Page 13 of Little Shattered Dreams

Foley turned toward Higgins, asked if he’d found a cell phone.

Higgins shook his head.

Foley shifted his focus back to my mother and said, “Anything else?”

“There is one more thing. She said she’d been having a lot of anxiety leading up to the retreat. Karl asked her why, and she told him a couple of months ago someone broke into her house. They didn’t take anything, they left a message on the bathroom mirror, written in red lipstick: ‘I know who you are, and I know what you did.’”

CHAPTER7

I woke before the sun came up to what sounded like someone knocking on a door, but it wasn’t mine. Hours earlier, Foley and his team had wrapped up for the night. He’d met with Grace and told her Quinn’s death was under investigation, but he didn’t want the staff or the guests to know it was being looked at as a homicide—not yet. He made it clear that no one was to be allowed into Quinn’s place under any circumstances.

Before leaving, Foley asked me to keep an eye on things and to report back if I saw or heard anything I thought he needed to know. He suggested I continue my stay at the retreat, acting as if nothing happened.

As ifthatwas possible.

When the knocking started up again, I walked to my front door and opened it, surprised to see Faith, the young woman who’d been consoling Quinn the night before at our group session, standing in front of Quinn’s door. She was dressed in pink-and-black paisley pajamas and sneakers. Locks of her short brown pixie cut stuck out in all directions, giving the impression she’d come here straight from bed.

She jiggled Quinn’s door handle and then huffed an irritated sigh.

“Faith? What are you doing here?” I asked. “Why are you on Quinn's doorstep?”

She looked my way, eyeing me with a look of surprise, like she hadn’t realized I was standing there. “Oh, hey. I’m sorry. I was trying to be quiet. Did I wake you?”

“I’m a light sleeper. Don’t worry about it. Has anyone talked to you yet?”

“About what?”

I took it as a no.

“I just woke up and checked my phone. I had a few missed calls from a number I didn’t recognize. Haven’t gotten around to listening to the messages yet.” She shifted her gaze back to the door and said, “I don’t get it. We were supposed to go walking this morning. I called her to see if she was up and ready, and she didn’t answer. Now she won’t even come to the door. Weird.”

Weirdwas one way to describe last night’s events.

“I didn’t know you had Quinn’s phone number,” I said. “I thought the two of you had just met.”

Faith blinked at me, bit down on her lip, and I saw something telling in her expression.

They hadn’t just met.

Theykneweach other.

“How do you know Quinn?” I asked.

“We weren’t going to mention it to anyone, but umm … no, we didn’t just meet. Quinn’s my mother.”

“Yourmother? I had no idea.”

I bet the missed calls she’d had were from the police department, trying to notify her about Quinn. It was something officers often did in person, but I assumed they didn’t know she was at the retreat.

“My mother got a flyer in the mail about this place,” Faith said. “They were offering discounts for week-long stays in February. Guess it’s a quieter time of year or something. She showed me the flyer and said she would do the retreat if I came with her, so here I am.”

“Why didn’t you reserve my unit so you could be next to your mother?” I asked.

“I guess when she called and talked to someone about this place, she was told if she wanted to get the most out of her week here, she was better off coming alone.”

“The same spiel was given to me.”

I just hadn’t cared.

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