Still As Death by Sarah Stewart Taylor Page A

All of the windows in the house were open and Sweeney could hear a voice singing somewhere in the house. It sang a melodious, accented French, and Sweeney made out a few words here and there, something about a rabbit and a turtle. She waited a minute, listening, and then knocked again.
    The voice belonged to a tall woman with very dark skin and a fall of shimmering cornrows. Through the screen, Sweeney was at first struck by her loveliness and then, when she turned, by the long scar that ran down one side of her face. It was still partly open, as though it had not been stitched but had just healed the way it was. The inside of the scar was pink, like the interior of a seashell, and Sweeney had to keep from cringing.
    “Hello?” the young woman said, opening the door. Megan was hugging her legs, and she looked up at Sweeney and gave her a toothy grin.
    “Hi,” Sweeney said. “I’m looking for Tim. Is he here?” She waved at Megan. “Hi, Megan. You’re so big. I don’t think you remember me, but I took care of you for a little while last fall.” The little girl grinned up at her. She wasn’t a baby anymore, but a toddler. Her reddish blond hair was secured in two pigtails. She looked like Quinn. She had his eyes: very round, very blue, with thick lashes much darker than her hair.
    “He’s working, but he will be home soon.” She smiled a little. “Are you a friend of Tim’s?”
    “Yes. I guess I’ll try to catch up with him later.”
    The woman hesitated and then gave a little smile. “He just called. He’s on his way. Do you want to come in and wait?”
    “Oh, okay, sure. That would be great. Thank you.” She followed the woman inside, Megan toddling behind them. “I’m Sweeney, by the way.”
    “Oh, yes. I think I have heard about you,” the woman said.Sweeney wondered what Quinn had said. The woman hesitated again and then, in a quiet voice, she said, “I am Patience.”
    Sweeney misunderstood at first, thinking she meant to say that she was patient. When she realized it was the woman’s name, she smiled. “It’s nice to meet you.”
    Megan climbed up into Patience’s lap and put her arms around her neck, then twisted her head around to look shyly at Sweeney. Sweeney smiled and waved again and Megan turned to Patience and murmured something in her ear.
    “Yes?” Patience asked and Megan murmured it again. This time Patience laughed out loud. “Rouge! She said rouge. For your hairs.
Oui, ma cherie
. Rouge!” Megan smiled up at Sweeney.
    Sweeney got down on the floor and played with Megan while Patience cleaned up the living room, and ten minutes later they heard a car pull up in front of the house and then Quinn’s voice through the screen. “Patience? Who’s …?” When he saw Sweeney on the floor, he looked first apprehensive, then pleased. “Hey. I didn’t recognize the car.”
    “I got a new one,” she said. She looked out the window at her gleaming, pale blue Volkswagen Jetta. She’d hated giving up her decades-old Rabbit, but it had finally not so much broken down as disintegrated into a pile of rust. She still hadn’t quite got used to being the owner of a fancy new car.
    He grinned. “It’s about time. Did you meet?” He gestured to Patience, and they both nodded. He was very tan and his hair looked lighter. There were little white lines at the sides of his eyes, as though he’d been squinting into the sun. Sweeney thought maybe he’d put on a little bit of weight. Either that or he had started working out. She wasn’t sure what it was, but he seemed more solid than she remembered. When she’d first met him, she’d thought him only conventionally good-looking, but now that she knew him better, she could see there was more to his face than that. His eyes weren’t just blue, but a couple different shades of blue, darker at the centers around the pupils, and he had a tiny round scar over one cheekbone,from chicken pox, she’d decided, though she’d never asked. His