She wanted to tell him what she’d just heard, to scream it at him, the way Ableson had at her, but even asking about it would give it some credence and she couldn’t do that. Instead she yelled, “What happened with Roger Hawkins?”

The question stopped him.

“He never called,” she kept yelling. Leah woke up and started to squall. “He never came to see us. Because of you. Why?”

She raced through the kitchen to the garage. He followed, and Leah cried louder in the background. Rachel slid open the van door and looked inside. It was clean and dry, but she knew it would be. They’d had the inside shampooed a long time ago.

“What did you do with my van?” she yelled. He looked helpless. It was cold in the garage; he was in his shirt and trying not to shiver. She started hating herself but she couldn’t lower her voice. “What happened with Roger?”

“A misunderstanding. A terrible misunderstanding.”

“Tell me.”

“Please, let’s go inside.”

She felt like a harpy and wanted him to get angry at her, to yell back, but he said quietly, “It’s too cold to talk here.”

She followed him back to the kitchen, feeling like she’d lost momentum.

“What did you hear on the phone?” he asked.

“Just tell me what happened.”

“It’s not so easy to know what happened. Maybe if you tell me . . .”

She was silent. He said softly, “Is our trust so fragile, Rachel?” She was still quiet, and he said, “Maybe it should be. Why should we trust each other after only a year? . . . Maybe your suspicion makes more sense.” He wasn’t looking at her. “Okay,” he said, “what I know is that Roger met Isaac at the funeral of those boys.” Now he looked at her. “I don’t know why Isaac was there, maybe to gloat, maybe he felt some sorrow. He met Roger there and he told Roger that I was going away that day, and he should leave us alone.” He was looking into her eyes. “Isaac shouldn’t have said it. But he did.” He looked out the kitchen window and his voice got so soft she had to lean forward to hear. “Roger must’ve believed him and maybe he blamed himself for not being able to try the men who killed Adam, and thought we blamed him, too.”

He kept looking out the window. “I think that’s what happened,” he said. There were tears in his eyes, and she thought he probably didn’t want her to notice them.

What he said made sense. Besides, she thought, eight old men together couldn’t beat five young men to death. Hawkins was wrong and Ableson was crazy.