Page 74

When he was alone with Uncle C., Andy took his hand. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” he said. “I’m sorry I kept putting other things ahead of you. I kept meaning to come back. I kept planning to.”

But he hadn’t. He’d known Uncle C. would understand, so he’d let other things—things that ultimately didn’t matter as much to him—take precedence. Oh, he’d stayed in contact. Hehad phoned every couple of weeks. He had even sent emails in the hope that Uncle C. might eventually use his computer for more than printing address labels. He had sent birthday cards and Christmas gifts. But he had not come. He was not present.

Even knowing that was what Uncle C. wanted the most, he had delayed. He had put what everyone else, in particular Marcus—Marcus?—wanted ahead of Uncle C. As if there was all the time in the world. He worked in a goddamned museum. If anyone should have been aware of how fleeting time was, how fragile life, you’d think it would be a museum curator.

Uncle’s C.’s hand was bony and age-spotted, the hand of an old man, but Andy remembered being very young and holding his uncle’s hand as they walked along the beach or made their pilgrimage to see the statue of a uniformed Revolutionary War soldier in the tiny town square. In those days Uncle C. had been straight and wiry and energetic. His fair hair had always been wild and a little long. He dressed in jeans and tailored white shirts, and in winter he wore bulky Fair Isle cardigans over the pristine white shirts. He had been a man of contradictions. A romantic who’d never married. A military enthusiast, yet staunchly anti-war (he always insisted the last war worth fighting had been World War II). An antiques dealer who never wanted to sell his treasures.

He had been very kind to his great-nephew. Growing up, Andy hadn’t questioned that kindness, but as an adult he was surprised Uncle C. had even registered his existence. They had “met” at Andy’s grandmother’s funeral, and when everyone went back to the house to squabble over Grandma’s behests and belongings, Uncle C. had taken Andy for a walk in the park to feed the ducks. Somehow, the next summer, Andy had been shipped off to spend a month with his newly discovered great-uncle while his parents went to Europe.

And so it had gone from then on, with Andy’s summer visits to Safehaven getting longer and longer as his parents traveled more and more.

That had been fine with Andy. He had never really questioned the arrangement, although given that Uncle C. had not seemed particularly close to the rest of the family, maybe he should have. As a child he had taken it for granted that he was loved and protected, but one reason he believed that was Uncle C. He had known from the start that he came first with Uncle C.

If Uncle C. pulled through, Andy intended to make up for that childish assumption that all was well with his world because that’s how the world worked. He wanted Uncle C. to know he was aware and appreciative of everything that had been done on his behalf. He wanted to know his uncle as an adult. He wanted to repay some of the kindness and care he had received because, as an adult, he now understood, that kindness and caring wasn’t always the default.

He nearly ran into Fleur on his way out of the hospital.

She was smirking at her cell-phone screen, the fluffy white ball on her red and white pom hat bobbing cheerily, when she glanced up.

“Sorry—” Her smile gave way to shock. “Andy!”

“Hi, Fleur.” Andy didn’t want to stop. He was in a hurry to get down to the jail and find out what was happening with Quinn. He was hoping Millard would decide against charging Quinn, but if he didn’t, then helping Quinn arrange bail would have to be Andy’s next step.

No way in hell was he letting Quinn sit in jail on his account.

“What areyoudoing here?” Fleur glanced around them as though expecting other visitors to share her dismay. But thepeople brushing past them on their way in and out through the sliding doors had their own problems. No one paid them any attention.

“Visiting Uncle. C. There’s some good news. Dr. Waldo says he’s starting to show signs of waking up.”

“Signs of—Whyaren’t you in jail?” she demanded. “TheIndependentsays you were arrested.”

Okay,thatgot a few people’s attention. One or two visitors slowed, and a couple of people actually stopped to watch.

Fleur held up her cell to show him the story, and he got a glimpse of his postage-stamp-sized yearbook photo from the year he’d attended the local high school. He had been one geeky-looking kid, no question. A serial killer in the making.

“I wasn’t arrested. I was interviewed.”

Fleur seemed both baffled and indignant. “It’s your boyfriend that got murdered. Why wouldn’t you be arrested?”

“Because I didn’t murder him. That’s why.”

“That’s ridiculous! No one else even knows him. TheIndependentsays you and Quinn were arrested.”

“TheIndependentis wrong.” Wrong about Andy and hopefully wrong about Quinn. “But thanks for your confidence in me.”

She brushed the dangling pom-pom away and glared. “Oh, don’t give me that look. I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve met.”

That was true. Fleur and Clark had been together a long time, but a lot of that time had been during the period of Clark’s banishment from Time in a Bottle.

Fleur continued, “I don’t know you, and I don’t owe you. Even if I did, you and your boyfriend suddenly showing up here in time for him to mysteriously get murdered is too much of a coincidence foranyoneto swallow.”

“It’s not a coincidence. It’s a sequence of events. Marcus followed me up here and ran into whoever keeps breaking into Time in a Bottle.”

“I hope your lawyer comes up with a better defense than that!” She swept past him, throwing over her shoulder, “In the meantime, have the decency to stay away from Uncle. This kind of drama is the last thing he needs!”

The tinted doors slid shut behind her.

“No, you cannot see Quinn,” Ruthanne told him when Andy finally managed to hunt her down at the little sandwich shop known as Pat’s Place. She put down her turkey club as Andy slid into the booth across from her. “Really?”