“Look!” I say to Brady, “Maple syrup. We should get some of that. I can make pancakes for Ruby.”
He looks at me in surprise. “You’regoing to makepancakes?”
“What? Why can’t I make pancakes?”
“Youcan. I’ve just never even seen you turn on the stove. I’m not entirely sure you know how.”
I poke him in the shoulder. Even though he might be right. But I think I could figure out how to turn on the stove. It’s not brain surgery. “Well, I’m going to start cooking. Every weekend, I’m going to make pancakes.”
He laughs. “Fine. I’m going to write that into our wedding vows then.”
I can’t suppress a smile. Brady asked me to marry him a month ago, and I’m still getting used to the idea. Myfiancé. I never thought I would get married, but it just felt right. I asked him if he was ready to get back on the horse again only two years after his divorce, and he said he definitely was.
We have also started house hunting. I couldn’t go back to my old house after what happened there, so I put it on the market, and I’ve been renting an apartment ever since. A few days ago, we put in a bid on a beautiful new house with a big backyard and a nice large bedroom for Ruby, but there’s one specific feature of the house I like best:
It has no basement.
Brady wanders off to sample some cheese while I go over to the maple syrup table. The table features maple syrup in all varieties and sizes. Homemade, apparently. The table is manned by a pleasant-looking woman with brown hair swept behind her head into a bun, wearing a checkered apron.
“Hi!” the woman says. “May I interest you in a sampleof Baker’s Maple Syrup?”
“Sure,” I say.
As the woman tips a little maple syrup into a sample cup, she hums to herself. I squint at her, trying to recognize the eleven-year-old girl who I found crouched on that hiking trail on the way to her house, nursing a sprained ankle.
“Marjorie?” I say softly.
But she’s too focused on her task and she doesn’t hear me. It doesn’t matter. I know who she is.
Marjorie hands me a little cup of amber liquid. “Now give that a try.”
I tip the cup back and swallow the contents. It’s delicious. Just the right amount of sweetness.
“It’s really good,” I say. “You make this yourself?”
She nods. “My husband and I have a farm. We tap our maple trees and collect this sap ourselves in buckets. We do the whole process ourselves.” She giggles. “Even my kids help put it in the jars.”
“That sounds nice,” I murmur. “I… I’ll take two bottles.”
“Light or dark?”
I swallow. “Um, how about one of each?”
I dig out the bills from my wallet while Marjorie packs up the two bottles of maple syrup in a brown paper bag. She holds out the bag to me, but just before I take it, her eyes narrow.
“Do we…” She frowns. “Do we know each other?”
I squirm under her gaze. I don’t want her to know who I am. I don’t want her to recognize me as Nora Nierling. Asfar as I’m concerned, that person is dead. I just wanted to know Marjorie was happy.
I couldn’t save Mandy Johansson, but at least I saved Marjorie.
“I just have one of those faces,” I say.
Marjorie nods. She doesn’t seem suspicious of me. And she shouldn’t be. She doesn’t have the sort of life where dead bodies materialize in her basement. She has a good life. The sort of life I want to have. The sort of life I’m going to try to have from now on.
So I take my paper bag with the two bottles of Baker’s Maple Syrup and I go to join my fiancé.
HARPER
