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"Did he off his wife?"

He laughed, dug a Post-it note from his pocket, and stuck it to my kitchen table On it he’d scrawled an address So of the sort Noreen Eckhardt did disappear from Willow Falls sometime in the early seventies, but she lives in Santa Fe now Definitely breathing"

"Disappeared?"

"That e?"

"She just left him?"

"Looks like it I couldn’t find any record of divorce"

"So he’s still uess you’re right"

"You sound disappointed"

It was ht the story would be "

"You don’t know the story," Sean said "It "

I wondered if I would ever hear it Would it change my i into it"

"All part of the job"

Silence The kind that felt like it could preface so important

Sean took a deep breath "I didn’t just come over to discuss Mr Eckhardt’s failed love life I felt an overwhelhtly inappropriate"

That got a laugh "Seriously It’s peaceful, and o sit out there for a while?"

"Could you give ed "Okay Letarden You don’t need to keep adding things to keep ed Interest I’d forgotten what it felt like to be on the receiving end of that The scrutiny was uncomfortable and wonderful all at the same time How much did he see? Just the surface or down deep? I’d never been someone to allow too much emotion to reach the surface, but the past two years had painfully carved new pathways through aveether, he was still et a different Paige--slightly more empathetic, definitely more relaxed and open, and possibly more likeable It just wasn’t fair

We walked outside, and the ht, I could get used to looking at that He inhaled deeply and took in my haphazardwith an untamed wildness I’d come to truly appreciate

"I like it out here," was all he said "Soet, the more I chase down uess that’s it," he said with a slight shrug "Growing up, I was the youngest of eight My house was loud My parents yelled all the time If anted to be heard, we had to shriek above the rest Do you have siblings?"

"I was an only child," I said quietly "My mom wasn’t equipped to have me, much less anyone else"

Sean took my hand in his "That sounds like a sad story I see a lot of those, even in Willow Falls"

"And how do you handle the sad stories?" I got flashes of , bruises on ernails, and blood It wasn’t a way any child should grow up, and I was glad for ahis father, was getting up the courage to get behind the wheel of a car

"I try to be kind," he said after a ood at defusing problematic situations"