At the door, she had to pass the group waiting by the hostess. They had fallen silent. Maggie recognized a few players and their pals from that fateful party, their faces forever seared in her memory. Sara Wood stood with them.

And suddenly, the puzzle pieces snapped together, and Maggie saw the big picture. Sara had defended Maggie’s attackers to the police for a reason. She’d done it to fit in with their crowd.

Caleb swung open the door and waited for Linnie and Maggie to pass, but Maggie lagged behind, just long enough to scan Sara’s pinched face and remark, “Nice friends.”

They ended up back at Dilly’s.

Some of the anniversary guests had left (“Croaked, most likely,” Linnie quipped with a weak smile) and freed up a few tables. The hostess, her sagging bun and half-untucked blouse testaments to a hectic evening, greeted Maggie with a vague, “Hey, Margaret. Didn’t see your folks at church yesterday. How are they doing?” She waited long enough to hear “Fine, thanks,” then thrust three menus at a hovering employee and ordered him to seat Maggie, Caleb, and Linnie in booth seventeen.

A minute later, the waitress arrived. She poured water, rattled off the specials, took drink orders, and left Maggie, on one side of the booth, staring at Linnie and Caleb on the other.

Maggie wondered if she looked like her friends did: shell-shocked.

They sat without talking for a long moment, peering around blindly, blinking owlishly.

Maggie’s hands were still trembling. She wrapped them around the water glass. “Thanks for standing up for me.”

“Holy shit,” Caleb whispered. Then, louder: “Holy. Shit.”

Linnie searched Maggie’s face. “You okay?”

She nodded, kind of amazed that she was okay. It had been ugly.

But it hadn’t killed her.

No one came out to the foyer when they returned home after dinner. Maggie figured out why in the living room. The explanation was on the couch—or, more specifically, on her parents.

Sprawled across Mom’s and Dad’s laps, Fluffster delivered a halfhearted bark to announce Maggie and her friends, then went back to being the blissed-out recipient of generous petting.

Mom, holding open a slim book in one hand, smiled tremulously. “Honey.”

Maggie bent to kiss her mother’s cheek.

She dropped her book on the side table so she could add a hug to the exchange, and she murmured in Maggie’s ear, “I’m glad you’re here. You don’t need to go back. Please stay.”

“I can’t,” Maggie whispered.

Mom gave her a look. “I’ll give you a few more days there, but I want you home. I’m making the arrangements.”