Free The Reckoning Stones: A Novel of Suspense by Laura Disilverio

in her absence. It had had the temerity to change. Well, so had she.
    Iris angled into a parking spot in front of what had been the general store. Her mouth felt dry; she’d get another bottled water in the store before seeking her mother. As she mounted the two plank steps, a sleek tourist-type bus rumbled out from behind the store and paused, belching diesel fumes. Middle-aged and elderly women and a few men jostled Iris as they streamed out of the store. Almost all of them carried bags marked “Lone Pine Traditional Crafts” in coral on a pale blue background. Hunching her shoulders inward to let the horde pass, Iris raised her brows at what appeared to be an organized shopping expedition, maybe for a senior’s center. She helped one frail woman down the shallow steps and saw a cranberry wool sweater peeping from a nest of tissue paper in her shopping bag. What in the world—?
    Crossing the store’s threshold, Iris found herself in an unfamiliar space. Gone were the chest-high shelves that held cans of Campbell’s soup, Wonder bread, Kotex, and matches. Gone were the sputtering fluorescent light fixtures, the whirring fan on the counter, the air of homey shabbiness. In their place was a stylish sales space with upscale lighting glowing on stacks of sweaters, racks of scarves and hats, and baskets of yarn advertised as “Organic Alpaca Wool.” Shallow refrigerator chests on the far end of the store featured local cheeses. Pyramids of honey, candles, and other beeswax products gave off a pleasant, waxy scent. Iris’s eyes got round. She spotted a salesgirl behind a counter, her fingers skimming through the contents of a wallet, like she was looking for a stamp or receipt.
    “Hi,” Iris said.
    The girl’s head came up and she dropped her wallet. “Oh! I didn’t hear you come in. Welcome.” She stooped for the wallet, tucked it behind the counter, and came around to greet Iris.
    Iris was ready to ask what had happened to the general store, whose brainchild this crafts boutique was, but choked on the words when she got a good look at the blond girl standing in front of her. Jolene! A lump lodged in her throat and she swallowed hard. A mere second’s thought made her realize it couldn’t be Jolene; Jolene was approaching forty, just like she was, and this girl was no more than sixteen. Jolene was still here, then. She hadn’t escaped. Sadness—no, something more like regret—sifted through Iris as her fantasy of Jolene playing Nora or Major Barbara off-Broadway evaporated. This girl was a Jolene clone: petite, blond, hazel-eyed, with the same uptilting eyebrows and slightly sticking out ears. She wore a calf-length skirt and Peter Pan-collared blouse, the kind Iris had eschewed ever since leaving the Community. Something about the girl’s posture told Iris she hid a pair of jeans in her backpack and put them on in the high school restroom, probably topping them with a cami or T-shirt the Community’s elders would condemn as immodest. A tag clipped to her collar said “Rachel.”
    As Iris hesitated, unsure what to say, Rachel broke into a rehearsed spiel: “Lone Pine Traditional Crafts is a cooperative that celebrates the arts that made our pioneers self-sufficient. We have wool from alpacas raised in this community, and wool products hand-spun and knit by award-winning local artists. The cheeses are made by our citizens from goats and cows never treated with hormones of any kind. The honey comes from our hives. Here.” The girl handed Iris a tri-fold brochure with a photo of alpacas grazing in front of the church.
    Iris slid her fingers across the slick paper. “How long has the store been … like this?”
    “We’ve been open eight years,” Rachel said, apparently happy to have someone to chat with since the shoppers had left. “The Community has always been big on being self-sustaining”—she said it with a sniff, like having a Walmart down the block beat self-sustaining every day of the