He lounges defiantly—legs fully extended, ankles crossed, arms folded—and stares straight ahead. “She offered to leave town.”

“Offered?” That’s a surprise.

“With Tom dead, she has no one to haunt.”

“Did she say that?”

“No,” he concedes without meeting my eyes.

He saw my arm in Paul’s, I realize, and, sensing a meeting of minds of some sort, doesn’t know where he stands in the mix. Does he think it’s two against one now? Like it’s a competition?

“She didn’t say she was haunting him,” he grudgingly admits. “But she did say she’d been hoping for answers. I told her I wanted them, too, but that it doesn’t look like we’ll get them.”

“What about the book or whatever she was hoping to write?” Paul asks.

“She claims she isn’t. Claims there isn’t enough to say, so there’s no point. Claims she’s lousy at investigative journalism anyway, since she doesn’t have the guts to prod.”

“And you believe her,” Paul says mildly enough, not even a question, still Jack turns to glare.

“Yeah, I do. She didn’t call you, did she? She didn’t call the cops. She knows everyone in town from working at Anne’s, but she hasn’t called anyone.”

“How do you know?” Paul asks, still mildly but asking for trouble. I want to tell him to just shut up. But the damage is done.

“Because,” Jack barks, “I’m not a rookie. I’ve been asking people questions for twenty years, so I know how to ask them about her without tipping my hand. She hasn’t approached them. And she hasn’t approached you. She knew you were Mom’s lawyer but couldn’t get herself to call.”

“Did you tell her what Paul just told us?” I ask.

“Hell, no,” he replies, only marginally softer. “It’s not her business. The money’s gone, my mother’s dead, we’ll never know for sure what happened on that boat. End of story. So why not let her stay in town? She needs the money. And she likes it here.”

“She said that?” I ask.

“Yeah, and I believe that one, too. I’ve seen her on the beach. And working at Anne’s. She’s having fun. She isn’t a bad kid.”

“What about the PI?”

“They broke up.”

“That didn’t last long.”

“No, but I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I feel sorry for her. She seems lost. She could be a server anywhere, but she has a connection to this place. And then there’s Anne, who doesn’t need the complication of finding a replacement. So, anyway, I told her not to leave. I said it’d be a helluva lot easier keeping tabs on her if she’s here in town.”

“You didn’t say that,” I chide.