kind. He loved that mountain the way some men love a good hound. And he could argue."
"With Silas?"
"All the time. Development, timber rights, conservation. Family cookouts turned into zoning debates. Thomas wanted to leave the land alone. Silas wanted to sell off parcels. He had a developer from Charlotte ready to write checks."
"Which one won?"
"Mostly Thomas, until he didn't."
Owen got up to pour more coffee. He rinsed his mug first, a habit she noticed from their other visits. "The flood changed everything. I was on triage duty at the fire station for two days. The creek rose eleven feet in one night. Trees and pieces of the old covered bridge came down through town."
"What happened to Thomas?"
"He went out with the road crew to clear debris. The supports under the bridge gave way. They found him downstream the next morning."
Eleanor set her mug down carefully. "I'm sorry."
"It was thirty years ago. But you don't forget the night a neighbor dies."
"Did anyone ask questions at the time?"
"A few. But the water was high, and the county needed to rebuild. Nobody wanted to slow that down."
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The refrigerator hummed in the corner. Owen reached for a saltine, then pushed the plate toward Eleanor.
"People in this town remember the flood the way they want to remember it," he said. "The Blackwoods especially."
"Mariah believes the official story."
"Mariah was twenty-two. She lost her father. She needed the story her uncle gave her."
Eleanor traced the rim of her mug. "And what story do you believe?"
Owen stirred his coffee, a thoughtful look on his face. "You know," he said, "the strangest thing is, I was on call when they brought his body in. Thomas was a champion swimmer in high school. Taught half the town's kids. I was always surprised he was the one who drowned."
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