“Don’t even go there, you emo-freak,” Starla said, her voice as controlled as possible. She said nothing else and never looked back.

“Wow, she looks like crap,” Taylor said, stating the obvious.

“I almost feel sorry for her,” Beth said. “She’s really going through something. Maybe she hates her highlights.”

Taylor tugged at Beth to get to the bus for the ride home. “I have no idea what’s up,” she said, in what she knew was a big lie.

SAVANNAH OSTEEN LIVED IN A LOG CABIN in the middle of wooded acreage near the airport. While the location was indeed remote, the mosquito-like buzzing of private planes could be heard overhead as they dropped lower for landing. The aircraft was an audible reminder that even in the woods, there are people hovering, watching. Savannah’s cabin wasn’t one of those Daniel Boone affairs, all mossy and drafty, but a decidedly modern one with a steep roofline and made of perfectly peeled pine logs. Anchoring it from the ground to the sky was a river rock chimney that looked like it might even be made of real rocks. Which it wasn’t, of course.

Moira Windsor edged her pewter compact car under a gnarly grove of cedars that formed a canopy, nearly blacking out the late-afternoon sky.

“Moira?” a voice called out.

Moira turned in the direction of the voice. “Savannah?”

“Yes. I’m back here, in the aviary.”

Moira followed the sound to a large fenced pen with a ten-foot-high ceiling of chicken wire. Inside, a woman in her late thirties was huddled next to a wooden crate. Suspended above the crate was a heat lamp sending an eerie splash of orange over its contents.

Savannah motioned for her to come inside the pen.

“Dumb idea to raise pheasants in the middle of winter,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Moira unlatched the gate and walked over. She bent down a little and looked inside at a dozen or more small birds huddled in one disgusting mass and pretended to be interested.

“They’re pretty,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll be all right. Spring will be here soon enough.”

“I hope so,” Savannah said, looking up at her visitor and smiling. Up close, she was a pretty woman with corkscrew hair that was more gray than brown. She wore slim-fit jeans; a heavy, tan Carhartt jacket; boots; and a pair of garden gloves with the fingertips nipped off.

“Let’s go inside and talk about farm to table, and I’ll tell you how my pheasants fit into that scenario,” she said, lowering the heat lamp a little. The birds peeped loudly and scuttered from the light.

“Oops,” Savannah said, raising the lamp a touch. “Don’t want to cook them. At least, not yet.”

“No, not yet,” Moira said, acting as if she was excited, though she couldn’t care less. She wanted to talk about something completely different from these disgusting birds. Besides, farm to table made no sense to her. Everything she ate came from a box or was shrinkwrapped.

The place was spotless, which surprised Moira. She figured an old hippie—if that’s what Savannah was—would be a grungy pack rat with recycling stations in every room and ugly eco repurposed items like a bucket made into a lampshade. But the house wasn’t. Instead, it was clean and bright with furnishings upholstered in creams and grays.

After Moira removed her boots and jacket, she could see that Savannah was neat, maybe not exactly stylish, but not some Boho wannabe with a trashed-out house. A coil of silver chains swirled around her toned neck. Ten silver bangles ran up each wrist.

Savannah offered coffee, not herbal tea, which also surprised Moira. There was no small talk about sustainable resources, the dire situation with South America’s rain forests. They engaged in some casual chatter, before Moira made a confession of sorts.

“I lied to you on the phone,” she said, once they settled at the kitchen table, a large Douglas fir crosscut topped with quarter-inch-thick glass.

“You’re not from the paper?” Savannah said, her tone indicating some skepticism and maybe even a little understanding.

“Not exactly,” she said and looked away.

“Blogger? That’s okay. I understand.”

“No, I actually am from the paper. I’m just not doing a farm-totable story.”

Savannah perked up a little. She didn’t seem alarmed, only a little interested.

Moira wondered if there was marijuana in the coffee. This woman is so calm. I could be an IRS agent or a serial killer and she wouldn’t bat an eye.

“Is Moira your real name?” she asked.

“Yes, yes, it is. I’m sorry. Do you want to see my driver’s license?”

Savannah shook her head. “No. But tell me exactly why you are here?”

Moira took a deep breath and started to tell her about Katelyn’s death and how her editor had told her that Katelyn was in the terrible crash on the Hood Canal Bridge.

“You remember it? The one that killed the driver and four little girls?”

The look on Savannah’s face clearly indicated that she did. Actual words weren’t necessary. But the former language researcher answered anyway.

“Yes, I remember it very well.”

Just then, the air in the room thickened considerably. Moira Windsor knew whatever words she chose next would likely make or break the interview. In that moment, it was clear to both parties that what they were talking about was far bigger than merely an update on an accident and the lives of the survivors.

“I saw your posting on the Kitsap Kalamities site,” she said, waiting.

Savannah sipped her coffee. “Yes. I’m sure you did.”

“It was an interesting comment,” Moira said.

Savannah set down her cup and looked out the window toward the aviary. “I knew I shouldn’t have posted it. I even e-mailed the site owners and asked if they’d remove it.”

“They didn’t, you know.”

Savannah nodded. “Right. They didn’t. That’s really why you’re here.”

“What did it mean?”

“It meant that I’d had too much ouzo,” Savannah said, somewhat sheepishly. “Greek dinner party in Seattle and … I don’t know how I got home and, even worse, how I managed to type that comment. I’m not denying that I did it, because I did.”

Moira kept her eyes on Savannah. “I know you did,” she said.

Savannah turned her attention back to her coffee and took a sip.

“What did you mean by it?” Moira asked again.

Savannah took a breath and faced the reporter. Her face was grim.

She’s going to talk. Good. Tell all.

“I was a researcher years ago, for the linguistics lab at the University of Washington,” she said, now fidgeting with her fingertips deep within the back of her tangle of hair.

Moira flipped open her reporter’s notebook.

“I don’t think I want you to write about this,” Savannah said.

“About what?”

“About what I’m going to show you.”

For some reason, unclear to her just then, Moira’s heart started to race. She was not a woman given to much fear, but, right then, she felt some.

“Are we in agreement?”

“Yes,” Moira said, knowing that she was being completely deceitful.

Savannah had trusting eyes, and Moira felt sorry for her. She knew that Savannah was going to give her something she considered precious. She also knew that the woman wanted to. She wouldn’t have put that comment online, with or without too much ouzo, if she had wanted to hold it inside forever.

“You were saying?” Moira said, prodding.

“Yes, I was saying that I was doing a study on early talkers at the U. I was a field research assistant. My job was to tape children in their home environment.”

“Those children who, what, spoke at a very young age?”

Savannah nodded slowly. “Right. As early as six months.”

“I don’t think I started talking until after I was almost two,” Moira said, feeling a little stupid for the admission.

“Many kids don’t. But in order to better understand how the brain develops and what external forces shape speech, we were sent out to record children who exhibited the propensity for early speech.”