The open window helped, but the nasty fumes still made Mel cough and gag. She scooted backward into the hall, but the air there wasn’t much better.

“Mel,” Tish called from somewhere, “are you still scrubbing the grout?”

She stifled a cough. “Yes.”

“Stop it right now.” Tish came around the corner with a dustpan in her hand. “I appreciate all your hard work, but give yourself a break. It can’t be good for your lungs.”

Mel sat back on her haunches. “No, it’s okay. I mean, this was the deal, right? I can’t stay if I don’t work.”

“But you don’t have to work all afternoon. It’s a beautiful day. A Saturday.” She laughed. “I guess that doesn’t matter to two people who don’t have jobs. Anyway, go take a walk or something. You’re the girl who loves to be outside, right? The fresh-air kid.”

“Right.”

Tish smiled at her. “Shoo, then.” She walked away, humming.

With a sigh, Mel pulled off her yellow rubber gloves and dropped them on the counter. She’d get back to the job in a few minutes. She didn’t want to leave it half-done.

She washed her hands and checked her reflection in the mirror. She looked awful. Bags under her watery eyes. No makeup. Her long brown hair with its scraggly ends. Thrift-store clothes. She stuck out her tongue at herself and walked out to the porch, where she took a big breath to clear her lungs.

It was weird to be sent outside like a little kid. Shoo, go outside … and do what? Play hopscotch? It was like being grounded, in reverse. At least she had a house to go back to, which beat walking around for hours and waiting for night to fall just so she could find an unlocked car to sleep in.

She headed down the sidewalk, farther into the neighborhood instead of toward Main, where she might run into somebody she knew. A few houses down the block, she heard a vehicle coming up behind her. Slowing down.

She looked over her shoulder. A white car with a bar of lights on the roof. A cop.

She hoped it wasn’t Darren, when she looked and smelled gross, but then she hoped it was him. Everything about cops made her feel mixed up. She hated them and loved them. They could throw a girl in jail, but they could help her find her way home too.

Right now, her feet seemed to be glued to the sidewalk. She couldn’t move, just stood there staring as the driver’s window slid down. It was Darren. His eyes were that gorgeous baby blue, and his mouth had a delicious curve to it.

“Hey, Mel.”

“Hey, Darren.” She gave him a quick glance, then pretended there was something interesting down the street a ways.

“You get around, don’t you?” His voice was so soft and sexy that she had to look again.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Sometimes you hang out at the park. Sometimes you walk around residential neighborhoods.”

Her insides went chilly. He’d been watching her, but not like a guy watching a girl he liked. He’d been watching her like a cop because she was a suspicious person.

“I live on this street now.” She pointed behind her. “See the big house with the white car in the driveway? That’s where I live. My friend owns it.”

“I see,” he said slowly.

“I’m not shacking up with some guy. My friend’s name is Letitia. The one who was, um, at the gazebo with me. She’s cool.”

Darren nodded. “What else have you been up to? Going to college?”

“I was working in Florida for a while,” she said with a shrug. “I’ve been around a little.” Then, realizing what she’d said, she quickly added, “Not in a bad way.”

“I know.” He smiled, giving her hope, but then his radio crackled. “Gotta go,” he said.

It was her last chance to flirt with him. “Yeah, you have places to go. People to bust.” Then she groaned inside. She couldn’t have picked anything stupider to say.

“Don’t be one of ’em,” he said. “See you around, kid.”

Kid? She wanted to argue that she was a grown woman, but he was already pulling away so she gave him a quick wave and started walking. Her face burned.

If he was watching in his rearview mirror, he didn’t see Melanie Hamilton who loved him. He saw Mel the little kid. Or Mel the delinquent. Definitely Mel the freak who smelled like bathroom cleaner. And Mel the idiot who didn’t know how to talk to a guy.

She should have asked him how he’d liked the police academy, or where he was living now, or how his brother was doing. She should have said anything but what she’d said.

Okay, so she had to learn how to talk to guys. She had to buy clothes and makeup and get her hair done. But that meant she had to get a job, and nobody would hire her when she looked like a homeless person and everybody thought she was a thief.

Tish ate alone at the kitchen table, eyeing some of the cleaning projects she hadn’t tackled yet: dusty light fixtures, scuffed woodwork, the stove’s greasy knobs. In Nathan and Letitia’s day, most people had housekeepers to do the dirty work, but Tish only had Mel. Now it seemed she’d gone on a hunger strike.

Finished eating, Tish stopped in the hallway near the guest room and listened. Again, she thought she heard sniffles.

She knocked gently. “Mel? You okay?”

“I’m fine,” said a muffled and miserable voice from behind the door.

“There’s food still on the table for you. Do you want to eat?”

“No. Thank you.”

“Okay. I’ll put it in the fridge. If you get hungry, let me know. Or help yourself to the leftovers.”

Mel didn’t answer.

About to walk away, Tish smelled cigarette smoke. She sniffed to make sure. It was faint but unmistakable. “Mel? Are you smoking in there?”

“What?”

“Are you smoking?”

There was a short silence. “Sorry.”

“No smoking in the house, ever. Put it out.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I didn’t buy this house just so you can set it on fire.” Tish couldn’t believe her ears. When had she started to sound like a mother?

“Why are you so in love with this stupid old house? Don’t you care about me? And my lungs? No, you only want me to stop smoking so I won’t set your stupid house on fire!”

Well, maybe that was why Tish had fallen into the maternal role. Mel sounded like a spoiled teenager who claimed to be mistreated by her parents. Tish put her hands on her hips so she wouldn’t be tempted to yank the door open and say what she was really thinking. “You know the vacant lot next door? The house that used to be there burned down. I don’t want my house to burn down, especially with somebody in it. You or me or anybody else.”

Mel snorted and said something Tish didn’t catch. Maybe that was a blessing.

“This old house could go up in flames in no time, Melanie. There is to be absolutely no smoking in the house.” Again, the mother. “Do you understand?”

“Yes!” the girl screamed. “I’m so sorry I’m not perfect like you!”

Clenching her hands into fists, Tish shut her eyes and took a deep breath. She probably shouldn’t have taken in the girl in the first place, but now she couldn’t see kicking her out.

“Melanie,” Tish said, making her voice even, “don’t speak to me that way again.”

Tempted to say much more, she walked away and grabbed a sweater. She had to get out of the house before she strangled somebody.

She ran out the back door and through the backyard. When she neared the garage, the soft music calmed her a bit. She stepped out of the twilight and into the brightness where the boom box rested on the cement floor. Calv sat on a tall stool holding a screwdriver in one grimy hand and a small metallic item in the other. He looked up, tossing his hair out of his eyes, and smiled.

“Hey there, Miss Tish.”

She smiled back, feeling as if she’d swum out of a stormy ocean and into a deep pond of peace where she could float for a while. “Hi, Calv. Where’s George?”

“He ran over to the auto-parts store in Muldro.” Calv lost his grip on the tiny metal part, and it bounced off his bony knee and onto the cement. “Oh, foot. Where’d that thing go?” He climbed off the stool. After a leisurely hunt, he retrieved the part and climbed onto the stool again. “Would’ve roont my whole night if I’d lost that little doohickey.”

Roont. It took Tish a second to translate. Ruined.

“Where’s the dog?” she asked. “With George?”

“Yes ma’am. She ain’t my problem—she’s his.” Calv laughed. “Poor George. His mama adopted one itty-bitty dog after another. Sometimes two or three at the same time. Maltese, all of ’em. One would die, and she’d bring another one home. Daisy was the only one left when Rue passed away, but she was barely out of the puppy stage. The week after the funeral, I caught him online looking up the life expectancy for a Maltese.”

Tish stifled a laugh. “He wants Daisy to die?”

Calv shrugged. “He treats her right. He just don’t love her.”

“I’ll bet she knows it too. Poor baby.”

“You’re too soft-hearted to be a McComb.”

“I’m a few generations removed from Nathan and Letitia, you know.”

“Good thing too. I had a great-aunt who was a little girl when the stories were fresh.”

Tish propped one elbow on a massive red toolbox very similar to the one her dad had hauled all over Michigan. “Well … are you going to share them with me?”

“Sure, but they’re not pretty.” Calv bent over his project and lowered his voice. “My great-aunt used to say Letitia kicked kittens and slapped other folks’ children and wasn’t too particular about the bonds of holy matrimony.”

Tish sighed. “Right. Unchaste and unkind. Forever sharing the infamy and dishonor, et cetera.”

“Say what?”

“That was in an old book George let me borrow. It also said the house is a vile monument to Nathan’s greed.”

“I guess it is, but no monument can stand forever.”

“Especially if somebody burns it down,” Tish said.

“Excuse me?”

“I just caught Mel smoking in her room.”

“Ah.”

“I have a smoke detector right in the hallway. I don’t know why it didn’t go off.”

“There are ways, and I know ’em all. I know all about bad habits too. Mine almost earned me an early grave. Miss Mel’s a smart girl, though. She might turn around before she goes too far down that road.”

“I hope you’re right. Do you think George might hire her at the shop? Just to give her a chance?”

Calv shook his head. “He’s got about enough business to keep one person busy, most of the time. I help out sometimes, but he don’t need me. Not really.”

“Okay. Just thought I’d ask.” Tish frowned. “This is nosy, but how can George afford a project car like this if he doesn’t have more business than that?”

“He’s a smart boy, ol’ George. He makes his real money online, buying and selling. He started that years ago, before most people figured out how.”

“I see.” Why had she asked that? It was none of her business.

“And if I could just teach him how to text, he’d make more money still,” Calv added with a grin.

Tish had no idea what he meant. “Well, I’d better make sure Mel isn’t setting the monument on fire.”

“Yeah, and if you’ve got any silver spoons, you might want to count ’em.” Calv gave her a sad smile, softened with a wink.

He was a nice old guy. Kindhearted. Like George, he seemed to like Mel but didn’t trust her any more than Tish did.

Walking back through the chilly night, she wondered if there was even one person in Noble who trusted Mel.

George exited the parts store approximately fifty dollars poorer than when he’d walked in, but he wasn’t complaining. At least they’d had the necessary tools and cleaning agents in stock.

About to run for the van to rescue Daisy from the terror of five minutes of solitude, he stopped to wait for a disreputable-looking pickup truck to pass. Si Nelson was in the driver’s seat, his scrub-brush hair wilder than ever. He must have sold his nice silver truck. This one was a downgrade in size and age, and he wasn’t keeping it clean. It worried George a little. Not just that Si’s prosperity had vanished, but that his spunk was gone too.

The truck slowed to a crawl, its ticking engine a clue to its ill health. Si lowered his window. “George,” he said with a deep sigh.

It was appropriate, George decided, for a man who sighed so often and so theatrically to call himself Si.

“Hey,” George said. “How goes it?”

“Not good. I’m here to buy a fuel pump for the wife’s car.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.” Si studied the bag in George’s hand. “I guess you’re buying parts for your fun car. Must be nice to have money to spend on frivolity like that.”

George wanted to argue that he’d earned every penny he spent, and the Chevelle could be seen as an investment anyway, but arguing Si out of his opinions was like trying to talk a tiger out of his stripes.

“It’s not a rich man’s car,” George said. “It’s a ’Velle, not a ’Vette.”

“You’re a durned sight richer than I am now. So’s that McComb woman. That crook.”

“Come on, now. She didn’t hold a gun to your head to make you accept the offer.”

“She might as well have. I was barely awake. She’s a thief.”

“Jesus welcomed at least one thief into paradise, you know.”

Si pointed his forefinger toward George. “Only because that one repented.” He hit the gas. The truck lurched forward.

“You have a nice evening too,” George told the truck’s taillights.

Approaching the van, he frowned. Daisy wasn’t hurling herself against the windows or making her ungodly and undogly howls and moans. Hope stirred in his heart. Maybe some idiot had swiped her.

No. There she was, delicately sneaking cold fries from the container he’d left on the console.

He yanked the door open. She dived for the floor, her tail between her legs, and peered up at him with guilt-stricken eyes.

“Bad dog,” he scolded, climbing in.

She whimpered and flattened herself on the floor.

George let out a sigh as dramatic as one of Si’s and patted the seat. “Come. Sit.”

She obeyed, all happiness and gratitude, and kissed his hand.

Wiping his hand on his jeans, George decided that if dogs went to heaven—which was doubtful—Daisy would fit right in.