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Ros licks her lips, still watching me like a little girl who’s afraid of being punished.
“Yeah. Just today,” she says quietly. Behind her, Micah and Henri lower Cora Lafayette’s body down slowly into Lucas’ waiting arms. “She’s driving in from Raleigh-Durham right now.”
Oh, I think, as the past rushes up to meet my face like a brass knuckle uppercut.
Oh, shit.
2
ONE BAD MEMORY (OPHELIA)
Iswear, I have the world’s worst luck with rental cars.
The last time I had a car give out on me, I was driving through the Pacific Northwest on a scenic road trip during a short sabbatical.
I’d rented this nice Lexus convertible so I could enjoy the show with the top down, but all I’d gotten was a face full of smoke when the radiator blew right outside of a cozy little place called Heart’s Edge, Montana.
At the time, I felt lucky to hitch a ride into town with a friendly ranch girl named Libby, who dropped me off at the mechanic’s with a little teasing about how it happens so much they’re starting to think it’s aliens.
This time, though, I don’t think aliens have anything to do with it.
It’s just good old-fashioned Redhaven bad luck.
And my luck is definitely running out as the Corolla I rented sputters and gasps just as I’m cresting the final hill before the familiar drop down into the valley cupping the town.
It’s strange coming home this way.
I haven’t seen this town in ages—and if it wasn’t for life happening, I’d be happy to never see it again.
But fate keeps driving me back here one nasty blow at a time.
First, the job loss. The recession slammed Florida pretty hard and the Miami hospice center where I worked ’regretfully’ served me a pink slip when budget cuts knifed through the staff.
My sister Rosalind was acting weird as hell on the phone, too.
Spacey, out of it, distant, evasive.
In our last video call, her eyes were bloodshot and sunken in like she’d been crying hard. But when I asked, she just giggled, avoided looking at me, and swore up and down she was fine.
No, I don’t think she’s fine.
And after losing our brother, Ethan, seeing Ros struggle is too much.
It scares me to the bone.
Old memories of Ethan keep surfacing, too, dredged up by the national news coverage of the Emma Santos murder case, plus the Arrendell tie to the deaths of so many girls, including hometown cold case Celeste Graves.
Then there’s my mother.
Even as I fight the car to the shoulder and slam the brakes on before gravity takes hold and pulls me into an uncontrolled skid downhill, my eyes sting.
My mother is dying.
Again.
And I don’t know if I can survive it a second time.
For her sake, I have to.
