“Humphrey!”

The digital clock in Tyrell’s truck read nearly midnight. Jama stared at the reflection of headlights against the layers of fog across the road. They entered the outskirts of River Dance. Five blocks to the clinic.

Tell him.

But it would be so difficult to face him-to face all the Mercers-day after day, so nearby.

Do it anyway. He deserves to know. Jama was ashamed of the way she’d treated Tyrell. He believed he had done something wrong, that he lacked something to make her happy. He deserved better.

“Slow down,” she said.

From the corner of her eye, she saw him glance at her. “We’re done for the night, Jama. There’ll be a heap of trouble if we go back out-”

“Do you want to know why I can’t marry you?”

The speedometer dropped to twenty.

“Okay, maybe you’d better park somewhere.”

“We were parked in the perfect spot before we left the river.”

“I wouldn’t want to spoil all your great memories of that place,” she said dryly.

He didn’t stop. He drove to the clinic in silence, parked beside her car, turned off the engine and switched off the lights.

The clinic was dark, and Jama wondered when Ruth had left. Across the street, Zelda’s lights were still on. Maybe she’d fallen asleep without turning them off. She never stayed up after the ten-o’clock news.

“Let’s talk, Jama.” Tyrell’s voice was gentle, filled with warmth.

Jama turned to him, glad it was too dark for him to see her expression clearly. He could always read her so well. “You took me by surprise two weeks ago.”

He hesitated. “I was so sure…just so sure.”

“I’m sorry. I should have picked up on the clues.”

“If I’ve rushed you, I’m sorry. You may not be ready yet, and if-”

“Don’t apologize and make me feel any worse than I do right now.”

“What could you feel bad about?”

Jama closed her eyes and braced herself. “I killed your sister.”

One ghost after another formed in front of Doriann, then disappeared as the boat plunged through it. She didn’t know where she was, how far she’d floated or how much time had passed.

“Humphrey,” she whispered. She couldn’t cry again; she was already damp enough. But she felt the warmth of tears in her eyes, anyway, felt them drip down her face, then chill in the wind.

It was colder on the water, and the fog dampened everything on her so that the wind froze her all the way to the bone. She kept trying again to steer the boat to the left, but she had discovered that a rowboat didn’t steer the same as a canoe. She needed two oars.

Why had she shoved the oar at Clancy? He couldn’t have gotten to her unless he’d tried to jump into the boat with her.

Something else rammed the side of the boat, and she cried out. She almost expected Clancy to come bursting from the water and grab her.

Again, she shoved the oar into the water to her right. Again, the boat turned in a circle. She was definitely doing something wrong.

If she kept turning in circles she was going to throw up. She pulled the oar into the boat and huddled in the middle, arms wrapped around herself. She was too tired and scared to do anything but shiver and cry.

But then a sound reached her. For a moment, she imagined one of the ghosts in the water had found a voice and howled at her. Or maybe it was the wind howling through the trees. It suddenly felt strong enough.

But the sound grew louder. Clearer. It came from the left riverbank. It wasn’t the howl of the wind.

It was the baying of Humphrey.

He was following her! Doriann’s best friend was following her. “Thanks, God.”

A long, hunting-dog howl surrounded her. She’d gotten this far. She’d escaped the FBI’s most wanted killers. She’d made it through the freeze. She could get to shore.

She picked up the oar again, determined to do it this time. It could work like a canoe paddle, only she’d have to do short strokes from side to side, then place the oar only halfway into the water to point the boat the way it needed to go.

She shoved forward. Yes!

But something went wrong. The oar struck a solid object hard. A limb? A log? The impact hurt her hands. She tried to hold on. The oar was wrenched from her. She scrambled to the side, reached out and tried to grab for it. She couldn’t. It floated from sight beneath another ghostly wraith of fog as the boat spun once more in the water.

Tyrell felt as if the temperature in the SUV had suddenly dropped below freezing. He knew Jama couldn’t mean what she was saying.

He looked across the seat at her. With no dash lights, the only illumination was from an amber security lamp above the clinic that cast only minimal light into the parking lot. Her head was bowed, and he couldn’t tell if her eyes were closed.

“Tell me more, sweetheart. You can’t stop there.”

She jammed her hands inside her jacket pockets.

“Are you cold?” He reached for the keys in the ignition.

“No, don’t. I’m not cold, I’m just…I’m not that kind of cold.”

“Do you have a key to the clinic yet? We could go inside where we can be more comfort-”

“No. I’ve put this off for four and a half years, and nothing’s going to make this comfortable.”

“Okay, then. Let’s talk.” He wanted to take her hand, to wrap his arms around her and hold her. Yet he knew she wouldn’t let him, and besides, a chill had begun to rise inside him, too.

“Before I go on, I want to say that I love you, Tyrell. I love your family, your mom and dad, all of you. I can make no excuses for what I’ve done. I’ve convinced myself all these years that I could never tell you or your family about this because I didn’t want to hurt you more than you’ve already been hurt.”

“I know you wouldn’t do anything intentionally-”

“Please, just listen. Don’t try to excuse my way out of it. There’s no excuse for what I did. It’s because of this change in me-it’s because of Christ-that I’ve come to this point.”

“Then why don’t you tell me the point?”

“In the past few years I guess you might say I’ve grown. You know. As a believer. Recently I read a passage in Proverbs that made me rethink everything in my life. It said, ‘The Lord detests lying lips, but He delights in men who are truthful.’ It struck me hard. I’ve had lying lips. Deception is a lie, whether you speak it or not.

“And then just a few days before you asked me to marry you, I had read, ‘A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones.’ I would be a decay in your bones if I marry you with a lie hanging over our heads.”

“Jama, you’re stalling.”

“I know, but I’ve got to work my way up to this, okay? I just need you to understand…Oh, Tyrell, I need you to see.”

“You know I will.”

“Don’t say what you don’t know to be true.” She laid her head back against the seat and took a deep breath. “Amy and I both worked the day before Christmas, but I got off at two in the afternoon. She got called to assist in an intricate surgery and realized she was going to be there for several more hours. After working a twenty-four-hour shift already, she was dead tired, and asked me to drop the car off to get the brakes checked because she was worried about them. Then we both agreed that I’d go to our apartment and get some sleep, so I’d be fresh to drive to River Dance for the holiday.

“Amy knew better than to drive when she was sleep deprived. We were determined to get home-Fran had told us she would have our favorite dishes prepared and waiting.”

“I remember,” Tyrell said. “Mom decided on nontraditional Christmas fare that year. She prepared a favorite dish of every person coming to dinner. You would have had your favorite meat loaf, and Amy her crème brûlée. I still wanted turkey and pumpkin pie. I think Heather went with devil’s food cake, and Renee with angel food. Dad his chicken and dumplings.”