“Did she ever solve any of the real-life mysteries?”

“To my knowledge, the only mystery she cracked was how to fry okra to perfection. Every time my dad saw okra on a menu anywhere, he’d reminisce about his mom’s okra, because he’d never tasted better.” She rested the album cover on her lap. “She did succeed, though, in capturing her sons’ imagination concerning mysteries. The bedtime stories Dad told me were also all real-life mysteries. Dad loved to do his own amateur detective research. Like his mother, he never made any actual headway.”

“If ‘mystery’ is the clue, what is it leading us toward?”

“Nothing springs to mind.” She picked up the record with the circled song title. This LP was titled Barton Hollow by The Civil Wars. The song of the same name had been circled.

Wait.

Dad hadn’t circled the full title. The circle centered around the second word. Hollow.

A small seed of inspiration sprouted in her memory. She pointed to the circled word. “There’s a hollow tree here on the property that I used to go to all the time.”

“Did your dad know about it?”

“Yes. I’d make up stories about animal families who lived in the tree. From time to time, he’d surprise me by placing something in the tree for me to find. Doll furniture. A piece of fabric for a squirrel to wear as a coat. That kind of thing.”

“Let’s check it.”

Excitement battled with doubt as she buttoned her coat. She dug her mittens from her pocket and tugged them on.

They walked a path through the forest that seemed to transport her back in time. She recalled the bark of her first dog. The thwap of her flip-flops as she ran. The riffle of her dress against her legs.

“Here.” Finley stopped before the hollow tree. It stood near the lip of a washout, surrounded by a regiment of brother oaks, looking as if it had been undisturbed for decades.

Luke went to his knee next to the large triangular opening in the base of the trunk. He extended an arm as if to begin clearing the drift of leaves that had accumulated, then paused. “Do you want to do this without me? If there’s a clue here, it’s yours to find.”

The pirate prince was thoughtful. “Let’s work together. To my way of thinking, it’s ours to find.”

She knelt and they both swept aside leaves.

He had on his battered leather jacket but hadn’t put on gloves. The cold whitened his face and hands. The tips of his ears stained pink.

Their digging brought their profiles into close proximity. She timed her motion to ensure that her hands didn’t hit his.