“Can’t wait to hear it,” Colleen called over her shoulder, “as most of your ideas are good ol’ trouble. But right now all I want is to go home.”

“All right, but I can’t leave right now.” Shane dug out his car keys from his back pocket. “Here.” He tossed them to her and she grabbed them in midair. And then he let out a noise that sounded like a grunt their old dog used to emit when he fell from the bed to the hardwood floor. “God help me get through this with the likes of you two.”

Chapter Six

Every act of memory is to some degree an act of imagination.

Gerald M. Edelman and Guilio Tonini, A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination

Dad still lived in the family home and as Colleen drove Shane’s rattling Jeep toward it she intuitively knew every bend in the road. Long leaf pine, magnolia and live oak lining the street reached up and over, forming a canopy. She passed a wooden stand where peaches were piled in pyramids, golden and ripe, as an engine revved in her chest, mimicking the Jeep. She had no time to stop. Something must be done.

Something.

Anything.

She pressed harder on the gas pedal and the car lurched around the first corner. The siren was annoying, but Colleen drove to the right to allow the police car to pass. Instead the blaring lights flared in the rearview mirror and Colleen parked on the soft sand shoulder under a tree and dropped her forehead to the steering wheel. She did not need this.

The knock was quick on the driver’s-side window and she rolled it down to stare into the face of a high school friend, Brad Young. “Oh, Brad!”

“Driver’s license and insurance,” he said so sternly that she laughed.

“Seriously?” she asked and tucked her hair behind her ear. Maybe he didn’t recognize her.

He nodded, his blue hat bobbing. He straightened the billed cap and stared at her.

“Brad. It’s Lena Donohue.”

“I know, Ms. Donohue.”

“Stop with the formality,” she said, aiming for a flirty, fun grin. “I know I was going too fast; I was trying to get to my dad.”

“You were going sixty in a thirty.”

“Oh . . .” She cringed. “I’m sorry; I didn’t realize. It’s been a hell of a day, and I was rushing.” She paused. “I just flew in and I think my driver’s license is in my suitcase. I don’t drive much in New York and . . .”

“I know where you live, Lena.”