Chapter 6
Lane couldn’t quite reconcile the woman who met them at the airport with the skinny punk girl he remembered from high school. As a teen, Michelle had been surly and dark, glowering at everyone, much the same way Braden had been when Lane first met him a year earlier. But at forty, Chell looked like something washed up with the tide, her hair filled with sea shells, her skin tanned from too much sun. She was vibrant and chatty, bordering on the manic, and Lane could tell Braden was a little afraid of her. She strode ahead blindly, half-turned so she could keep up a steady stream of conversation with them, but the crowds seemed to part without anyone tripping or bumping into her.
“So, Laney,” she said, flinging her dreads out of the way so she could look at him, “tell me how you
