“Don’t you want to heat that up?”

“What?” Baffled, Dana looked down at the spaghetti in the bowl. “Why?”

“No reason.” Malory handed Dana a glass of wine, then took her own and wandered out to sit at the table. “A book or books makes sense, at least in part. And it gives you a path to take. But . . .”

She scanned Dana’s apartment. “What you yourself personally own would take weeks to get through. Then there’s what everyone else in the Valley owns, the library, the bookstore at the mall, and so on.”

“And the fact that even if I’m right, it doesn’t mean the key’s literally in a book. Could be figuratively. Or it could mean something in a book points the way to the key.” Dana shrugged and shoveled in more cold spaghetti. “I said it fell short of brilliant.”

“It’s a good starting point. Past, present, future.” Malory pursed her lips. “Covers a lot of ground.”

“Historical, contemporary, futuristic. And that’s just novels.”

“What if it’s more personal?” Malory leaned forward, kept her attention on Dana’s face. “It was with me. My path to the key included Flynn, my feelings for him—and my feelings about myself, where I would end up, where I wanted to go. The experiences I had—we can’t call them dreams—were very personal.”

“And scary.” Briefly, Dana laid a hand over Malory’s. “I know. But you got through it. So will I. Maybe it is personal. A book that has some specific and personal meaning for me.”

Thoughtfully she scanned the room as she picked up her fork again. “That’s something else that covers a lot of ground.”

“I was thinking of something else. I was thinking of Jordan.”

“I don’t see how he’s in the mix. Look,” she continued even as Malory opened her mouth, “he was part of the first round, sure. The paintings by Rowena that both he and Brad bought. He came back to town with that painting because Flynn asked him to. That played into it, although his part should have ended with your quest. And his connection to Flynn, which connected him to you.”

“And you, Dana.”

She twirled her fork in the pasta, but her enthusiasm for it was waning. “Not anymore.”

Recognizing the stubborn look, Malory nodded. “Okay. How about the first book you ever read? The first that grabbed you and made you a reader.”

“I don’t think the magic key to the Box of Souls is going to be found in Green Eggs and Ham.” Smirking, Dana lifted her glass. “But I’ll give it a look.”

“What about your first grown-up book?”

“Obviously the steely wit and keen satire of Sam I Am escaped you.” She grinned, but drummed her fingers, thinking. “Anyway, I don’t remember a first. It was always books with me. I don’t remember not reading.”

She studied her wine a moment, then took a quick gulp. “He dumped me. I moved on.”

Back to Jordan, Malory thought and nodded. “All right.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t hate him with a rare and beautiful passion, but it doesn’t drive my life. I’ve only seen him a handful of times in the past seven years.” She shrugged, but it came across as a hesitant jerk. “I’ve got my life, he’s got his, and they no longer intersect. He just happens to be buds with Flynn.”

“Did you love him?”

“Yeah. Big time. Bastard.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey, it happens.” She had to remind herself of that. It wasn’t life or death, it didn’t send her falling headlong into a vale of tears. If a heart couldn’t be broken, it wasn’t a heart to begin with.

“We were friends. When my dad married Flynn’s mom, Flynn and I hit it off. Good thing, I guess. Flynn had Jordan and Brad—they were like one body with three heads half the time. So I got them, too.”

You’ve still got them, Malory nearly said, but managed to keep silent.

“Jordan and I were friends, and we both really dug reading, so that was another click. Then we got older, and things changed. You want another hit of this?” she asked, holding up her empty glass.

“No.”

“Well, I’m having one.” Dana rose, got the bottle from the kitchen. “He went off to college. He got a partial scholarship to Penn State, and both he and his mom worked like dogs to put together the rest of the tuition and expense money. His mom, well, she was just terrific. Zoe sort of reminds me of her.”

“Really?”

“Not in the looks department, though Mrs. Hawke was really pretty, but she was taller, and willowy—made you think of a dancer.”

“She was young when she died.”

“Yeah, only in her forties.” It still brought a little pang to her heart. “It was horrible what she went through, what Jordan went through. At the end, we were all practically camped out at the hospital, and even then . . .”

She gave herself a hard shake, blew out a breath. “That’s not where I was going. I meant Zoe reminds me of how Mrs. Hawke was. It’s that good-mother vibe Zoe has. The kind of woman who knows what to do and how to do it and doesn’t whine about getting it done, and still manages to love it and the kid. She and Jordan were tight, the way Zoe and Simon are. It was just the two of them. His father wasn’t in the picture, not as far back as I can remember, anyway.”

“That must’ve been difficult for him.”

“It would’ve been, I think, if his mother hadn’t been who she was. She’d grab a bat and join in a pickup softball game as quickly as she would whip up some cookie batter. She filled the gaps.”

“You loved her too,” Malory realized.

“I did. We all did.”

Dana sat down, sipped at her second glass of wine. “So anyway, the Hawke goes off to college, gets two part-time jobs up there to help pay his expenses. We didn’t see much of him the first year. He came back for summers, worked at Tony’s Garage. He’s a pretty decent mechanic. Palled around with Flynn and Brad when he had the chance. Four years later, he’s got his degree. He did a year and a half postgrad and was already getting some short stories published. Then he came home.”

She let out a long breath. “Holy Jesus, we took one look at each other, and it was like bombs exploding. I thought, What the hell is this? This is my buddy Jordan. I’m not supposed to want to sink my teeth into my good buddy Jordan.”