She looked at him and, for a second, felt a flash of panic. The thought of giving him up was terrifying.

But it was Nick she had to think of, not herself. She gazed at him. “I don’t want to hurt you, Nick.”

He took hold of her left hand, tracing the white tan line with the tip of his finger. “Give me some credit, Annie. I know it’s not as simple as taking off a ring.”

She stared at him for a long time. The urge rose in her to make impossible promises, to tell him she loved him, but she couldn’t be that cruel. She would be leaving in two weeks. It would be infinitely better to take the words with her.

“We don’t have forever, Annie. I know that.”

She heard something in his voice, a little crack in the word forever, but he was smiling at her, and she didn’t want to think about what he was feeling. “Yes,” she whispered.

He swept her into his arms and carried her up to his bed. And as always, once she was in his arms, she stopped thinking about the future and let the present consume her.

On Tuesday morning, they planned a trip to the beach. Annie glanced down at the picnic basket beside her, checking the food supplies for the tenth time, then she checked her watch. It was already ten-thirty. She went to the bottom of the stairs and yelled up at Nick and Izzy to get a move on. Then, humming to herself, she headed back toward the kitchen.

The phone rang as she walked past it. She bent down and picked it up on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Hold for Blake Colwater, please.”

For a disorienting moment, Annie couldn’t connect the name to her own life. Nick came down the stairs. She threw him a confused look. “It’s Blake.”

Nick froze in mid-step. “I’ll . . . leave you your privacy.”

“No. Come here. Please.”

Nick crossed the room and came up beside her. Turning slightly, she took hold of his hand.

Blake’s authoritative voice came on at last. “Annie—is that you?”

At the sound of his voice, it all came rushing back. She stood perfectly still. “Hello, Blake.”

“How are you, Annalise?”

“I’m fine.” She paused, trolling for what came next. “And you?”

“I’m . . . okay. I got your number from Hank. You know Natalie will be getting home soon.”

“The fifteenth of June. She wants us to meet her at the airport.” She put the slightest emphasis on us.

“Of course. Her plane lands at . . .”

She hated that he didn’t know. “Five-ten in the afternoon.”

“I knew that.”

An uncomfortable silence followed the apparent lie. Blake laughed easily, as if it had been three hours since they’d spoken instead of almost three months. “We need to talk, obviously, before we meet Natalie. I want you to come down to Los Angeles this weekend.”

“Do you?” It was so like Blake. He wanted to talk, so she had to get on an airplane.

“I’ll FedEx a ticket.”

She drew in a sharp breath. “I’m not ready to see you yet.”

“What? I thought—”

“I doubt it. We don’t have anything to talk about now.”

“I do.”

“Funny words, coming from you.”

“Annalise.” He sighed. “I want you to come home this weekend. We need to talk.”

“I’m sorry, Blake. I have no intention of coming home this weekend. I know we agreed to discuss our separation in June. Let’s leave it at that, okay? I’ll come home on the thirteenth.”

“Goddamn it, Annalise. I want—”

“Good-bye, Blake. See you in two weeks.” She hung up the phone and stared down at it.

“Are you okay, Annie?”

Nick’s voice pulled her back from the dark edge gathering on her horizon. Forcing a smile, she turned into his arms. “I’m fine.”

He stared down at her a long, long time. For a second, she thought he was going to kiss her, and she pushed onto her toes to meet his lips. But he just stood there, gazing down at her face as if he were memorizing everything about this moment. “It’s not going to be long enough.”

Chapter 21

As Blake drove down the rutted pavement of Mystic’s main street, he remembered how much he’d always disliked this shabby little logging town. It reminded him of the town he’d grown up in, a dingy, forgotten farming community in Iowa—a place he’d worked hard to forget.

He pulled the rented Cadillac into a gas station and parked. Flipping up the collar of his overcoat—who in the hell wanted to live in a place where you needed an overcoat in late May?—he strode through the pouring rain toward the phone booth. Rain thumped overhead, so loud he could barely hear himself think.

It took him a minute to remember Hank’s number. He hadn’t dialed his own calls in years. Dropping a quarter in the slot, he punched out the number and listened to the ring.

On the third ring, Hank answered. “Hello?”

“Hi, Hank. It’s me, Blake . . . again. I wanted to speak to my wi—to Annie.”

“Did you? That wasn’t my understanding.”

Blake sighed. “Just put her on the line, Hank.”

“She isn’t here. She’s never here during the day.”

“What do you mean?”

“I gave you a number the other day. You can reach her there.”

“Where is she, Hank?”

“She’s out visiting . . . friends at the old Beauregard place.”

“The old Beauregard place. Now, that certainly pinpoints it for me.”

“You remember the old house at the end of the lake road? An old friend of hers lives out there now.”

Blake got a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. “What’s going on, Hank?”

There was a pause, then Hank said, “You’ll have to figure things out for yourself, Blake. Good luck.”

Good luck. What the hell did that mean?

By the time Blake had asked directions to the lake road and got back in his car, he was irritated as hell. Something was not right here.

But then, things hadn’t been right in a long time.

He’d first realized that something was wrong about a month ago; he’d stopped being able to concentrate. His work had begun to suffer.

And it was little things, nothing really. Like the tie he was wearing today. It was wrong.

It was a stupid, nonsensical thing, and certainly no one would notice, but he knew. When Annie had bought him the two-thousand-dollar black Armani suit, she’d chosen a monogrammed white shirt and a silk tie of tiny gray and white and red stripes to go with it. It was a set, and he always wore them together. He’d realized a few weeks ago that he couldn’t find the tie. He’d torn the bedroom apart looking for it.

“I hope you’re going to pick all that shit up” was what Suzannah had said when she’d seen the mess.

“I can’t find the tie that goes with this suit.”

She’d eyed him over the rim of her coffee cup. “I’ll alert the press corps.”

She thought it was funny that the tie was missing, and that he needed it so much. It had occurred to him that maybe it was at the cleaner’s somewhere, his favorite tie, his necessary tie.

Annie would know where it is.

That had been the beginning.

He flicked on the car’s Bose stereo, wincing as some hick country song blasted through the speakers. He flipped through the channels, but nothing else came through clearly. Disgusted, he turned off the radio.

The road unfurled in front of him, steeped in shadows in the middle of the day and battered by silver rain. After a few miles, he began to see flashes of the lake through the trees. The pavement gave out to a gravel road that turned and twisted and finally led him to a huge clearing. A bright yellow house sat primly amid a front yard awash in brightly colored flowers. A red Mustang and a police car were parked beneath an old maple tree.

He parked the car and got out. Flipping his collar up again, he strode across the yard and bounded up the stairs, knocking hard on the front door. It opened almost instantly, and a little girl stood in the opening. She was wearing a pair of Gortex overalls and a baseball cap. In her arms, she held a raggedy old doll.

Blake smiled down at her. “Hello. I’m—”

A man appeared suddenly behind the child. His hands rested protectively on the girl’s shoulders and drew her back slightly into the house. “Hello?”

Blake stared at the tall, silver-haired man, then craned his neck to look inside the house. “Hi. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for Annalise Colwater. Her father, Hank, told me she’d be here.”

The man tensed visibly. His eerie blue eyes narrowed and swept Blake from head to toe in a single glance. Blake was somehow certain that the man’s eyes missed nothing, not the expense of his Armani suit nor even the oddness of his tie. “You’re Blake.”

Blake frowned. “Yes, and you are . . .”

From somewhere inside the house, Blake heard the clattering of someone running down stairs. “I’m ready, you guys.”

Blake recognized Annie’s voice. He sidled past the silent man and child and slipped into the house.

Annie saw him and skidded to a stop.

He almost didn’t recognize her. She was wearing yellow rain gear and a big floppy hat that covered most of her face. The boots on her feet had to be four sizes too big. He forced a big smile and opened his arms. “Surprise.”

She threw an odd glance at the silver-haired man, then slowly her gaze returned to Blake. “What are you doing here?”

He looked at the two strangers; both were watching him. Slowly, he let his arms fall to his sides. “I’d rather not discuss it in public.”

Annie bit on her lower lip, then sighed heavily. “Okay, Blake. We can talk. But not here.”

The girl whined and stomped her foot. “But Annie—we were gonna get ice cream.”

Annie smiled at the child. “I’m sorry, Izzy. I need to talk to this man for a while. I’ll make it up to you, okay?”

This man. Blake’s stomach tightened. What in the hell was going on here?

“Don’t make this hard on Annie, okay, Sunshine? She has to go for a minute.” It was the man’s voice.

“But she’ll be comin’ back . . . won’t she, Daddy?”

The question fell into an awkward silence. No one answered.

Annie moved past the little girl and came up beside Blake. “I’ll meet you at Ted’s Diner and Barber shop in about ten minutes. It’s right downtown. You can’t miss it.”

Blake felt as if the world had tilted. He looked down at her, this woman he barely recognized. “Okay. See you in ten minutes.”

He stood there for an interminable moment, feeling awkward and ill at ease. Then he forced a smile. All they needed was a few minutes alone, and everything would be fine. That’s what he told himself as he turned and left the house. He was still telling himself that ten minutes later as he parked in front of the cheesiest, sleaziest diner he’d ever seen. Inside, he slipped into a yellow Naugahyde booth and ordered a cup of coffee. When it came, he checked his Rolex: 11:15.