The Edge of the Shadows by Elizabeth George

didn’t blurt out a single word. She did pull the ear bud out of her ear at that point, though, because if Parker Natalia knew
anything
about Nelson that he didn’t want to say aloud, she needed to delve through all the whispers to learn what it was.
    Unfortunately, mostly what she picked up on was Derric. He’d seen her reaction to hearing Nelson mentioned, and he was worried. He’d assumed her reaction had to do with Parker, who looked like a cross between a male model for Jockey shorts and a movie star.
    Derric was ten times the
only
guy for her, and Becca wanted to tell him that. He didn’t need to worry, and he would never need to worry. But she couldn’t say this to him without revealing to him that she’d heard his thoughts.
    When she said she’d tag along into the woods with Seth and Parker, she half expected Derric to protest. But he said nothing and as for what he thought, it was jumbled up with what everyone else was thinking. And she didn’t have time to sort through that because Seth and Parker were heading across the lawn to descend to the pond. She hurried after them.
    The tree house was an excellent excuse since she’d hidden out there for months. She followed Seth, Parker, and Gus along the trail that wound into the woods, and for the next ten minutes they crunched along a path strewn with alder leaves and the disintegrating pine cones from Douglas firs. Ferns and salal and wild huckleberry bushes grew to the edges of this path along with Oregon grape, elderberry, various creepers, wild grasses, holly, and invasive ivy. The air was sharp with the musty scent of decomposing vegetation.
    When they reached the tree house, they paused at the clearing that held it in the interlocking branches of two towering hemlocks. Parker muttered, “Holy hell. Who built this thing,” and Becca was happy to announce that every board of it had been put in place by Seth.
    It wasn’t a tree house in the tradition of a kids’ platform fixed into the trees. Rather it was a tiny house, with a deck in the front, a secure roof over it to keep out the rain, double-paned windows to hold in the heat, and a woodstove inside to provide the necessary warmth. To this had been added a cot for sleeping, a camping stove for cooking, a lantern, and shelf for books.
    Becca had to wait while Parker made much of the building and its contents and while Seth schooled him in the use of the stove. She put in two cents about banking the fire at night although they all agreed he wouldn’t need to use the stove much for warmth as the weather hadn’t turned bad yet and probably wouldn’t till late in October.
    Becca looked for an opening. She tried to read significance into the whispers she heard. There was nothing there, though. Just stuff about the tree house and music and gratitude and
I’ll show them I swear to God
, which seemed to come from Parker.
    She knew she might have to wait forever for something to be said that related to Nelson, and she couldn’t wait. So she went for it. “Hey, what’s Nelson like?” she asked when there was a break in the conversation. There was going to be no way to ease into it. The direct approach seemed best although Seth glanced at her strangely when she asked the question.
    Parker smiled, showing straight white teeth. “I dunno,” was his totally unsatisfactory answer. “Just a town, I guess. I grew up there.” He squatted to examine the interior of the stove. It was filled with ashes from Becca’s winter stay. It would need to be cleaned to be useful. “It’s on a lake,” he added. “It’s huge.”
    Becca’s spirits sank at this. A huge town meant—
    â€œThe lake, I mean,” Parker said, closing the stove’s door and rising. “Lake Kootenay. It’s huge. Nelson itself’s pretty small. I mean, it’s bigger than Langley, but . . . well, pretty much