Page 137 of The Witch’s Orchard

“Yeah,” I say. “Time to go.”

I let her lead me out of the hospital, away from the beeping and the medicine smell and the beautiful doll I finally found.

EPILOGUE

I’M AT A GASstation in Tennessee giving Honey a nice big gulp.

“Almost done,” I say, patting her rear.

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

“Can’t leave you alone for five goddamn minutes,” Leo says. “Heard you got into an unholy shoot-out in some hillbilly castle.”

He’s been off-grid for three days.

I laugh. Laughing still hurts. But I say, “You could say that.”

I put the pump back in the slot. Open Honey’s door. Get back behind the wheel with a wince.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“You find out what you need to find out?” he asks.

“Yeah. I think I did.”

I look in the rearview at the woodblock print of the crows flying up from the field. This is what I finally accepted when Max tried to pay me for my work on the case and I told him to keep his money, take the internship offer, and become the artist he is meant to be. I would have to leave my watch in hock for another week. At least.

Max had given me a strong hug and, in it, I had felt some change in him. His story had not ended happily. But, also, it had not ended at all. Merely changed direction.

When I left Quartz Creek, they were preparing for Molly’s funeral. Molly would be buried next to her mother. As far as I knew, Shiloh and AJ and the Jacobs family and Tam Hoyle would all be in attendance. But I’d been to enough funerals in my life. It was past time for me to leave town.

On my way out, I’d visited Mandy, and she told me that she had moved her boys out of the Hoyle property and into a little house in town. One Bob and Rebecca had helped her find. She had taken her sock drawer money and hired two attorneys. One to file her divorce and one to figure out Jessica’s defense.

I paid one last visit to Shiloh’s bakery, bought two loaves of pumpkin bread and a box of cinnamon rolls to take on the road with me. She hugged me. Told me to keep in touch. I said I would, and meant it.

I spent one last night with AJ. He brought me the kind of greasy, cheese-covered, deep-fried Mexican food you can only find in the South. I kissed him. Made love to him. No one jokingly offered to marry the other. The time for that was over.

I took one last walk to Susan McKinney’s cabin.

“I’m sorry I thought it was you,” I said.

“I’m sorrier that I didn’t see what was going on,” she said. “I should have seen it. She was eaten up with grief.”

“We all have a blind spot,” I told her. She offered to read my cards one more time and I accepted.

“There will always be another battle,” she said. “Another journey.”

“I know,” I said.

She handed me a jug of elderberry wine and kissed both of my cheeks, hard, like she was pressing magic into my skin.

“Take care of yourself,” she said.

I said okay.

Now, I turn the key. I start up Honey and she rumbles to life. I strap in and pull away from the gas station and farther into the mountains.

“I’m back stateside now,” Leo says. His voice wraps around me, unfurls a secret warmth inside me. It is constant, endless. Leo has always been the one, from the time he sat down across from me and asked me to joinhim. Since that day, Leo meanthome.However far apart we were, whatever else we did, whoever else we were with, it was and always would be us.

“I’m glad you’re back,” I say.

“You still up for that drink?” he asks. “I can come to you.”

“Let’s make it dinner,” I say. “I’ll meet you at Roxanne’s.”