“According to my new friend Skyler, absolutely. Influential, was what he said.” More than once, if I recalled correctly.

“Mrr!”

Rafe looked down at Eddie, who was sitting on the floor, glaring up at us humans. “Great balls of fire, cat. My ears are less than five feet away from your mouth. Do you really need to use that much volume?”

“Mrr!”

“Could have told you that’s what he’d say,” I murmured into the edge of my sandwich. “What are you doing this afternoon?”

“Helping a buddy of mine move, remember? I told you the other night at Hoppe’s.”

I vaguely recalled him saying that he might be gone on Saturday afternoon, but I couldn’t remember details. “Anyone I know?”

Given that Rafe was a lifelong resident of Chilson, except for his college years, and also given that he was a gregarious sort who found it nearly impossible to make enemies, his list of friends was far deeper and wider than mine. That he would be helping one of those friends on a weekend do something or other was part of who he was, and I’d long ago come to accept it. And what went around came around—all those friends had helped him finish the house not long ago, and moved all my possessions in one surprising evening.

“Nope. Guy from Petoskey I knew from high school hockey. He’s moving to Chilson and I said I’d give him a hand at this end.”

Rafe’s ability to resurrect a twenty-year-old friendship at the drop of a hat was one of the things I loved about him.

“Something funny?” he asked, picking up our empty plates and taking them to the dishwasher.

I put my elbows on the counter, my chin in the heels of my hands, and enjoyed the sight of my beloved doing the dishes. Could there be a luckier woman in the history of the world? “Just happy. You know I love you, right?”

“That’s what you said the other night when I did all the cooking and cleanup for dinner. Did you agree to marry me just so you could stay out of the kitchen?”

“No,” I said. “Your cooking isn’t that good.”

“Fact.” He added some silverware to the dishwasher. “What are you and the Edmeister up to this afternoon?”

I looked around for Eddie, but he was either absent or invisible. “My guess is Eddie’s on the bed, hoping for naptime. But I’m meeting Keegan Kolb for coffee to talk about Ryan. And I’m going to do some background on Pug.”

Rafe pushed some mysterious buttons on the dishwasher’s control panel and popped the door shut. Whooshing water and mechanical noises started immediately, giving the reassuring impression that all was right with the world.

“Tonight,” Rafe said, drying his hands on a kitchen towel, “you can tell me everything you learn. We’ll figure out what to do next.”