It took a minute for that one statement to register: ‘his new motorcycle is also missing. I thought of the motorcycle poking out from the Tea Party ladies’ skirts. A coincidence or something else?

I paged through the following week’s paper, hunting for more news and found this:

Post Office Artist Anna Dale Closes Warehouse to Visitors

For a number of weeks now, artist Anna Dale has had an open-door policy in the former Blayton warehouse where she’s been busily painting the mural that will hang in the Edenton Post Office. Abruptly this week, she shut her doors to the public, stating she wanted the completed mural to be more of a surprise when people finally see it.

Postmaster Clayton Arndt is unconcerned. “Artists are mercurial,” he said when asked for comment. “We’re giving Miss Anna the privacy she needs to concentrate on her work right now.” Mr. Arndt thinks the mural will be completed by the end of April.

Others were not so certain that all is well with the artist. “I think she must be ill,” said Mrs. Oscar Grant who lives on North Granville Street. “I’d stop in most days to watch her paint and she’d say we were welcome to visit any time we wanted, and now suddenly we can’t. Doesn’t make sense.”

I made copies of the articles, then took an Uber back to the gallery, hoping Oliver would still be there. He was. It seemed he lived there these days. I found him in the empty rear gallery, measuring one of the walls.

“Oh, good,” he said when I walked into the room. “I can use a second pair of hands. Hold this?” He handed me the end of the tape measure and motioned for me to walk to the far end of the room. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “I thought you were done for the day?”

“I found some articles I wanted to show you.” I walked the end of the tape measure back to him and watched him jot something down in his notebook.

He slipped the tape measure into his jeans pocket and held out his hand. “Let’s see,” he said.

I handed him the two sheets of paper, then stood next to him as he read. His scent was ever so slightly earthy, as though he’d worked hard all day, and we were close enough that our shoulders touched. He wore a black T-shirt and I wore a blue top—sleeveless, of course—and I liked the feeling of his skin against mine. I liked it more than I ever could have imagined, and I didn’t move away. Neither did he.

“Hmm,” he said, when he finished reading, his gaze still on the articles in front of him. “What do you make of the motorcycle?”