The rental truck was packed to the ceiling with five years of my life. Furniture, boxes of art supplies, canvases wrapped carefully in blankets, and the personal items that had made my Seattle apartment mine.
Skyler did a final check of the straps securing everything. "That should hold. Ready?"
I took one last look at the building that had been my refuge. The window of my apartment on the third floor, the coffee shop on the corner where I'd spent countless mornings, the familiar streets that I could navigate with my eyes closed.
"Yeah," I said softly. "I'm ready."
The drive started in companionable silence. Skyler drove the truck while I followed in my sedan, a small caravan heading east toward the mountains. Toward home.
My phone rang an hour in. Vera.
"Just checking you didn't chan
