“Oh, please don’t get into if only thinking. There’s no end to that. You’d have to go back to if Ricky was using her diaphragm that night, she wouldn’t have had you and you wouldn’t have been there to help me. Things might’ve gone worse if you’d been on time. They might’ve been facing a different direction. The way it went down, you had the jump on them. The element of surprise.”

“I was just so furious I didn’t think to be afraid. I was Liam Neeson in those movies where he’s always rescuing his daughter from international sex-trafficking operations.”

“There was more than one of those? How could his daughter keep winding up in that same situation? She’d have to be pretty unlucky.”

“I think his wife gets taken in the next one. I think it’s a business that’s hard to get out of. Oh, I have to tell you. Ricky’s embarrassed by the whole thing. She would’ve preferred a gun, maybe a dagger. Something dramatic and avenging, but also neat and clean. Maybe a fencing sword. She referred to my weapon as a Crock-Pot, to make the whole business sound a little goofy. Maybe rural.”

“You can always count on Ricky. She always comes through.”

Cate sees belatedly that she’s going to have to open Neale’s can of pop for her. “Sit down. In this chair. Not back down on the floor. Do you have any straws? I think you’re going to need one to drink this.” She rummages through a few drawers and comes up with one still in its McDonald’s wrapper.

“I have to keep the studio open. I can get somebody to sub for my three classes, but to make up for that extra salary, I’ll have to be over there most of the time, manning the desk, and that’s going to be it for a few weeks, maybe longer. They say the wrist is going to take its time. I hate that he did this to me. Put me out of business.”

A queasiness floats up. Cate identifies it. “I don’t like that knowing him is something we share.”

“But we don’t really share any of what happened. First it was my experience, then I was out cold while it was being your experience. I knew him when he was alive. You knew him while he was dying.”