More sirens.
Panicked, she ran into the bathroom for the toiletries. She flipped on the light and—No wonder everyone stared and wanted her to go to the hospital. She put her hands to her head. Strands of hair cracked off in her hands. She rubbed her face. Her eyebrows…gone, burned off by the blast. Her skin looked thin, mottled, as if the explosion had slapped her. Her blue eyes…were haunted.
Leaning over the sink, she used Kellen’s brush and gingerly brushed what was left of her hair. In Kellen’s overnight bag, she found a pair of scissors and cut off the random long strands. Now she looked like a Halloween monster in June. But not so wounded, more like a fashion statement gone bad.
In the bedroom, she tossed the toiletries into the suitcase. She swooped down to get two pairs of shoes off the closet floor—and came face-to-face with the locked room safe. She froze. She had no money. Like the key, the money had disappeared with her pocket. She sank to her knees. She needed what was in that safe. But she had no way in. She couldn’t break into a safe…
Wait. Maybe she didn’t have to break in. Aunt Cora Rae and Uncle Earle had always used the same password for everything—ECKC. Earle, Cora, Kellen, Cecilia. 3, 2, 5, 3. The family knew the code. Maybe Kellen had used the code.
With shaking fingers, Cecilia pressed 3, 2, 5, 3.
Nothing happened.
She dropped her head into her hands. What other code would Kellen use? Maybe her girlfriend’s name…but she didn’t know it. If Cecilia and Kellen had been able to drive away from Greenleaf, roll down the windows, let the wind blow their hair…then she would have known. She would have rejoiced in their relationship. Instead, Cecilia was grief-stricken, and Kellen’s girlfriend remained a mystery.
Desperate, Cecilia punched in the same code. 3, 2, 5…2.
The safe sang a little song and the door opened.
She’d done it wrong the first time.
Gregory’s voice sang in her head. You’re incompetent. You’re not fit to be out on your own.
“Shut up.” Inside, she found Kellen’s credit card, five neatly folded twenties, a black velvet box with a blue enamel wedding band inside… Cecilia stared at that band. Kellen had wanted to marry her girlfriend, and…the young woman Kellen loved would suffer a loss she would never comprehend. With a snap, Cecilia shut the box and placed it in a side pocket of the suitcase.
At the bottom of the safe, she found Kellen’s computer. She smoothed her hand across the black matte finish. She hadn’t been allowed to touch a computer for so long, to communicate, to discover, to learn. A tear dropped onto the lid. She wiped it off. She was glad to be alive, glad that Gregory was dead. That didn’t mean that she was glad Kellen was dead, but…she was grateful. Kellen had sacrificed her life to give Cecilia her life back.
Cecilia placed the computer on the bed. She emptied the dresser drawers into the suitcase. The underwear and bras would never fit; she and Kellen had looked alike, but they had never worn the same size. Not the point. Somehow, it was important not to leave a trace of Kellen in this room, in this town.
The suitcase bulged; Cecilia sat on it to close the zipper. She slid the computer into the side pocket, did a last, rushed search of the room and dragged the wheeled suitcase down the corridor to the elevators. In the elevator, she pushed the button for P1 three times. When the doors opened, she entered a concrete cavern filled with cars, vans and freedom.
Kellen’s car surprised her. Kellen had always liked fast cars; a Mini sat in the spot. Cecilia hadn’t driven for two years, yet she remembered how to unlock the door, stow a suitcase, start the car. Everything in her screamed, Hurry! Hurry! But she needed out of this town without incident, so she would be cool…
In the rearview mirror, she saw someone walk out of the hotel elevator. Panic clutched at her. She backed out too fast, squealed the tires, took too long to figure out where Drive was located, found it, put the car in gear and ripped out of the garage without looking. She drove out of town and onto the highway, heading south. She didn’t know where she was going. But she knew where she’d been, and she swore she would never return to Greenleaf.
*
The van’s steering wheel jerked in Kellen’s hands.
With far too much acuity, Birdie said, “Whatever it is, it’s not worth all that.”
Kellen was here, now driving through Washington. But… “Sometimes it is.”
The woman who had been Cecilia had kept her promise to herself. Greenleaf was nothing but a nightmare she visited when sleep came hard and darkness held reign.
Birdie sighed, a soft breath of sadness. “Yes. Sometimes it is.”
8
At the airstrip, Kellen parked the van and she and Birdie got out their ponchos—every Yearning Sands vehicle was always equipped with dry ponchos—and donned them. They turned on the runway lights and prepped to receive the plane, then climbed back into the van to wait. “It’s good to be busy,” Kellen said. “When the memories hover like bat wings.”
“This is a different kind of busy than the holidays.” Birdie handed her the roster. “We’ve got newlyweds from Wenatchee. Six ladies from Alaska. A single guy from Virginia.”
Kellen knew. In her brain, she had already started an entry for each guest, and as she met them, she would finish filling them out. She said, “The single guy. Nils Brooks. I took his reservation. He asked for an isolated cottage with a view of the ocean and the mountains. He wants to be alone to write his first book.” She looked sideways at Birdie. Nils Brooks was not the first author to arrive and demand privacy to write.
Sometimes they even did it.
“So he’s going to want someone to haul room service out to him through rain and snow and wind?” Trust Birdie to see the practical side of things.
“Figure on an ATV parked at the kitchen door all the time.” Kellen’s phone rang. She answered.
Sheri Jean said, “I’ve got this afternoon’s three receptionists from town who slid off the road into a ditch. One of them is hurt, the other two tried to push the car out and are covered in mud. I can transfer one of my people to the front, but the concierge has a dentist appointment and Mara says she can’t help me with coverage.”
Someone beeped in. Kellen looked. No kidding. It was Mara.
Kellen ran the employee schedule in her mind, hooked the two of them into a conference, smoothed their ruffled feathers, presented them with a solution that both could live with and got off the phone.
Birdie gave Kellen the side-eye. “Have you always been able to do that?”
“Do what?”
“Know the location, schedule and qualifications of every employee and juggle them around until they fill the needed space. You don’t use a computer. It’s in your brain.”
“It’s a gift.” With her fingers, Kellen circled the round scar on her forehead.
“That thing looks like you were shot.”
Kellen took her hand away. “It’s a birthmark.”
“Sure. What dumbass would ever believe that?”
“The doctor who did my Army physical.”
Birdie did such a double take Kellen was glad they were parked. “You convinced a doctor that that is a birthmark?”
“I told him that’s what it was. He convinced himself. He couldn’t believe that anyone could survive a gunshot to the skull, much less be walking and talking. He couldn’t find any problems like seizures or schizophrenia or, you know, outbursts of maniacal laughter.” Kellen remembered the terror she’d felt during the military doctor’s staccato interrogation. “Most important, he couldn’t find an exit wound.”
“Whoa. There’s no exit wound? Is it a birthmark?”
“I guess.” It wasn’t. But when a person couldn’t recall a whole year of her life, that threw a lot of stuff into doubt: memories, skills, maybe even sanity.
“You don’t know?”
“If you’d been shot in the head, what would you know?”