“Maybe she’s got some sugar.” He goes to search the cabinets, and I follow him into the kitchen. He’s got nice shoulders. Broad, like a swimmer’s.

Or a murderer’s.

I remember the weight of that arm curled around me and hope to God my unconscious self—the same part of me that swam to shore for Clare’s cross and crawled into his bed before dawn—is wiser than my waking mind. Because Claudia’s right: I can’t take one more life on my conscience.

“Hey,” I say. “About last night . . .”

“You were scared. Don’t worry about it,” he says, his back toward me.

“I didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression.”

“You didn’t. How about this?” he says, holding up a canister of tea. I shrug and nod, and then watch the elegant hands capable of strangling someone with their T-shirt carefully fill the infuser.

“Do you play the piano?” I say on impulse. He looks up, surprise clearly written on his face.

“You remember that?”

“No.”

“Oh.” He laughs softly. “I told you a really embarrassing story about that once. I’m glad you forgot.”

“That isn’t fair.”

“It’s completely fair,” he says, setting up the electric kettle.

“You know things about me. Personal things. I don’t know anything about you other than that you were supposed to kill me.”

He turns to face me, leans back against the counter.

“Okay. Ask. I’ll tell you anything.”

I consider him across the kitchen’s small galley.

“Were you with me the day before my procedure?”

“I was,” he says with a quiet nod.

“How did we spend that day?”

“We’d found this place called the Heron House outside Indianapolis two nights before. You convinced the owner that she really wanted to put us up in their only suite. It had a huge bathtub . . .” He starts to continue, stops and shifts where he stands. “We slept late. The owner brought up breakfast, and later lunch. We stayed in bed all day. We didn’t talk about the future, or anything from the past. You kept staring at me, said there was no way you could forget me, though of course we both knew you would.”

I’m quiet for a moment. “What about the next morning?” I say finally.

“We had talked about it for so long . . . But when your cab showed up outside I didn’t want to let you go. I freaked out. I broke down. You were determined. And then you kissed me good-bye and told me to find you in Maine,” he says, as the kettle begins to hiss.