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“I had henna done once at a street fair outside the bookstore where I worked in high school,” Zoey said. “Vines, all down my fingers, like that. Only not as pretty as yours.”
“Vines symbolize perseverance,” Charlotte said. “Flowers mean joy. The sun represents eternal love. And the moon, here, is the power of change.” She pointed to her knee. “Birds are supposed to be messengers between heaven and earth.” She indicated a peacock on the other knee. Birds had always been her favorite to draw. Then she touched a circle on her leg at the hem of her cutoffs. “This is a mandala. It represents the universe.”
Zoey looked impressed. “I had no idea it all meant something.”
Charlotte put her hands back in her pockets. “In all my years, I’ve never encountered something that didn’t mean anything.”
Her phrasing seemed to give Zoey pause. “How oldareyou?”
“A lot older than you,” Charlotte said. “Twenty-six.”
“That’s nota lotolder,” Zoey said with a laugh. “I’ll be nineteen in a few weeks.”
Charlotte smiled for the first time in what felt like forever. Nineteen had once seemed exotic to her, too, beingso very closeto twenty. “So what brings you here? Are you in college?” she asked. The island had a big seasonal tourist economy, so half the summer workforce consisted of college kids.
“I start my freshman year at the College of Charleston in the fall.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to this.”
“Wait,” Zoey said, before Charlotte could turn to go. “Did you happen to see anything last night, or hear anything unusual?”
Charlotte suddenly remembered the sound that had tried to penetrate her layers of exhaustion as she’d fallen asleep. “I thought I heard a doorknob rattle. But I was probably dreaming. Why?”
“You weren’t dreaming!” Zoey said. “Lizbeth’s patio doors were open again this morning, just like yesterday. And I know I locked up.”
“Maybe it was Frasier.”
“I already asked. It wasn’t him.” Zoey made a tiny gesture, like she didn’t want anyone but Charlotte to see, indicating the two units across the garden. “Do you think it could beher?”
“Lucy?” Charlotte asked, and Zoey nodded. “No. Now, if you were accusing Lizbeth, I wouldn’t be surprised. I can’t tell you the number of times I found her trying to peer in my patio doors when she thought I was gone.”
“Still, we should probably make sure our doors are locked until we know what we’re dealing with.”
“Don’t worry about Lucy,” she said, reaching out to squeeze Zoey’s shoulder. The gesture was very unlike her and she felt embarrassed for doing it.
“Then who could it be?”
Charlotte thought about it. “Maybe it was someone who heard about Lizbeth’s death and wanted to get a look at her condo to make a quick offer based on the state of the place. It happens all the time. People are ghouls.”
“How would they have a key?”
“If a door isn’t bolted from inside, a handle lock is pretty easy to pick.”
She could see that Zoey was dying to know how she knew this.But before she could ask there was the sound of a door opening across the garden. Zoey turned sharply, obviously thinking she had magically summoned Lucy, the Boo Radley of the Dellawisp, with only the power of suggestion.
But it turned out to be the larger-than-life redheaded man next door to Lucy. Zoey visibly deflated. She was young enough to think that drama was something you had to run toward. She had no idea that drama doesn’t need to be chased. It knows exactly where you live.
“Do you know him?” Zoey asked as the man walked out, back first. He always wore his hair styled in a mod pompadour, short on the sides and long on top. And he dressed like a hipster in old hiking boots, cargo shorts, and untucked plaid shirts. But there was something about him, just in the way he moved, that made Charlotte think he was an older soul covered in a younger man’s skin.
“That’s Mac. I think he works at a restaurant. Sometimes when he cooks it makes the whole garden smell like…” She hesitated while they watched him walk to the mailboxes.
Zoey looked at her expectantly. “Like what?”
“Home.” But it didn’t, really. At least not the place she ran away from. That place had smelled like mud and sweat and the peculiar scent a roof gets when it’s so wet it’s about to collapse. This man’s cooking smelled like what homeshouldsmell like.
“He looks like he would be nice,” Zoey said as he reached the mailboxes. He dropped his keys and bent to pick them up.
“Are you interested in him?” Charlotte asked. “I bet he’s old enough to be your dad.”
