“What happens if someone brings it home?”
Mrs. Bell went quiet.
Morgan waited.
“Mrs. Bell?”
“I heard you.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
Another silence.
Then Mrs. Bell sighed.
“Don’t eat it.”
Morgan looked at the apple on the counter.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Don’t cut it. Don’t throw it away. And don’t take it out of the house.”
Morgan frowned.
“You just asked if I took it.”
“I asked if you took it.”
Morgan’s grip tightened around the phone.
“What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I don’t know how it got there.”
“Neither do I.”
“I know.”
Morgan stared at the apple.
Mrs. Bell continued before she could ask another question.
“Put it somewhere safe tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll figure out what to do with it.”
“We?”
“Yes, we.”
“You seem to know considerably more about this than I do.”
“I know enough to tell you not to touch it again.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be.”
Morgan glanced at the damp dish towel still in her hand.
“Did my grandmother tell you about this?”
Mrs. Bell didn’t answer.
She didn’t have to.
“Mrs. Bell.”
“Tomorrow, Morgan.”
The call ended.
Morgan stared at her phone.
She was not waiting until tomorrow.
Bellweather had acquired exactly two new bars during Morgan’s eleven-year absence.
She ignored both of them and walked into the Lantern Room.
Some places deserved the chance to change.
The Lantern Room had apparently declined.
Dark wood still covered nearly every surface. Amber glass lamps glowed along the walls, and the old fireplace still sent the faintest trace of smoke into the room no matter how often someone cleaned the chimney.
Morgan took the last empty stool at the bar.
The man behind it looked up.
For several seconds, neither of them spoke.
Then he smiled.
“Well, look who finally came home.”
Morgan groaned.
“Please don’t.”
“You actually came back.”
“I’m beginning to regret it.”
“You’ve been here one day.”
“Exactly.”
He laughed and grabbed a glass from beneath the bar.
Declan Carter.
DC to everyone who had known him longer than five minutes.
They’d gone to school together from kindergarten through graduation. Back then, DC had been perpetually late, permanently sarcastic, and absolutely certain he would leave Bellweather the second someone handed him a diploma.
Apparently one of them had lied.
“You own this place now?”
“My dad retired.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“It became my problem. Then eventually my property.”
“Condolences.”
“Thank you.”
DC reached for a bottle.
“I haven’t ordered anything.”
“I know.”
He poured anyway.
The bourbon caught the amber light as it filled the glass.
Morgan raised an eyebrow.
“Still doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“Giving people whatever you think they should drink.”
“Only when I’m right.”
He slid the glass toward her.
Morgan didn’t touch it.
“My grandmother used to order this.”
DC’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
But Morgan saw it.
“She did.”
“Every Friday.”
“Usually.”
Morgan looked at the glass.
The warm scent of bourbon and oak carried a darker sweetness beneath it, familiar enough to tug at a memory she couldn’t quite place.
For a moment, she could picture her grandmother sitting at the bar, arguing with somebody about something that absolutely did not concern her.
The thought hurt more than Morgan expected.
DC leaned against the bar.
“You okay?”
Morgan looked up.
“Did she ever talk to you about Bellweather Orchard?”
His eyes shifted toward hers.
There.
That same hesitation.
Mrs. Bell had done it, too.
Morgan sat straighter.
“You know something.”
“I know lots of things.”
“DC.”
“And most of them are profoundly uninteresting.”
“The thirteen apples.”
His smile disappeared.
Morgan didn’t need another answer.
“You do.”
DC looked toward the other end of the bar.
Only a handful of people remained. None were close enough to hear them.
“What happened?”
Morgan told him.
Not everything.
She left out the brass key.
She wasn’t sure why.
But she told him about the thirteen apples, her grandmother’s warning, the apple appearing in the kitchen, and Mrs. Bell finding only twelve beneath the tree.
DC listened without interrupting.
When she finished, he picked up the bourbon he’d poured for her and drank it himself.
“Hey.”
“You weren’t drinking it.”
“That doesn’t make it yours.”
“I own the bottle.”
He set the empty glass down.
Morgan stared at him.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know.”
She gave him a look.
“I didn’t say I don’t know anything,” DC said. “I said I don’t know what it means.”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
DC reached beneath the bar for another glass.
He set it in front of her.
Then stopped.
There was already a glass beside it.
Morgan frowned.
“Was someone sitting here?”
“No.”
The glass held a shallow pour of bourbon.
DC stared at it.
Morgan looked from the glass to him.
“You poured that.”
“No.”
“I literally just watched you pouring drinks.”
“Not that one.”
“DC.”
“Morgan, I didn’t pour it.”
For the first time since she’d walked into the Lantern Room, he looked genuinely unsettled.
Morgan reached toward the glass.
DC caught her wrist.
“Don’t.”
She stopped.
The bourbon moved slightly inside the glass.
Not much.
Just enough to send a thin amber line around its edge.
Morgan looked at the empty stool beside her.
“Okay.”
Her voice came out quieter than she intended.
“What is happening?”
DC released her wrist.
Then he looked at the untouched drink.
“Your grandmother used to sit there.”
Morgan’s stomach dropped.
“No, she didn’t.”
“Yeah, she did.”
“She sat here.”
“When she came in alone.”
DC nodded toward the empty stool.
“When your grandfather was with her, she sat there.”
Morgan looked at the glass again.
A faint trace of smoke curled through the amber light above it.
“How long has that been sitting there?”
“It wasn’t.”
Morgan didn’t move.
Neither did DC.
Then, slowly, the bourbon inside the glass shifted.
The level dropped.
Barely.
But enough.
Morgan stared.
DC stepped back from the bar.
Another fraction disappeared.
Morgan stood.
“Tell me what you know.”
DC’s eyes remained fixed on the glass.
“I know your grandmother started coming here every Friday again about six months before she died.”
“For a drink?”
“No.”
The bourbon stopped moving.
DC finally looked at Morgan.
“She was waiting for someone.”
