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think you know most of it.” Penny shrugged before taking a sip of coffee. “When Dad died, I was given access to his safety deposit box at the bank. It took me a long time to actually go over there but I did about two months ago. I found a journal inside, one of mom’s, from when we used to live here. Mom had been having an affair with one of the guides that was working here that summer. She wrote about it in graphic detail. Details I really wish I could erase from my brain, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.”
     
    “ I still don’t get how we didn’t know that. I mean, we had the run of the place back then. That would have been our final year, and lord knows I tried to sneak you out everywhere so I could see what was under those blouses you used to wear.”
     
    “ Perv.”
     
    “ You know it.” He huffed out a laugh. “Seriously, though. How was it possible we didn’t know about it?”
     
    “ I don’t know. I don’t know what to believe. If mom had been having an affair, I just… I never in a million years thought she would do something like that. It doesn’t make sense. And it makes even less sense that my dad might have killed her for it.”
     
    “ But, if nothing happened, why’s your Aunt Gertie so tied up in knots that you read the journal? And why did your dad keep it in the first place?”
     
    “ If we’re going to go over all the what-if’s I’ve been repeating like a mantra since I read the journal, then why did my dad up and leave the minute my mom died?”
     
    “ You said it yourself, he got the job transfer.”
     
    “ Did he? Shit. I don’t know, Craig. I don’t even know who to talk to. Aunt Gertie won’t tell me a damned thing, and I’m not going to drop this like she wants me to. I admit I probably shouldn’t have confronted her with the journal but I was pissed. And confused. What would you have done?”
     
    He shrugged. “She’s your dad’s only sister. Besides, from what you told me, your mom wrote about her a lot in that journal and they didn’t exactly like each other. I remember how close your Aunt Gertie used to live to you guys. She was, what, about ten houses down? She was the nosiest person I ever knew, too. It’s natural that you’d ask her if she knew anything about what happened that summer.”
     
    “ Yeah, that’s true. I think she was more pissed that I admitted I’d told you about it, though.”
     
    Craig snorted. “Yeah, she did seem to be upset about that when she called me to ask if you’d gotten here, yet.”
     
    Craig honestly didn’t like thinking about that summer, but he wanted to give Penny some kind of closure. Whatever had happened still affected her, and he didn’t blame her for wanting to know the truth.
     
    Still, from his perspective that summer had sucked ass. They’d had their whole future ahead of them. About to head into their final year of school, making plans for where they’d go to University. He thought he’d be with Penny forever back then. But, her mom had disappeared only to turn up dead on the lakeshore after days of the police searching for her. Shortly after that her dad had gotten the transfer to Houston, and Penny ended up leaving. Never to return. It was serendipitous they’d reconnected on Facebook, and the rest was history now.
     
    The minute they’d started talking again it was like the years had been stripped away. Now he wanted to know what kind of future they could have together, whether they could even date now that they were older. He wasn’t talking marriage, or anything that serious, yet, but he was fascinated by this older version of his girlfriend. She’d gone on to University in another state, becoming an engineer and working for the same company as her dad. While Craig had stayed here, going to the University of Montana in Missoula to get his MBA with a minor in Accounting.
     
    They were all grown up.
     
    There were other reasons he didn’t like thinking about that summer,