‘Sure,’ he admitted.

‘Want to tell me about it?’

She waited to see if he would keep talking. Or if he would shut down the way he usually did.

‘You know the timing,’ he said. ‘It was a bad year.’

‘I know.’

He hesitated, and then he plunged ahead.

‘There was a shadow about Cindy in those days. She was so up and down. I thought she was angry because she thought Janine was innocent and I was trying to put her in prison. But it wasn’t just that. She was holding out on me. I was focused on the case, and all the while . . .’

Serena said nothing, but she knew. All the while, Cindy was dying.

She looked in his eyes for tears but didn’t see any.

‘I told you about Ross Klayman, didn’t I?’ he went on, staring at the ceiling of their bedroom. ‘The shooting at Miller Hill Mall?’

‘Yes,’ she murmured, wondering where he was going with this story. ‘Awful thing.’

‘Cindy was there. The wrong place at the right time. She saved a girl’s life and probably others, tackling Klayman the way she did. And you know what? I was angry with her. I was glad that girl was alive, but I was furious. I felt like she had put our lives in jeopardy by risking her own. It was stupid of me. Selfish.’

‘Hardly,’ Serena said softly, holding back tears herself.

‘I’ve thought about that day a lot ever since.’

‘Of course.’

‘I think Cindy knew what was happening to her. That’s why she did it. That’s why she took the risk in the mall. Steve Garske told me later there would have been symptoms. Warning signs. And she did nothing. She let months go by, until it was too late.’

‘Don’t lay that burden on her, Jonny,’ Serena said. ‘It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t yours. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.’

He didn’t reply.

She realized that she’d missed something important all these years. This wasn’t just about grief and loss for him. It was about anger, too. He was mad at Cindy for dying. For leaving him alone.

It was strange. For the first time, she saw Cindy not through Jonny’s eyes, but through her own. She’d put Cindy on a pedestal for years, but that wasn’t fair to either of them. Cindy was a woman, like her. Strong and afraid. Full of goodness and mistakes. If Cindy were alive now, Serena wouldn’t be in this bed, but Cindy was gone.

Life followed its own twisting path.

‘Nine years is a long time for a gun to stay out of circulation,’ she said.

‘Janine knows where it’s been,’ Jonny insisted.

‘Does she? Or do you not want to accept the possibility that you were wrong about her?’

‘I’m not wrong.’

Serena spoke softly. ‘If this is really about you and Cindy—’