“White, wheat, or rye?” Nana joked, and got a laugh all around the table. My grandmother reads me as well as anyone. I’m pretty sure she could tell I needed a boost that night.

“To our guest of honor,” I said. “Damon, you make me proud, every single day. We’re going to miss you like crazy while you’re gone, but in the meantime—here’s to you. Here’s to a great quarter at Chapin. And most of all, here’s to summer vacation, when we get to see you again.”

“Here’s to summer vacation!” the kids chorused back.

“Close enough,” Bree said, and we all clinked glasses around the table.

After that, Damon stood up to make a toast of his own. I could see all too well that my oldest boy, standing there at the head of the table in a jacket and tie, wasn’t really a boy anymore. It didn’t help that he was fifteen but looked twenty.

“Here’s to Ava,” he said, looking right at her. “I know you and I haven’t really spent that much time together, but I just want to say, welcome to the family.”

“Welcome to the family!” everyone echoed back.

I looked over at Ava and was a little shocked to see her grinning from ear to ear. Ever since the school lottery, she’d been scowling her way through the day, and spending long stretches of time alone in her room. Now it was like someone had turned on the lights for the first time in a long time.

And that’s why my boy Damon is a star. With just a few words, he managed to get something out of Ava that I’d barely been able to do in four months. He may be the quietest of my kids, but that’s the thing about the quiet ones. When they do speak up, it’s usually for a good reason.

Or even a great one.

Suddenly, my eyes were stinging and the room went a little fuzzy. I never even saw it coming. It was like the whole day just washed over me in one big wave—all that stress on the way in, and everything I was so grateful for on the way out.

“Daddy?” Ali leaned over and looked up into my face. “Why are you crying?”

“I’m not,” I said, wiping my eyes. “Well, maybe just a little.” I pulled him up onto my lap and put my arms around his little string-bean body. “But they’re happy tears,” I said.

“Don’t mind him, children,” Nana told everyone. “Despite appearances, Mr. Dragonslayer over here is just an old softie at heart.”

“True that,” I answered.

Then Nana gave me a wink and raised her glass to make one more toast. “Here’s to old softie, who can cry all he likes, but he’s still paying for dinner!”

CHAPTER

17

RON GUIDICE GOT HOME AROUND TEN THIRTY THAT NIGHT. AFTER GETTING up at five, and crisscrossing the city all day, he was exhausted. Still, there was plenty of work to do. It was probably going to be another all-nighter.

Just inside the door of his simple Cape house in Reston, he stepped out of his shoes. It was an old habit from growing up in New Hampshire, with its long winters and subsequent mud seasons. He set his Timberlands in the rubber tray by the door, alongside Emma Lee’s little sneakers and his mother’s old slip-ons.

“Hey, Mom, I’m home,” he called out.

Lydia Guidice jerked awake on the couch, with a chubby hand to her chest. She’d been sacked out in front of NCIS, or CSI, or SVU—whatever it was. Guidice could never tell one of those shows from the other.

“Good Lord, you scared the bejesus out of me,” Lydia said. “I still can’t get used to that beard of yours. Makes you look like some kind of terrorist.”

“Uh-huh.” Guidice leaned into the fridge and pulled out a Bud. “Emma Lee eat okay?”

“All her chicken nuggets and seconds on applesauce. She went down about eight thirty.”

“Good, good. You want anything?”

“I wouldn’t mind a little ice cream,” his mother said.

In fact, ice cream was the last thing Lydia Guidice needed. She hadn’t weighed herself since she slipped past the three-hundred-pound mark. But the ugly truth was, his mother was a lot easier to take when she was stuffing her face.

“Where were you tonight?” she asked, pushing herself up to sitting.

“Work,” he said.

“You might have called.”

“We’ve been over this, Mom. If I don’t call, it means I’m working late. I don’t understand what’s so complicated about that.”

“I just worry, that’s all. Would it really kill you to pick up the phone?” she asked.

Guidice took a long hit of his beer. It was the same dance, every goddamn time.

“You know,” he said, “if you want, I can just as easily take Emma Lee and find a smaller place—”

“No, no,” his mother said.

“Take my benefit checks with me, too. I think they’re hiring over at the Safeway right now. You want me to pick you up an application tomorrow?”

“Don’t start,” she said, and put out a hand for her dessert. Guidice stopped short, holding the quart of Breyers mint chip just out of her reach.

“Who’s in charge, Mom?” he said.

“Oh, for pity’s sake.”

“Say it.”

Lydia grunted testily and shifted her eyes up to meet his gaze. “You’re in charge, Ronald. Always have been,” she said. “Satisfied?”

Guidice handed her the ice cream and leaned down to kiss the top of her head.

“Then let’s stop having this conversation, Mom, what do you say?”

The fact of the matter was, Lydia Guidice had never finished the tenth grade, never married Ron’s father, and never held down a real job in her life. Now, at age sixty-two, three hundred and some pounds, and no Social Security coming in, she was about as marketable as a used condom, and they both knew it.

Guidice didn’t enjoy making his mother squirm like this. That’s why he only did it as often as necessary.

“I’m going to give Emma Lee a kiss, and then I’ll be working in my room,” he told her.

“Okeydoke.”

“Love you, Mom.”

“Love you, too, son,” Lydia answered as she tucked into her ice cream. “Don’t stay up too late.”

CHAPTER

18

GUIDICE TIPTOED INTO EMMA LEE’S ROOM AND STOOD OVER HER BED. SHE WAS all curled up like a little hedgehog in one corner under the covers, sleeping peacefully.

There was nothing more precious than this. Nothing.

He leaned down and stroked his daughter’s sweet little cheek. Brushed her sand-colored hair away from her eyes. Kissed her forehead.

Halfway out of the room, he changed his mind. He could just as easily work in here. He parked himself in the white-painted rocker by the door instead and listened to the metronome of Emma Lee’s even breathing.

Once his laptop was powered up, Guidice plugged his earbuds into the computer’s audio jack and started opening Windows. There were notes to transcribe from the day, sites to check, listservs to monitor—but first, he wanted to make sure everything was up and running at Alex’s house.

With the family out to dinner that night, there had been plenty of time to install an Infinity transmitter on each level of the Cross home. Each one was hardwired behind an existing outlet so there would be no issues with battery life or losing power. There were also three corresponding match-head-size microphones tucked into the kitchen, the master bedroom, and Alex’s office on the third floor. If anything, Guidice was going to net more information than he would ever have time to weed through, but too much was definitely preferable to not enough.

He opened all three channels now, and let them stream simultaneously in his ears while he worked. Mostly it was quiet over there. Someone was watching TV, and it seemed that maybe Alex was in his office, just from the sound of shuffling pages and the occasional clearing of a throat.

It was a bizarre mash-up, really—sitting here gathering source material from the privacy of his daughter’s bedroom. A peaceful moment in the middle of the storm.