“Remind my mother about the Fred Zhang meeting, please,” she asked Tracey. “I’ll go straight there after Marcy’s funeral.” She pushed through the front door. Two magpies exploded off the pavement in a flurry of black feathers. Instantly, she flashed back to the clearing at Big Flats and the seagulls surrounding Marcy’s body. A shudder rippled through her. She rejected the image, but her eyes tracked the birds to a Russian olive tree on the hill behind the office. When she moved to the Tri-Cities, she’d thought the black and blue birds handsome and couldn’t understand why the locals hated the cheeky scavengers. She’d considered it more prejudice toward an import—until the first time she’d seen magpies eating quail babies in her backyard. She bypassed the spot that interested the scavengers. She didn’t want to know what piece of road-kill had attracted them. A sedan entering the parking lot distracted her.
