“It’s why he didn’t have an echo.” She explained what she’d read in her grandmother’s journals. “It’s why I couldn’t feel anything from him.”

“Holy crap,” Sara breathed softly, absorbing the information Violet had just given her.

Violet nodded. “I know, right?” Mentally, she added this to the ever-changing list of rules she’d created in her head.

No heart, no echo.

CHAPTER 7

VIOLET CLIMBED INSIDE JAY’S CAR, TURNING around just in time to see her mom still standing at the doorway, wearing the same I-don’t-want-to-let-you-out-of-my-sight expression she’d been wearing all weekend. Just the fact that she was up this early told Violet how worried she was.

Oblivious to her mother’s concerns, Jay leaned over Violet and waved, “Hey, Mrs. Ambrose!”

“Will you stop calling her that?” Violet complained, pushing him out of her way so she could close her door. “She’s probably told you a million times already to call her Maggie.”

Her mom made a pinched face and waved back, but it was more like she was waving him off before she turned to go back inside, closing the door behind her.

“See? Told you so,” Violet insisted.

Jay handed her one of the Starbucks cups that had been sitting in his console.

“Wow,” she said, delighting in the feel of the warm cup, and sniffing the small opening in the lid. “This whole stumbling-onto-a-crime-scene thing is really starting to pay off. Last night a present. Now this.” She grinned as she took a sip of the vanilla latte.

Jay rubbed his jaw nervously. “Yeah, I wasn’t really sure what the protocol for ‘freaked out by dead bodies’ was. You’re not sick, so bringing you soup was out the question. And you didn’t know the people, so giving you flowers seemed wrong.”

Violet pursed her lips, considering his dilemma. “I see what you mean. Jewelry maybe? Or cash?”

Jay laughed. “Sorry, just a turtle. And some coffee.” He raised his eyebrows. “But at least I went to Starbucks.”

Since there wasn’t a real Starbucks in Buckley, Violet knew that meant he’d driven all the way to the next town to get it.

She shrugged, biting back a grin. “I guess coffee’ll do. Until you find the right diamond, or maybe something designer.”

Jay started his car. “You’re starting to be sorta high maintenance, Violet Marie.” He backed out of the driveway. “I remember when you were happy if I gave you the better stick to play with.”

She giggled. “Um, yeah, I was nine then!”

“Yeah, well that Violet wouldn’t have complained if her boyfriend had driven all the way to Enumclaw to get her a coffee before school.”

“Yeah, well that Violet,” Violet added, taking another sip of her latte and raising her brows defiantly, “would have gagged on the coffee and then punched you in the nose for trying to poison her.”

Jay glanced at her over his shoulder as they hit the main road. “Touché, Vi! Touché!”

Violet leaned back and tipped her head to the side, watching Jay as he drove. Sunlight poured in through the car’s windows and glinted off his face, catching the strands of his hair and casting his skin in a soft golden glow. It was the way she always saw him, golden and sun-kissed and beautiful. She took a sip of her coffee, feeling warm from more than just the drink.

Without meaning to, the tinny plinks of her imprint drew her thoughts to a darker place, as she remembered what she’d read in her grandmother’s diaries. As always, her first instinct was to keep the information to herself, to hide it from Jay, and her parents, and from everyone else who mattered. Ferreting the knowledge away and doling it out only on a need-to-know basis.

It was a lonely way to live. And she was getting sick of it.

“Hey, you know those journals I told you about? The ones my mom gave me that belonged to my grandma Louise?”

His eyes stayed trained on the road as they pulled into the student lot. “Uh-huh.”

“I read something in them last night. Something interesting.”

Jay cast a quick glance her way. “Interesting how?” he asked.

Violet lips curved upward. It was a lazy smile, but a satisfied one. “She knew why a body wouldn’t have an echo.”

“You mean she’d seen that before? Like the boy you found at the lake house?” Jay pulled into a parking spot and turned to stare at her. She nodded. His expression was incredulous, and she thought it was exactly the way she’d felt when she’d first read the entry.

“I know,” she agreed, even though he hadn’t said a word.

When they got out of the car, Jay groped for his backpack in the backseat and punched the alarm button on his key fob several times more than he needed to before rushing to keep up with Violet.

By the time he caught her, Violet was halfway across the parking lot. “So,” he asked, reaching out to stop her before they reached the school. “What was it? Why was the boy missing his echo?” He cocked his head to the side, still looking too golden for his own good.

“His heart,” Violet offered quietly. “It had been cut out.”

But before he could respond, Violet tasted the familiar tang of dandelions and glanced up to see a car parked in front of the school—one she recognized all too well.

“Uh-oh,” Jay said from beside her, seeing the same thing she had. “Looks like someone’s in trouble.”