“I, uh, hadn’t heard from you in a while,” said Deena. “I was wondering if you were all right.”
“Yeah. I’m fine.” She folded her arms. “I just wanted to say hi.”
Deena glanced at Cal. There was a wary, pointed expression on her face. “Do you need more cold medicine?”
Shit. “N-no. I’m fine. Cal and I—we’re going on a picnic.”
“Rael sends his regards,” Cal said.
The other woman blushed. Well, that was shocking. Deena and Rael? They had left together at the bar and she hadn’t thought anything of it, thinking Rael was just being friendly to people he’d grown up around. Apparently he had been very friendly, she thought wryly.
“I don’t need you, of all people, handling my so-called regards,” she said, smoothing down the edge of a printed recipe for venison boulettes.
“Are you going to the festival, Deena?”
“I might,” she said stiffly. “If I can find the time to get away from my desk. Your father isn’t exactly a walk in the park to deal with. In fact, he tends to piss off the people whorunthe parks.”
Cal smiled. It was his sharp smile—the lawyer smile, Nadine thought of it. “That’s why we have you to run things,” he said, making it sound a little like a threat.
Deena narrowed her eyes at him. “Well. As unexpectedly fun it is dealing with the Cullraven family consiglieri, I should get back to work.” She rubbed at the back of her neck. “You need anything, anything at all, Nadine, you just let me know. Okay? You have my number.”
And he has my phone.“I will. Thank you.”
“Enjoy your picnic,” she said at last, sounding worried and confused.
Nadine felt a little panicky as they walked back out into the sunshine. It felt as if she’d been shut up a cage, and now that she finally had her freedom, the choice was paralyzing her. But then she remembered Cal saying that the sheriff was keeping an eye out for her, and she happened to see him strolling along the walkway in his khaki uniform, clearly aware that they were there.
“Satisfied?” Cal had seen him, too. His arm tightened.
“Are you?”
“Not yet,” he said, with a meaningful glance.
She didn’t say anything as they went back down the road, towards the woods, but she was aware of all those invisible eyes watching through the shop windows, curious and judging. That was the first thing she had noticed on her first day—how the deserted town square felt both empty and occupied, all at once. Almost as if it were haunted.
But I was the one chasing ghosts.
Her palms began to sweat and she wiped them on her skirt nervously. “I don’t know how you did it,” she said. “Growing up in a town with your name plastered on everything.”
“We were homeschooled,” Cal said, in an odd tone. “That helped.”
Every step was unearthing the sharp tang of petrichor. Birds flitted from tree to tree in the canopy overhead. Sparrows, of course, and other things. Every so often one of them would hit a branch—usually a pine—that would cause a yellow cloud of pollen to erupt in the air.
“Do you know why they call it Passer Woods?” Cal asked.
“Is it someone’s name?” she asked, hoping he wasn’t about to tell her another awful secret.
“Passer means ‘sparrow’ in Latin. It’s Sparrow Woods.”
“Because of your family?”
“No. Strangely, it was called that well before my family came here. I think Caledon Cullraven must have gotten the idea for his rituals and traditions while out here, hunting. He always said it cleared his head.”
Of what?Nadine thought darkly.Morality?
“You don’t like that,” he said, with a wry smile.
“I think he’s a sick fuck.”
