“Bet your ass. I’d earned my brown belt by then, so he got worse than he gave. Mostly because it caught him off-guard. I called the cops, and they picked him up. He did the full five.”

“Should’ve been more.

“Shoulda-coulda. My mom and I talked about moving when we knew he’d get out, but damn if I wanted that. We had a home, the business, and he had to know if he came after me again, he’d do more than five. But when she died, there wasn’t any point staying. So fresh start.”

She finished the beer. “And that’s my story.”

“Has he bothered you again?”

“I haven’t seen or heard from him. I don’t see how he’d know where I am now, or, after all this time, why he’d come down here to mess with me. So that’s that.”

“You wouldn’t have been his first.”

She tapped a finger toward him. “Smart guy. With a little digging we found out he’d smacked around a couple others. Nothing as violent as my experience, but it was a pattern. Moral of the story is don’t let a good-looking guy with a cool name charm you into marriage. Though it seems like since the actual marriage lasted about three months it shouldn’t really count.”

“You could get it annulled. I happen to know a lawyer who could help you with that.”

“Thought about it, but it doesn’t seem worth the trouble. Finished’s finished.”

Like closing the book, he thought. But he knew it always stayed inside you. Always.

“Are you hungry?”

“Yet another interesting segue. I could be hungry. What have you got?”

“The only thing I’m sure I have is frozen pizza.”

“Pizza is never wrong. And I could probably have the other half of the beer if I had pizza.”

“Let’s eat.”

“I’m going to take my boots off out here, and wash up in your powder room.”

“That works.” He rose as she bent over to deal with her boots. “Kung fu?”

“I’ve got a black belt now. Second degree. I’m ditching the socks, too. They’re sweaty.”

“You’re a really interesting woman, Darby.”

“You’re a good-looking guy with a cool name, so don’t try to charm me into marriage.”

“I’ll refrain.”

He opened the door, and she walked into the house on bare feet. With toenails painted the same dark green as her tat.

Which reminded him.

“What’s the story with the tat?”

“Oh.” She lifted a hand to it. “I got it the day they found Trent guilty. Life goes on, right? My mother liked to say that no matter how bad or good things were at any given moment, it moved along. Life just cycles.”

Now she looked around. “You’ve got more stuff,” she noted.

“Yeah, I’ve been picking up this and that now and again.”

“That is nice.” She pointed to the painting over the fireplace. The lake at sunrise, misty and secret, taking hints of color from the blooming eastern sky.

“Yeah, it caught me. Local artist.”

“It captures the moment. I’d have expected, you being a man, to see a big-screen TV up there.”

“I’ve got that in the great room.”

“It’s looking good, Walker, seriously good. Is it starting to feel like home?” she asked as they walked back to the kitchen.

“It is. Yours?”

“I’m concentrating on the outside work right now. The interior needs a lot of help, but it can wait until winter when work slows down. Or rainy days.”

He pulled a pizza out of the freezer. “Pepperoni okay?”

“Pepperoni’s been okay since the dawn of time.” While he preheated the oven, she slid onto a stool. “I like watching a good-looking guy with a cool name slave over a hot stove.”

“Ha. You should see me create my amazing PB&J.” He got out a beer, a fresh glass, split it with her. “So are you doing the interior work yourself, too?”

“It’s mostly cosmetic. There’s scary wallpaper almost everywhere. So pull it off, no doubt sand the walls, paint. I’ve been picking up some this and that now and again, too. And your kitchen inspired me.”

“It did?”

“Yeah, the glass fronts. My kitchen cabinets are crap. Absolutely crap. Eventually I’ll replace them, but I figured on painting them for now. Then I thought about your glass fronts. I took the doors off instead. I mean, what am I hiding? I painted the rest, got some pretty dishes and glassware. Done. Well, I had to paint the lower cabinets.”

She sipped her beer when he unwrapped the pizza, slid it into oven, set the timer.

“Okay, so you got my broken nose story. Do I get yours?”

He lifted his bottle to drink, studied her over it. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard it already.”

“I would be, too, because people tend to tell me stuff. All kinds of stuff. But what I’ve found is people around here are very careful and respectful of the Walker/Keller family. I can be, too, if you’d rather not tell me.”

“It’s not a secret. I’m surprised and kind of touched the whole thing isn’t low-hanging fruit on the gossip vine. Do you want the condensed version or the full narrative?”

“I like long stories. Details matter.”

“Well, it might take a while. To start, my father knocked my mother around as long as I can remember. Graham Bigelow. Dr. Graham Bigelow, admired, respected, prosperous, important. On the outside, he and Eliza, his wife, were perfect. They had two perfect children and lived in the Lakeview version of Stepfordville.”

“Lakeview Terrace.”

Intrigued she’d nailed it, which likely meant she saw it as he did, he nodded. “That’s the one. He was chief surgical resident at Mercy Hospital in Asheville. She played hostess, charity chairwoman, PTA president. We had a housekeeper/cook three times a week. Groundskeepers, a couple of Mercedes in the garage. Your polished upper-class family.”

“But there were undercurrents. That’s what I call them, like what was in Trent.”

“That’s a good term for it.” Idly, he picked up the baseball he’d left on the counter, rubbed the stitching. “Yeah, plenty of undercurrents. You never knew when he’d go off. Never in front of anyone, always careful where he hit. The other—we’ll use it—undercurrent, one I didn’t understand for a long time, was Eliza, my mother, liked it.”

“Oh, Zane—”

“I know what you’re going to say. I know the pathology of a bat tered spouse, the many reasons for not leaving, for taking on the blame. That’s not this. That’ll come clear as we go along.”

“All right.”

“I don’t remember, not clearly, the first time he hit me. I don’t mean a swat on the butt. He favored gut punches, kidney punches, the ribs. He knew just where to hit. He didn’t hit Britt, not back then. He belittled her, all of us, but that was his main abuse for her. Verbal and emotional abuse. We, Britt and I, were never, never good enough.”

“That’s a horrible way to grow up. You didn’t tell anyone?”

“He was terrifying, and they were a unit. We were afterthoughts, status symbols. Even, in a way, their beard. If he started on her at night, Britt would usually come to my room. We’d just sit there until it stopped. When it stopped, the sex started. That was almost as disturbing.

“Anyway, that was our life, the pattern of it. That changed December twenty-third, 1998.”

He laid it all out, coming home with Britt, the blood, the shouts. How he’d snapped and tried to stop Graham. The beating that followed.

“So,” he finished, “I understand getting the crap beat out of you.”

When the timer went off, he got a round platter, slid the pizza onto it. He pulled a cutter out of a drawer. “I suppose you want a plate for this.”

“I…” She had to breathe out, to breathe away the fist squeezing her heart. “I insist on a plate. In fact, I’ll get them, as I can see them through the handy glass fronts.”

“Knife and fork?”

She managed a haughty look. “Don’t insult me. How about I take the plates out back to your excellent new table? It’s a nice evening for eating outside.”

“Works for me.”

She took the plates out, gave herself a moment. She couldn’t think past the two children, living in cruelty and fear and violence. And somehow surviving it, not being dragged down by those ugly undercurrents.

He came out, sat across from her, slid a slice onto her plate.

“You have an actual pizza server. I’m impressed.”

“Well, it’s a staple around here. Do you want the rest?”

“Yes, but only if you want to tell me.”

“We got this far. They told everybody I had the flu. My grandparents were coming in from Savannah, staying with Emily. We were supposed to all have Christmas dinner—catered—at our house. But they switched that up. They wouldn’t let anybody come up to see me. Emily made me chicken soup, brought it over, but they wouldn’t let her come up. Britt told me Em really tried, but they made her leave. What could she do?”

“I’m glad. I want to say she’s about my favorite person in Lakeview. I’m glad she tried to help you, to stand for you.”

“She did more than that—that part’s coming. We went to this ski resort on Boxing Day, family tradition. He loaded me in the car, in the garage, left really early. He told the people at the resort I’d had an accident on my bike. When we got back, he told everybody I’d had an accident on the slopes.”