Cam pursed his lips, exchanged a look with Ethan, and nearly smiled. “Been feeling a little odd lately, Phillip?”

“I’m fine.”

“Maybe you’re stressed out some.” Since he’d only gotten in one punch, Cam felt entitled to enjoy himself. “I thought I saw you talking to yourself a couple of times.”

“I don’t talk to myself.”

“Maybe you think you’re talking to somebody who isn’t there.” He did smile now, widely and wickedly. “Stress is a killer. Eats at the mind.”

Ethan didn’t quite swallow a chuckle, and Phillip glared at him. “You got something to say about the state of my mental health?”

“Well . . .” Ethan scratched at his chin, “you’ve been looking a little tense lately.”

“For Christ’s sake, I’m entitled to look a little tense.” He threw out his arms as if to encompass the world that too often weighed on his shoulders. “I put in ten, twelve hours a day in Baltimore, then come down here and sweat like a goddamn galley slave in the boatyard. That’s when I’m not frying my brains over the books and the bills or playing housewife at the grocery store or making sure Seth doesn’t slide out of his homework.”

“Always was bitchy,” Cam mumbled.

“You want bitchy?” Phillip took one threatening step forward, but this time Cam grinned and spread his hands.

“Ethan’ll just toss you off the dock. Me, I don’t feel like a swim just now.”

“First few times with me, I thought I was dreaming.”

Confused, unsure if he wanted to punch Cam or just sit down for a while, Phillip looked back at Ethan. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I thought we were discussing your mental health.” Ethan’s tone was mild, conversational now. “It was good to see him. Hard to know you’d have to let him go again, but it was worth it.”

A chill danced up Phillip’s spine, and he put his suddenly unsteady hands safely in his pockets. “Maybe we should be talking about your mental health.”

“We figured when it was your turn, you’d head for the therapist’s couch.” Cam grinned again. “Or Aruba.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do.” Ethan spoke calmly, then settled down on the dock, legs dangling, to take out a cigar. “It’s your turn. Looks like he took us in the same order he took us in.”

“Symmetry,” Cam decided, dropping down beside Ethan. “He’d have liked the symmetry of it. I talked to him the first time the day I met Anna.” He thought back to it, the way he’d seen her cross the back lawn with that knockout face and that ugly suit. “I guess that’s a kind of symmetry, too.”

The chill was still dancing, tapping fast now, up and down Phillip’s spine. “What do you mean, ‘talked to him’?”

“Had a conversation.” Cam plucked the cigar out of Ethan’s mouth and helped himself to a puff. “Of course, I figured I’d cracked.” He glanced up, smiled. “You figure you’ve cracked, Phil?”