Decker didn’t answer right away, rolled his tongue inside his cheeks. Then he said, “And how long did you talk to him?”

Rina stared at him quizzically. His eyes had gone hard. At first, Rina thought she detected jealousy, but a second later she decided it wasn’t that at all. “Gee, I don’t know…five, ten minutes. Is something wrong?”

“Well,” Decker laughed, “I don’t know. I just think it’s kind of strange that you’d carry on a conversation with a man you’ve never seen before, given your previous experiences with men.”

Rina was shocked into silence. Decker went on.

“I mean, really, honey, this guy could have been anyone.”

“He mentioned your name before I did….”

“So he knew my name. I’m a cop. Thousands of jackasses out there know my name, and any one of them could have had a personal reason for being here, and I don’t know how in hell you talked to this guy—”

“Peter, I—”

“What you should have done the minute you saw some unknown jerk in the barn was rush into the house, lock the door, and call me. What the hell were you thinking when you talked to this dude? Rina, I have put a lot of bad men behind bars. Now, it’s unlikely that one of them could have turned up for the big get-even, but it’s a possibility. So unless you know who’s who, you don’t go around being Miss Congeniality.”

“Peter—”

“I mean, let’s face facts, honey. Your former friend-turned-rapist, your asshole brother-in-law, you seemed to have a knack for attracting weirdos.”

Rina took her napkin off her lap and threw it down on her plate. “Doesn’t say much for you, does it?”

She stormed into the house.

Decker sat there for a minute, calming down. It took him around a minute to realize that he had completely blown it. He heard Marge’s voice: So how do you manage…

He rubbed his face, took another bite of trout, then stood up and headed for the house. He found her in his bedroom, sitting on his red-quilted bedcover, arms folded across her chest. She’d made the bed, polished his bedroom furniture—as if it were worth polishing. Just some knotty pine he’d slapped together for a dresser and a couple of nightstands. But she had told him how impressed she was, how talented he was. The afternoon sun was pouring through the window, casting a white spotlight upon the dresser. She’d polished the wood with care, rubbed it until it gleamed. He sat down beside her, his stomach in a knot.

“Sorry,” he said.