“Maddie.” He stopped at the bottom step up to her porch. Let one foot rest on the edge of the stair above as he faced her. “You don’t have to worry that everything I say is about my sister. I’m not weighing your words, waiting for you to mess up.”

Tension eased out of her. She hadn’t even realized she’d been holding her breath until he talked.

Now that he opened the door on the topic, she tiptoed a bit closer to the emotional wall she sensed he didn’t even know he’d built up around himself. “Her death must shape everything.”

“But I can’t let it be everything I remember about her. She was so much more than that.”

A sweet yet painful comment. She knew he was right, but she also doubted recovery worked like that or ran according to a plan.

“What was her name?” She knew the answer but wanted to hear him say it.

A faint smile crossed his lips. “Alexis.”

“Pretty.”

“She was amazing. Fierce and smart. The best of the Rye kids. No question.” He pushed up onto the next step then the one after until he stood on her porch.

Whatever signal he meant to send out got jumbled in her head. She couldn’t tell if he wanted her to stop or talk more. “Did you think her husband was dangerous before he . . .”

“Killed her?” He exhaled. “No. She’d be alive if I did.”

He stood there, waiting as she crossed the remaining distance between them. The light on the porch bathed his face in soft white, while the world around them remained plunged in darkness.

The closeness. The quiet. The threats.

She waited for the panic to come, for the rush of anxiety to overtake her at letting anyone get close. But nothing. Being there with him, alone with her fingers just inches from his, brought a wave of warmth crashing over her. All her training to run and hide, to keep her location and identity secret, melted at her feet. Even out of witness protection she’d been careful not to let her guard down . . . until him.

He shifted his weight and she heard a crunching sound under his foot. Rocks or dried leaves, probably. She didn’t know what and didn’t care until he bent down. When he stood back up again, he held something.

He lifted his hand toward her. “For you, I guess.”

One glance down and reality whooshed back and slammed into her with the force of a careening car. The white rectangle registered in her brain right as she reached out and knocked it from his hand. “Don’t touch that.”

An envelope. Another one.

She glanced around as she shifted. Her back hit the wall of her house as she strained to listen for any stray noises over her heartbeat thundering in her ears.