Ted stood up, his arms flying in the air. “You’ve been cutting down the little trees too? Jeez, Terr. Why?”

“Was that bad? Trees grow, Ted.”

“Yes. It’s bad. It’s very bad!”

Terrance tipped his head, the way Candy did sometimes, when she wanted to understand her human family. Ted softened. “It’s not great, Terr, but it’s not as bad as . . . did you hurt Lindy Cox?”

“Who?”

“The little girl. The Coxes’ girl. The blond one who lives next door.”

“Jillian’s friend.”

Ted frowned. “I suppose.”

“When?”

“What do you mean, ‘When’? Tell me everything you did today, Terr.”

“I took the eight fifteen bus and then I transferred to the L-4 and I walked up Wisconsin Avenue and I came to the house and Grant made me eggs. Then I took a nap,” he said. “A long one. That’s because I stayed up till three. They had a Beverly Hillbillies marathon on TV. I watched till three o’clock in the morning.”

“Then what?”

“When I woke up the police lady was there.”

“That’s all?” Ted wanted to laugh, to dance.

Terrance lowered his head. “I didn’t get you an ice scraper. Want to go now and get one?”

“Soon,” Ted said, hugging him. “We’ll go get it soon.”

KAYE MADE A BIG DINNER THAT NIGHT. A BIG, FABULOUS WELCOME dinner for the Davenport-Gardners, complete with jumbo shrimp and porterhouse steaks, an arugula-free salad and baked potatoes with sour cream and butter and fresh chives. She’d cooked it up in record time, chopping and marinating and broiling so fast it was a miracle nothing was frozen solid or burned. The food sat on the plates like a meal in a cooking magazine, beautiful and untouched by the people surrounding it. The only Davenport-Gardner in attendance was Adam.

Suzanne lay on the chaise in the den. She had an excuse not to be hungry, having just come back from the hospital. No one knew where Grant was. Nick had been the last person to talk to him early this morning, when he invited their family to stay with them. Grant seemed to have disappeared.

Adam put a big chunk of butter on his potato for the thrill of watching it melt, it looked like. Jakey never ate anything but mac and cheese, so it was no surprise that he didn’t eat. He looked down, as though he was feeling sorry about something, but Kaye knew for a fact he just had a video game on his lap. Nick made up for his lack of eating by doing an extra amount of drinking. He might as well have put the bottle of wine to his lips and saved himself the bother of dirtying a glass, Kaye thought, holding out her glass for a refill.