Page 54 of The Fire We Crave

And I can’t think of any place I wanted to be but in her presence.

“Steady,” I say, kneeling next to her. “You’re gonna cross thread the screw part of the wheel.”

Quinn hands the wheel to me. “Here. If you can fix it, I’ll give you a cinnamon roll.”

“Promises, promises,” I say as I fiddle with the wheel. It’s tricky. Doesn’t line up quite right because my diagnosis is correct, the screw thread has been cross threaded at some point. But with a bit of perseverance, I manage to get it on.

I stand and lift the baking rack upright before giving it a little shove back and forth to prove it now works. My brain sloshes about in my skull as I do.

Fucking hangover.

When I offer Quinn my hand to help her to her feet, she takes it. “Thank you.”

For the wheel or for helping her stand, I’m not sure.

“Are you feeling okay?”

I debate lying, but I decide to be honest. “Not really.”

Her smile is soft, measured. “Come inside.”

There’s a hose connected to an exterior faucet that’s in my way, and I kick it over to the wall so I can wheel the rack back into the kitchen.

The scent of baking is strong. Fresh bread. Cookies. A rack of plump croissants cooling. Quinn tips her head at a small desk chair. “Sit there.”

But I don’t. I follow her into the bakery, where there are a few customers waiting and one of the women is busy serving them. On the wall is a photograph I remember seeing a thousand times. Melody told me it was from when the store opened, and I do a little math. Must be twenty years old, by now. It’s faded a little, the once-white frame now yellowed. Quinn’s mom is grinning and holding tight to Melody’s hand. A very young Quinn looks totally disinterested. Geez, how had I forgotten they had an older brother, Silas?

He fucked off to work on the oil rigs or something. Couldn’t wait to get out of here.

Come to think of it, I think I remember Melody telling me that Quinn wasn’t hugely interested in the bakery. Yet she’s so fucking talented at it.

Silently, she hands me a coffee and a plate with a thickly iced cinnamon bun on it.

“It destroyed everything,” Quinn says quietly, joining me in looking at the photo. “When Melody went missing. Everything in this building reminded my parents of her. Mom didn’t want to run the bakery anymore. Dad didn’t want to be here, surrounded by memories. And while I’ll never be sure why I wasn’t enough for them to focus on, I feel like they didn’t want me or Silas as a reminder of the other child they had once.” She touches the photograph, running her hand over her sister’s cheek. “If youknow what happened, please tell me.” Tears fill her eyes. “I can’t live the rest of my life not knowing.”

I gently place my arm around her while holding the plate and guide her into the back.

“Sit,” I say. Nudging her to the chair.

I look around and find a mug to pour half my coffee in, Then, I grab a knife from the knife rack to cut the cinnamon roll in half. Once I’m done, I hand them to Quinn, then sit opposite her on the floor, my back to what I think is the dishwasher.

“Butcher asked the club lawyer his opinion, and he advised me on what to say. So, what you hear now, I’ll never repeat, as it will contradict what I said back then.”

Quinn places the plate on her knee, then swipes beneath her eyes with her spare hand. “What do you know?”

I shake my head. “I promise you that the truth is I don’t know what happened to Melody, sugar. But what I do know is that she broke up with me two days before it happened. Told me she wanted more action in her life. That the bakery was boring, and going to college was boring. She didn’t like that I was spending time with the club instead of her, and I refused to include her in club business. She was chomping at the bit for a life she didn’t have. She told me she was moving on to someone else.”

Quinn takes a sip of coffee. “Why didn’t you tell the police that?”

I shake my head. “The club lawyer’s job was to do whatever it took to keep us out of jail. To avoid suspicion, whatever it takes. He said that her dumping me two days before she went missing, for another mysterious guy, would be motive. I already belonged to a motorcycle club gang. And if she’d dumped me, as opposed to me dumping her, I could have been enraged. That was the word the lawyer used.Enraged. I would have the means to make her disappear. The lawyer said the best thing I could do was to be devastated by her going missing. So that’s what I did.”

Quinn sighs, and I hate the disappointment in her eyes. “Had she fallen in with any other people? Could they have taken her?”

I stuff some of the cinnamon roll in my mouth. “I’ve thought all of it through a thousand times. I’ve even followed up on a couple of things. I don’t know a single reason that would help explain what happened to her.”

She studies me carefully. “You promise that’s the truth, Smoke?”

“It’s the only truth there is. I had nothing to do with it and don’t know how it happened.” The sun lights her hair from behind, creating a burnished halo around her. “You deserve a better answer, and I wish I could give it to you. And for the record, I liked Melody, but I was never in love with her. In truth, we barely knew one another.”

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