Reese stepped up and touched the box. “Well, not exactly cooked. You wouldn’t want that. But we did pitch in for it—all vegetarian, of course. Hope ya don’t mind.”

“No. No. You are so . . . sweet. Come on in. I have to warn you that it is a huge mess. Just step over the piles. I can’t believe you drove all this way to bring me dinner.”

“Mrs. Reynolds, are you sure you’re supposed to be up like this?” asked Norah.

“Oh, yes.”

They all looked at one another.

“Really,” she said.

They followed her to the kitchen. “Sit, sit,” she said and gestured toward the bar stools. “Hey, where’s Brenton?”

“He couldn’t bear to come with us.”

“Why—can’t stand to burn all that fossil fuel?”

“No—he didn’t want to see your face when we told you about the island.”

Instead of them sitting on a bar stool, she did—already defeated before the end of the conversation. Of course there would be bad news. Did she believe anything good could come of her actions?

“Go ahead, tell me.”

“Well, it seems that we don’t have enough evidence to get a Heritage Trust and they were a bit miffed by the fact that Nick broke into the house and illegally collected evidence.”

“He didn’t break into the house. He had a key. And”—she sighed—“it was both of us, not just Nick.”

“Well, he told them you had no idea he was doing anything illegal—that it was all him.”

“He protected me. Everybody’s protecting me.” She wanted to lie down on the kitchen floor and curl in on herself; she deserved nothing of the sort.

“Even if he had the key, I guess he got it—illegally. Not that we blame him—he was only trying to help,” Revvy said.

“Have you talked to him?” she asked in a hoarse whisper, wanting and not wanting to know.

Norah took her hand. “No—he showed up for his hearing, so we didn’t lose our bail money, and then he disappeared again. All the judge gave him was some community service, which he already does—land preservation on the barrier islands. He didn’t want to talk to us—he waved, then left. Even his wife doesn’t know where he is.”

“I’m so, so sorry about all this. I really am,” she said.

“Oh, Mrs. Reynolds, there’s no reason to be sorry—you did all you could, and having Nick help us could have saved it,” Revvy said.

“But it didn’t.”

“Well, I’m partly to blame. I lent him the boat and I knew what he was doing,” Reese said.

“Did you get in any trouble?” She looked up at him.

“Nah, he protected me, too. Said he borrowed the boat from a friend without permission.”