Free Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn

summer."
    Jeanine nodded and looked at the cottage. "It's just the same as I remember. I hear you had Joe Russell working on it. He's good. Not cheap, though."
    "Compared to New York, he's a bargain," Dulcie said.
    Jeanine sat down at the picnic table. "Is that where you live?"
    Dulcie nodded. "Would you like something to drink? I've got mint tea in the fridge, if you'd like that."
    "Anything, as long as it's cold," Jeanine said. "Today's a real scorcher."
    Leaving the woman on the deck, Dulcie came inside. By then I was in the kitchen, ready to help with cheese and crackers if she wanted them.
    Dulcie rolled her eyes. "There goes the afternoon," she whispered.
    A few minutes later, I was setting down a tray with an assortment of crackers, cheese, and sliced fruit. Dulcie poured glasses of iced tea for herself and Jeanine and offered me a can of soda. The three of us settled ourselves comfortably under the patio umbrella.
    "My daughter, Erin, tells me you're an artist," Jeanine said. "I'm not surprised. When we were kids, you were always drawing. You carried a sketchbook and pencils everywhere we went."
    Dulcie smiled as if she were beginning to warm up to Jeanine. "Yes, I guess I did."
    "You were so talented. We were always asking you to draw pictures for us. Teresa, especially. She was crazy about your mermaids—remember?"
    All traces of friendliness suddenly disappeared from my aunt's face. She gripped her glass of iced tea and shook her head. "No, I don't remember Teresa. Or any mermaids I might have drawn."
    I held my breath and waited to hear what Jeanine would say next.
    Staring at Dulcie in disbelief, she said, "You
can't
have forgotten Teresa. What happened to her has haunted me all my life—"
    "I don't know what you're talking about." Dulcie stood up so fast her chair fell over with a bang that made both Jeanine and me jump. Her hair seemed wilder than before, and her body was so tense, you could have snapped her in two.
    She stood there a moment, glass in hand, avoiding our eyes. "Excuse me," she said in a lower voice. "I have work to do, paintings to finish for a show this fall."
    Without looking at us, Dulcie left Jeanine and me sitting at the picnic table and ran down to her studio, her sandals flapping on the steps. The door slammed. For a few seconds after that, the only sound was the lake quietly rippling against the shore.
    "Oh, dear." Jeanine's face flushed. "I guess I shouldn't have come, but I—well, I've always wondered what became of Claire and Dulcie. I thought—"
    She broke off and reached for her car keys. "I'm so sorry, Ali. I never meant to upset your aunt. I hope she, you—Oh, I just don't know why I'm so thoughtless, coming here, bringing up the past." She started to rise from her chair.
    I touched her hand to keep her from leaving. "Please tell me what you're talking about. Who was Teresa? What happened to her?"
    Jeanine sipped her iced tea silently, her eyes on the horizon and the blue sky beyond. She wanted to finish what she'd started, I could tell.
    Sure enough, the next thing she said was, "I don't see how Dulcie could have forgotten that child—or even me, for that matter. The two of us spent a lot of time at this cottage, especially Teresa. Why, your grandmother used to call us her borrowed daughters."
    She paused to watch a squirrel dart across the deck and leap onto a pine tree. A branch swayed, and he was gone. Her eyes turned back to me. "Your mother didn't tell you about Teresa?"
    I toyed with my empty soda can, turning it this way and that. "Mom never talks about the lake. She hates it so much, she almost didn't let me come with Dulcie." I hesitated and rubbed the wet ring my soda can had made on the table. "You saw how Dulcie is—she claims she doesn't remember anything. But—" I stopped, not sure what to tell Jeanine. Her face was kind, her eyes understanding, and I desperately wanted to talk to someone about Teresa.
    "But what?" Jeanine helped herself to another slice of