I shrugged. “It’s your choice, but I’ll warn you. Usually neighbor disputes keep going, keep getting worse.”
“I’ll think it over,” Denny promised, and I strode back toward my car, angling in. I fired it up and drove toward Main Street, deciding to take a lap around the town before heading back toward the station.
I pulled on my sunglasses, as the sun glinted off the white hood of the car, and slowly rolled onto Main Street, scanning the storefronts, my gaze pausing for a second longer on Sweet Stems than any other store. A bus rolled to a stop at the sign and a young girl ambled off, looking up and down the street as the bus doors closed behind her and it sped away.
Buses came through Hawk Valley every day, but unless a passenger on board was getting off in Hawk Valley or a person at the stop was waiting, it usually kept on going. I pulled into the street parking and rolled down my window for some of the springtime breeze as I watched the girl. If I had to guess she was a couple of years older than Tuck. Eleven? Twelve? Thirteen? Why had she been on a bus alone?
I couldn’t claim to know every person by face in this town. There were about 1,300 of us in Hawk Valley. I recognized a fair few, knew some of the kids that already liked causing trouble. Knew others, who didn’t, through their parents, but I didn’t think I’d seen this girl before. She had on a pair of purple-framed glasses, which stood out against her pale skin. She was thin, but not so much so that it was a concern. More like she was all arms and legs, hadn’t quite grown into herself yet. She had on a blue backpack with ironed-on patches all over it. I was too far away to read any of them.
The Converse sneakers on her feet were purple high tops, the same purple as her glasses. They were clean. Her clothes were clean too, and they seemed to be of nice quality from this distance. She didn’t strike me as a runaway, but that wasn’t always obvious and some kids started to run away from home earlier than most people wanted to think about. I kept watching her to see what she would do.
She walked toward the stop sign farthest away from me with her phone in her hand. Her head was bobbing, looking up and back down at her phone. She stopped. Turned around and came toward me. The same action—head bobbing between looking up and back down at her phone. If I had to bet, she was looking at a map and wasn’t quite sure where to go.
On her third time stopping and scanning up and down the street, I got out of my car and approached her. If I came right out and asked if she was a runaway, it could build a sense of distrust, but if I eased into it, she might be able to let me know if she was in trouble.
“Need some help reading a map?” I asked.
Her head popped up, banana blond hair flying around her. Her eyes were blue and she had braces on her teeth. I didn’t see any signs of bruising on her arms. She was wearing jeans, so it was possible some were hidden.
“This map is telling me I need to walk through this store and that there’s a street right here.”
“The GPS maps in the town aren’t the greatest or most reliable. What are you looking for? I know where everything is, I can get you there.”
“I’m looking for my mom,” she said.
“You’re from Hawk Valley?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. If that were true, why was she getting off of a bus? Where had she gone and come back from alone? “What’s your name?”
“Quinn Scott.”
I couldn’t think of anyone with that last name in Hawk Valley nor recall hearing about a Quinn at any time. “I’ll take you to your mom.”
Quinn grinned and pushed her glasses up her nose with a finger. Her braces were the same purple of her glasses and shoes. It surprised me that the backpack wasn’t the same color; this girl obviously liked purple. “Really?”
“Sure. Come on. I won’t even make you sit in the back.”
She chuckled and lifted her bag higher on her shoulders, following me to the car. She slid in the passenger side, and I sat in the driver’s seat. “Where do you live?”
“Well… I’m visiting my birth mom. So I don’t actually live here,” she said, her voice growing quieter as she glanced at me. “I have the address though.”
“Alright. Who is your birth mom? Maybe I know her.”
“Makenna Clarke.” Quinn also rattled off Makenna’s address, but I barely heard her. White noise filled my ears as I stared at the little girl in my passenger seat, taking her in with new eyes. Makenna had a daughter?
“Is she expecting you?”
“Yes,” Quinn said, nodding, and looked out the window. If I had been paying better attention, or if my mind hadn’t been half on what she was saying and half on wondering what this meant, I would’ve noticed that Quinn was lying.
5
Makenna
I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand, humming along with the song playing through my earphones. The sun was shining down on my back as I kneeled in front of the flower beds at the front of my house and patted down the soil with the back of my trowel. The purple hyacinths I’d planted last fall were starting to bloom. The bold, bright color stood out against the white rails of my porch.
Most of the flowers in the bed had been planted with some semblance of meaning. Forget-me-nots were the first flowers I planted in the beds. Gerbera daises for cheerfulness. Hydrangeas for gratitude. While hyacinths can be playful, purple is usually sorrow and forgiveness. I hadn’t chosen them for their meaning, but for their beauty. I wanted to add more purple into the mix and have always loved the shape of hyacinths.
I screeched in surprise and fell to the side when Colt called my name loudly. I pulled one of the buds from my ear and stared up at him. The wide brim of my hat blocked the sun. Colt was in uniform, hands on his hips and staring down at me. I scanned him from his polished boots up the brown polyester material of his pants, which had no shape and shouldn’t look good on anyone, but somehow did on him. Past his gun belt, over his wide chest and thick shoulders, to his face. A small frown on his full lips had me pausing there for longer than I should’ve.
That was the problem with Colt. He drew me in too easily, and once I was there, it was hard to leave. He sucked me in like a black hole and if I wasn’t careful, I’d be lost forever.
Colt held out his hand. I grasped it and he yanked me to my feet. I took the other earbud from my ear and dropped them both in my pocket. “You scared me.”
“You shouldn’t be out here with your back turned to the street, unable to hear anything.”
I glared at him, ready to argue and wondering if he was just driving past, saw me, and decided I looked like I needed a lecture from him. He ran a hand over his chin, muttering to himself before shaking his head. “Found a visitor of yours in town. You sure do have secrets, don’t you, Makenna.”
My shoulders lifted as my back tensed. What the hell did he know about my secrets? He was right, of course. I did have secrets. So many that I kept locked away inside of me. So many that if my friends or others found out, my entire world would be destroyed. Each and every secret that I kept locked so far inside of the vault in my mind had the power to crumble the foundation of my life. Each and every one.
“What visitor?”