“I wondered if you were going to bail,” Dana admitted.

“I was thinking about it. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I guess I had to work out for myself what I was doing and why. Now I know. I’m starting my own business because the longer you put off dreams, the less chance you have of making them real. I’m going into a partnership with two women I like a lot. Not only am I not going to let them down, but I’m not going to let me down either.”

She got to her feet, and with her hands planted on her hips, turned to look at the house. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this, but I’m ready to try. I don’t know if I’m going to find the key in the time I have left, but I know I’ve tried there, too.”

“I know what I think.” Zoe rose to join her. “If it weren’t for the key, you wouldn’t be with Flynn now. We wouldn’t be together, and we wouldn’t have this place. Because of that I’ve got a chance to make something special, for myself, for Simon. I wouldn’t have had that without the two of you.”

“Let me start off saying we can skip the group hug.” Still, Dana walked over to them. “But I feel the same way. I wouldn’t have had the chance for this without both of you. My idiot brother has a classy lady in love with him. All that starts with the key. I say you’re going to find it.”

She looked up as rain began to splatter. “Now let’s get the hell in out of the rain.”

Inside, they stood in a loose semicircle.

“Together or separate?” Malory asked.

“Together,” Zoe answered.

“Top or bottom?”

“Top.” Dana glanced over, got assenting nods. “You said Flynn was coming by?”

“Yeah, he’s going to slip over for an hour.”

“We can use him as a pack mule, then, for anything we want to haul out of the attic.”

“Some of the stuff up there is great.” Zoe’s face shone with enthusiasm as they started up. “I know it looks like junk at first glance, but I think once we get to it, we’ll be able to use some. There’s an old wicker chair that could be rewoven and painted. It’d look good on the porch. And there’s a couple of those pole lamps. The shades are trash, but the poles could be cleaned up and antiqued.”

Her voice faded away as Malory climbed the steps. The window at the top was wet with rain, dull with dust. And her heart began to thud like a fist against her ribs.

“This is the place,” she whispered.

“Yeah, it is. This is it.” Dana set her hands on her hips as she looked around the second floor. “It’ll be ours and the bank’s in a few weeks.”

“No, this is the place. From my dream. This is the house. How could I be so stupid not to realize, not to understand?” Excitement pitched into her voice, rushing the words out. “It wasn’t what was Flynn’s, but what was mine. I’m the key. Isn’t that what Rowena said?”