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Her brows knit as she reached up and brushed something that looked like flour from her shoulder.
Where had that come from?
When she walked back out, with Fig leading the way, Mac was at the stove. Although their condos were the same size, his kitchen seemed larger than hers, probably because there wasn’t a wall separating it from the living room, just a long butcher-block island. She pulled out one of the modern metal stools and sat. Plates and forks were in front of her, as well as syrup and butter and an open clamshell container of whole strawberries. He had all of thison hand.The only thing she was sure to have on hand to serve at a moment’s notice was beer and cereal.
She watched as he flipped a golden pancake in a frying pan, then slid it onto a plate. He poured batter from a bowl into the pan and started the process all over again. His movements were agile and he had created a small stack in minutes.
“Help yourself,” he said, setting the plate on the island. He moved the pan to a cold burner and wiped his hands on a dish towel draped over his shoulder. “Camille called these johnnycakes. Basically, pancakes made with cornmeal.”
“You really walk the walk, don’t you?” she said. “With cornmeal, I mean.”
He shrugged. “It’s how Camille cooked. But it wasn’t just the cornmeal that made it special. It was her whole philosophy behind food. When I was younger, food was all about trying to fill an emotional void. But she taught me food was really about storytelling. It was about creating something good, and then giving it away.”
She ate embarrassingly fast. She couldn’t pinpoint if it was the food itself or just the act of preparation, but she was suddenly sure that they were the best pancakes she’d ever had. When she was finished, all that was left was maple syrup smeared across the surface of her plate, as if painted with a brush.
She wiped her mouth with her napkin, then folded it and set it aside. “Listen. About last night,” she said. “I overreacted to an unlocked door. We don’t need to tell Frasier. And we especially don’t need to tell Zoey.”
Mac leaned against the island. “I get the feeling it wasn’t the unlocked door itself that scared you,” he said. “It was whatever it represented.”
The silence that fell around them was punctuated only by Fig’s steady crunching as she worked through a bowl of dry cat food by the Sub-Zero fridge. As Charlotte watched the cat eat, she asked, “Does it ever feel to you like the best things go away too fast, and the worst things never, ever leave you alone?”
Mac didn’t answer, waiting for her to say more.
And for the first time in ten years, she did. “When I was twelve, my family sold our house and all our belongings and moved to a small religious camp in Vermont. I say religious, but they really only worshiped one person, the head of the group, Marvin McCauley. That’s even what the church called itself, the Church of McCauley. He was fanatically anti-government and was always under investigation—fraud, weapons, you name it.” She only wanted to tell the story of Charlotte, but as her mind traveled back, an image of Pepper formed, unbidden. “There were only about ten children there, but one was a girl my age. I didn’t want anything to do with her at first. I hated it there and I didn’t want to be friends with anyone. But she glommed on to me like I was her lifeline. Like you with Camille. It was like she’d just beenwaitingfor me. But it turned out I needed her as much as she needed me. We became inseparable—Charlotte Lungren and Pepper Quint.”
“Pepper? Is that her real name?”
“She hated it.” Charlotte smiled slightly. “The four years I was there, all I could talk about was running away. I would pore over maps in the school library and make lists of cities where I wanted to live when I finally left. I wanted to travel on a scooter and make money by doing henna.” She absently rubbed her thighs under theisland counter. She hadn’t done any practice work on herself in over a week, so most of the images were gone, but she could still feel them there, like phantom ink. “Pepper was scared to travel, but she was going to come with me. She wanted to be where I was. I made her feel safe.”
“Where is she now?” Mac asked.
Charlotte picked up her napkin and refolded it. “She died of pneumonia at the camp when we were sixteen. When she got sick, McCauley told everyone that if they just had faith that she could be cured, she would be. Then when she died, he said it was because they didn’t pray hard enough. That’s when I finally ran away and never looked back.”
Mac frowned. “Is it still there? The camp?”
“No. McCauley was finally arrested on weapons charges about a year after I left. Everyone scattered to the winds after that.”
Mac studied her for a few moments before he surmised, “So you’re afraid it’s someone from the camp who broke into your condo.”
“No,” she said, “it couldn’t be. No one knows where I am.” Yesterday was now swirling around and mixing with every other time she’d been meticulous about locking up. Maybe she’d only assumed she had turned the key in the lock before they’d left for dinner. “I probably forgot to lock the door. Zoey was excited and we were in a hurry to leave.”
“But you think the people from the camp are dangerous?”
She didn’t know how to answer that. She’d spent the first few years after leaving terrified that someone would find her. Not because she’d left—no one was that sad to see her go. But because she’d stolen that money. There had only been a few dozen adults at the camp, and she’d known them all by name, so she used to Googlethem obsessively. A few had been arrested with McCauley, but most had simply absorbed themselves back into the real world. The only person she’d completely lost track of was Sam.
“I don’t know. I just don’t want anyone from that time of my life showing up and making me who I used to be. I’m not that person anymore.” She paused. “I’ve never told anyone about Pepper.”
“Who better than a chef? I understand condiments.” He gave her a reassuring smile that crinkled the skin around his brown eyes. His acceptance, his complete lack of judgment, caught her off guard. “Come on,” he said, “let’s go talk to Frasier.”
Mac let her take the lead and tell Frasier the version of events she felt most comfortable with—that she thought her lock might have been picked last night, though nothing had been taken. And it was similar enough to what Zoey had been saying about Lizbeth’s condo that Charlotte felt he needed to know. The only thing Mac added was “Whether or not someone has finally stumbled upon our secret hideout here, it’s probably time for our dues to go toward some security.”
Frasier nodded as he stood with them outside his office. The birds had surrounded them like Lilliputians. “Could be poachers,” he said seriously, stroking his long beard. “Haven’t had to deal with them since that book. I’ll take care of it.”
When Frasier went back inside, Mac said, “Poachers? Do you get the feeling he thinks the birds’ safety is more important than ours?”
Charlotte surprised herself by laughing.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Zoey asked from her balcony.
