Read Summer's Song: Pine Point, Book 1 for Free Online

their heads. Wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one who had told Hannah to leave in the first place. He scowled at the screen. No matter where the three of them had ended up, Theo was one-hundred-percent certain Damian still lived with his mother and sister, if not in the house with them, then somewhere close by.
    This search turned up something. He glanced around and hunched as close to the computer screen as he could get. Damian’s name appeared halfway down a list of graduates from a two-year college somewhere in upstate New York. Theo pursed his lips and jotted the name of the school on a scrap of paper. The date was almost three years old, but he would guess Hannah hadn’t taken the family too far from there. He hadn’t tried to contact her in ages. She would have grown comfortable by now. Safe.
    Theo shoved the piece of paper into his pocket and closed the web browser. He thought a minute and then shut down the computer completely. Next step: finding a map of New York. After that, he’d drive straight from center-city Baltimore to whatever podunk town Hannah and Dinah now called home.
    Damian he’d worry about when he got there.

Chapter Four
    Summer studied the papers strewn across the blue polyester motel quilt. After only twenty-four hours away from the museum, she felt dissociated and out of the loop. Later in the summer, their museum would have the rare opportunity to borrow a collection of artifacts recovered from the 1607 Jamestown colony. She ran a finger down the list of broken wine cups and cooking pots. She loved reading background material, reliving archeological digs that brought such finds to light. And yet all the documents in the world could never explain the most important things.
    They couldn’t explain why a young girl, on a particular day, might have chosen to mix corn and venison stew in her cooking pot. Or whether she’d learned the technique from a Potomac Indian woman or raised a callus on her finger as she stirred. Had she watched her mother nurse a newborn? Had she blushed and dropped her chin when a certain boy walked by?
    Summer pushed the papers together in a heap. She reached for the glass of water on her nightstand and wished it held something much stronger. I only like putting other people’s pasts in order because I can’t remember my own. That’s what an ex-boyfriend had told her once. She downed the water and wondered if it were true.
    She’d been back in Pine Point for over a day and, aside from the one dizzying moment in the house that afternoon, she hadn’t experienced a single memory of that night. Not that she wanted to. Her eyes filled as she tried to remember her brother’s face, his laugh, the way he teased her about being in love with Gabe. She couldn’t. It had all become a fog, which was just as well. More than one therapist had told her she was better off not remembering anything about the accident. Selective amnesia they called it, the brain sorting out and banishing any traumas too painful to recall.
    Summer pulled off her T-shirt and pink panties and flung both over a chair. The sheets, pilled but soft, she drew up to her chin. Sleep, she ordered. A good eight hours of it, please . The day, too long and too full of memories, had worn her out. Tomorrow morning she’d find Sadie Rogers and get the house on the market. A couple of days later she’d fly out. And the whole thing would be over.
    * * * * *
    Damian settled himself into one of the faded lawn chairs on the front porch and stretched out his legs. Folding one hand behind his head, he stifled a yawn and studied the mountains that wrapped their arms around the town. At night, especially in the absence of a moon, they became shadowy giants that towered over the residents. After almost three years of living in Pine Point, he still couldn’t decide whether they soothed him or scared him. Sometimes he suspected it was a little bit of both.
    The phone rang. Two minutes later Dinah appeared, framed in the