Page 31 of April Flowers

Sam looked down. “You’re going to be angry with me.”

“I’m not. I’m too exhausted to be angry.”

“Someone else was helping us look for Lillian today,” Sam said. “I ran into him the other night and told him you were coming back. He knows the island so well. I figured he could help.”

Margot’s heart dropped into her stomach. She immediately knew who Sam meant.

As Sam continued to speak, explaining herself, Margot’s mind’s eye filled with images of him: Noah Carson leaning forward to kiss her on the Ferris wheel; Noah Carson holding her hand on the boardwalk; Noah Carson standing up for her when her mother screamed and screamed at her; and Noah Carson falling asleep with his head in her lap.

Noah Carson, the only man she’d ever loved. Of course, he hadn’t really been a man the last time she’d seen him—twenty years ago.

“I’m sorry, Margot,” Sam finished. “But there’s something bigger at stake now.”

Margot blinked at her. She was in a daze. In the next room, Lillian cackled at the blond woman and said, “Fat chance!”

“Mona died a couple of weeks ago,” Sam said.

Margot gasped and threw her hands over her mouth. Mona Carson! Noah’s cool, beautiful, sleek, sophisticated older sister! Mona Carson, who snuck them beers when they weren’t old enough to buy them and who’d told them funny jokes and teased them about how “in love” they were. “It’s gross how much you love each other,” she’d said. “It’s like you’re fifty years old.”

It was impossible that Mona was dead.

“Oh. Poor Noah,” Margot whispered. “I’m so sorry to hear it.”

“That isn’t all,” Sam said softly. “Mona had a daughter. She’s been in a bit of trouble since her mother died. Today, she started school and ran away at lunchtime.”

Slowly, everything clicked into place. Margot’s mouth hung open. My goodness.

“That girl was Noah’s niece?” Margot whispered.

“I mean, probably,” Sam said.

“Do you have a picture of her?” Margot asked.

Sam shook her head. “I could ask Noah for one?”

“She’s like sixteen, right? I’m sure she has social media.” Margot grabbed her phone to search and promptly realized she didn’t know the girl’s name. She’d avoided every question Margot had thrown at her.

“Avery,” Sam supplied. “Avery Carson.”

“She doesn’t have her dad’s last name?”

“There never was a dad,” Sam offered.

Margot took a breath.

“She said she was born here but spent the past few years in Boston?”

“Yeah. Mona left the island to follow some loser,” Sam said. “Noah was broken up about it. The relationship didn’t work out. I think Mona was too embarrassed to come back after that.”

Margot’s heart thumped. Suddenly, all she wanted was to ask what she knew she couldn’t ask.How had Mona died?

But she sensed knowing that wouldn’t help anything. It might just make everything worse.

“Is anyone going to get me a pudding?” Lillian called from the sofa.

Feeling out of her mind, Margot stumbled out of the foyer, through the living room, and into the kitchen. Sam greeted Lillian gently, and Lillian said, “There’s the floozy who dumped my son. What’s she doing here?”

Sam came into the kitchen, laughing behind her hand. Margot had to hand it to her. Sam was too powerful, too comfortable in her own skin to let Lillian get to her. Margot wished she was the same.

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