More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“I think it’s going to be good for us, being out of the city for a few weeks. This trip could actually be a gift from your father, making us all come to Maine to scatter his ashes. It’s forced you to step away from your desk and take a deep breath. And maybe something about this place will inspire you. You’ll see or hear something you can use. I’ll never forget what you said when we met at your book signing. ‘If you’re a writer, no experience, good or bad, goes to waste.’” “Ah, yes. I have the best pickup lines.” “Well, it worked on me.”
How luxurious it was to be lazing in bed at nine thirty, with nothing on her schedule except perhaps a swim in the pond, or a drive into the village of Purity. This was how every holiday should be, waking up late every morning to the tantalizing smell of coffee. Made, for once, by someone else in the household.
Anyone who encountered him on a dark city street might well assume he was a panhandler in need of spare change and a warm bed. They would only have to spend five minutes talking to the man to realize Luther was neither down on his luck nor in need of charity. He dressed this way because he simply didn’t give a damn how he looked, or what strangers thought of him.
She would never get rich owning chickens, but the work of keeping them healthy and fed and safe from predators was a welcome distraction from thoughts of missing girls and nameless skeletons and her own haunted past.
“Why can’t you ever give me a simple answer?” “Because answers aren’t always simple, Jo.”
Nothing aged a person faster than grief, and in that unsparing light, the loss of her daughter could be seen etched into every line of her face.
Events had so cruelly battered this woman that she seemed unable to make even the simple decision of whether or not to have a cup of coffee with a friendly face. At last, she nodded. “I’d like that.”
“I assume Susan showed you these articles from the Purity Weekly?” She handed Jo a stack of photocopied pages. “The Tarkin family has a troubled history.” Jo glanced at the headline: Massacre on Main Street. “1972?” “I hadn’t heard about this incident before. But you must know about it.” “Yeah, sure. My dad remembers it pretty well. But this was over fifty years ago. It’s ancient news.” “Fifty years is ancient?” said Ingrid, and she looked at her husband. “What does that make us?”
She could hear Declan walking right behind her, his boots snapping twigs, and it brought back the days when she was still young, still in the field, silently moving through the Burmese jungle, where the air smelled like rotting vegetation. She’d moved quicker in those days, unbothered by the heat and the mud, because it was still an adventure, with a heady dose of fear in the mix. The fear of capture, and what would inevitably follow: Interrogation. Torture. Possible execution. Today it was just a summer hike with two good friends and a full water bottle in her backpack, but she could feel
...more
“Take a look.” Declan pointed upward. Only then did she see what was snagged on one of the branches: a pair of swim goggles. “How the hell did you spot that?” “I thought I heard an eastern towhee singing up there. I looked up, and instead of a bird, I saw that dangling on the branch.” He handed Maggie his binoculars. “Well spotted, indeed,” said Ben, impressed. “You see? Bird-watching isn’t an entirely useless hobby.”
Into her overnight bag went her slippers and socks and a sweatshirt, because hospitals were always chilly. She doubted she’d have the energy to read anything, but she packed a book anyway, a lighthearted novel about three sisters on vacation in Italy. A place she promised herself she would take Zoe someday. She had to hold on to that image: her and Zoe and Ethan lounging on a beach in Italy, everyone healthy and happy and whole. If she couldn’t imagine it, then it couldn’t happen, and she needed some vision of the future. Something to look forward to.
“Sorry, I can’t stop thinking of Colin and Ethan as ‘the boys,’ because I watched them grow up. I’ve known them since they were babies. Watched Elizabeth set them loose on the lawn to crawl around naked. Back then, we didn’t worry about ticks or sunscreen or skin cancer. But then, we didn’t imagine we’d ever get old either.”
She was probably smarter than any of them, but that’s how it was in those days, if you were a woman. You could work twice as hard as any of the men, but you weren’t valued or listened to. Even if you had an advanced degree in neurochemistry, like she did.”
tell your friends to leave the Conovers alone. Go back to your book club, drink a few martinis. Enjoy retirement.” “This is how we enjoy retirement.” She peered at the road ahead and spotted Ethan’s car turning off toward the hospital. “Just stay away from them. Got it?” “Got it,” Maggie said, and followed Ethan and Elizabeth down the hospital driveway.
