Then I found Annie’s T-shirt folded over the back of a chair.
Soft.
Expensive.
Still faintly smelling like the cottage detergent.
I held it for several seconds.
I could leave it behind.
Mail it to her.
Stop turning every object into a referendum on my emotional stability.
I packed it.
Not because it belonged to Savannah Brooks.
Because Annie had given it to me.
I wasn’t ready to return that part of her either.
Fourteen
Savannah
Four years earlier
Claire Reed could make any escape look criminal.
We were leaving an awards-show after-party through the service corridor of a downtown Nashville hotel, and she had chosen to wear enormous sunglasses.
At midnight.
Indoors.
With a silver cocktail dress that reflected every available source of light.
“You look subtle,” I told her.
She adjusted the sunglasses.
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t praise.”
“I’ve decided it was.”
Bass vibrated through the ballroom wall behind us. Someone inside had started karaoke with the confidence of a person who had won something earlier that evening.
Claire pushed open a door markedAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Cold air hit us.
A hotel employee smoking beside a dumpster looked up.
Claire waved.
