“That only works on the weak-minded male specimen,” I tell him.
His lips stiffen together, and he takes a quick step toward me. “Get the hell out of here. Unless you want to confess to being one of them, then I’ll gladly lock you up too.”
I glance at Gigi, who sits defiantly blinking back at me, the side of her lip turned upward. She looks like she might even dare to laugh—she finds his threat amusing—but she holds it in. Then I step back out the door into the daylight.
“You realize the police are looking for Gigi,” I tell Lon when he follows me out, closing the door behind him with a loud clatter.
“The police in this town are idiots.”
“Maybe. But it’s only a matter of time before they check the boathouse.”
He waves a hand in the air dismissively, his floral shirtsleeve flapping with the motion, and returns to his post on the stump, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes, obviously not concerned about Gigi escaping. “And tell your friend Rose not to come back either.”
I stop midstride. “What?”
“Rose . . . your friend,” he says mockingly, as if I don’t know who she is. “She was here twenty minutes ago, caught her sneaking through the brush.”
“Did she talk to Gigi?”
“My job is to keep people out, so no, I didn’t let her talk to Gigi.”
“What did she want?” I ask, although I’m certain whatever she told him was a lie.
“Hell if I know. Said she felt bad for Gigi or some crap, that it was cruel to keep her locked up. But you both had better stay away unless you want to be suspects.” His voice lowers a bit like he’s telling me a secret, like he’s trying to help me. “We’re going to find all the Swan sisters one way or another.”
I turn and hurry up the road.
*
Alba’s Forgetful Cakes smells like vanilla bean frosting and lemon cake when I step through the door. A dozen people crowd the small store—some wearing festival costumes, kids with faces painted in glitter and gold—picking out tiny cakes from the glass cases to be boxed up and tied with bubblegum-pink ribbon. Mrs. Alba stands behind one of the deli cases helping a customer, carefully placing petit fours into white boxes. Two other employees are also moving quickly around the shop, ringing people up and answering questions about the effectiveness of the cakes at wiping away old, stagnant memories.
But Rose is not in the store, and I wait several minutes before Mrs. Alba is free.
I press my fingertips against a glass case, hoping to get her attention. “Penny,” Mrs. Alba chirps when she sees me, her grin stretching wide across the soft features of her face. “How are you?”
“I’m looking for Rose,” I say quickly.
Her expression sags and then her eyes pinch flat. “I thought she was with you.” On the phone, Rose told me that she had lied to her mother, saying that she was meeting me for coffee when she was really meeting Heath. But since she obviously wasn’t meeting Heath, either, unless they went to the boathouse together to see Gigi, I thought Mrs. Alba might actually have seen her.
“I think I just got the time wrong, or where we were supposed to meet,” I say with an easy smile—I don’t want to get Rose into trouble. “I thought maybe she’d be here.”
“You can check the apartment,” she says, turning her gaze as several more customers enter the shop.
“Thank you,” I answer, but she’s already shuffled away to help the new patrons.
Back outside, I turn right and climb the covered stairs up to the second floor. The gray-shingled walls of the building are protected from the rain under a narrow roof, and at the top of the stairs there is a red door under a white archway. I press my finger against the doorbell, and the ring echoes through the spacious apartment. Their dog, Marco, begins yapping furiously, and I can hear the clatter of his paws as he races to the door, barking from the other side. I wait, but no one comes. And there’s no way Rose could be inside and not know someone was at the door.
I head back down the stairs and push through the crowds across Ocean Avenue. I start down Shipley Pier toward the Chowder, when I spot Davis McArthurs. He’s standing halfway down the pier among the throngs of people, talking to a girl I recognize from the boathouse when they first caught Gigi. She had argued with Davis about keeping Gigi locked up. His arms are crossed, his eyes surveying the outdoor tables like he’s looking for any girl he’s missed—who he hasn’t yet interrogated for being a Swan sister.
A burning fury rises inside me at seeing Davis. But there’s nothing I can do.
Rose wouldn’t be on the pier anyway, not with Davis strutting around. She’s probably back at Heath’s house, but I don’t know where he lives—and I’m not about to ask around and make myself known. So I hurry back to the marina before Davis sees me, and I motor across the harbor to the island.
FORETELLING
A woman stepped through the door of the Swan Perfumery early one morning on a Thursday, a week after the sisters’ night at the tavern.
Aurora was sweeping the shop floor, Marguerite was leaning against the counter daydreaming about a boy she had seen working the rigging on a ship in the harbor the day before, and Hazel was scribbling notes on a piece of paper for a new scent she had been imagining: myrrh, tansy, and rose hips. A fragrance to ease sadness and clear away mistrust in others.
When the woman entered, Marguerite straightened and smiled pleasingly as she did whenever a new customer visited the shop. “Good morning,” Marguerite spoke elegantly, as if she were raised by royals, when in fact all three sisters were raised by a woman who’d lewdly dabbed perfume between her thighs to entice her lovers.
The woman did not respond, but walked to a wall of bottled perfumes all containing hues of citrus and other fruit, meant for daytime wear, often cajoling memories of late summer winds and warm evenings. “A perfume shop seems a tad presumptuous in this town,” the woman finally spoke. “Illicit even.”
“Women in any town deserve the allure of a good scent,” Marguerite responded, raising an eyebrow. Marguerite did not show it, but she recognized the woman—she was the wife of a man Marguerite had flirted with outside the Collins & Gray General Store three days earlier.
“Allure,” the woman repeated. “An interesting choice of words. And this allure—” She paused. “It comes from the spells you cast in your scents?”
Marguerite’s mouth quirked sharply upward on one side. “No spells, madam. Just perfectly arranged fragrances, I assure you.”
The woman glared at Marguerite then swiftly moved toward the door. “Your devious work will not go unnoticed for long. We see what you really are.” And in a whir of salty sea air, she opened the door and hurried back out to the street, leaving the three sisters staring after her.
“They really do think we’re witches, don’t they?” Hazel said aloud.
“Let them think it. It gives us power over them,” Marguerite answered.