“I can’t say. I can say it looks like two points of origin—kitchen and living room, and my best guess would be curtains. It wasn’t a gas leak, most likely gas from the stove. Actually, the explosion was fairly contained, and that’ll help the investigators determine cause.”

“My partner’s talking to the neighbors. I think I’ll walk over and have a chat with Mrs. Johnson. Officer Quartermaine?”

“Detective McVee.”

“I’m requesting you be assigned to this investigative unit.”

“Hot damn.”

“Start by canvassing the block. Write up your notes.”

She walked across the street, leaving him grinning.

*

Simone broke under relentless, benign family pressure. While her father conceded his dream of his oldest following in his lawyer footsteps wasn’t to be, the change of tack worked.

She would focus her studies on business management. She’d had her scattershot period, her parents told her, and now she had to buckle down. A degree in business management would keep her focused, open doors, forge a future.

She tried. She pushed herself so hard in the next semester even the responsible Mi urged her to ease off, take some breaks.

She ended the year with grades that made her parents beam, and spent the summer working as an assistant to the assistant of the manager of the accounting branch of her father’s firm.

By the end of June, she was back in therapy.

In August, plagued with headaches, ten pounds underweight, with a wardrobe of suits she hated, she thought of the girl she’d been, the one who’d called for help, then hidden in a bathroom stall.

The one who’d feared she’d die before she’d lived.

And realized there were other ways to die.

She chose to live.

On the night before she left for New York, she sat down with her parents and Natalie.

“I can’t believe both our girls are heading off to college,” Tulip began. “What are we going to do, Ward, with our empty nest? Natalie off to Harvard, and Simone off to Columbia.”

“I’m not going back to Columbia.”

“We’re just so … What?”

Simone kept her hands gripped together in her lap. They wanted to shake. “I’m going back to New York, but I’m not going back to college.”

“Of course you are. You had a brilliant third year.”

“I hated every minute of it. I hated working in the law firm this summer. I can’t keep doing what I hate, what I’m not.”

“This is the first I’m hearing about it.” Ward shoved up, stalked across the room to mix himself a drink. “Your evaluations were glowing. Just as Natalie’s were in her internship. We don’t quit in this family, Simone, or take our advantages for granted. You disappoint me.”

It stung. Of course it stung, as he’d meant it to. But she’d prepared herself for that.

“I know I do, and I know I might always disappoint you. But I gave you a year of my life. I did everything you wanted me to do, and I can’t do it anymore.”

“Why do you have to spoil everything?”

She spun around to face Natalie to take some of the burning sting out on her sister. “What am I spoiling for you? You’re doing what you want, what you’re good at. Go do it, be good at it. Be the perfect white sheep to my black.”

“Your sister’s mature enough to understand she needs a foundation, she needs goals, and she has parents who’ve given her a foundation, and support her goals.”

“They match yours,” Simone told her mother. “Mine don’t.”

“Since when have you had goals?” Natalie muttered.

“I’m working on it. I’m going back to New York. I’m going to take some art classes—”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Tulip threw up her hands. “I knew this was CiCi’s doing.”

“I haven’t even talked to her about it. While I’ve been trying to please you, I disappointed her. But here’s the thing. She’s never thrown it in my face, not once. That’s the difference. She’s never tried to shove me into a box where I don’t fit because it was what she wanted. I’m going to take art classes, I’m going to find out if I’m any good. I’m going to find out if I can be better than good.”

“And just how do you plan to support yourself?” Ward demanded. “You can’t throw your education away and expect us to pay for it.”

“I don’t. I’ll get a job.”

“At some dump of a coffee shop?” Natalie tossed out.

“If necessary.”

“It’s obvious you haven’t thought this through.”

“Mom, I haven’t thought of anything else for weeks. Look at me. Please, really look at me. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I’ve got a closet full of clothes you picked out and bought. My social life this summer’s revolved around the appropriate son of a friend you handpicked for me. The clothes don’t fit, and the son of a friend bores me to death. But I wore them, and I dated him, and I lay awake at night with my head pounding. I’ve been seeing Dr. Mattis since June, three times a week, and paying for it out of my savings so you wouldn’t know.”

“You’ll take a semester off,” Tulip decided, her eyes going shiny with tears. “You’ll rest, and we’ll take a trip. We’ll—”

“Tulip.” Ward spoke gently now, coming back to sit without his drink. “Simone, why didn’t you tell us you starting seeing Dr. Mattis again?”

“Because I knew part of the reason I needed to go back to him was you, and it’s not your fault. It’s just reality. It’s me not being what you hope for. It’s me closing myself into that bathroom stall in my head, and being afraid to open the door. I have to open the door. I’m sorry,” she said as she rose, “but you have to let me. I’m of age, and I’ve made my choice. I’m leaving tonight.”

“We’re going to talk this through,” Tulip insisted.

“There’s nothing more to say, so I’m leaving tonight. My bags are in my car,” she added, but didn’t tell them she intended to go to the island first. She needed that bridge before she stepped into the unknown. “Natalie’s leaving tomorrow, and you should have tonight with her. I love you, but I can’t be here.”

She walked out quickly, and Natalie ran after her.

“How could you treat them that way?” Furious, she grabbed Simone’s arm. “You’re ungrateful and mean. Why can’t you just be normal?”

“You sucked up all the normal left around here. Enjoy it.”

She wrenched her arm away, got in her car as Natalie shouted at her. “Selfish, stupid, crazy.”

As she drove, she thought of the day she’d walked out of her old coffee shop job. She couldn’t say she felt happy this time, but she could say she felt free.

*

For a year she waited tables to pay her share of the rent. She wasn’t so proud and independent that she refused checks from CiCi to help defray other expenses, including her classes, her supplies. But she helped herself there, too, by modeling for students.

As she did two nights a week—three, if she got lucky—Simone stepped onto the platform in front of a class, shed her robe, and posed as instructed. Tonight, right arm bent at the elbow, palm open and up, left hand resting just above and between her breasts.

It didn’t embarrass her to pose naked any more than it embarrassed her to sketch or to sculpt a naked model. And the modeling fees helped pay for the instruction, the sketchbooks, the clay, the firing, the tools.

She’d learned she was good, and believed she could be better than good.

*

While Patricia baked her dead brother a birthday cake to commemorate the anniversary of her mother’s death, Simone let herself back into her apartment after a long day, poured herself a glass of wine, and was happy.

CHAPTER EIGHT

In April of 2013, Essie gave birth to a healthy baby boy she and the besotted father named Dylan. As her partner retired that same month, she requested Detective Reed Quartermaine as her new partner when she returned from maternity leave.

Though she happily took that leave, she kept her finger in the pie with regular news, gossip, and reports from her future partner.

Her life, Essie thought as she crept out of the bedroom where her husband and baby slept, had taken so many unexpected turns.

She’d never expected to become a detective second grade, much less part of the Major Crimes squad. She’d never expected to have a man as sweet, funny, smart, and sexy as Hank in her life. She sure as hell hadn’t expected the dizzying wave of love she felt whenever she looked at or even thought about her son.

Her life had taken a turn one night in July, and out of tragedy, the path from it had been, well, pretty damn great.

She poured herself a glass of herbal tea over ice, grabbed one of the maga zines off the stack, walked out to sit on the front porch and watch her little world go by.

She’d probably fall asleep—and she should be upstairs doing just that. Sleep when the baby sleeps had been her mother’s advice. But she wanted the spring air and a little time to bask.

Maybe they’d take the baby out for a stroll later. And maybe the fresh air would help three-week-old Dylan sleep longer than his record of two hours and thirty-seven minutes.

It could happen.

Maybe she and Hank could snuggle up together, watch a movie—and, if she pumped first, drink a little wine.

Maybe …

She dozed off in her Adirondack chair.