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The rain continues to spatter against the windows, and I work alone in the office with my CAD software and my regrets. Until I nearly fall out of my chair when I hear a shout from upstairs.

Rushing to the second floor, I find Zoya on her scaffolding. I brace myself to hear another anecdote about a ghost, but she’s excited about something else.

“I found it! Poseidon seducing Scylla! This painter was so fucking predictable.”

I move closer to the new image that she’s working on. The edges are still blurred by beige paint, but I can see a misbehaving Poseidon in a clinch with a young nymph.

“That’s Scylla.” Zoya points a Q-tip at the nymph. “And that’s Poseidon’s wife .” She points at a neighboring figure—a goddess staring at the lovers with obvious contempt. “This house! It’s so dark, yet so horny.” Zoya dabs at the paint. “It’s a good thing you guys pay well.”

“Agreed.”

***

At five o’clock, I pack my laptop and leave the library, flicking off the lights as I go. The atrium is still gloomy without the blues and golds coming from the upper window.

Outside, I grab my umbrella off the porch and set off under a steel-gray sky. The gawkers are gone now, and so is the yellow police tape.

As I walk to my car, I crank my head around for an oblique view of the row of dumpsters on the property. The police searched them immediately after Tim died, so I’m assuming the gun was found somewhere else.

In the neighborhood , the article had said. But where?

I climb into the car and start the engine. But my phone rings before I put it in gear. The display says Portland PD .

My stomach dives. But Beatrice would be proud of me, because I don’t answer the call.

The detective leaves me a voice message, though, and I hit play the moment the notification appears.

Hi, Rowan. This is Detective Riley of the Portland PD. Just calling to let you know that we’re still pursuing electronic data from your phone. If you’re ready to share it with us, please call me back. You seem like a good person who landed in the wrong place at the wrong time .

Gosh, you think?

... And I know we can work together to figure out what happened on the night of Tim’s death. An authorized download of your cell phone data would be a good-faith gesture on your part ...

It’s just more of the same pressure, but it fills me with dread. I play back the message again, just to make sure I’ve heard it correctly.

We’re still pursuing the data ... she’s said. That means they don’t have it yet.

Does she know I lied? Or is it just a hunch? When I’m lying awake at four a.m., I always think back to the night of Tim’s murder, and I picture myself telling the truth right from the start. I was so confused by the breakup that I spent a few days watching Tim move around Portland on my phone .

There’s really no way to say that so I don’t sound like a hardcore stalker. Which I was. But I’m not a killer. And telling the truth now will only make things worse. The police will waste even more time on me.

Still, it’s selfish logic. Beatrice was right when she said that I can’t afford to be under suspicion of murder.

It’s just too late to change my story now.

Before I set down the phone, I check for a message from Natalie. But there’s nothing. Not even a text to say how her pre-calc exam went today.

Maybe I even deserve it.

I toss the phone aside and put the car in gear. The drive through the neighborhood takes only a few minutes. There are blooming rhododendrons in most of the yards, their leaves slick with rain. When my sodden porch comes into view, I look upward and see two rectangles of light in Natalie’s room.

And I feel instantly calmer. So long as Natalie is safe, then nothing else matters.

***

My daughter’s mood is upbeat when we sit down to dinner. She eats the salmon I’ve made and does the dishes without being asked.

I’m basking in the glow of her helpful demeanor when she hangs up the dish towel and asks to borrow the car. “Just for a couple of hours,” she says.

“Where are you going?”

“Tessa’s. Tomorrow’s exam is a big one,” she says, not meeting my eyes. “American Government.”

Seriously? I haven’t heard more than a few words about this class all semester. And I strongly suspect that “studying with Tessa” has more to do with gossip than memorizing the Bill of Rights.

But you have to pick your battles, so I give her the keys and remind her only twice to drive safely.

According to my favorite app, Natalie arrives at Tessa’s house without delay. But even so, I find myself wandering around at loose ends, too much on my mind. The rain has stopped, and I need exercise. After changing into running clothes and lacing up my shoes, I look down at Lickie, who’s been giving me hopeful glances.

“I’m going to run a few miles. You up for it?”

She thumps her tail and jumps off the couch.

I’m not convinced that Lickie would save me from a murderer, but having her at my side makes me feel less alone.

Outside, I stretch as I decide where to run. Not the Western Promenade—that’s where Tim and I used to run. Lickie and I set off in the other direction, through the city and toward the back cove.

There’s a breeze coming off the water as I curve around the peninsula, but my heart is thumping, and I’m sweating through my running shirt.

I love Portland. I don’t want to be afraid of this place. What I wouldn’t give to rewind my life ten days or so, when my biggest problem was an unexpected breakup.

By the time the light fades, I’m running toward the waterfront, where Commercial Street is humming with tourists. I need this. I need to see people whose lives aren’t a dumpster fire. I hear the sound of a bartender shaking up someone’s cocktail, and a woman’s laughter.

I don’t exactly fit in with the waterfront vibe tonight—I’m sweaty and panting like a bear—but nobody even looks my way. They’re too busy eating lobster rolls and drinking craft beer at the dockside bars. That’s the draw of Portland. It’s a working harbor, with trawlers coming into port every morning and fresh fish for sale. But it’s still cute and historical.

We’re a little smug about it, to be honest. We understand why the tourists like it here, but we roll our eyes at them just the same.

As I approach Docksiders Bar and Grill, I feel a flicker of unwelcome nostalgia. This place is where I met Harrison when I was a nineteen-year-old fool.

“We were all nineteen-year-old fools,” my therapist once said. Which is probably true, but it doesn’t make my memories any rosier.

To make things even worse, strains of “Beast of Burden” by the Stones come filtering out of the building. The song is another powerful trigger for thoughts of Harrison.

When I first met him, he was the scowling cook on the other side of the pass-through, nagging me to garnish every basket before it left the kitchen. “Hey—new girl. Gallagher .” He always used my last name, like an army drill sergeant. “Parsley. Lemon. Tartar sauce. Every time. And when your orders are up, you need to grab them in ninety seconds or less.”

I was a little afraid of him. The hours were long, and the smell of fried clams clung to me no matter how often I washed my hair.

On the plus side, Cal—the owner—was a great guy. The tourists were generous with their tips, and there was live music most nights of the week.

The music made the job feel a little less like military duty and a little more like a party. My fourth night working at Docksiders the featured band was called Most Definitely. I thought it was a stupid name, but they sounded great.

My eyes were drawn to the bass player, and then got stuck there as he added his deep, soulful voice to the chorus. There was something familiar about him, but also something darkly appealing.

Then it finally dawned on me that the same man who swayed to the beat as if the bass were part of his body was my kitchen nemesis. And that I was staring at him with my tongue practically hanging out.

Flustered, I forgot the order I’d just taken from table ten. So I had to go back and ask again. The rest of the night went pretty much the same way, because I kept watching Harrison play when I should have been doing my job.

To this day I don’t understand it. Harrison wasn’t my type. In fact, I didn’t even have a type. I was too na?ve to have refined my taste in men. But if you’d asked me what kind of guy I wanted to date, I would have pointed at one of the clean-cut boys from Chatham Prep. Someone like Hank Wincott. Or one of his nerdier friends, anyway.

But every Thursday after that—as I ferried steaming plates of fried fish and lobster rolls back and forth across the restaurant—my eyes always seemed to land on Harrison and stay there. It’s a miracle I didn’t drop half my orders, the way I used to drink him in. I liked the way he closed his eyes in the depths of a song, his forearms flexing deliciously as he played, his hips swaying.

Some of their songs required backup vocals, and those were my favorites. “Beast of Burden” quickly became my favorite song, because I could hear Harrison’s deep-voiced harmonies on the chorus. I got goose bumps every time.

It’s not like I had the guts to talk to him, though. So my crush would have died a quick death if he hadn’t approached me one night after my shift. I stepped outside to drain my water bottle before heading home and found him standing on the dock. “Hey, Gallagher—cigarette?” he’d said, peeling his lithe body off the shiplap wall and offering me the pack.

“I don’t smoke,” I’d answered primly. Because I never was cool.

“Huh,” he’d said. “I’d better quit then.” He crushed the pack in his hands, as my jaw dropped. Then he hurled the pack toward the nearest wastebasket. It sailed right in, too. “Want a beer? I feel like we should get to know each other. We spend a lot of time staring at each other.”

I was too surprised to speak—stunned that he called me out for my wandering eyes, and doing so in a way that made him sound culpable, too. It was bold, but also kind.

He took my silence as a yes and reached into a little Igloo cooler at his feet, pulling a Corona out of it. He offered it, much like he’d offered the cigarettes. I hesitated, and he wiggled the bottle in my direction. “Don’t make me give up alcohol, too.”

With a laugh, I’d taken the dripping bottle from his hand. The truth was that I hated beer. I’d spent the first year of college clutching Solo cups at parties, taking only an occasional sip.

But that night the cold, bitter liquid felt different going down. It tasted like victory. The air smelled salty and brand-new, as I stood there talking with Harrison about nothing and everything. My architecture program. The Roman Colosseum. Music. His favorite bands—most of which I’d never heard.

I don’t know how long we lingered. Everyone else had trickled out and gone home by the time Harrison asked me out for dinner on my next night off. “We can stare at each other in a different restaurant,” he said, while I blushed furiously.

“That sounds like fun,” I stammered.

By which I meant that sounds terrifying . I didn’t know how to be with this man I’d been crushing on for weeks. Harrison asking me out on a dinner date felt about as likely as Mick Jagger rolling up to play a gig in our bar.

That’s how we got started. Because of a damn song, and my inability to stop undressing him with my eyes.

The song in question gets louder as I reach the front of the restaurant, and louder still when the door opens to belch out three drunk party boys with backward baseball caps.

I hear the song’s chorus. The vocalist sounds different, of course, but he’s getting the job done. Every other detail is shockingly the same. The steady beat of the drum and the low thump of the bass vibrating inside my chest. The scent of fried fish and lemon.

The baseball-hat guys are moving slowly and the sidewalk is narrow, so I have to stop and wait for them to gather up their smack talk and their laughter and cross the street. I’m stuck here just long enough to notice the pinned-up flyer for tonight’s band. They’re called Enough Already. Another terrible name, and it makes me smile.

My expression freezes as I study the black-and-white photo of the band. Three guys standing shoulder to shoulder, two of them smiling. They look like brothers. But the third guy...

He’s aged, of course, but not as much as I have, damn it. Harrison stares coolly out from that photo, a bass clutched in his hand.

I can’t believe it. And I mean that literally. This feels like a bad dream, one that I’d better figure out how to wake up from. Grabbing the old bronze door handle is a reflex, and within seconds I’m walking Lickie into the dimly lit space. All the action is in back, where there’s a stage and patio seating. Up front is the hostess stand and a bar area that’s only popular during cold weather.

A bored college girl looks up and greets me. “Table for one? With the dog, it has to be outside.”

“No, I-I won’t be staying,” I stammer, neatly circling her and heading toward the back. The song grows louder, and the scent of fried clams and bad decisions is cloying.

It’s only a few more paces until I can see the stage. The bassist is in profile, but it doesn’t matter. I’d know him anywhere. He strums with a frown that’s both serious and cool at the same time. Long hair in motion, body swaying in time to the music, his skin tinted by the red-orange stage lighting.

I’m caught in a time loop. I’m nineteen and I’ve forgotten tartar sauce for table twenty-two, because Harrison is up there playing “Beast of Burden,” and after my shift he’s going to kiss me so thoroughly in my car that my panties will be damp before the engine warms up.

Then he looks up—like he can feel time warping, too. He lifts his chin and finds me on the first try.

For some awful reason I expect him to smile, just like the old times. Instead, the spell breaks as his gaze shifts to a table in the middle of the restaurant. Table sixteen.

When I see who’s sitting there, my heart stops.