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would miss him. They usually traveled together, but when an old friend invited him and three other college chums for a week of deep-sea fishing in the gulf, she’d been glad he decided to go.
    For one thing, his absence put on hold the final demise of Confidential Commissions. For another, they were determinedly bright and cheerful but there was a shadow between them.
    She gave a little push and the rocker creaked. Not that she believed there was a chance he would change his mind. He’d made himself absolutely, irrevocably clear. “No more delving into other people’s problems, Annie. Period. End of story. Since I’m not a politician, when I say ‘period,’ I mean ‘period.’”
    As he pointed out, if she wanted to help people, she could volunteer at a hospice, make food for Mobile Meals, tutor at the elementary school.
    Her face softened. She understood. He’d demanded her promise: Hands Off. No More Nancy Drew. Keep Crime on the Shelves. Because, as he put it, his face grim, “You scared the ever-living hell out of me. How do you think I felt when your cell didn’t answer? And didn’t answer? And then we knew you were there with a killer . . .”
    She felt an uneven lurch deep inside. Max had been scared for her. So had she. She’d not been stupid. She’d been on her way to the police station, sure she knew the truth behind the murder of a reckless young second wife who’d disappeared after a Fourth of July dance. Instead Annie had answered her cell phone and turned another way. At road’s end, she’d faced death.
    Her brush with death had occurred only a few weeks before. Thevery next week, Max woke up in the middle of the night and rolled over to take her in his arms and hold her in a bone-tight grip. After that, he had wasted no time deciding to close down Confidential Commissions, which had no real purpose other than, as he inelegantly phrased it, screwing around in other people’s lives. No more.
    She’d protested. Confidential Commissions helped people; it made a difference to their lives in ways both great and small. There had been those caught up in fear and despair and Max had helped right their world. He’d said, “Yeah. But one of these days, you’ll poke that snub nose into the wrong mess. No more danger, Annie.” She’d pointed out that Confidential Commissions wasn’t always involved in messes, that Max did all sorts of interesting things that made people happy. He’d helped a woman find a long-lost sister, found the rightful owners of a small Remington sculpture discovered in an abandoned well, put together a history of the Class of ’46 at the local high school, proved the provenance of a baseball signed by Babe Ruth, uncovered the final hours of a corporal who died in the Battle of the Bulge. She’d told him, “You’ve made a lot of people happy.”
    He hadn’t been swayed. “You were a short walk away from dying.”
    He was right. Her escape had been a very near thing. She thought of Max’s life without her or hers without Max. They would live because the living must do what they must do, but light would be leached from the world, leaving gray days without vibrancy, without music, without warmth.
    He’d extracted her promise:
    â€œI will not engage in any activities that could put me in danger. Period.”
    When she dropped her raised hand after completing the pledge, he’d given her his wonderful, terrific, all-American grin—to her mind, tall, blond, handsome Max was always Joe Hardy all grown up—andtilted her face up and bent down for his warm lips to touch hers. From there . . . She felt a glow at the remembrance.
    She wished Max was here, that she could reach out and take his hand. He was only going to be gone a week, but she hadn’t realized how accustomed she was to the ping of her cell and texts from