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be doing it at all if you hadn’t started the ball rolling. But we’re in good shape. I promise you.”
    “Okay, then. I’ll come to your classroom on Monday afternoon.”
    “It will be just like the old days when you stayed after seventh-period geography,” he said. “I’ll see you there. Now I’d better get going or I’ll lose all my spiffing-up time, and what would your aunt think of that?”
    Lauren glanced around. “Where’s your car?”
    “I came into town with Sylvia this morning and just never wandered home.”
    “You’ve been here all day?”
    “Doing one thing or another, yes.”
    “You’re going to walk now?”
    “Two miles is not so far. I do it all the time.”
    “Aunt Sylvia is just closing the shop,” Lauren said. “I’m sure you could catch her and she would take you.”
    He put a finger to his lips. “
Shh.
Let’s keep our meeting a secret. One walker to another.”
    Lauren didn’t own a car and didn’t even have a driver’s license. When she was younger, she kept putting off learning to drive until eventually she decided she didn’t need to. After college she returned to Hidden Falls, started working at the church, and decided to live only a few blocks away. She could walk to any kind of shop she needed. When she had a full day off, she could even hike out to the falls or the lake. She was like Quinn in that way. A few miles on foot were not daunting. Quinn was in good physical shape and could set a vigorous pace. But this time he was cutting it close.
    “Tell me you plan to bring your car when you come back to the banquet,” Lauren said.
    “I am not a complete dolt, now am I?” His eyes twinkled. “I will drive, and I will arrive in time for your aunt to inspect the results of my feeble efforts.”
    She smiled. If her aunt had married Quinn, as Lauren always suspected she wanted to, he would have been Uncle Quinn to Lauren for her twenty-eight years. Even without the marriage, Lauren could not have been fonder of Quinn.
    “All right,” she said. “I’ll see you at the banquet hall.”
    She watched him for a moment. There was not much about the way he looked to set him apart. He was middle-aged and balding. Not particularly tall and not particularly short. Not heavy and not thin. His face was one of the blandest Lauren had ever seen.
    Yet Quinn was the most remarkable person she knew. He deserved the honor he would receive in two hours.
    Lauren glanced in both directions down Main Street. Extra cars with out-of-state plates crawled down the street, and foot traffic was brisk. People had come for Quinn. Lots of people.
    With her hand on the door handle for a second time, a rush of denim across the street caught Lauren’s gaze. Her eyes widened.
    He
was here. She had been back in Hidden Falls for six years and not seen him once—and he was not someone she expected would care about coming back for an event like tonight’s.
    But there he was.
    Surely he would not stay long. Probably he would be gone by tomorrow night.
    She sure hoped so.
    6:02 p.m.
    The heft of the fishing reel felt perfect in Dani Roose’s hands. The solid brass pinion gearing, the roller to reduce twists in the line, the lightweight spool—it was everything she wanted. While the clerk in the sporting goods shop rang up the sale, Dani tested the spinner for the umpteenth time and imagined the rod she would pair with the reel. Now she could use a heavier line and cast farther out on the lake.
    The clerk, Henry, announced the total, and Dani extracted cash from the pocket of her orange quilted North Face vest. For weeks she had researched reels in fishing magazines and catalogs. Once she had made up her mind what she wanted, she checked prices around the county and on the Internet. As much as she dreamed about the reel, it was out of reach until today. Dani ignored her phone most of the time, but that morning she’d picked it up. Sammie Dunavant had a dried and cracking fence post that needed replacing