Page 121 of The Witch's Orchard
“Is it—”
She shakes her head.
“No,” she says, a bitter smile twisting her mouth. “It was a little pink shoe with lights in the heels. They found it out on one of the trails behind the church and they brought it to me and all I could think was why hadn’t I ever bought Lucy shoes like that?”
Like the rest of her, Shiloh’s tears are big and full. They roll down her cheeks, and she puts her hands up to her face.
“I made her a cake,” she says. “This morning I made her a cake. Lemon raspberry. For when she comes back. But then… I saw the shoe and… I just…”
“Oh… Oh, I’m so sorry, Shiloh.”
She shudders with crying and then scrapes at her face with her thumbs and looks at me.
“I didn’t know where else to go,” she says. “There are reporters at the bakery, my home, even my parents’ house! I had to get away and I… I came here.”
“Come on,” I say. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”
She follows me in and I lead her to the couch where I’d been sitting, listening to Sheriff Jacobs, only that morning. I pull a blanket from the other end of the couch and put it over her, go to the coffee maker, and flick it on. I look at my phone and see a text from AJ.
Meeting with FBI now. Working on the warrant.
I glance at Shiloh, shivering on the couch even under the blanket. I crank up the thermostat and look again at my phone. Wonder how long it will take the FBI to get a warrant to search Susan’s place. Wonder where Lucy and Jessica are now. Wonder if I’m wrong about everything. If I’m just chasing my tail again, like Jacobs had said.
“Max texted me this morning,” Shiloh says, looking at the cookies. “He said that someone shot at you. Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I say. It’s more or less true.
“Do you think someone shot at you because you’re trying to find the girls?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Are you going to stop looking?”
“No,” I say.
“Even though you got shot at?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s what I do,” I say.
I go back to the kitchen cupboards and take down two mugs, fill them with coffee, add plenty of milk and sugar. I get the plate of cookies I’d set out for Mandy earlier and put the coffee and the sweets down in front of Shiloh.
“Baking is what I do,” she says, looking at the cookies. “It’s what I’ve always done when I was upset or depressed or angry. I’m all of those things now. And more.”
“I know.”
“I never asked,” Shiloh says. “You don’t have kids, do you?”
“No,” I say.
“Do you think you will?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
She nods and takes a drink of her coffee. Then, I watch as she absently opens the notebook I left lying on the coffee table, pulls out the folded piece of paper with Olivia’s spirals all over it. I watch as she traces a long finger along one spiral and then another. Her hands are shaking.
