“I like orange,” I say. “Do you want strawberry?”

She nods.

“Okay—you bring this to the kitchen and heat it up, and I will mix the Jell-O.”

She picks up the chicken and walks carefully down the hall. When she is out of sight, I take the Jell-O and the bowls and I go to the bathroom.

I close the door and I grab the antifreeze from beneath the sink. I pour the small amount that is in the coffee cup into one of the bowls, thinking about Mick as he watched me pick out water.

I mix the antifreeze with the powder of lime Jell-O, thinking about Mick as he watched me at the register.

Then I make the orange and the strawberry and pour them into separate bowls, thinking about Mick as he wrote down my license plate number and researched my family.

Alice returns with the chicken and some plates and silverware. Then I send her back to the kitchen three times, carrying with two hands each of the bowls so they don’t spill. My life may be in one of them.

Then we eat. And we wait for Mick to come home.

So we can have our dessert.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Day sixteen

“Where are we going?” Reyes asked.

He’d done what she’d requested the second she’d jumped in his car—drive!

Nic was breathing hard and fast. She managed to get out one word.

“Laguna.”

“Okay,” Reyes said. “But I thought you wanted to go to town hall—to look up that property.”

Nic shook her head no. Then she said more words. “I need to get out of Hastings. I need time to think.”

Reyes jerked his head back quickly. “Okay. Here . . .” He placed his hand on her back. “Lean forward—head between your knees. You’re hyperventilating.”

Nic leaned down and rested her head in the palms of her hands. When her mind cleared, she pulled out her phone and studied the photo—making sure she was right.

Then she told Reyes.

“Kurt Kent and Edith Moore,” she began. “They know each other. They met in a car outside the hospital where she works.”

Reyes looked at her quickly, then back at the road. “Whoa!” he said. “Slow down. Start from the beginning.”

Nic told him about her father’s PI. How he’d gone to Schenectady to look into Edith. How he’d followed her from the moment after they’d met with her in Hastings.

Reyes pulled over then, parking on the dirt shoulder just before the entrance to the Gas n’ Go.

He motioned to see the photo.

Reyes looked at it closely. “Damn. That’s Kurt, all right.”

The phone rang. Nic took it back, picked up the call.

“Dad—I’m fine. I’m with the police.”