Serena cleared her throat loudly. Stride burst from his trance.

“I’m sorry. Tish, this is my partner, Serena Dial, and this is my colleague on the police force, Maggie Bei.”

Maggie waved with half her sandwich without getting up. Serena stood, dwarfing the other woman, and Stride felt the air blow cold like dry ice between Serena and Tish. They didn’t know each other, but with a single glance, they didn’t like each other.

“Do you live in the area?” Stride asked.

Tish studied Lake Superior with wistful eyes. “Oh, no, I haven’t been back to Duluth in years. I don’t really have much of a home base. I’m a travel writer, so I’m on the go most of the time. When I stay put, I live in Atlanta.”

“What brings you back here?” he asked.

“Actually, I was looking for you,” Tish told him.

“For me?” Stride asked, surprised.

“Yes.”

Stride exchanged glances with Serena and Maggie. “Maybe you should sit down and tell me why.”

Tish took the empty chair at the table for four, facing the lake. She slid a leather purse off her shoulder and put it on the table in front of her. She pulled out an open pack of cigarettes. “Can you smoke outside at restaurants here?”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Serena told her.

“I’m sorry,” Tish said. “I know I should quit, but smoking’s one way I handle my nerves. The other is drinking. Not very smart, I guess, but what can you do?”

“I’m a reformed smoker myself,” Stride said.

“Well, I don’t mean to be such a mystery,” Tish told them. She smiled at Maggie and Serena, but the two women wore stony masks. Tish ignored them and focused on Stride. “First of all, I want to tell you how sorry I am about Cindy’s death. I know the two of you were a real love match.”

“It was several years ago, but thank you,” Stride said.

“I would have come to the funeral myself, but I was in Prague on a story at the time.”

Stride felt suspicion poking like a spring seedling out of the ground. “That’s kind of you to say, Ms. Verdure, but you knew Cindy back in high school. I don’t think anyone would have expected you to go to her funeral twenty-five years later.”

“Oh, Cindy and I stayed in touch,” Tish said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Not very often, but we wrote to each other now and then.”

“Really.” He didn’t say it like a question. He said it for what it was—disbelief. He added, “Do you mind showing me some identification?”

“Not at all.” Tish dug in her purse for her wallet and extracted her driver’s license, which she handed across the table. The silence from the other three people didn’t appear to bother her. “I understand how odd this is, me showing up after all these years,” she continued. “Cindy and I wrote to each other at the hospital where she worked. It was only the occasional postcard or Christmas card, that kind of thing. For me, it was nice having a little connection to my life back here. I left Duluth after graduation and never came back, but that doesn’t mean I forgot about it. And of course, whenever I wrote to Cindy, it made me feel a little closer to Laura. Do you know what I mean?”