She folded her arms and nodded. The small smile she gave Maggie was wistful. “I’m glad I got to meet you. You make me think of that poem. Remember the one by Hopkins, Sam? The one Mrs. Michaels had us memorize junior year? ‘It is the blight man was born for, it is Margaret you mourn for.’ I loved that poem.”

“And Mrs. Michaels,” Sam said. “You liked her a lot.”

“Oh, I did. She taught twelfth-grade English, too. I might have gotten her again if I hadn’t dropped out.” She drifted toward the car in the driveway, raised a hand, and said without turning, “Good-bye.”

Sam and Maggie drove back to Wren’s a couple of hours later. Between the two of them, there had been a lot of heaving, hauling, and packing but little conversation. Now, though, Sam burst out with, “Linnie says and does plenty that pisses me off.” He glared at the road. “But some of what she told you wasn’t true. Like how I wanted her for how she used to be—angry and nuts. Not true.” He gave his head a furious shake and slapped the steering wheel. “She’s hell on my feelings.”

Maggie caught her lower lip in her teeth. She didn’t know what to say. No doubt Sam liked Linnie for all sorts of reasons, good and bad. The woman was smart, beautiful … and what else?

Unreliable, unpredictable, unchecked.

She mumbled a sympathetic, “I’m sorry, Sam,” and turned to gaze out the window. The truck whipped past maples. She absently noted the colors in the foliage: yellow, orange, red. The hues of a blaze.

Linnie. Not what she expected.

6

MAGGIE STUDIED THE shifting darkness in the loft. She was sore. Sam’s furniture had weighed a ton. Her arms hurt. Her back hurt. Some of her thoughts hurt, too.

Linnie had called her strong, determined. Gutsy. Maggie exhaled a short laugh. She wasn’t. She couldn’t even face her own phone.

She squeezed her eyes shut. I know something similar happened to you, I know something similar happened to—

“Fine,” she growled, kicking down the blankets. She felt around for the switch on the bedside lamp.

The cardigan was still on the floor. She shoved it aside and picked up her phone. Before she could lose her nerve, she unplugged it, thumbed the password, and began to mentally compose a response to Jane, strumming up suggestions for responsible people the girl could go to for help. Anyone but me.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, she scrolled down through the unread emails to find the old one from Jane but spied something in passing, backed up, and gasped.

There was another email from Jane. A new one! Maggie hadn’t expected this—had never guessed Jane would write again when her first message had gone unanswered.

“Shit.” With a horrible sense of foreboding, she opened the email.