Eve stood in the glow of the back porchlight, on the other side of the screen door’s mesh. Her stance in that feeble light—arms crossed, head stooped—made her look impossibly small, like something seen through inverted binoculars. She wore a linen blouse and a wrinkled pair of slacks. No makeup. Her hair was mussed.

Keegan didn’t turn on the kitchen’s overhead light. He didn’t want to draw any more attention to her presence than she’d already drawn herself. “What are you doing?” he said. His voice came out more sternly than he’d intended, and he saw the reaction in her face. “We shouldn’t be seen together.”

Eve seemed to shrink yet smaller, wretched and frightened against the mansion’s garden lights below. “Please,” she said, “can I come in?” Her voice was breathy and uncertain. “I just need to see you.”

“Jesus,” Keegan said. “You know they’re probably watching us.” He unlatched the screen door. “Get in here. Did your aunt see you leave?”

Eve came in the kitchen, head ducked low. Her face looked pale and gaunt, but her eyes were fiery raw—and swollen. “No,” she said. She seemed unwilling to look at him. “She’s asleep. At least, I think she is. And I was quiet.” She leaned with her back against the kitchen counter.

“Stay away from the window,” Keegan said, again more gruffly than he’d meant to.

She jerked away from the tile counter as if she’d brushed a hot stove, and then looked at Keegan imploringly—as if she just wanted him to tell her what to do. It was hard not to feel a pang of pity.

“Come in the living room,” he said. “But let me turn off some lights first.”

Keegan glanced out the kitchen window, though he couldn’t see Ormsby’s back drive from there. Then he went ahead of her into the other room. He switched off the table lamp he’d been reading by and then the floor lamp by the bedroom doorway. He tried to imagine how the cottage must look from outside through a pair of binoculars. He drew the scalloped drapes but left the lamp burning. No one would be able to see in that way, and neither he nor Eve would cast shadows on the curtains. He closed the front door.

Eve came in the room when he gestured to her. She sat in the big armchair again. She leaned so far forward—elbows on knees, face in her hands—she looked like she might topple onto the rug. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “Of course, they’re probably watching. I’m so stupid sometimes.”