and plow left to avoid hitting the taillight of the SUV at the end of the line of SUVs parked half on, half off the crusted berm. The vans were parked head-in opposite these, their satellite dishes staggered on the uneven terrain. Some people remained inside, heads ghosted by phones. Others, at the ready, braved the cold to lean against bumpers.
I had slowed to avoid that first car and stayed slow in the narrow funnel they’d left of the road. That was my first mistake.
Doors were suddenly flung open, led by a person of indeterminable sex loping toward me, which meant that I couldn’t exactly speed up again without risking hurt. I had my foot on the brake and was completely stopped by the time she—I saw that, though it was little comfort—came abreast and gestured my window down.
I might have yelled Go away! through the glass, actually would have yelled something more obscene, if that hadn’t seemed like a cowardly thing to do. Thinking that this was my town, my friend, my new life, I rolled my window down to tell her to let me pass.
That was my second mistake. She had barely asked if I was a friend of the family when a camera appeared and a flash went off. I brought a hand up, but too late.
Raising the window again, I faced forward and accelerated only enough to let her know I wasn’t chatting. I might have stopped had it been Ben Zwick, if only to tell him to go to hell. But I doubted he was here. The cynical part of me figured that, with the temperature having dropped into the twenties, he would be in a cozy suite at the Inn eating a flat iron steak—rare, with horseradish-dill aioli and a bottle of the sommelier’s vintage merlot. I was sure he had underlings doing his dirty work here in the cold, dark night.
Others came forward as I inched ahead, a few running alongside my truck, but I kept my eyes on Grace’s home. It was a frame structure consisting of a modest bottom topped by dormers that looked uncannily like eyes whose brows were raised as they watched the road. But arched brows were the end of notable where the exterior was concerned. Grace’s show of spirit was on the inside, which, of course, these people would love to know, but couldn’t see. Every curtain was drawn. The only light escaped from those upstairs dormers and was thickly diffused. These were bedrooms, not that I expected either Grace or Chris was asleep.
She had no bell, just a brass knocker in the shape of a frog. I used it at the same time that I texted to let her know it was me, which was a waste if the Feds had her phone. But I couldn’t be the first person using the knocker tonight, and she wouldn’t blindly open the door to this mob. I stood an arm’s length back, where she might see me from a window, and kept my head down against the ghosts, listening for footsteps inside, a shouted Go away!, anything. After what felt like forever, during which time I was swarmed by moving mouths and cameras, I heard the tumble of three different locks. Then the door opened enough for her to grab my sleeve and pull me in.
Only when I was leaning against the closed door did I realize I was shaking. Blaming it on the cold, I breathed, “Nightmare.”
“You don’t know the half,” Grace said as she rebolted the door, “but you can’t stay, Maggie.” She sounded exhausted, and though I could barely see her in the dark, the little light that seeped down the stairs suggested a wilted version of the woman I knew. Her curls were caught back in a scrunchie that left as much loose as not, and her face was glow-in-the-dark ghostly. Barefooted, wearing baggy sweats, she seemed smaller than ever.
Feeling her helplessness, I said a gentle, “I heard about Rutland. How’s Chris?”
“Terrified. They booked him. Do you have any idea what that’s like?”
I did. Terrifying was a mild word for it. “Is he upstairs?” She lifted one shoulder. “Can I talk with him?”
“Why?” She drew out the word, but it lacked inflection. I heard despair beneath it.
“To make him feel better? To tell him it’ll all be okay?” Both were for her, too. I wanted her to know she wasn’t totally alone. When her shadowed face told me nothing, I added, “He’s home, isn’t