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“Yep.”
“If I were twenty years younger . . .”
Remmi shot her a look but held her tongue.
“Well, thirty . . . or . . . forty . . . or . . . ,” she conceded. She caught Remmi smothering a smile. “For the love of Mike, Remmi, I’m not going to say fifty! That’s half a century.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“All I’m saying is you’re young and single, and presumably he is, too, so . . .”
“So . . . ?” Remmi said dryly.
Greta let out a huff. “You’re being purposely obtuse.”
“And you’re being purposely nosy.”
“He’s pretty handsome, and he looks like he’s . . . in love with you.”
“That’s a leap, Greta. We reconnected twenty-four hours ago.”
“Well, it sure didn’t take me twenty-four hours to fall for Duncan, I can tell you that. One look at him, and I thought, ‘He’s the one. He’s the one I want to wake up next to every morning,’ and I never looked back. He felt the same way, and we were engaged in three months and married in six.” She hoisted up her chin. “So don’t you lecture me about love.”
“Was I lecturing?” Remmi said but laughed, her first of the day, she thought.
“Sounded like it to me,” Greta said with a smile, then grabbed Remmi’s hand. “I’m sorry about your mom, Remmi, I really am. I know that you hoped she was still alive. I saw that, and I don’t blame you, so this is a hard day for you.”
Remmi nodded, not trusting herself to respond.
“But I just want to remind you that you’re young, you have your whole life ahead of you, and that man in there”—she jabbed her finger toward the doorway to the dining room and beyond—“he’s into you. So give him a fair chance. That’s all.” She squeezed Remmi’s hand, then spun her chair back toward the dining room and rolled past the table, her wheelchair humming.
Though Greta’s story was sweet, Remmi wasn’t going to fall in love in one damned day, not even if it was with the boy she’d been pining about for twenty years. She was a child back then, but she was a grown woman now, and she hoped she’d gained some sense along the way. Besides, her life was chaos now, upside down. She’d just found out Didi was dead, and other people she knew were dying . . . no, this was not the time to fall in love. She’d been a rebellious teenager when she’d imagined herself falling for Noah Scott, the bad boy, but now, she was a grown woman.
And he’s a man . . . who straightened out . . . who seems to care for you.
“Forget it,” she told herself. She had to keep a clear head. Yes, it was a stone-cold fact that Didi was dead, but her sister and brother, now nearly adults themselves, could still be out there. Somewhere. She had to find them if it was at all possible.
She’d been on her way toward the stairs when she heard Noah end his call. Greta had buzzed his way, so Remmi changed her mind and headed into the parlor. Greta was near the bookcase, just bending down to pet Ghost, who’d been hiding on the lower shelves. That didn’t work, of course, and Ghost, true to his nature, gave a quiet hiss, then slunk out of the room and disappeared into the shadows.
“You’re such a naughty boy,” Greta said and looked up to find Noah staring at her as she rolled back across the room. “What?”
“The chair,” he said, then met Remmi’s gaze as she approached. “The woman who was in the picture we looked at earlier? Seneca Williams?” His eyes narrowed, and he stared into a space in the hallway, but Remmi guessed he was somewhere else, lost for a moment in a distant memory.
“What about her?” she demanded.
He snapped his fingers. “That’s why she was talking to Ike!”
“Who’s Ike?” Greta asked.
“My stepfather.” He turned to Remmi. “I couldn’t remember why Seneca stopped by my uncle’s shop.”
“You said they were talking about his moped.”
“But that wasn’t it. He was a mechanic and fixed small engines and motorcycles, messed around repairing lots of different things. But she came in and asked him to fix a wheelchair, like that one.” He pointed at Greta’s chair. “She said she worked in some kind of care facility, and she needed an electric chair or scooter, or whatever she called it, fixed. Ike sent her on her way, said he didn’t work on those things, but it was Seneca, I’m sure of it. Only she said her name was . . . Shelly . . . no, Shawna.” He paused and rubbed the back of his neck. “Shawna . . . Whitman! That’s what it was, because I remember thinking about the Whitman Massacre and the fact that, to me as a kid, her name sounded exotic, kind of Native American, like a shaman.”
Remmi’s pulse quickened. “You remembered.”
“Yeah. Shawna Whitman is Seneca Williams.” He got to his feet. “Now, all we have to do is find her.”
