Then the bedroom door opened. Of course it did. “Daddy, you home?” Ali poked his head around the corner and jumped up onto the bed before we could tell him to go away.

“Little man, how many times have I told you to knock first?” I asked him.

“About a million,” he said, and he laughed and wormed in between us anyway.

Not to be outdone, Jannie was there soon enough, and the two of them started chattering at us like maybe it wasn’t six thirty in the morning. Even so, it was kind of nice to be all together again.

By seven, I was frying up a batch of bacon, egg, and tomato sandwiches while Bree made coffee and poured the orange juice. Jannie and Ali were scanning the morning paper for my name, and I even had a little Gershwin playing in the living room. Not the bedroom with Bree, but not too shabby either.

Just as I was flipping my breakfast creations out of the pan, a phone chirped from upstairs, loud enough to be heard over the music.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me, standing there with my greasy spatula in hand.

“What?” I said, all wide-eyed and innocent. “I don’t hear anything.”

That got me a chorus of cheers all around the table, and even a little pat on the butt from Bree.

Whoever it was, they had the good sense not to call again.

Chapter 104

A FEW HOURS later, Bree and I were back from walking the kids to school and running a few necessary errands to the drug- and food stores. “Upstairs,” I told her before the front door had even closed behind us. “We’ve got some unfinished business, you and I.”

She took the grocery bag out of my hands with a kiss. “I’ll be right there. Don’t start without me.”

I was halfway up the stairs when she called me back from the kitchen.

“Alex!” Her voice was tense. What was it now? “Company.”

When I came down, she was standing at the pass-through to the sunporch, looking out.

“Guess who’s here?” she said.

I stepped up next to her and saw Ned Mahoney sitting in our backyard, drumming his fingers on the picnic table.

“God damn it,” I said.

He stayed where he was as I came out onto the porch and then down into the yard to see what was happening.

“Was that you who called earlier?” I asked. Ned nodded, and before he even said a word, I realized the case wasn’t over. “You want to come in?”

“Let’s talk out here,” he said.

I grabbed a jacket and two cups of coffee from inside, and then came back out to the picnic table.

Ned gulped the coffee as I sat down. He looked exhausted. All his usual effusiveness seemed to be gone—or at least depleted.

“You okay?” I asked him.

“Just a little tired,” he said. “I haven’t let go of this thing, Alex. I’ve used up all my personal days, all my vacation. Kathy’s ready to kill me.”