“I didn’t do anything.” Macy followed her lead, but she rose slowly, confused.
“Yes, you did.” Liz turned to go but thought better of it at the last moment and spun to envelop Macy in a hug. A real hug, not the halfhearted, light-fingered, skimming caress that they had perfected over the years. That so-called embrace was anemic and ineffectual. Liz squeezed Macy until she felt the air go out of her lungs. And then she backed away as tears filled her eyes. “Go for a walk with me later today?”
Macy’s eyebrows seemed permanently knit together. “But it’s Saturday.”
“So what?” Liz choked.
“Where are you going?” Macy called as Liz strode away.
“I have to talk to Quinn.”
“You might want to call her first. Or text?”
“Not this time.”
“Oh! Liz!”
She turned at the French doors to see Macy still framed in the shadow of the pergola, the trumpet vines arching over her in a chorus of green and orange. Her friend was digging in the back pocket of her white Bermuda shorts, reaching for something that she had tucked there. It was a piece of paper, folded several times over until it was a fat little rectangle.
“Here,” Macy said, walking toward Liz and waving it in front of her. “I almost forgot. Kent and I found this stapled to the light pole in front of your house.”
“What is it?”
“A flyer.”
Liz took the paper and unfolded it quickly. There was no sense of foreboding, no premonition that alerted her to the fact that everything was about to change. The truth was, Liz was as buoyant with a fierce, defiant hope as she had ever been—and spreading out that innocuous sheet was little more than an indulgence. She didn’t want to be bothered by minutiae right now, but because she loved Macy she decided to acquiesce. What could it possibly be? A page of coupons? A notice for an upcoming concert? An advertisement for a local boy who hoped to procure some summer lawn-mowing jobs?
It was a picture.
A little girl with long blond hair and eyes the color of sandstone and moss. Of Key Lake before a storm. Of the buds on Liz’s hydrangea bush on the day before they unfurled in full bloom.
Liz knew those eyes.
She felt her heart flutter and fail, the oxygen leaching from the tips of her fingers and the furthest edges of her toes so that she was faint and unstable.
What now? she thought. But the only thing that she could do in the moment was sink to the ground in front of her French doors, her back pressed painfully against the cool glass.
QUINN
“WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?” Quinn reached across the counter and drizzled syrup all over Lucy’s blueberry pancake.
“Pink. No, green.”
“Tough choice. You can have more than one. I do.” Quinn couldn’t believe that they were talking, really talking, but her quiet joy had a shadow side. Walker was outside with the fire chief, answering questions about the shack and the fire. Answering questions about their very lives. Do you own this land? Who is your insurance provider? Where were you last night? As if he was a suspect. A criminal.
It had burned to the ground. A pile of smoldering ash was all that remained of the little building where Quinn had once posed for senior pictures. The peeling paint and rustic boards had made a perfect backdrop for her white lace dress, the long flow of her strawberry-colored hair. Quinn would never look at that picture the same way.
“Would you like me to cut up your pancake for you?” Quinn asked, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand. On the child before her.
“In strips,” Lucy said. “I can do the little cuts.”
“Of course.”
“What’s your favorite color?” Lucy had no idea what had happened outside the walls of her bedroom only hours before. It was hard for Quinn to reconcile the girl’s innocence, the tender way she was starting to unfurl, with the violence they had experienced last night.
It wasn’t an accident.
Walker told her the truth in the wee hours of the morning after Quinn woke and crawled from the bed she had shared with Lucy.
Quinn had nodded, resigned. She knew there was no way the old building could spontaneously ignite.
“They found evidence of accelerants,” Walker said. “And there were multiple points of origin.”
“Now what?” Quinn didn’t know if her question was rhetorical or if she actually hoped for an answer.
“They’re investigating.”
“That’s it?”
“It could take weeks.” Walker reached out and tried to pull Quinn close. She resisted at first, but he folded her into his embrace. Her hands went around him reluctantly. Not because she didn’t want his comfort, but because she didn’t believe she deserved it. Wasn’t she the one who had gotten them into this mess? Who insisted that they keep Lucy a secret? The sudden appearance of her niece in their lives, the phone call, the fire . . . surely they were all connected. And this was all her fault.
“Bennet promised me they would leave you alone for a while. And there’s been no mention of Lucy,” Walker said. “At least, not yet.”
A scrap of grace in this whole frightening mess. “For how long?”
“Awhile.” It was the best he could give her.
“Do they really think . . . ?” She couldn’t finish her thought.
“We’re not suspects, Quinn. Just witnesses. They have to ask questions, they have to find out what, if anything, we know.”
“Okay.”
Walker kissed the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her smoky hair. “Everything is going to be just fine,” he said. Quinn wished she could believe him.
A little huff of disbelief pulled her from her reverie. “Don’t you have a favorite color?” Lucy asked, incredulous, impervious to Quinn’s growing anxiety. Walker had been gone for over an hour.
“Colors,” Quinn corrected, forcing herself to focus on the child before her. “I have more than one, remember? Blue and turquoise.”
“That’s kind of the same thing.”
“I don’t think so.” Quinn finished slicing the final strip and pushed the plate toward Lucy. “Orange juice?”
The girl nodded, a big bite already stuffed into her mouth.
Quinn grabbed the carafe of orange juice from the refrigerator and poured a glass half full. “Turquoise is a bright blue-green, like water in the Caribbean Sea or a peacock’s feathers or the sky at sunset after a thunderstorm. Have you ever seen a turquoise stone?”
Lucy shook her head and took a sip of her orange juice.
“Here.” Quinn slipped a finger beneath the silver chain that hung around her neck. After they whispered together in the kitchen as dawn spilled light across the horizon, Walker had led her to the bathroom. He slid the dress off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor, then turned on the shower and made her stand beneath the cool spray. When she stepped out, he was gone. But her clothes were laid out for her. She had added the necklace as an afterthought.
“I’ve had this for years,” Quinn said, standing on tiptoe and leaning over so that Lucy could admire her pendant. It was about the size of her thumb, an irregular orb cut through with dark veins and flecked with bits of copper.