Eighteen medium-sized boxes. It was hard to believe a few handfuls of square cardboard was all Quinn’s life had amounted to after so many years. She peeled a piece of clear tape from the dispenser, spread it over the last box, and stood, hands on hips. She looked around. At the age of twenty-six, she was moving back in with her parents again. Sure, she’d have her own room. She’d even have a separate apartment behind her parents’ main house, but who was she kidding? It was like her life was being experienced in reverse. Who would have thought that could happen?
Quinn smoothed a hand over a box her mother had labeled “Isaiah” in black, permanent marker. The name had been scribbled inside a heart. Quinn outlined the heart with her finger, her only solace in believing Isaiah was no longer alone in the afterlife. At least if she didn’t have Evie, he did.
In many ways she felt like she had nothing. A blank page to a new life she cared little about. Instead of the beginning of a new chapter, her book of life seemed closed, the pages stuck together, unable to turn.
Quinn’s father entered the room, placed a supportive hand on her shoulder. At six foot four, he towered over her five-foot-eight frame. In his early sixties and with alabaster hair, he still looked as fit as she remembered him being when she was a child. A devout vegetarian with a workout regimen that included jogging five miles a day, it wasn’t hard to see why his body had held up so well. Or why he was the perfect match for her mother, a woman with a cocoa-colored pixie cut and the looks of a modern-day Grace Kelly.
“I’m surprised Marcus isn’t here to see you off,” her father said.
She wasn’t. And frankly, she couldn’t believe her father was so optimistic after she’d explained the uncomfortable altercation she had with him the day before.
“He won’t be here, Dad. He doesn’t want to see me right now. He might not ever want to see me again after yesterday. And the truth is, I don’t blame him. The decision I made was the right one. Still feels lousy though.”
Since announcing her decision to divorce, her mother had spent a fair amount of time humming. Although she’d always kept her feelings about Marcus to herself in the past, Quinn knew her mother never felt he was the right man for her. Hence the humming, and the permanent smile affixed to her face. Quinn was surprised her mother hadn’t purchased a pair of streamers and broken out in a celebratory dance.
Then again, she hadn’t ruled it out.
There was still time.
Time.
Quinn glanced at the antique clock on the wall, at the slender, gold pendulum swinging back and forth, ever smooth, ever steady. The dark wood case may have been carved by hand, but it meant nothing to Quinn. To her the clock was hideous. Three years earlier, she’d tried to replace it with a metal one she ordered from Pottery Barn. In less than a day, the old clock had been returned to the wall, and along with it, a stern warning. “This was handed down to me by my mother,” Marcus had said. “She received it from her mother before her.” He went on to say the clock was rare, made of something he called “serpentine”—whatever the hell that was. Looking at it now, she giggled just seeing that old clock, realizing it had outlasted her in the end.
No matter.
She was done with this life.
In the corner of the room, Quinn’s parents were engaged in a conversation, their voices too low for Quinn to catch what they were saying. They glanced her direction then hushed their voices again. Her mother was no longer smiling.
“What’s going on with you two?” Quinn asked. “If you’re worried about me because of all that’s happened over the last couple days, don’t be. It will take some time, but one of these days I’ll pull myself together.”
“Quinn, why don’t we all sit down for a minute?” her father suggested. “There’s something we need to talk to you about.”
“If it’s about Marcus, I’d rather we didn’t. Not yet. I mean, I’d rather you give it—”
He held a flat hand in front of him. “It isn’t.”
She shuddered, a cool tingling trailing up the sides of her arms. She didn’t know why, only that the somber look on her father’s face was cause for concern. Her friend was dead. Her marriage was dead. How much worse could it get?
Clear liquid streamed down her mother’s cheeks, dripping droplets of water onto the front of the cotton T-shirt she wore.
Quinn’s father reached out, draping an arm around his wife. “If this is too hard for you, Jane, you don’t have to be here for this.”
Her mother shook her head. “Evie was like a daughter to me, Mitchell. To both of us. I’ll stay. Quinn deserves to know the truth.”
What truth?
“Dad?” Quinn asked.
“When I called you a few days ago, told you Evie had passed away,” her father began, “I suppose I ... didn’t tell you everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d talked it over with your mother beforehand, and we decided it would be best to wait until you arrived back home before giving you all the details. Then we received the call from Marcus letting us know you were in the hospital. We boarded the next plane, and, well, you know the rest.”
A rush of vertigo swept through Quinn’s body. She sagged onto the couch. “Obviously, I don’t know the rest.”
“On the phone I told you Evie’s death was an accident,” her father continued.
“You said she fell off her bike, hit her head on a rock.”
Her parents exchanged glances, remained silent.
“One of you say something,” Quinn said.
Her father cleared his throat once, then a second time. “There’s no easy way to say this, Quinn. I wish there was. Evie’s death wasn’t an accident.”
“If it wasn’t an accident, what was it?”
“Honey, she was murdered.”