Page 65 of The Souls of Lost Lake

Two hands landed on hers. Startled, Ava looked up from her position on the ladder as she descended into the gloomy depths.

Noah leaned over her. Worry was etched into what she could see of his face. Ava shook herself free of his touch, staring into his eyes as she lowered herself down. The ground swallowed her. A blessed beckoning into the bowels of the earth. To the place she had huddled. The place she had wept as a thirteen-year-old girl, as she listened to the screams of her family in their last moments of life.

26

Wren

Wren tugged open the bottom file drawer in her mother’s filing cabinet. The metal-on-metal scraping sound announced her intention to snoop. She wasn’t trying to be sneaky, but at the moment, Wren preferred not to be confronted by her dad. What if he didn’t know? Didn’t suspect? What if Patty was right and Wren truly was an accidental pregnancy because of an affair? And if Tristan Blythe didn’t know ... Wren didn’t want to be the one to break the possibility to him. Either way it was spun, it felt as if she would be betraying her mother and her memory, or else betraying her father and his current day perception of their life with Mom back when she was with them.

She fingered through the manila files, thankful her mom had been organized and that her dad hadn’t done much with her things beyond clearing out her clothes and daily belongings.

Appliance Warranties

Insurance Policies

Car Loan

“What are you doing?”

Wren shrieked and jerked her knee, connecting with the metal edge of the filing drawer. “Pippin!” She scowled at her brother, rubbing her sore knee.

He looked around the doorframe, his hand braced on the wall. His hair was ruffled per usual, and he wore his blue-light glasses. He’d been programming in his basement office.

“I’m looking for my birth certificate.” She pushed the filing drawer shut. The folders were not giving up anything beyond standard household records.

“In a filing cabinet?” Pippin raised his eyebrows.

“Where else?”

“Safe-deposit box?” he tossed back. “Mom never kept important records like that in a filing cabinet.”

“She has a safe-deposit box?” Wren stood from her place on the chair, rubbing the small of her back.

Pippin nodded. “She did when I was a kid.”

“Eons ago.”

“Funny.” Pippin spun and left her alone in the room. Wren chased after her brother as he wandered into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and reached for a Pepsi.

“When you were a kid, we didn’t even live in Tempter’s Creek. Did Mom get a new deposit box here?”

Pippin popped the can top, and fizz cut through the air. He shrugged his T-shirt-clad shoulders. The face of the Tenth Doctor ofDoctor Whostared back at Wren from Pippin’s chest. “I didn’t pay attention, Arwen.”

“How would I find out?” She wasn’t willing to give up that easily.

“Ask Dad.”

“Thanks. That’s helpful.” Wren tossed him an annoyed glare.

“What?”

“Can’t you look that stuff up online now?” She crossed her arms over her chest.

Pippin took a swig of his soda. “Probably.”

Wren waited.

Pippin eyed her from the rim of his can. “No.”