Linda was having problems
of her own in her coffee shop. It was lunchtime when the store was usually
bustling with activity, but today it was empty of all customers. She couldn’t
understand what was wrong and what was keeping people away.
Right at noon, the store
began to shake and tremble. Books rumbled and fell off their shelves. As the shaking intensified, bookcases toppled over one on top of the other—like a
line of dominoes. Then as quickly as it had started, the quaking abruptly
halted. Linda was left standing alone in the middle of her store with books and
broken pieces of shelves scattered all about her.
At that exact moment, Todd
calmly strolled into the bookstore. After seeing all the destruction, he spun
around to face her. “What in the hell happened here?”
To Linda, he seemed shocked
and surprised. “It felt like an earthquake had hit my store,” she responded in
a small voice. He was frightening her with his sudden surge of anger, even
though she knew that it wasn’t being directed at her.
Todd strode to the front
door and put out the “Closed” sign. “There has been no earthquake in town. We must hurry and clean
up this mess before anyone else sees it.”
“Why? Shouldn’t we first
notify the sheriff?” She didn’t like cover-ups or vigilantes.
“I’ll notify the sheriff,
but there’s no need to frighten everyone in town.”
“People need to know that
something is wrong in town: too many unsettling things are happening and they need
to be prepared for the truth.” She had to stand up for herself and her friends. She didn’t like what was going on in her own town and wasn’t going to hide anything to spare anyone’s feelings
or worry about the guilty getting caught.
“I’ve been working closely
with the sheriff, but if we bring this out in the open too soon it might
interfere with our ongoing investigation.” Todd stood the bookcases upright
again.
“I really don’t understand this town or your
top-secret investigation. I’ll give you a little time, but the truth will be revealed and everything will be out in the open.” Her voice rose in her
exasperation. She had to be firm with Todd or else he would never tell her
anything; she had to accept the fact that he was hiding things from her.
