“My roommate,” Tyler said, still in that slow, careful voice, “does not like visitors. Now please go.”

He turned and slipped back inside, slamming the door in her face.

CHAPTER TEN

IN DREAMS

“Pinewood Police Department.”

“Yes, I-I’d like to report... I think someone’s in trouble.” Genevieve picked at a string of loose rubber hanging from her steering wheel. She did not take her eyes off Tyler’s front porch. A quarter of an hour had passed yet she could still feel the rattle of the slamming door reverberating in her bones.

The officer on the phone sighed. “Care to be a little more specific?”

Genevieve hesitated. She’d been undecided whether to call the police in the first place. What should she say? That she suspected her coworker of foul play? Because he was moody and secretive and easily lost his temper? Obviously something strange was going on in that house, but whoever was in there did have a phone, she reasoned. She needed more to go on, she knew that, and yet...

She’d decided to call the non-emergency line and remain anonymous.

“Ma’am? Are you there?”

“I... I just wanted someone to check on a friend of mine. He seems distressed.”

“Distressed how?”

“I don’t know. Angry. Upset. Can you just check on him, please.”

“Can I ask with whom I’m speaking?”

“No,” Genevieve said. “I mean, yes, you can ask, but I’m not going to tell you my name. This is an anonymous call and... it’s not an emergency or anything.”

“Clearly. Address?”

She gave the officer Tyler’s address, again thinking how something about it seemed familiar, and then hung up before he could ask her any more questions.

Genevieve drove home and, once inside, headed straight for the kitchen. She was in desperate need of some comfort food. After rummaging around in the fridge for ideas, she pulled out a tub of butter and a bag of shredded cheese. She was going to make the fattest, gooiest grilled cheese sandwich in the history of grilled cheese sandwiches.

While waiting for the stove to warm up, she slathered butter on two slices of rye bread and tried not to think about the humiliation of Tyler slamming the door in her face or the way the police officer said, “Clearly” in his sneery voice. She slapped the bread into a frying pan where it sizzled satisfactorily and then scooped out a handful of cheese and layered it on the bread. The nerve of him! Both of them. Blowing her off like she was just some silly teenager, trying to make her feel as if she were overreacting. She hated that.

When the cheese began to ooze out and cook in the pan, Genevieve slid the monstrous sandwich onto a plate, added a generous helping of potato chips, and poured a tall glass of milk. Then she joined her dad in the living room where he was watching The Science Channel.

“They’ve discovered a black hole that’s seventy times bigger than the sun,” he said.

“Fascinating.” She set her milk on the coffee table and sank onto the couch next to him. The soft velvet felt luxurious. She took a huge bite of her sandwich and momentarily closed her eyes, savoring the wonderful flood of endorphins.

“Rough night?” Her dad reached over and plucked a chip off her plate.

“Just long.”

“How’d we do?”

“A little over four hundred.”

“That’s up from last Wednesday.”

“By fifty bucks,” Genevieve agreed. She wiped her hands on her napkin and reached for the milk. “We debuted a new flavor today; that always brings in more customers.”

“Ah, right.” He took another chip. “That Winter Fudge mix-up you mentioned. How’d it turn out then?”

Genevieve sat up straighter and looked at him in mock offense. “Um, perfect, of course. Irresistible. Mouth-watering. Just like all of my creations.”

He smiled. They fell silent as Genevieve finished her sandwich and milk. Onscreen, the simulated image of the black hole rotated in swirls of volcanic red.

“How’s Tyler doing, anyway?”

Genevieve stiffened, but her dad was too involved in the program to notice. She decided he was just making small talk. “He’s getting a lot better,” she admitted. Also, he may be a murderer, Dad, or at least guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. You might want to take that into consideration when his evaluation’s due.

“Good.”

They split the rest of the chips, and then Genevieve leaned over, kissed him on his grizzled cheek, and said goodnight.

Upstairs, she changed into her pajamas and brushed her long dark hair. Then she crawled into bed and began sifting through the stack of mail her dad had placed on her bedside table. There were coupons for the candle shop on Main and a catalog featuring winter wear at her favorite clothes shop, Stitches.

“Ooh.” Genevieve flipped to the shoes section, thinking she should really get some sleep but also she really needed a new pair of ankle boots to pair with her lengthier autumn dresses, and couldn’t she also use a few cardigans? Of course she could. You could never have enough cardigans. Something in a deep fall red that would complement her dark jeans and Cherry on Top lipstick...

An envelope tucked between the pages slid out onto her lap, and she stared at it blankly for a moment, then felt her mood darken.

It was from the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Genevieve picked up the envelope. It felt heavy in her hands, like a stone. She opened it.

Dear Miss Winterland: Thank you for submitting your application to the University of Arizona. While our admissions office works on processing your information, please take some time to tour campus virtually at our website and explore the enclosed brochure for programs of study, student life, and the history of our institution.

The campus was beautiful, of course. A landscape of red brick buildings and bursts of palm trees framed by the spectacular Santa Catalina mountains. Beaming students were pictured waving blue U of A flags in the desert sunshine, engaging in important-looking research, and posing with Wilbur and Wilma Wildcat at a packed football game.

Genevieve tossed aside the marketing materials with a sigh. She tried to imagine herself, one of tens of thousands of students, strolling around campus, meeting for late night or early morning study sessions at the Starbucks, and cheering on sports teams at sweaty and overcrowded venues.

She tried to imagine her shop run by someone else, taken over by strangers, not family.

Why did everyone think you had to leave home to gain independence? Why was ripping yourself away from everything you loved considered an admirable rite of passage?

Genevieve, heart burning, opened her laptop and typed in Pinewood, Arizona. She clicked on the official tourism site and watched the page load. Images of a quaint town that looked more like a village, snow-capped mountains in the background. A forest of pine trees and gently rolling hills. Charming downtown shops, parks filled with families, small children playing on the jungle gym.

Welcome home to Pinewood, where you’re already part of the family. Her dad had written that, had put into words exactly how she felt about her hometown. His job was to convince people to visit Pinewood, vacation here, breathe the clean mountain air, fish in the lakes, hike in the woods, spend afternoons strolling the historic downtown with its charming small-town shops. His job was to sell people on the dream of Pinewood, visiting here, and then staying here.

Should it be any wonder that he’d sold her on his dream?

Genevieve shut the laptop and folded the letter back into its envelope. She set them both on her bedside table and snapped off the lamp. As she burrowed under her thick blankets, she forced all thoughts of college from her mind.

She tried to force out thoughts of Tyler too, and Ms. Pierce, and Miss Love. But those wouldn’t fade easily. College, after all, was still a lifetime away. But this was now. She had a mystery to solve.