“I know, but maybe if I had been more patient with her, Laura would have stayed with me all along. She would never have fallen into Rikke’s trap. I wish she had told me what happened between them.”

“She was scared,” Serena said. “Laura found out that Rikke was a murderer, and she ran away.”

“And when I came back for her, she died,” Tish said.

“Don’t blame yourself for surviving,” Stride said.

Tish’s eyes pierced him. “That’s good advice.”

An electronic alert chirruped under the table. Stride automatically reached for his belt, but he wasn’t wearing a pager. Maggie pulled out her own pager and studied it. “That’s me, boss,” she said. “We’ve got an armed robbery at a gas station on the south end of Michigan Street.”

“You want me to come with you?” Stride asked. “Unofficially, that is.”

Maggie sighed and looked at Serena. “Do something about him, will you?”

“I’ll try.”

Maggie pushed her chair back and got up. She waved at the three of them and headed for the restaurant door.

“I should be going, too,” Tish said.

Tish stood up from the table, but she didn’t leave. Her mouth became frozen and sad. Her eyes grew glassy, and she blinked back tears. She sat down again, but when she tried to speak, the words caught in her throat.

“There’s something more,” she admitted finally.

Stride felt a sense of uneasiness. He knew without Tish saying anything that whatever she had to share with him involved Cindy. All along, there had been a missing piece. A secret. He wasn’t sure anymore that he wanted to know what it was.

“I have something for you,” Tish told him. “I feel bad that it took me so long to give it to you, but I hope you’ll understand when I explain.”

She slipped an envelope out of her purse and pushed it across the table to Stride. He saw the words written on the outside in black ink. For Jonny. He had no trouble recognizing the tight, precise handwriting he had known for years.

“Cindy gave this to me the last time we were together,” Tish said. “She told me if I ever came back here and decided to be up-front about my past, I should give this to you. I never opened it. I never read it.”

Stride didn’t pick up the envelope.

“Your past?” he asked.

“Yes. Before Cindy’s father died, he told her something about me. Something important. That’s why Cindy reached out to me. I didn’t think I ever wanted anyone else to know, but I guess the two of you deserve to know the truth.”

Stride waited.

“Cindy’s father knew about me and Laura,” Tish continued. “He overheard Laura on the phone, and he knew we were planning to run away together. He went berserk.”

“I knew William Starr,” Stride said. “The idea of his daughter being gay would have been horrifying to him.”

“It was worse than that,” Tish said. “It wasn’t just Laura being gay. It was me. It was the two of us being in love.”