The Book of Eleanor by Nat Burns Page A

laughed at her. “Okay. Well, I’ll give it a try.”
    “Just remember to hold onto the railings,” she cautioned.
    I took one more glance at the cautionary placards, especially the fact that there were almost seventy steps to the top, and began the trek.
    By the intermediate landing, I was breathing hard and feeling just a touch claustrophobic. I made it all the way to the supply room level, and up the ladder into the lantern room. From there, the view was breathtaking.
    The Queen Isabella bridge stretched into the distance. South Padre Island, with its friendly fat hotel fingers reaching toward the sky, hovered on the horizon like a peaceful daydream. I noted the huge fishing pier that stretched into the bay and the stylized pirate ship moored at the end, and made a mental note to check it out on my next exploratory foray.
    Over to my right, I saw a huge smiley face and realized it was a parasail following a speedboat, both small from my vantage point.
    I moved to the other side of the lantern room. The town of Port Isabel sprawled before me in all its historic waterfront glory. I saw bristling, needle-masted shrimpers off in the distance, resting at dock in the many little inlets that made up the calm union of land and ocean. I stayed there enjoying the beauty and the movement below until I heard a young couple mounting the stairs beneath me. When they entered the lantern room, I greeted them and made my way carefully back down to terra firma.
    I strode down the grassy knoll and let myself into the Bookmark, my mind whirling with the information I now knew about my new home. Port Isabel had a strange and wonderful history, and I was glad I’d chosen to live there.
    I bolted the door behind me and reset the alarm. My footsteps echoed as I crossed the floor. I realized anew how glad I would be to fill the remaining floor space with furniture and warmth. As I started to go into the apartment, I paused at the door. Something was different.
    I turned and studied the huge room, my heart tapping in my chest. I saw nothing unusual. I moved to open the storeroom door, thinking that I should check there when it hit me.
    I whirled around and gasped. Every other bookshelf bore a neat stack of books. They weren’t side by side vertically, as I had left them, but stacked horizontally, one atop the other, on the front of the shelf, in front of the other books.
    I took a moment to wonder about the oddity of it. Why had someone come in and stacked them on every other shelf? What could be the purpose? Why not each shelf?
    I eased my cell phone from my pocket as I walked slowly, carefully, back toward the front door. How had someone bypassed my alarm system? I had even changed the code after moving in so no one, not even Maddy, had that information.
    I glanced at the alarm panel, noting that the alarm appeared to be working correctly. I punched in my code and opened the door, glancing back one more time even as my fingers pressed the emergency call button on my phone.

Angie
     
    It was just like Frankee to keep me waiting.
    I stared grumpily at Amy, who’d been a secretary at the courthouse since we were in high school together. She felt my stare and glanced up apologetically.
    “I’m sorry, Ange,” she whispered. “She can be such a bitch.”
    “I know,” I mumbled, and sighed. “It’s just I’m supposed to be working this morning and instead, I’m here doing this crap.”
    Amy nodded sympathetically just as the chime on her phone sounded. “Cool! You can go in now,” she told me perkily.
    I bolted for the door before she had finished her comment. Frankee sat behind her overlarge wooden desk, peering at me from over the top of her small reading glasses.
    “In a hurry, are we?” she said sarcastically, removing the glasses and setting them aside.
    “Frankee, you have no right to keep me out there for almost a solid hour. I got stuff to do,” I fumed.
    “I hope packing up is on your to-do list.”
    My mouth dropped