“I know.” For an instant, the memory gripped her, the heat and choking smoke, her dad carrying each of the girls. The second-story drop. The firemen below. They were getting hoses and ladders and such, but that was all too late. She was the last one out the window, unwilling to let go of her dad, unwilling to leave him. Then the drop into the dark night, the hard thump into the fireman’s arms, and then…

Her dad silhouetted with the fire behind him-then the sudden woosh of fire and her dad disappearing, her screaming and screaming for him…

“There, there, little honey.” Herman Conner lunged out of his chair, yanked a generic tissue from the box on his desk. “You need to forget about this all. It was a tragedy. An awful, awful thing. Hurt the whole town, too. But it just won’t help to dwell on it.”

“I’ve tried to believe that. But I’ve come to believe the only way I can move past it is for me to see those records for myself.”

“Well, I’ll see what we can scare up for you, of course. Where are you staying?”

“Louella’s Bed-and-Breakfast.”

“For how long?”

She couldn’t stay more than eight weeks, not without risking her teaching contract for the coming year. But the answer she gave the sheriff was the one she wanted to be true. “As long as it takes.”

He sighed. “All right. Well, I’ll get Martha on it, and whatever we can chase up in the way of records, we’ll send over to Louella’s soon as we can. But my advice to you is, amble around town for a bit, remember the good times from when you three girls were little. If you’re looking for what they call closure, that’s the real stuff that matters. Remembering how folks cared about you all, your family, you three girls. Remembering what a nice town this was to grow up in, how loved you were. Everything that matters, honey, it shouldn’t be about that one unfortunate night.”