His reply? “Classic edition.”

That terseness could mean shy or asshole.

She’d seen a few cute and friendly-seeming guys around town, but they were all taken. Sawyer and Archer Kane, for example. Nice guys with sweet girlfriends, the postcard-perfect pictures of love and contentment. For some people fairy tales existed. Not her. But hey, life wasn’t one big lemon either. Not all happy endings had to come between the sheets. She had hers every night between the pages of a good book.

Wait a small-town second. Sawyer Kane? Archer Kane?

W. Kane must be a relation. Hopefully an introverted, eccentric bookworm cousin—someone a little on the short side, wiry, adorned with Pendleton sweaters, dreamy eyes, and black Converse. An artist, musician, or writer? Better yet, all three—her exactly perfect type.

Nah, probably the drunk uncle who shows up at family picnics and never quits yammering about politics.

Safer to trade real life for a fictional lord. At least they inherently understood the importance of devilish charm. Garret seemed to have grasped only the concepts of sleaze and ball, breeding them together into a hybrid baby of teeth-clenching annoyance.

“We’re not friends,” she said, adjusting the box’s weight. “He orders special delivery books from the shop. Do you know him?”

“Yeah and word to the wise, stay far away from him.” His face lost its fleeting, troubled expression and dialed up the charm. “Anyway, I don’t want to waste any more time discussing W. Kane.” Even now Garret braced his big hand on the metal railing, blocking her path, unwilling or unable to take a hint. “I’m more interested in our plans—”

“Yeah, about that. I really have to run.” She ducked under his arm, not exactly easy with her height, but she hadn’t won limbo contest after limbo contest during that long ago spring break Caribbean cruise for nothing. He could stoop low, but she could go lower.

“Quinn—”

“Bye now.” She straightened and spun on her boot heel, the black knee-high ones with the big silver buckles that were quite badass if she said so herself.

The post office was quiet. Wanda Higsby, who was either her great aunt or third cousin once removed, gave a chipper wave from behind the counter. It was strange to be a Higsby in Brightwater. Her family had migrated west on the first wagon train and been settlers in this valley for as long as the Kanes or Carsons, but Quinn’s dad had moved to L.A. in his twenties to make it as an electrician with a film studio. He didn’t like big city living, but stayed long enough to land the part of Jacqueline Forest’s second husband and father of her first and only child. The marriage was short-lived, so much so that Quinn couldn’t remember a time when her parents were actually together.

After Dad split and moved back to Brightwater to start his own business, Quinn saw him for Christmas when he came and escorted her on their yearly trip to Disneyland and over summers during the hedonistic Julys she spent in Brightwater.

“How is your daddy doing?” Wanda didn’t add “the poor thing” to the end of her sentence but it hung there unspoken like an invisible haze of sympathy.

Quinn automatically clasped the thin silver chain around her neck, the one with the bee charm she hadn’t taken off since her thirteenth birthday. When you are in your early twenties, mortality should seem like a concept to be saved for the far distant future. And so it had been until her father got sick. First came the little signs. They’d be having their usual Sunday night phone catch up and everything would be going along merrily. Well, at least normal. Dad wasn’t a talker, more the strong silent type.

No big surprise why Mom went blue-collar. He had those old-fashioned Western movie star looks, all craggy features and a stare that swung to the horizon. He spoke easily enough about the weather, the Giants, how the 49ers were doing, and that was about it.

But these short, predictable, and fine, sometimes forced conversations began to turn into slow rambles where he’d introduce topics that didn’t quite make sense. A story about a missing dog without a resolution. Or forgetting his pet name for her, Bizzy, a play on busy bee because she was always up to something.

A few sober hospital trips confirmed a diagnosis that Quinn couldn’t help him with, no matter how much she wanted to. Early-onset Alzheimer’s, which affects people under sixty-five, was rare but not unheard of.

As life fell apart in SoCal, she knew what she had to do. Move to Brightwater and be closer to Dad. His condition rapidly deteriorated to where he wasn’t able to live on his own anymore but Quinn visited his assisted living facility every morning for breakfast and every night after work.

“Dad’s good—he’s on a new medication,” she blurted after realizing Wanda still waited for an answer. The medication wasn’t doing much to slow the rapidly advancing symptoms, but one could hope.

When faced with an incurable situation it was either hope or fall apart. And falling apart wasn’t an option when you were an only child, your mom was on lucky husband number seven, and your dad had been a perpetual bachelor.

There was no one else to count on. So she sold his house and hoped the selling price would be enough to keep him at Mountain View Village.

“I’m bringing over Caddyshack tonight. He loves Bill Murray.” Funny how the brain worked. Dad often woke not knowing where he was, but could quote lines verbatim from random eighties movies. Not funny, actually. Terrifying. And with her own predictive test for early-onset familial Alzheimer’s disease set for Friday, the last few months of agonizing doubt would be laid to rest. The genetic genie would be let out of the bottle to predict her future, good or bad.

“He was a good guy, your dad.” Wanda heaved a heavy sigh while reorganizing the pens on the counter. “Did you know that he used to come around and clean out my gutters every October after my Raymond passed away?”

Wanda wasn’t the only one who sang Dad’s praises. Kind. Quiet but earnest. Always ready to lend a helping hand and needing little in the way of thanks. He was one of the good ones.

Crap, now even she was thinking of Dad in the past tense.

Not was, is.

Why do bad things always happen to the good ones? It wasn’t fair.

Tears prickled and she blinked, willing them into submission.

“Tell him I said hello,” Wanda said kindly, turning away to give Quinn the privacy to wipe her eyes.

Quinn bit back the reply that Wanda could always visit him herself but that wasn’t fair. A lot of people couldn’t bear to see Dad at the facility, as if personal tragedy was contagious. Instead they offered her sympathetic smiles and kind words. Everyone meant well, could do nothing, and she tried to bear it.

At least if her turn came, no one would have to carry the load.

Her cell played the tune “Defying Gravity” from the musical Wicked. “Excuse me,” she said to Wanda, passing over W. Kane’s package. “Can you please pop this box in the mail? I should take the call.”

Her phone didn’t ring much these days. Old friends fell away after she was fired. Guess they weren’t such good pals after she lost her professional connections and VIP passes. Good riddance. They’d have never stuck around if the test confirmed that she . . . if she . . .

Just wait and see what will happen.

She answered the phone with a forceful “Hello?”

“Quinn? Is that you? Thank goodness you picked up.” The frazzled female voice sounded vaguely familiar. “This is Denise over at Mountain View Village.”

Quinn’s blood chilled. The facility Dad was at.

“What’s happened?”

“Your father. He’s gone missing.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, as you know, he’s taken to wandering of late and today we had him off the unit for a routine physical. Another resident fell in the waiting room, diverting the nurse’s attention. We have reason to believe that he left the facility during the ensuing chaos.”