Her mother had only been to Yorkshire a few times, to visit her auntie, but she’d told Quenby about a grand house there, the color of buttercream. It was like Wuthering Heights except the stories in that house were only allowed to have happy endings.
The grass, Quenby remembered, had smelled sweet that morning with her mother, but all she could smell now was disinfectant. Instead of wind, there was a beeping noise that wasn’t close to soft, sheets chafing her skin. Still she wanted to believe that her mother was alive. That there was a place they could find healing.
When she opened her eyes, a doctor was standing by her bed, asking her questions. Her head, she told the woman, hurt the most.
“Where’s Lucas?” she asked.
But the doctor had already stepped away. When she tried to sit up on the pillows, the room whirled.
“There now,” a nurse said, patting her hand before attaching something to the fluid bag above. “This will help you rest.”
In minutes, Quenby was gliding across the dales again.
The next time she woke, soft light filtered through the glass in her hospital room, though she wasn’t sure if the sun was rising or setting.
Memories flooded back to her—Lucas driving his car, the gray lorry, the river. That terrible sound of metal against metal.
“Lucas?” she whispered, praying he was okay.
“I’m right here.” She felt him take her hand.
His left eye was black, his cheek bruised. “Your eye—”
“The air bag left its mark.” He kissed her forehead. “And it saved your life.”
“How long have I been in the hospital?”
“Two days. You had a concussion, so they did a CT scan in Lewes and ran some other tests, but they concluded that rest is what you need most to recover.”
“Who was driving the lorry?”
“I don’t know yet, but the police are trying to find him. He rammed into the back of us after we went off the road.”
She leaned against the pillows, her head aching. “Your Range Rover?”
“It’s trashed.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It wasn’t your fault, Quenby. It’s my fault for wrangling you into this mess. I’m calling it off.”
“Calling what off?”
“Our search.”
“You can’t cancel it. I have a contract.”
“You’ll get your money,” he started, an odd coolness in his words.
“I don’t want the money, Lucas. I want to find Brigitte.”
He smiled again, pushing her hair away from her forehead. “You’ve searched with your heart, Quenby.”
“I suppose I have.”
“I’m afraid you won’t be telling any more stories if we continue our search for this one.”
“Did you get Brigitte’s box?” she asked.
“I did. Along with your purse.”
“What if Brigitte’s letter wasn’t actually a good-bye? What if it was a clue?” Her mother’s words came back to her again, how she’d loved to talk about the wind in the grass. “There’s something else, Lucas.”
She closed her eyes again, trying to remember her dream. It had been based, she thought, on a happy memory with her mother, one that had been stuffed deep. Her head ached, and it wasn’t solely from the accident. There were new pieces to the puzzle, poised to fit together, but she couldn’t even make sense of the frame.
“In the car . . .” He clung to her hand. “For a moment, I thought I’d lost you. It’s not worth it, Quenby, to find someone who disappeared long ago.”
He did care for her, as more than just a colleague. Enough to call off the search for Mr. Knight. He couldn’t cancel it, not for her sake, but his kindness eased some of the pain.
“How’s my patient?” The woman who walked into the room reminded Quenby of a fairy with her snowy hair and elf-like body under her pale-blue shirt. The wrinkles fanning from her eyes flared with her smile.
“My head aches.”
“A side effect, I’m afraid, of playing chicken with a lorry.”
“This is Dr. Eaton,” Lucas said as the woman scanned her chart. Then she took Quenby’s blood pressure and listened to her heartbeat with a stethoscope, asked Quenby to wiggle her fingers and move her feet.
“Everything appears to be in working order,” Dr. Eaton said, taking off the stethoscope. “But no playing sports until after you see a neurologist in London.”
“Or climbing trees,” Lucas added.
“And no electronics, for at least a week.”
Lucas leaned forward. “When can she travel?”
“I’d like you to stay at least one more night nearby, just in case.”
“In case of what?” Quenby asked.
Dr. Eaton slipped the chart back into its box. “In case you miss me.”
There was only one bed-and-breakfast in the village of Rodmell, and the owner—Clara—had two rooms available, with an interior door between them. Lucas made Quenby promise to keep the exterior one to the hallway locked and barricaded, just in case the man in the lorry decided to show up for an encore.