Her head snapped up, eyebrow a hard arch over a sparking glare. “Overkill? You thought it was overkill, but you canceled the monitoring? The one thing that could have actually helped in an emergency? That doesn’t even make any sense. It doesn’t even seem like you. It’s not like you to let something go at that. It’s so . . .”

Donna stopped, her mouth working around the rest of her sentence. It set off a warning tingle in his jaw. She took a big bolstering gulp of her wine.

“It’s just so half-assed.”

John had to clamp down hard not to react. Bitch. The muscles in his legs jumped. His chest craved a huge breath to yell back out. He ached from holding still against every instinct. But too much ground had been lost to even suck air in a way that looked out of place.

He had to move, though. The energy had to go somewhere. He reached out, put his hand over hers, tensing to keep the gesture gentle and steady. He curled his fingertips into her palm. “The important thing is that Carly is okay.”

Donna’s head dropped in exhausted resignation and she slid her hand out from under his as if it were slimy. “Do you really think I need you to tell me how great it is that nothing worse happened to Carly?”

Donna dragged herself out of the chair shaking her head. She refilled her glass from the bottle on the coffee table, clearly on her way out of the room.

But not without a parting shot. She turned at the doorway, watching him over the rim of her glass, and he dared not look away.

“Why are you so bad at this?” But she didn’t wait for an answer. “Carly!” she called. “Get a bag together. We’re going to Ada’s.”

There had been punishment in Donna’s threat to go, but even beyond the upset of the fight, they were all restless in the house. It didn’t feel right, standing around in the alien echo of trespass.

A parade of strangers had sized up their foyer—the bargain-wood bench stained to make you think walnut, its basket cubbies and jacket hooks above, the granite-and-iron hall table that weighed like a piano, the oil painting right above it that weighed a hundred times more than that in worry. They had peered at the things that were the backdrop to any normal night at home. The creep who had attacked Carly, the police, and the uncounted number of clickers who had already watched the video, all of their scrutiny had left everything feeling pawed.

With all three at the end of their energy, it was like trying to settle into a museum display. It was what normal looked like, but not what it felt like.