Page 42 of Little Shattered Dreams

I don’t think so.

Calvin and I exchanged glances, and then we sped up to her. After what happened, I wasn’t letting her out of my sight.

“Sure is chilly out here,” my mother said. “Guess I should have brought a warmer jacket.”

She stuck her hands into her pockets and made a weird face.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s nothing.”

“Mom?”

“Oh, all right. Feels like something’s in my pocket, and I emptied them before I left my place.”

She pulled a folded piece of paper out of the right pocket and looked at it.

“It, uhh … has your name on it, Georgiana.”

Of course it did.

I held out my hand and she gave it to me. Calvin and my mother leaned in, eyeing the paper as I opened it. The message inside was brief, a mere three words:I warned you.

CHAPTER20

The paramedics arrived and checked my mother over. Turned out the injury she’d sustained wasn’t as bad as it looked, which was a relief. While they examined her, I called Foley. Turned out he’d already received a call from Phoebe and was on his way. About ten minutes later, he arrived, and we left my mom’s place and headed over to mine so we could speak in private.

He wasted no time. “Why did you wait so long to update me on all that’s happened today?”

“I planned to call you after dinner to talk about it, I swear. Then my mother went missing … and, well, you know what happened after that.”

“And you’resureshe was assaulted?”

I pulled out the note that had been tucked into her jacket pocket and handed it to him. “This confirms it.”

He unfolded the paper and said, “How so?”

“First, I get a note on my door today with a warning that says:You stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours.Then my mother gets whacked from behind and finds a second note in her jacket pocket. Somebody here, someone on the property right now is our murderer.”

“You may be right.” He tugged on his chin, pacing back and forth, thinking. “Start with this morning and take me through today’s events.”

I told him about Quinn’s daughter, Faith, and what we’d talked about before she was whisked off the property by her doctor. We also talked about my conversation with Karl. And then I mentioned Jane, the woman Calvin said had driven to the retreat to pick up Quinn the day before.

After I’d finished, he said, “Seems like Quinn was dealing with a lot of demons.”

“I believe she was here to work through them, leave the past in the past, that kind of thing.”

“How’s her daughter doing?”

“Faith’s good, as far as I know,” I said. “I tried calling earlier, and her fiancé said she was sleeping. Figured I’d try her again tomorrow, see if she knows who Jane is and try and get a last name. I have so many questions for her.”

“Such as?”

“She was the one who found her stepdad after he killed himself. I want to know more about it, and the circumstances surrounding his death. A couple of weeks before coming to the retreat, someone left a warning message in Quinn’s bathroom. Did Faith know about it? Quinn talked to Karl about her rocky relationship with her daughter, and he encouraged her to make amends last night. Did she? And did Faith know Quinn was thinking of leaving the retreat?”

He rubbed a hand along his jawline, pulled his cell phone from his pocket, and said, “Let’s find out.”

Foley made the call, but Faith didn’t answer.

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