“Right,” Caroline said. “Research.” Ire peppered her tone.

“We can’t afford to pay the mortgage on this place and rent another. It’ll drain our savings.”

She rolled her eyes at the reminder. “I know that.”

“There’s always New Jersey,” he said quietly, deathly afraid of the response to suggesting she move back in with her parents.

Caroline openly scoffed. “Sell the house and shack up with Mom and Dad? Good idea.”

“There’s Trisha,” who yes, was a bitch, but that didn’t change the fact that she was Caroline’s sister and had a loft in Greenwich Village.

“Oh, sure, I’m supposed to impose on Trish. Me and a twelve-year-old in her tiny apartment? Not only do you want to uproot our lives, but other people’s lives, too?”

“Uproot her life how?” Lucas asked. “She owns a dog, for Christ’s sake.”

“Stop—”

“A dog,” he insisted. “A stupid little Chihuahua she dresses up in idiotic sweaters and treats like a baby because she has shit-all to do with herself. Having a houseguest would do her some good; it might even bring her back down to planet Earth.”

Caroline stared at him, as if stunned by his outburst.

“She’s crazy,” he said. “You know she’s crazy.”

“She’s my big sister,” Caroline snapped. “Just because you don’t like her . . .”

“Um, she’s the one who has it out for me.”

“Oh, please.” She waved a hand at him, dismissing the entire argument.

“She’d be thrilled to have you, Carrie. Just tell her you’ve finally decided to take her advice and leave me.”

The air left the room.

His own words made him go numb.

Caroline went silent again. The anger that had been nesting in the corners of her eyes was now replaced with sadness, with a pale shade of guilt.

Time to fess up.

“Look . . . I already found a house.” Or, Jeff Halcomb had. “I knew it would be stressful, so I just . . . I looked around and I found a place.” Liar. “It’s not expensive, and it’s right on the coast. Jeanie is going to love it.” As long as she didn’t find out what had happened there. He tried to keep the uncertainty out of his voice, but he was nervous, terrified that Caroline would say no. “I know you’re going on your trip and it’s really bad timing, I know all that. But I have to do this. I have a really good feeling about this project.” He may as well have had a guarantee. “Please, if this doesn’t work out, you have my word . . . I’ll go get a job at a newspaper.”

Caroline laughed outright. “Because business is booming at the New York Times. Right this way, Mr. Graham; we’ve all been waiting for you.”

“Okay, then I’ll go back to freelancing,” he insisted. “Hell, I don’t care. I’ll do whatever. But I have to take this shot. I can’t let this one go.” He’d already called Lambert Correctional Facility.

“Because John has convinced you this is The One,” she said flatly.

Because he’d already said yes.

“I know this is The One.” Even if John wasn’t a hundred percent behind him, Lucas was sure, more sure than he’d been about any other project in the past ten years. Writers had been trying to get Jeffrey Halcomb to talk for a generation about what had really happened in March 1983. A handful of shoddy biographies had been published on Halcomb, a couple on Audra Snow. None of them had been taken seriously because none of them could get any information out of Jeff. If Lucas just held up his end of the deal, he couldn’t lose . . . right?

But that was up to Caroline, who was going to derail everything, call the whole thing off—the Big Idea. Lucas folded his hands over his mouth, watching her the way an observer witnesses a particularly dangerous acrobatic act. It was a big jump, and neither of them had a safety net.

Finally, she squared her shoulders and breathed out a quiet sigh. “I think you should go,” she said. “Take Jeanie for the summer. It’ll be good for her to see someplace new.”

He furrowed his brow at her response, not grasping what she was saying.

“I’ll send for her a few weeks before school starts.”

“Carrie . . .”

She lifted a hand to quiet him. Stop, it said. Don’t talk.

“I love you, Lucas.”

His stomach dropped to his feet.

“But this . . .” She motioned around, as if to point out the imperfections of the kitchen. “We’ve been trying for a long time. Sometimes . . . enough is enough.”

Sometimes, people change.

His mouth went dry and he swayed where he sat.

There’s no going back.

The earth shuddered beneath him with pent-up grief.

His mind reeled as he tried to think of something to say, some perfect sentence that would stop Caroline in her tracks, make her reconsider. He’d apologize a million times, promise her the moon. The lyrics to the song he used to sing to her unspooled inside his head. He would say he’s sorry if he thought that it would change her mind. The Cure. He and Caroline so much younger. The Rocky Horror Picture Show every Friday followed by terrible Mexican food. A closet full of all-black clothes dappled by a splash of Caroline’s blues and grays. Combat boots that reached for his knees; twenty eyelets Caroline would walk her fingers up laced tight across his calves. He’d made love to her with his boots on so many times, all because they had taken too damn long to pull off his feet. And then they had grown up, become adults. Those boots were now exiled to the back of the closet, and every time Caroline caught a glimpse of them, she wondered aloud why he didn’t put them up for sale on eBay. Forget the past. All of that was behind them. But he wouldn’t sell them. They reminded him of the way she’d dance in the passenger seat of his shitty hatchback every time “Enjoy the Silence” came on the radio; he’d never part with them because they encompassed the essence of his own sullen, subdued spirit. Regardless of what she’d become, his once-upon-a-time girl was tangled up in those endlessly long bootlaces.

But these days, he didn’t need those boots to remind him of his brooding, reckless youth. He saw it every time he looked at his kid. Jeanie was already teetering on the edge of teenage angst. If he and Caroline split up, what would become of his little girl? Lucas shook his head as if to reject his wife’s words. He’d pretend she’d never said them, forget she’d ever suggested going to Washington on his own. But all he could manage was a nearly inaudible “no,” so soundless that it failed to register with her at all.

“Use the savings, get the place. If you use more than half your share, pay me back after you get a deal.”

Her image went wavy, like the horizon shivering with heat.

“I’ll talk to Jeanie,” Caroline said. “Explain what’s going on.”

She turned to leave the kitchen, her mug cupped in her hands. She paused just before stepping into the hall, and for a second Lucas was sure she had changed her mind. They had been together for too long. They had a daughter, a life. A history far too precious to throw away. But rather than retracting her words, Caroline shook her head and stepped out of sight.

Lucas white-knuckled the edge of the counter. It was all he could do to keep himself from screaming.

2

Thursday, February 4, 1982

One Year, One Month, and Ten Days Before the Sacrament

THE KNOCK ON the door had Audra’s attention drifting from the TV to the front door of her father’s defunct summer property. She couldn’t remember the last time her parents had visited Pier Pointe, but that suited her just fine. It meant that visitors were few and far between. Knocks on the door were rare, which was what had her furrowing her brow at the sound. She abandoned her midafternoon rerun marathon, rose from the couch, and padded across the loose pile of the shag rug toward the front double door. Peeking through the peephole, she caught sight of Maggie’s cropped haircut.