Margaret wasn’t talking to him, and not in the way she normally didn’t talk to him. This was a deeply resentful not-talking that made him itchy and hollow inside. He needed her. Now more than ever. Why was she that ticked off at him? He hadn’t even tried to talk to her about the messages she’d sent to Mark. All he’d done was ask her not to send any further ones, which had been answered with silence. Not even a No. No reaction beyond a slight tapping of her leg that said she’d heard him.

Lonely and morose, he went through the motions. A few customers had asked him if he was coming down with the flu, and he’d shrugged and said, “Summer cold.” He’d dug for a smile, but there was nothing left at the bottom of that particular well. It was bone-dry.

He couldn’t think about Mark. He’d thrown away something rare and precious and didn’t deserve the comfort of a single nostalgic memory. He’d do it again, of course. There was no question of that. He didn’t know what else he could have done. He’d already told Mark so much more than he’d meant to. So much more than he should have, than was safe. He could only hope that Mark wouldn’t start digging. Google was a dangerous thing; you put together the right three or four search terms and Bingo! If the whole thing had so much as been a five-liner in the local papers, there was a chance it was searchable online. Just because Jack had never found anything didn’t mean it wasn’t there. And then what would Mark do with that knowledge?

He locked the door and turned the sign to Sorry, we’re closed. The clouds above the rooftops wore a stunning orange lining. A couple fewer houses and he would have been able to see the ocean. Behind him he heard Margaret open the register to start her daily tally.

He turned to watch her take her seat in the office; the crown of her dark head was bent way too low over her papers. Those narrow shoulders . . . She was such a tiny thing. In his mind’s eye he saw her again like he’d seen her through the study window on the first floor of the house they grew up in: standing by the pool, picking magnolia blossoms into confetti . . .

He saw Beaufort Deaver step out onto the pool deck for a smoke. Charles might think Deaver would help him to a political career, but Jack wasn’t convinced the councilman would ever help anyone but himself. Sleazy bastard that one.

Jack had just sat back down at his desk to finish his music notations, when he heard her scream.

He yelled out the window at Deaver, who was trying to hold her struggling, kicking body against his, raced down the big stairs, heart beating in his throat, and shot out the patio door in time to see Deaver lose his footing at the edge of the pool. He tumbled backward, his head struck the tiled edge, and a plume of red billowed out in the water around the floating body.

Jack heard steps behind him and didn’t stay to check on the man. His allegiance was and always had been to the tiny one with the big eyes. He took off after Margaret who was tearing down the path toward the river ahead of him. She was fast. When he caught up with her, she was sitting on a fallen log right by the water, arms around her knees, rocking hard and wailing softly to herself.

She shrank away from him when he approached, terrified and clearly overwhelmed with demon battles. So he sat in the sand a few feet away, letting her know he was there when she needed him. Morning turned into afternoon turned into evening. He’d never seen her like this, never for so long.

But then, it had only been a few weeks since Mawmaw had died in her bed, where Margaret had found her. By the time Jack had come home from an engagement, the doctor had left, the family had been busy with funeral arrangements, and Margaret had been holed up in her blanket fort in the attic, rocking, bloody scratches running down her arms where she’d dug her nails in. But she’d let him inside then, let him sit next to her. Let him tell her of his plans, to take the money Mawmaw had given them, and take her away. He hadn’t told her why, but maybe she’d known? There’d been talk about locking her up since she’d been sent home from elementary school. Only the fact that Mawmaw had been holding the purse strings to what was left of the family fortune had kept Charles in check. As far as he was concerned his wife had been best off behind closed doors, and the same was true for his daughter.

Sitting there that night by the river, Jack wasn’t surprised that no one had come searching for them. Neither of them would be missed.

When she shivered, he held out his jacket for her, ready to give her space, but she let him drape the jacket over her shoulders.

At some point she simply got up and walked back toward the house.

He’d half expected flashing lights and police everywhere, but they must have already left, because the house had been quiet as a tomb.

The blare of a car horn outside the store brought him back to the present.

Margaret was tapping the end of the pen against the desk in a rapid tattoo. The tension between them hung like a physical barrier in the doorframe to the office. Lord, he hated this. She was so much a part of him that being out of sync with her felt like being sick.

Well, best give her some privacy and unload those two pallets in the back.

Toward the weekend, Margaret became more and more restless, and on Saturday, she peeked into the store every time the bell announced a customer.

After he’d locked up at noon, she fidgeted her way through counting the cash drawer, before they sat across from each other over another uneasy lunch.

When the doorbell rang, Margaret jumped up so hard that her chair fell over backward. “Mark?”

Jack shook his head, the words getting stuck in his throat. It would be a customer picking up their order. He went to deal with it.

He came back to find Margaret still standing in the exact same position he’d left her in, both hands on the table, slightly bent forward in anticipation, with the chair on the ground behind her. “Mark?” she said again, every mention of the name tightening the band around his chest another notch.

He walked around the table and picked up her chair. “No, love, it w—”

“Margaret.”

He bit his lip. “Margaret. It was Holly, who works at the flower place across the road. Remember Holly? You liked her.”

“No.”

Jack didn’t take that as a vote against Holly. It was a vote against him, against him not having brought Mark back with him. He didn’t know what else to tell her, though.

“Mark,” she repeated once more, and this time it wasn’t a question. It was a demand.

Jack swallowed hard. Now what?

“Mark won’t be coming by anymore.” Saying it like that put a lump the size of Mount Olympus in his throat.

“No.”

“It’s too dangerous, Mar—”

“No, no.”

“We were too close. You can’t be that close with someone without some questions coming up. It’s normal, I guess, wanting to know, wanting to tell. But we can’t afford—”

“No, no, no—”

“I don’t want to believe he was asking you questions over my head,” he said louder than he wanted to. He’d never before raised his voice with her, but how else was he to make himself heard over her continuous stream of nos?

Her voice rose as his did, her head shaking from side to side with each no.

“Well, frankly, the things you were telling him didn’t help,” Jack yelled.

At that she put her hands up to her ears, took a deep breath, and screamed at the top of her lungs.

Jack stood stunned. He’d only heard her scream like that once. Under attack. He wasn’t attacking her. He wasn’t!

“Please, Margaret.” But it came out as a whisper that stood no chance against her screaming. When she ran out of breath, she spun and stormed from the room, her steps thundering up the stairs.

He stood where she’d left him, her scream still ringing in his ears; his lungs felt as if he’d had the air punched out of him in a boxing match. His music was gone, Mark was gone, and now Margaret. He sank heavily onto the chair he’d just picked up, rested his head on his arms on the table, and stopped fighting the pressure behind his eyes.

A while later he got up to clear the food they’d barely touched off the table, then went through the mail, just to do something. Later he would check to see how Margaret was doing, but it was probably a good idea to give her some space for now.

The mail was mostly junk: some bills, a delivery confirmation, the paper. He gave it a quick once-over, only to flatten it out on the table for a more thorough scrutiny when he caught the word Atlanta in the lower-right corner. He was only subscribed to a local paper, so that Margaret wouldn’t read about Georgia or anything that would remind her of why they’d fled, or worse, bring back the incident itself.

He skimmed the small article on the front page. A Georgia representative Jack had never heard of had apparently managed to cause a scandal juicy enough to be picked up by papers as far away as Washington State. Nothing to do with the two of them. Still. He tore up the paper and stuffed it in the kitchen trash. Given Margaret’s distress today, he wasn’t taking any chances.

He started the kettle to make some hot cocoa the way Margaret liked it: easy on the milk, heavy on the chocolate, hold the marshmallows. He’d made the marshmallow mistake once, only to have her spit the confounded things back in the cup. Something about their consistency made her nauseous.

He kept his brain busy with small, ordinary things so he didn’t have to think about the big one he’d managed to mess up beyond repair.

When he took the mug of cocoa up to her room, she wasn’t there. Not good. It meant she’d retreated into her bulwark in the attic. He hesitated at the bottom of the attic stairs, for once not sure if he’d be welcome.

“Margaret?” he called up, before he climbed the stairs. He didn’t really expect an answer, but unless she had her earphones in it would give her a bit of warning that he was entering her space.

The light was on in the attic, but the alcove’s curtains were drawn tight. He set the mug down on a stool she used as a side table, then sat cross-legged on the floor with his back against one of the roof supports. A thin ray of light filtered through the grimy skylight, showing the dust motes he’d set dancing in the air. He needed to clean the place again.

“I brought you cocoa,” he said. “Since you didn’t eat anything for lunch, it might be a good idea to drink it.”

No answer.

“I’m sorry, Margaret. I know you like Mark. I do too.” Understatement of the century. He’d obsessed over the man since he first laid eyes on him.

“But do you know what he’s going to do when he finds out what happened? I don’t. He seems like a straight enough arrow. What if he expects us to go back and face the music? There’s bound to be a criminal lawsuit. Do you want to be in court trying to explain what happened?” He’d never put it to her quite that bluntly. Had never needed to. She’d always complied with his safety rules. Until Mark.

He wasn’t even sure she’d heard him. For all he knew, she could be sitting in there listening to music. Or one of her audiobooks.

“I don’t know how to do this, Margaret.”

A small rustle told him that she was indeed in there. The thought that she might not have been shot a hot flash of panic through him. That she might have run out of the house in her distress, might have gotten lost somewhere in town without any idea how to get home.

Don’t underestimate her.

He didn’t think he did. Not usually. In this case, though? Was Mark right? Was his protectiveness clouding his judgment? The truth was, he didn’t know how much she understood the workings of the world around them. So how was he supposed to know whether he was protecting or underestimating her? She couldn’t tell him.

Unless, of course, that was exactly what she was doing, had been doing over the past weeks. Months?

“I don’t know what you want me to do. I need your help.”

After a few minutes, one side of the curtain opened the tiniest bit. Margaret’s face appeared in the gap, frowning at the steaming mug of cocoa on the stool. She was probably frowning at him, though.

He heard the rapid tapping, even though he couldn’t see it. Sounded like hand against leg. Still agitated, then, still pissed at him.

Her frown became more intense until it screwed up her whole face something fierce.

“Margaret . . .” she said.

And suddenly he understood that her frowning wasn’t disapproval; it was a concentrated effort at communication.

“Do you want your tablet?” Sometimes typing was easier for her than talking, but usually she found gifs or images that she used to communicate the same way she used other people’s sound bites.

The tapping gained speed. “Margaret,” she said again, “is not an idiot.”

Oh God. “I know that, love. I never—”

“Margaret.”

So she was still mad at him.

“Secrets are idiotic,” she said.

“I know. Oh, Lord, I know. Don’t you think I want to tell Mark?”

“No secrets.”

Oh Jesus. He banged his head against the post behind him. It didn’t jar loose any solutions to his problem. So they sat there, until Margaret had finished her cocoa. Then she picked up her tablet and earphones and retreated back into her own world.