Maggie laughed, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. ‘You were never competing with me, Serena. I was never in the game. Even when Stride and I were together, there wasn’t a day that he wasn’t still in love with you.’

Serena didn’t hear bitterness in Maggie’s voice. Just honesty. Maggie grabbed the empty cups from the table and stood up.

‘Oh, and for what it’s worth,’ she went on, ‘you’re not competing with Cindy, either.’

‘I think I am.’

‘Only in your head. Not his. Did Stride love Cindy? Yeah, of course he did. Was it a nightmare to lose her? Yeah. But that doesn’t change how he feels about you. I saw it all winter when you weren’t here. Trust me, it was extremely annoying.’

Serena allowed herself a faint smile. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault. Anyway, it’s not Cindy coming between you two. It’s the fact that Cindy died. That’s his problem.’

Serena stared at Maggie, and for just a moment, it felt like they were friends again. Which they weren’t. But at least they’d moved beyond being enemies.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Stride thought he had everything, and then it was taken away from him,’ Maggie said. ‘He’s not sure he believes in the future anymore. He’s worried it’ll be stolen from him again.’

‘That’s always a risk.’

‘I know, and Stride doesn’t like risks.’

‘He asked Cat to live with us,’ Serena said. ‘That was a big risk. He was thinking about the future when he did that.’

Maggie cocked her head, as if Serena were the densest woman on the planet. Maybe she was. ‘You’re right. Doesn’t that tell you something?’

Serena let those words sink in. When they did, they made their way up the length of her body and gave her a little chill. Sort of like the breath of a ghost, invisibly touching the nerve endings of her skin. Maggie had said things she didn’t need to say, and Serena could only imagine how hard it was for her. In her shoes, she wasn’t sure she would have been equally gracious.

‘You know, you really ought to call Troy,’ Serena told her. ‘Go to the state fair with him and the girls.’

‘You think so?’

‘I do.’

Maggie shrugged. ‘What the hell, maybe I will. But only for the cheese curds. Damn, those things are good.’

*

They found Curt Dickes after dark near the lift bridge separating Canal Park from the Point.

It was a windy night. Waves in the narrow ship canal struck the concrete walls and sent clouds of cold spray into puddles on the sidewalk. Overhead, a bone-white light illuminated the crisscross metal span of the bridge superstructure. Threads of fog moved in and out of the steel X’s, making them invisible.