In Kate’s dream, it is 1974, and she is a teenager again, riding her bike at midnight with her best friend beside her in a darkness so complete it is like being invisible. She remembers the place in vivid detail: a meandering ribbon of asphalt bordered on either side by deep gullies of murky water and hillsides of shaggy grass. Before they met, that road seemed to go nowhere at all; it was just a country lane named after an insect no one had ever seen in this rugged blue and green corner of the world. Then they saw it through each other’s eyes . . .

Let go, Katie. God hates a coward.

She woke with a start, feeling tears on her cheeks. She lay there in her bed, wide awake now, listening to a winter storm rage outside. In the last week she’d lost the ability to distance herself from her memories. Too often lately she returned to Firefly Lane in her dreams, and no wonder.

Best friends forever.

That was the promise they’d made all those years ago, and they’d believed it would last, believed that someday they’d be old women together, sitting in their rocking chairs on a creaking deck, talking about the times of their lives, and laughing.

Now she knew better, of course. For more than a year she’d been telling herself that it was okay, that she could go on without her best friend. Sometimes she even believed it.

Then she’d hear the music. Their music. Yesterday, while she’d been shopping, a bad Muzak version of “You’ve Got a Friend” had made her cry, right there next to the radishes.

She eased the covers back and got out of bed, careful not to waken the man sleeping beside her. For a moment she stood there, staring down at him in the shadowy darkness. Even in sleep, he wore a troubled expression.

She took the phone off its hook and left the bedroom, then walked down the quiet hallway to the deck. There, she stared out at the storm and gathered her courage. As she punched in the familiar numbers, she wondered what she would say after all these silent months, how she would start. I’ve had a bad week . . . my life is falling apart . . . or simply: I need you.

Across the black and turbulent Sound, the phone rang.

And rang.

When the answering machine clicked on, she tried to marshal her need into something as small and ordinary as words. “Hey, Tul. It’s me, Kate. I can’t believe you haven’t called to apologize to me—”

Thunder echoed across the sky; lightning flashed in staccato bursts. She heard a click. “Tully? Are you listening to this? Tully?”

There was no answer.

Kate sighed and went on. “I need you, Tully. Call me on my cell.”

Suddenly the power went out, taking the phone connection with it. A busy signal bleated in her ear.