Chapter 8: The Key

Tegan's POV

Santino stood in the doorway of Gran's kitchen with his coat open and his hair on end.

He had driven two hours at night, and he looked like he'd run the last mile.

"There you are," he said, and his voice cracked in the middle. "Thank God. Do you know what these two days did to me?"

I turned off the tap and dried my hand on my jeans.

Rowan hadn't moved.

He stood between me and the door, with his shoulders square and his hands loose.

"Rowan," Santino said. "You lied to my face."

"Yes."

"I could have you fired."

"By whom?"

Santino opened his mouth and shut it.

Bailey came past him into the light.

She had been crying, or she had carefully staged her tears, and her braid was coming loose.

"Tegan, honey, look at your hand," she said. "That's a burn. That's from the candle, isn't it? I'm so sorry."

She crossed the kitchen and opened the drawer to the right of the stove.

She took out the aloe, and a roll of gauze, and the little pair of scissors.

Gran had kept all three in that drawer since before I was born.

Nobody had ever shown Bailey that drawer.

"Bailey," I said. "Which drawer is that?"

She looked at the tube in her hand.

"The first-aid one. Everyone knows that."

"Everyone who's been here."

"Tegan." Santino stepped forward with his palms out. "Okay. We should talk. In private."

"We're in my grandmother's kitchen."

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