For a moment I couldn’t breathe.
This was the woman who had taught me how to bake lemon cake… who slipped me twenty-dollar bills when I was in college… who listened when no one else did.
I sat beside her and took her hand.
It was still warm.
“I’m here,” I whispered.
And suddenly I remembered something.
Her voice on that porch in Cold Spring.
There are things hidden in this house, Rowena.
At the time, it had sounded like nostalgia.
Now it echoed in my head like a warning.