Chapter 8--The Righteous Brother
Mack didn’t realize how reluctant he was to make this quixotic trip to interview a fourteen year old girl until he woke the next morning and realized he might make some progress by asking Karin what she’d been doing at the IGA on the day of the fire. She might have stopped by for something minor. Maybe she’d noticed something out of place, though he continued to believe that the fire was exactly the accident it seemed. Even if that disappointed Martin and Lynette Armitrage.
When he rounded the corner of the cottage from the cracked concrete drive, Karin was sitting on the small wooden deck in a lawn chair, staring at the sea. The rocks in the cove were smooth and worn, the wave action gentler in the curve of the shore. Her forefinger held her place in a book of Japanese woodblock prints he’d given her for Christmas two years ago. Seeing her with it gave him a jolt of warmth. She couldn’t have known he was coming.