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not.”
    â€œNo one said anything about that,” Wyatt remarked. He walked to the fire and turned off the propane, and the flames withdrew, like frightened snails into their shells, leaving the mossy chunks of fir to glow a deep, pulsing red.
    â€œLook, I know it sounds crazy. Nuts. Even to me, but I’m telling you, I saw my baby on the dock in the fog.” She wanted to add that she thought the medication she’d been given might have been the cause, but that would have made the doctor defensive, as she was the one who had prescribed the antianxiety pills.
    Wyatt walked behind the couch, reached over, and squeezed her shoulder. Fondly? Or out of frustration? She looked up at him and saw nothing but concern in his expression. “You have to let go of your fantasies, Ava. Noah’s not coming back.” With that he left the room, closing the door softly behind him.
    The psychologist’s gaze followed after him; then when the door was shut, it turned back to her patient. “What do you think is going on here, Ava?” she asked.
    â€œI wish I knew.” Ava glanced to the windows, dark with the night. “I wish to God I knew.”
    Before they could really get into it, there was a tap on the door and Wyatt opened it again. “Thought you should know. Sheriff Biggs is here.”
    â€œWhy?” Ava asked.
    â€œKhloe called him.”
    â€œBecause I jumped into the bay?”
    â€œYeah. She thought you might be attempting suicide.”
    â€œI wasn’t!”
    â€œHumor her. Biggs is her uncle.”
    â€œBig deal.” Ava was having none of it. “What is this?” She looked from her husband to the psychologist. “Are you trying to get me committed?”
    â€œOf course not.”
    â€œGood, because just so you know, I don’t need to be on any suicide watch!”
    â€œNo one said a thing about—”
    â€œYou didn’t have to, Wyatt. Okay?” She was on her feet and out the door. “Where is he?”
    â€œIn the kitchen.”
    â€œGreat.”
    She left him and the damned doctor to talk about her state of mind, or lack thereof, and walked through the formal dining room and butler’s pantry to the kitchen, the big warm room painted in shades of yellow, with the scent of coffee and baked goods always lingering in the air. The black-and-white tile floor was worn at the door to the back hallway, and the white cabinets were desperately in need of a new coat of paint, but this was, without a doubt, the cheeriest room in the house. Off to one side was a family area, with a couple of worn sofas, a flat-screen television, and toy box stuffed into a corner. This evening the air was thick with the warm scent of baking bread and the tangy aroma of Virginia’s clam chowder, Manhattan style.
    Aptly named, Sheriff Biggs sat on one of the chairs tucked around a cracked marble-topped table. Spilling over the edges of the woven seat, he’d already accepted a cup of coffee from a grudging Virginia, who now was elbow-deep in dishwater and trying to appear as if she wasn’t interested in eavesdropping on the conversation about to ensue between her employers and Biggs, who just happened to be her ex-brother-in-law and Khloe’s uncle.
    As ever, Virginia was wearing a plain housedress over her heavy frame, and a wildly colored apron was tied across her rounded abdomen and heavy breasts. Scuffed tennis shoes and dark tights completed the outfit. Ava had rarely seen her in any other attire, even years ago, before she’d been hired here, when she was just Khloe’s mother. How they’d all gotten entangled since those grade-school years . . .
    â€œHello, Ava.” Biggs stood and extended a hand, which she shook with more than a hint of trepidation. They’d met a few times before and never had it been under anything but tense circumstances.
    â€œSheriff.” She nodded and pulled her hand back. Hers was clammy;