“No, I didn’t ‘set it up.’ It was Kyle’s idea to come up and see you. He hasn’t seen you since you were in the hospital. All I did was tell him what time you’d be here—the time you said you’d be here. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Seems like quite a coincidence that yesterday you were suggesting that Kyle and Kim would make an interesting couple and now here they are, out for a walk together.”

“Coincidences do occur, David. That’s why the word exists.” She turned her attention back to the wok.

Gurney felt more disturbed than he wanted to admit. He decided it was a symptom of his deep dislike of having his plans changed, the challenge to his illusion of control. That and the fact that his relationship with Kyle, his twenty-six-year-old son from his first marriage, had long been fraught with conflicting emotions and rationalizations. And the ibuprofens he’d taken for the pinched nerve in his arm were wearing off, and the overall achiness from his fall in the basement was getting worse. And, and, and …

He tried to keep the hostility and self-pity out of his voice. “Do you know where they went on their walk?”

Madeleine took the wok from the burner and added its contents to the rice and onions in the baking dish. She didn’t answer until she’d scraped the wok clean, returned it to the stove, and added more oil. “I suggested the ridge path around to the trail that leads down to the pond.”

“When did they leave?”

“When they discovered you’d be an hour late.”

“I wish you’d told me about this.”

“Would it have made a difference?”

“Of course it would have made a difference.”

“That’s interesting.”

The oil in the wok was beginning to smoke. Madeleine went to the spice cabinet, came back with powdered ginger, cardamom, coriander, and a bag of cashews. She turned the stove exhaust fan to high, put a handful of the nuts into the wok, a teaspoon of each of the spices, and began stirring it all together.

She nodded toward the window next to the stove. “They’re coming up the hill.”

He stepped over to it and looked out. Ambling up the grassy path through the pasture were Kim in Madeleine’s wildly hued Windbreaker and Kyle in faded jeans and a black leather jacket. They appeared to be laughing.

As Gurney was watching them, Madeleine was watching him. “Before they get to the door,” she said, “you might want to put a more welcoming expression on your face.”

“I was just thinking about the motorcycle.”

She tipped the nuts-and-spices mixture from the wok onto the other ingredients in the baking dish. “What about it?”

“A fifty-year-old classic restored to mint condition isn’t cheap.”