She shrugged. “My daughter, Molly, is on a tour of Canada with her soccer team, and my parents, for once, agreed to take Malcolm. So, no, I didn’t.”

She might as well have thrown boiling water on me. “Malcolm is your son?”

“Whose son did you think he was?”

“I didn’t think.”

“Why do you suppose I had to take the job I did? Why do you suppose I have to spend so much time dealing with kid problems?”

I probably stammered. If I didn’t, I might as well have. Barbara tilted her head and held my eyes while she talked. “I used up a lot of favors this time, George. I told my parents I was going to San Francisco to have it out with Tyler once and for all. To tell him I wanted a divorce. It was the one thing I could say that would get them to help me.”

I nodded, because it was what she wanted.

“I got on a plane and flew out there. I found that guy Billy, the one you said knew me. It wasn’t hard. He was living on my husband’s boat. And”—she hesitated before she brought up an old wound—“of course, I had those explicit directions I had given to you.”

I nodded again. It was a conciliatory nod this time.

“I didn’t know him, George. In fact, I think, when he found out who I was, I rather scared him.”

I could see that happening. I couldn’t imagine Billy ran into many women like her at Smitty’s bar.

“It took me all of about twenty minutes to get the truth out of him.”

The truth. I felt a tingle go up my spine. It made me bristle. She was going to tell me the truth. Something I didn’t know. Something I hadn’t been able to find out on my own.

“Did you have to buy him a couple of beers?” I asked. I was only partially joking. I was still chagrined by my misreading of the Malcolm situation. And I was uncomfortable because of the intensity with which she was looking at me.

“Sushi,” she said. “Over a hundred bucks’ worth. We went to a place on Caledonia Street with outdoor tables. Found out later it had a Michelin star. My mistake, I let him order whatever he wanted. By the end of his first tiger roll he had told me that Peter Martin had known you were coming all along.”

All along? Since I had questioned Howard in Hawaii? Or since Barbara had suggested it? But all I asked her was, “How?”

“I don’t think Billy was in a position to know that, but I can pretty much tell you from everything else I’ve learned that someone you talked to earlier was in touch with Peter.”

She waited while I counted off the possibilities in my mind: Cory, McFetridge, Patty, Howard. Her.

“Only thing was,” she said, “nobody knew when you might be coming, and Peter was sailing in the TransPac, and when I called Tyler to tell him about you, well, I guess Ty saw it as a way to get on the boat. To get into the race itself.”

“And you know this because …?”

“I just know Ty, that’s all. He would have done anything to get in a race like that.”

“Including lie to you?”

“Oh, like he’s never done that before.”

Barbara smiled at her own failings, inviting me to smile with her. Barbara Belbonnet. It was hard to see her as a victim.

“Don’t ask,” she said.

“You want me to believe you.”

“What I want is for you to understand what happened.” Her voice had suddenly grown taut. Just like that. As though I, somehow, was making things more difficult than they had to be.

I gestured, indicating she should go ahead, that I wasn’t going to interfere anymore.

“When I told Ty you were coming, he must have gone to Peter and claimed he was the one you were coming to see.”

“Had you told Ty that I wanted to talk to Peter about Heidi Telford’s death?”

“Yes, probably. Yes, I did. Yes, and I’m sorry.” Barbara Belbonnet wasn’t looking so intense anymore. Her eyes were wavering, blurring, and suddenly she was in tears.

It was so unexpected I did not know what to do. For a moment, I fought the urge to get up, go around the desk, take her in my arms. Tell her I was sorry. For everything. I could not hold off beyond a moment.

“No,” she said, sticking her hand out, making me stop, sending me back into my chair. “I want to tell you why.” The one hand stayed up. The other went to the back of her head so that her elbow was aimed at me and her face was hidden. “I wanted to help you. I wanted to do something for you, George, something only I could do. When Ty asked why I wanted him to set up a meeting between you and Peter I should have made something up, but I didn’t. He knew about Heidi. Everyone on the Cape knew about her, and I thought … I thought … I don’t know what I thought. I thought it would help you get what you want. That’s what I’m sorry about, George.”

“So Peter got him out of there. Took him on the boat.”

The hand stayed behind her head, the elbow stayed pointed. Her hair seemed to be going out in every direction. “Billy told me that when Ty asked him to boat-sit he also told him you would be looking for him. And he said when you got there he was to call a certain number, find out what to do next.”

I looked at the hair. Looked at the elbow. Looked at the person who had set this in motion.

“That story Billy had about running into Jason in the restaurant in Ensenada, it wasn’t true?”

“I don’t know. I just know that if you asked about Jason Stockover, he was to tell you he was in Tamarindo.”

Six people have a party of sorts. Four of them Gregorys. Something goes terribly wrong. First bury it, then deny it, then, if somebody has to be thrown under the bus, pick one of the non-Gregorys. Send me to Tamarindo. Where Jason is.

Except Jason’s not there. Jason has been tipped off. Run, Jason. Run, and he’ll think it’s you. Except we won’t tell you that part. Because you’re not one of us and you’re not even a friend from childhood. Like McFetridge. You’re only a friend from college. Which puts you in an outer circle, Jason.

First the family. Then lifelong friends. Then other friends. Then all those who want to be friends. Like George.

Oh, and by the way, do you need anything while you’re running away? A new sailboat, perhaps?

Barbara was speaking. She was telling me she was sorry she didn’t have every detail right as to what little Billy said and did. “But I didn’t stop there,” she said.

I looked up, shifting my attention to her again.

“I went to Tamarindo myself.”

Another piece that didn’t fit. If she was part of the scheme to get me to go there—Barbara to Ty to Peter to Billy—why would she go after I left?

Barbara was waiting. She clearly had expected a different reaction from me. I did the minimum. I murmured, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

And then she, nearly six feet of long-limbed powerful female with big yellow-brown eyes and just possibly the disposition of a sadist, said she wasn’t.

“You went to California, then continued right on to Costa Rica.” I was thinking that meant she had brought her passport, which meant she had been planning to do that all along.

“I had my mom’s ATM card.”

“Your mom financed this whole trip?”

“My parents,” she corrected. Then she unwound her legs. Then she rewound them, switching the one that had been on top. “Remember, they thought I was going to California to have it out with Tyler once and for all.”

Still, she needed a passport.

“I get to Tamarindo,” she said, her tone telling me I was going to hear this whether I liked it or not, “and it’s a strange little place. It’s kind of like being at the far end of the universe.”

She paused, perhaps to see if I would say no, no, no, it’s perfectly normal. Like Orlando or Las Vegas.

“The other thing is, and I don’t know if this happened to you, but it rained most every day. I mean, what are you supposed to do in a beach town when it rains? I end up going from one bar, one shop, one restaurant, to another, and whenever I see anybody who looks like an American living there, I try to strike up a conversation.”