“No, maybe I shouldn’t,” he said.

“You can trust me,” she said.

“Okay,” he said, taking a sip of his drink, then rubbing at the edge of his lip with a finger. “Alice, my stepmother, is interested in me, romantically, sexually, whatever you want to call it.”

“Oh,” Caitlin said. It was not what she had expected to hear.

“I think it’s the way she’s processing grief, or something like that.”

“Oh,” Caitlin said again. “It’s strange. Is it new? I mean, did she act this way before your father died?”

“No, but I also didn’t know her all that well.”

“Is she coming on to you?”

Harry rubbed at his jawline. There was a little more stubble there than the day before. “Yeah, it’s pretty obvious, and now, with what happened with Grace, she’s convinced she’s in danger, and that I’m in danger, and she wants me to be in the house all the time, or else down at the bookstore. She made me promise that I wouldn’t leave her.”

“What do you mean, wouldn’t leave her?”

“That I won’t leave right away. She doesn’t want to be alone.”

“You can’t be with her forever. Even if she was your actual mother. You need to have your own life.”

“I know that. I get it. But that doesn’t mean that I should just up and leave before the police figure out what happened to my father and your sister. I owe something to her.”

“No, I understand,” Caitlin said. “I wasn’t talking about now, I was talking about long-term.”

“I won’t be here forever, although I have no idea where I’ll go. It’s not like I have somewhere to return to. College is over, and my friends are all going to different cities. At least here I have some purpose. I can take care of the things my father left behind. Alice and books.”

“Do you like books?”

“I do, but not like my father did. But no one liked books as much as he did.”

“You don’t need to take over his business.”

“I know.”

“And I don’t know why I’m about to tell you this, but I think that Alice is manipulating you. I don’t know why. It might just be because she’s scared of being alone, and that makes sense, but it might be for other reasons. You said you didn’t really know her that well.”

“She was my father’s wife, but no, I don’t.”

“Was she married before? Does she have her own kids?”

“No. She was my father’s real estate agent when he decided to move to Maine. She doesn’t have family, or if she does, she doesn’t see them.”

“Your father chose her. You didn’t. I don’t know if you owe her anything beyond what you’ve done already.”