After the tour, Quinn was met with one final surprise.
There was more to 696 Apple Hill Lane than piles of bedsheets and stacks of newspapers and rows of antique furniture.
Carl Carlson, if that even was his real name, had not left the house of his own volition.
He had died in the home.
According to Annette Best, no one knew about Carl’s in-home passing. It was a town secret. Quinn didn’t understand why.
Anyway, that was exactly what Annette had to disclose before Quinn signed on the dotted line.
The death made Quinn pause, yes. But her true hesitation had much more to do with her than with any external force, such as the ghosts of homeowners past. She didn’t fear other people’s demons. Only her own. And that fear—that fear of self, of what she’d have to do to make things work—had her chewing her thumbnail compulsively and tapping the ball of her foot on the hardwood floor.
She swallowed once. Then twice more. Blinked three times.
Then Quinn grabbed the pen, and before she could change her mind, she signed her name and dated the document.
One house farther from her past.
And one town closer to her daughter.
Annette seemed elated and started in with a laundry list of relevant contacts. The water company. Gas. Electric. Telephone, cable, and internet—You can bundle it all in Harbor Hills! she’d sung out merrily.
“But you’ll probably want to find industrial cleaners. I know I would.” Annette pressed a tidy white business card into Quinn’s hand. “These people worked miracles for another client of mine.” Then, she dropped her voice low. “The grandmother died in the house. On the floor. Carpet. She was there for days before they found her.” Annette winced appropriately. “Awful,” she murmured at last.
That was the point at which Quinn asked, “Do you know exactly what happened to, um, Mr. Carlson?”
Annette shrugged and clicked her tongue. “Not really, no.” Then she glanced around. “It was all swept directly away. By whom, I haven’t the faintest.” She pursed her lips. “I mean, his demise was extremely private, I can tell you that. But if you want to dig up more information, I might know someone who could help.” Annette raised an eyebrow and cocked her head.
“I’m not sure I want more information.” Quinn blinked and breathed through her nose for the first time since she’d stepped through the front door. She’d finally gone blind to the unpleasant smells of the home. Musty and mildewy and cramped and mottled. The left-behinds of a life poorly lived. Or well lived. It wouldn’t hurt, however, to have a point of reference for things. “But who is it?”
“Beverly Castle,” Annette answered. “Her number is listed in there”—she tapped the folder—“along with all the rest of us Apple Hillbillies.”
Quinn laughed at this as she opened the folder and skimmed the contents. “Harbor Hills is hardly suited to that nickname.”
“That’s another question for Beverly maybe. She’s a newspaper reporter. Or…was. I think she’s on hiatus. Sabbatical? No, no. Leave. That’s it. Leave.” Annette clicked her tongue again and drew her lips down into a thin frown. “Husband and daughter passed. Last winter. Terrible tragedy.”
Quinn pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh, my. What happened?”
“Car crash out on Harbor Avenue between here and Birch Harbor. Terrible, terrible tragedy. An accident. As far as that sort of thing can be. Vehicles are loaded weapons. It’s why I’ve got my son in driver’s education until he’s thirty.”
A car-crash. One of Quinn’s many ultimate nightmares. The sort that kept her awake at night. The sort that sent her backtracking, ensuring the bump in the road was already roadkill. Not Quinn-kill. She swallowed hard and found a way to bridge the conversation with this woman who was far more normal than she. Someone whom Quinn needed to think of her as normal, too.
“My daughter’s taking driver’s ed this coming school year.”
“Daughter?” Annette looked as if she might faint. “You have a teenage daughter?”
Quinn flushed. Maybe she shouldn’t mention Viviana quite yet. After all, what would this woman think? Annette seemed so…perfect. She couldn’t possibly understand Quinn’s situation.
Still, there was no taking back an admission of that size now.
“Yes. Viviana. She goes by Vivi. She’s a sophomore.”
“She’ll go to Hills High, then.” Annette clapped her hands giddily. “I’ll have to set her up with Elijah.” Her eyes widened and she laughed nervously. “Not like that.” Annette waved her hands through the air as if to clear out smoke. “I mean for the first day of school. Your Viviana will be in good hands with Elijah. He’s…well, he has good friends. He’s well liked by teachers. Not necessarily popular, but that sort of thing is different in high school these days. You know? I bet you see it with your daughter and her friends.”
Quinn just smiled and shrugged, unwilling to disappoint Annette Best of Best on the Block. She felt like too big a person to let down, no matter how kind she was.
“Well, then. You’ll let me know if you need anything? I’m just next door.” Annette laughed. “And my husband won’t mind swinging by if there’s any heavy lifting. He wears that sort of thing like a badge of honor. You know men.”
Quinn knew one man. And that was old news.
She tried to redirect the conversation. “Can you remind me about the HOA?” she began, her face serious as she turned the open folder to Annette. “I’m a little nervous about a homeowners association. I remember you mentioning it on the phone and that there was a nominal fee. Are homeowners association fees ever nominal?”
“Oh, right.” Annette gave a short nod. “Crabtree Court Homeowners. The community is named for the main drag”—Annette hooked a thumb behind her indicating the crossroad—“since it was the first inroad. We’re small, with just five residential lanes running parallel all the way to the back of the community. Beyond that is just woods.”
“Right. And it’s just fifty dollars a year. Can that be possible?” Quinn’s eyes swept through to the front window, inspecting as well as she could the rest of the neighborhood from that limited vantage point.
“We have a board. We have guidelines in place both for new construction and exterior home condition, but”—Annette bounced her head from one shoulder to the other and laughed—“as you can tell we are lax. Our biggest point of pride isn’t a tidy line of perfectly trimmed grass. Charity projects. You see, we do charity projects. Food drives. Winter coat drives. We take turns shoveling the drives of the elderly residents up the hill. No one on our street quite fits that description yet, however.”
“Not even this Carl Carlson character?” Quinn couldn’t help but point it out.
“Well, we can’t do it without the property owner’s permission, you see. Mr. Carlson never answered the door for us. He never came to events. Nothing. There was no way we could help him, I hate to admit.”
“Ah.” Quinn nodded. She understood this. Refusing people’s help and rendering them, in some great irony, helpless. And continuing to remain helpless, too. It was a mess, mental illness. Assuming Carl Carlson had suffered from it.
Quinn certainly did.
She shifted her weight to her left hip and blinked. Then blinked a second time.
A third.
“Speaking of charitable service,” she laughed lightly, swallowing hard over a lump that had formed in her throat. Humiliation. “Jobs in the area—do you happen to know of any?”