It wasn't a question. Ray raised an eyebrow. Word. Word travels in Greystone Falls. Word doesn't travel, it teleports.
She refilled the coffee for the men at the counter without looking. I heard you were coming in about a week ago. Charlie Briggs mentioned it at the hardware store. Charlie Briggs, sheriff's husband. He fixes things.
Not the law kind of fixing. The actual kind. Plumbing mostly. She wiped the counter. You were in Memphis?
Yeah. Long drive. We took it slow. Dot glanced at Mia who was putting an unreasonable amount of butter on her pancakes and didn't seem to notice she was being observed. Your daughter dot asked.
Yeah, she's starting at Greystone Falls High Monday. Dot nodded. Something crossed her face. Not concern exactly. More like the look of someone who knows a thing but is deciding whether it's their business to share it.
She decided it wasn't. Not yet. Biscuits come out in about 10 minutes, she said. I'll bring some over. She went back to the counter.
Ry watched her go. 35 years of reading people had given him a sense for the ones who had things behind their eyes. Information they'd held on to long enough it had become part of them. Dot Fitch had things behind her eyes. Filed that away.
Maya ate her pancakes and looked out the window at Main Street waking up. A delivery truck. An old man walking a bassad hound. A teenage boy on a bicycle backpack on moving like he had somewhere to be but wasn't happy about it. Daddy, she said.
M. Is this the one? The one? What? The one we stay in?
She said it simply. No accusation in it. Just the question. I need to know if it's worth unpacking the boxes this time or if I should just live out of them again. Ray sat down his coffee cup.
He thought about the 14 boxes in the back of the pickup. Most of them were Mia's books, the small collection of trophies from the gymnastics she'd done until she was 12. Framed photo of Linda at the Grand Canyon they'd taken when Mia was six. Linda's hair blown sideways by the wind. Laughing with her whole face.
He thought about the lease he'd signed on the garage. 3 years. Thought about the fact that he was 59 years old and tired in ways that sleep didn't fix. Unpacked the boxes, he said. Maya looked at him for a long moment.