She turned around. “Don’t you get it, John? I don’t know what I want.”

“So, where are you going?”

“I really don’t know.” She finished packing. “If I tell you I’m going one place right now, in an hour I’d probably be somewhere else.” She threw the duffle over her shoulder. “The one place I can’t be right now is here .”

She gave him a small but sad kiss on his cheek, then made sure she got out the hotel door before she broke down sobbing.

As she stood by the door, Rachel wondered if she’d made a mistake coming there. She knocked anyway.

“Your father thought you might end up on my doorstep.”

Everett’s warm and sympathetic smile eased at least one burden for Rachel as she let herself fold into his arms.

“He called you?”

“On his way home from the cemetery. He was worried about the way you went running out of there.”

“Me? What about him? Did he tell you what happened?”

“Every word,” Everett replied, ushering her inside. “You know your old man can’t keep anything from me.”

“How did he sound?”

“Let’s just say he’s had better months. First, let’s get something in your stomach.” He led her toward the kitchen. “Forgive me if I sound indelicate, but you do smell a bit like you’ve been hanging with a bunch of drunken sailors.”

“Only a couple,” she said, forcing a grin.

“Thank goodness for small favors.”

“Maybe I can take a shower first?”

Everett said his casa was her casa, and that it was an excellent idea. A half hour later, he sat and watched Rachel finish her cereal along with a buttered scone and jam, the only things she could even think of stomaching on a day she thought would never end.

When discussing Allison’s secret and her father’s reaction, Rachel was happy Everett didn’t linger on either for long. But he’d been stunned by the revelation.

“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” he told her. “Your father actually had to repeat himself a couple of times before I could wrap my head around it.”

“Mom never hinted to you about something happening back then?”

“Heavens no, child. If she wasn’t going to tell your father, I can assure you she wasn’t going to tell me.”

“I just can’t imagine who could have done such a thing.”

“If anyone is going to figure it out, it’ll be your father.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s what my mother was afraid of.”

Everett showed an exhausted Rachel to a guest room where she’d spent more than a few nights as a teen when she’d decided not to climb the Maida Vale trellis. “Try and get some sleep if you can. Things always look better in the light of day.”