Spring came to Bellhaven the way it always did, slowly and then all at once.
The shop got busier. Maren hired a second assistant, a quiet kid named Theo who had a good eye for color. I raised my prices and stopped taking orders I couldn't stand behind. I started saying no to clients who wanted me to work for free, and the strange thing was that most of them just paid.
Julian Cross left the city in March. I heard it from a customer who knew a friend of a friend. He had gone to live with a cousin in another state. His mother had cut him off entirely. The penthouse was sold, and the trust was restructured, and the foundation kept giving out scholarships. Elena sent me a postcard from Portland in April. She had gotten a job at a design firm and was taking a class in the evenings. The postcar
