As her mother whisper-yelled at her, Charlie, head hung low, walked toward the door where Richard was standing, arms folded across his chest. Heart going like crazy, she took a frightened peek at his face as she passed him. He gave her a wink, a little smile—quick, so her mother wouldn’t catch it—before making his expression stern again. The relief she felt was so great she stopped hearing her mom’s sotto voce threats, was so great she didn’t even notice that she was getting into the backseat of a cab, not Richard’s SUV. It was going to be okay, she told herself. He wasn’t going to freak out. And her heart, still pounding in her ears, beat out the same message over and over: he isn’t mad, he isn’t mad, he isn’t mad.

• • •

Charlie headed up to her room before nine P.M., something she hadn’t done since she was a little girl. She did it partly to appease her mom. (Charlie was a dyed-in-the-wool night owl. An early bedtime seemed like a self-inflicted punishment.) She did it mostly, though, because she was genuinely exhausted. She’d slept barely at all the night before, and today had been such an emotional roller coaster.

Charlie had escaped serious reprimand. At first her mom had been so angry, her eyes flat, her mouth spitting out words. She’d wanted to lock Charlie in her room for the rest of the summer, throw away the key, let her out for meals and to use the toilet, that’s it. Richard, though, had quietly but effectively argued on her behalf: “Come on, sweetheart,” he’d said to Maggie softly, in a voice made to soothe flared tempers, jangled nerves. “Technically nothing happened. Sure, Charlie got picked up by the marine police, but no charge was actually brought against her, just against Jude, and a minor one at that. A piffling fine.”

Maggie snorted at this.

Richard slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Yes, of course, Charlie will have to be more careful in the future, but she’s new to the ways of boating, so allowances should be made. I’ll even take her out on my boat sometime, show her the ropes. Would you like that, Charlie?”

Charlie nodded so long and so hard she felt like one of those bobblehead dolls.

“I’ll teach her the right way to pull off a crime spree,” he said. “How to commit illegal acts and not get caught.”