Natalie tried to usher me towards a couch in the sitting room, the same place Harriet and I had worked on a puzzle just days before. I pulled out of Natalie’s hold. “I’m fine. But I need to make sure all of these details are handled.”

Natalie took a small step back, worry etching her features. I did my best to keep my face a blank mask. The last thing I needed when I felt a breath away from breaking was to see judgment in anyone’s gaze. I’d seen the looks too many times before. The abandoned daughter of the town drunk. The used and discarded trash of Grant Abbot. The one way to avoid all of those looks was to never step out of line.

I did my best to gentle my expression. “I’m sorry, Natalie. I just need to stay busy right now. I need to make sure Harriet’s taken care of.” My voice started to crack on the mention of her name, but I willed it under control.

Natalie’s expression softened even further. “Of course. EMTs are on their way.”

I nodded. “We should notify the rest of her circle. We can split the call list.” That gave me something to hold on to. A task to complete.

Natalie started for the office. “I’ll get her address book.”

Time came in fits and starts. A blur of painful phone calls where I kept my voice carefully measured as I filled in Harriet’s nearest and dearest. Natalie let the EMTs in while I wrapped up a call with one of Harriet’s bridge crew.

Pine and spice filled my senses as warmth seeped into my back. Crosby cleared his throat. “I’m so sorry, Kenna.”

Sorry. Everyone was sorry. But what did that word even mean? I pushed to my feet and crossed out of the kitchen, Crosby on my heels. “What are you doing here?”

He caught my elbow just as we reached the foyer. “I loved her too, you know.”

“I know.” My eyes burned with the force of holding back my tears. “Do you need anything from me? You have all her paperwork and the instructions for a funeral, right?”

Crosby’s gaze surveyed my face as if looking for the truth beneath the surface. He wouldn’t find it. I kept everything too locked away.

“I don’t think that’s really important right now.”

I opened my mouth to answer when a sheet-covered stretcher snagged my peripheral vision. I froze, the air seeming to solidify painfully in my lungs. The world began to blur around the edges again, and reality hit me with all its deadly weight.

“I’m alone.” The words escaped me in a barely-there whisper.

Crosby gripped my arm, turning my attention away from the brutal truth and towards the hard planes of his face. “You are a lot of things, but alone is not one of them.”