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  “And then he died of a heart attack,” Nell said.

  “And then Stewart locked him in the freezer,” Gabe said, “and waited until he was dead, and put him in his bed upstairs, and we never knew the difference. The doctor signed the death certificate without an autopsy.”

  Nell felt her breath go. “How—”

  “Trevor told me,” Gabe said. “About an hour ago. The police found the letter in the files and took it to him this morning. They also found Stewart thawing in the trunk of his Mercedes. He’s trying to explain everything away by blaming it on everybody else: Stewart killed my dad, Margie killed Stewart, Jack killed Lynnie and burned your apartment, and Trevor’s just trying to keep the scandal quiet so the family won’t suffer.”

  All that death, Nell thought, all because Trevor didn’t want to be married anymore. Helena, getting ready to kill herself because she didn’t know who she was if she wasn’t married. Margie, hating Stewart but sticking because they were married and, fifteen years later, smacking him with a pitcher because she couldn’t stand being married. Lynnie, marinating in resentment because Stewart hadn’t kept his promise to come back so they could get married. She and Tim, mutilating each other because they were stuck together, married. Jack imprisoning Suze and Suze not even trying to escape for fourteen years because they were married. It should be harder to get married, she thought. You should have to take tests, get a learner’s permit, you should need more than a pulse and twenty bucks to get a license.

  “You wouldn’t believe some of the explanations he’s been giving,” Gabe said.

  “How much do you believe?”

  “I believe Stewart killed my dad. Margie didn’t kill Stewart, though. When the coroner unwrapped him, his fingernails were torn. Trevor put him in the freezer alive and then went back and wrapped him up and buried him under his own grilled porterhouse when he was dead. I think he did it on purpose. I think it was payback for my dad.”

  “Eleven years later,” Nell said. “Trevor waited a long time for that revenge.”

  “It’s what he’s good at,” Gabe said. “I think he killed Lynnie, too. I think she pushed him too far and he hit her and put her in the freezer and then waited to see if anybody would find her. I think he tried to frame Jack for the fire in your apartment. And I know he tried to kill you.”

  Nell thought of being helpless in that freezer again. “How’s he explaining that one?”

  “Accident. He didn’t realize you were still in the freezer when he shut the door.”

  “You are kidding me.”

  “Well, he has a concussion. Also, nobody ever crosses him. He’s been getting away with murder for years. Nobody’s ever made him accountable.” Gabe met her eyes. “He didn’t have anybody like you.”

  “I missed a step there,” Nell said.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Gabe said. “That letter got lost because my aunt was such a lousy secretary. If my mom had been here, she’d have turned the letter over to the cops as soon as my dad died. There’d have been an autopsy. Stewart would have gone to jail, so Margie wouldn’t have stayed married to him for fifteen years and then hit him with a pitcher, and Trevor wouldn’t have frozen him to death. Or Lynnie. Or burned your place and tried to kill you. Or wrecked my car.” He sounded most bitter about the last one.

  “Not just a secretary,” Nell said.

  “And the reason she wasn’t here,” Gabe said, “is because she and my dad had fought over what he was doing, over the car, over his not telling her what was going on. If he’d come clean to her in 1978 when Helena died, if he’d listened to her, Stewart wouldn’t have been around to kill him four years later.”

  “If you weren’t so controlling,” Nell said, “you wouldn’t have called to make sure I’d locked everything up. You wouldn’t have rescued me. I’d be dead. You can play the ‘if’ game forever. It’s the past. Let it go.”

  “You’re not listening.” Gabe got up and came around to face her, bending over her to put his face close to hers, his hands on the arms of her chair. “It doesn’t matter, seven months or twenty years, that doesn’t mean a damn thing. We’re not equal partners. We’re never going to be. We balance each other. We keep each other in check. We’re necessary to each other’s survival.”

  “Oh,” Nell said.

  “We can get married,” Gabe said. “I get it now. No resentment. I need this, too. I don’t want to be my dad.”

  “You’re not your dad,” Nell said, outraged that he’d think he was.

  “Good.” Gabe straightened. “We need an office manager. Riley’s out on a background check, and Suze went to give Becca the good news. If you want the job, it’s yours.”

  “I want the job,” Nell said, and remembered the last time she’d said it, in a gloomy office with the blinds pulled down, thinking he was the devil. She looked around the spotless office at the restored leather furniture and gleaming wood, at Marlene basking trenchcoat-less in the sun, at Gabe, looking as tired as he had then but different now. Happier, she thought. Because of me. “What good news?”

  “Oh. Becca’s guy was telling the truth. Suze ran the check yesterday. Becca will be vacationing at Hyannis Port.”

  “You’re kidding,” Nell said. “Well, good. Somebody deserves a happy ending.”

  “Hey,” Gabe said.

  “Besides me,” Nell said. “And you. And Suze and Riley.”

  “That one remains to be seen.”

  “You’re such a cynic.” Nell looked around the room again and thought, The rest of my life. “I, on the other hand, am an optimist. I’ve decided it’s a good thing Trevor burned my china.”

  Gabe looked taken aback. “You have. And that would be because…”

  “It was my past,” Nell said. “And you have to let go of your past to make a future. Same way with your car. Trevor did you a favor by destroying it, it was a bad memory. Now you can forget it and go on.”

  “I liked that car,” Gabe said, sounding a lot more exasperated than the situation deserved.

  “I liked my china, too,” Nell said, equally exasperated since once again he wasn’t getting the point. “But it’s good that it’s gone.” She frowned at Gabe. “You have to stop mourning that car.”

  “I’m over the car,” he said, “but I just dropped seven grand on a wedding present you don’t want. You have to keep me in the loop on this stuff.”

  “Wedding present?” Nell said, and Gabe sighed and pointed to a large cardboard box next to his desk.

  “UPS just delivered it. Welcome to the past.”

  She sat on the floor and opened it to see a lot of bubble-wrapped china, and when she unwrapped the first piece, it was her Secrets sugar bowl. “You bought it back,” she said and her breath went. “You bought my china back.”

  He sat on the edge of the desk beside her. “So the past is okay?”

  She ran her fingers over the flat side of the bowl, over the two houses sitting close together, looking down over the hill at the river running blue and free. “This isn’t the past,” she said, knowing that every time she looked at it, she’d remember Gabe had rescued it for her, had been there when she’d needed him. “This is you.” She looked at the houses again, balancing each other at the top of the hill, the smoke streaming from their chimneys side by side toward the sky. “This is us.”

  “Good,” Gabe said. “Because I don’t think the guy is going to take it back.” His voice was light, but when she looked up at him, his eyes were dark and sure.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you, too,” he said. “Let’s make it legal.”

  He sat there in the sunlight, the devil made flesh, tempting her into an eternity of heat and light. Marriage is a gamble and a snare and an invitation to pain, she thought. It’s compromise and sacrifice, and I’ll be stuck forever with this man and his damn ugly window.

  Gabe smiled at her and made her heart clutch. “Chicken.”

  “Not me,” Nell said. “I’m getting married.�€