She drove on by, turned left at the corner onto Perch Street, climbed the low hill, turned left again and angled her Jeep into the narrow gravel alleyway that ran behind the building. Her stepmother’s minivan was parked in the spot next to her dad’s SUV, but there was just enough space alongside the storage shed to park her car, if she didn’t ever need to open the passenger-side door. She wiggled out of the Jeep and brushed at the front of her slacks. The fiberglass had made her itchy, not to put too fine a point on it. She wanted a hot shower and a change of clothes. She tugged her overnight bag out of the car and headed toward the kitchen entrance. There was an outside stairway leading to the family quarters on the second floor but she didn’t have a key to the door at the top, so the back stairs through the kitchen was her only option. She just hoped the White Pine’s longtime head cook, Margaret McElroy—Mac to everyone who knew her—would be too busy to question Callie on her unexpected arrival and bedraggled appearance.
