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“Hi. Thank you for meeting me here,” Simon replied. “We went a little longer than I thought we would. I think they might be interested. These old ones are hard sells. People want homes, not farms, these days. And this house needs some updating. The previous owners didn’t do much with it at all. This is sort of one of those family houses, you know? The kind generations hold on to, so at a certain point, someone will either sell it or live in it again. The family that’s around now didn’t want to live in it, so they’re selling.”

“No one has put in an offer yet?” Abby asked.

“No.” Simon shook his head. “It’s only been on the market for a few weeks, but it’s a tough one. It’s got a few acres, but not enough for a full farm, like some of the others around here, and the land hasn’t been taken care of well, so someone would have to come in and really get it ready for any crops to grow. There’s a field of flowers where corn could grow, maybe.” He laughed. “And weeds, too, obviously. The barn isn’t even that new. Built in 1957. It’s not bad, though. Does what barns need it to do. But it’s still small for a farm this size if people wanted horses or anything else in there. Some people don’t even want the gravel driveway. They think it’ll damage their cars. That couple said if they put in an offer, they would want the driveway paved at the seller’s expense before they moved in as part of the offer, but I don’t see that happening. So, we’ll see. Anyway, thank you for bringing that back to me.” He held out his hand expectantly.

“Simon, can I ask you something?” Quinn asked.

“Sure.”

“Did you read this book?”

“Yes, it was my mother’s. She wrote it. It’s an interesting story. Did you two…”

“Not all of it,” Abby said. “But some. It’s about past lives, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Interesting concept. One of my mothers was awriter. Well, she was a journalist, but I always believed she wanted to write fiction, and I guess she did.” He nodded toward the book.

“Did she tell you about the book?”

“No, she died before she could. Cancer. My other mother gave it to me. She died not long after. I was always convinced it was of a broken heart.”

Quinn had heard or, really,feltthat before with Bess and Elizabeth and wondered if it was a trend: if an accident or disease didn’t take one of them but they were left without the other, maybe they died of a broken heart or, rather, what happened to them physically when they stopped taking care of themselves as a result of it.

“She and my other mother lived when they couldn’t be themselves, but they loved each other very much. She wasn’t the same after she died.”

“I can imagine,” Quinn replied.

Abby looked over at her, gave Quinn a small smile, and then turned back to Simon.

“So, your other mother gave you this book before she passed? Did she happen to tell you anything about why your mom wrote it?”

“Why do you want to know?” Simon asked, dropping the hand he’d been holding out for the book.

“I guess I’m just curious. I read some parts of it. And I’m a writer myself. Abigail Brennon.”

“Oh. I thought I recognized you. You’re the most famous person from this town now. Your book hit the big time. Didn’t I hear they’re making it into a movie?”

“Maybe,” Abby replied. “Anyway, I guess I was just interested to learn more about her inspiration. Did she believe in past lives?”

Simon squinted at her and said, “You’re not mocking them, right? I want to be clear here that they don’t deserve to be mocked for something they believed, no matter how silly it might sound to some people.”

“No, I’m not mocking. I promise.”

“We’re genuinely curious,” Quinn added, trying to help.

Simon folded his arms over his chest and said, “They’re gone, so I suppose it doesn’t mean much now. I wasn’t telling the whole truth before to protect them, but they believed they were the women in that book.” He nodded toward it. “All of them. My mom, Diana, told me that they believed they first met in the 1500s, if you can believe that, and that they’d been different incarnations of women throughout history, always finding each other; sometimes, reincarnated as babies and having that spirit in them the whole time, and other times, it happened later, like for them.” Simon nodded toward the house that time. “It’s one of the reasons I moved here.”

“What do you mean?” Quinn asked.

“They believed that when they were teenagers, they became a couple who had just died. That couple lived here.” He motioned to the house behind him. “We came here a few times when I was younger. I always thought they wanted to move here but didn’t, for some reason. We came back before my mom, Cheryl, passed away and drove to this house. They didn’t tell me why then, but later, my other mother did, and I came back myself after she passed. I met the owner at the time and his family.”

“Paul?” Abby spoke.

“You met Paul?” Quinn added.

“You knew him?” Simon asked, looking confused now, probably because Paul had died when they were kids.

“No, we just met his daughter, Deborah, yesterday. She stopped by the shop to look around and introduced herself,” Quinn covered.