"I don't know what it was like for her. She doesn't talk about it."

"Have you asked?"

"If she wanted to tell me, she would."

"Well, don't snap my head off." Ripley propped her feet on the chair beside her. "I'm asking you because I know you, big brother. If you've got a thing for her, and the thing turns into a big thing, you're never going to be square with it unless you have the story. Without the story, you can't help, and when you can't help, it drives you nuts. You're brooding right now because you couldn't help-to your satisfaction-a woman you'd never seen before and won't see again. It's that Good Samaritan gene of yours."

"Isn't there someone else on the island you can go annoy?"

"No, because I love you best. Now, instead of having another beer, why don't you take Luce and go for a sail? Still plenty of daylight yet, and it'll clear your head and improve your disposition. You're just no fun to be around when you're broody."

"Maybe I will."

"Good. Go. Odds of a second crisis in one day are slim to none, but I'll take a cruise around, just in case."

"Okay." He got up and after a moment's hesitation leaned down and kissed the top of her head. "I love you best, too."

"Don't I know it." She waited until he got to the door. "You know, Zack, whatever Nell's story is, there's one key difference between her and Diane McCoy. Nell got gone."

On Monday the incident at the Abbott rental was the talk of the village. Everyone had had time to form an opinion, particularly those who hadn't witnessed the event.

"Buster said they'd busted up every blessed knick-knack in the place. I'll have some of that lobster salad, Nell, honey," Dorcas Burmingham said, then went straight back to gossiping with her companion. She and Biddy Devlin, Mia's third cousin once removed and the proprietor of Surfside Treasures, had a standing lunch date at the café every Monday at twelve-thirty.

"I heard Sheriff Todd had to forcibly remove the man from the premises," Biddy expounded. "At gunpoint."

"Oh, Biddy, no such thing. I talked to Gladys Macey, who had it straight from Anne Potter who sent for the sheriff in the first place that Zack had his gun holstered right along. Can I have an iced mocha with that salad, Nell?"

"Domestic disputes are one of the most dangerous calls for a policeman," Biddy informed her. "I read that somewhere. My, that soup smells divine, Nell. I don't believe I've ever had gazpacho before, but I'm going to have to try a cup, and one of your brownies."

"I'll bring your lunch out to you," Nell offered, "if you'd like to get a table."

"Oh, that's all right, we'll wait for it." Dorcas waved the offer away. "You've got enough to do. Anyway, I heard that even though that brute bloodied that poor woman's lip and blackened her eye, she stuck by him. Wouldn't press charges."

"It's a crying shame is what it is. Odds are her father beat on her mother, so she grew up seeing such things and thinking that's just what happens. It's a cycle. That's what the statistics say. Abuse spawns abuse. I'll wager you, if that woman had grown up in a loving home, she wouldn't be living with a man who treated her that way."

"Ladies, that'll be thirteen eighty-five." Nell's head throbbed like a bad tooth, and her nerve endings stretched thin as hair strands while the two women went through their weekly routine of whose turn it was to pay.

It was always playful, and usually it amused Nell. But now she wanted them gone. She wanted to hear no more about Diane McCoy.

What did they know about it? she thought bitterly. These two comfortable women with their comfortable lives? What did they know about fear and helplessness?

It wasn't always a cycle. She wanted to scream it. It wasn't always a pattern. She'd had a loving home, with parents who'd been devoted to each other, and to her. There had been arguments, irritation, annoyances. While voices may have been raised, fists never had.

She had never been struck in her life before Evan Remington.

She wasn't a goddamn statistic.

By the time the women headed off to a table, thin, sharp-edged bands of steel had locked themselves around Nell's temples. She turned blindly to the next customer and found Ripley studying her.

"You look a little shaky, Nell."

"Just a headache. What can I get you today?"

"Why don't you get yourself an aspirin? I'll wait."

"No, it's fine. The fruit-and-cabbage salad's good. It's a Scandinavian recipe. I've had positive feedback on it."

"Okay, I'm game. I'll take an iced tea with it. Those two," she added, nodding toward Biddy and Dorcas. "They chatter like a couple of parrots. It'd give anybody a headache. I guess everybody's been yakking about the trouble yesterday."

"Well." She wanted a dark room, an hour's quiet. "Big news."

"Zack did everything he could to help that woman. She didn't want to be helped. Not everyone does."

"Not everyone knows what to do with an offer of help, or who they can trust to give it."

"Zack can be trusted." Ripley laid her money on the counter. "Maybe he plays it low key, that's his way. But when push comes to shove, he stands up. You ought to do something for that headache, Nell," she added, and took her lunch to a table.

She didn't have time to do more about it than swallow a couple of aspirin. Peg was late, rushing in full of apologies and with a sparkle in her eye that told Nell a man had been responsible for her tardiness.

As Nell had an appointment with Gladys Macey to-please, God-finalize the menu for the anniversary party, she had to rush home, gather her notes and files.

The headache had escalated to nightmare territory by the time she knocked on Gladys's door.

"Nell, I've told you, you don't have to knock. You just call out and walk in," Gladys said and pulled her inside. "I'm just so excited about this. I watched this program on the Home and Garden channel just the other day. Got me all sorts of ideas to talk over with you. I think we ought to string those little white lights through my trees, and put those luminaries-with little hearts on the bags-along the walk and the patio. What do you think?"

"Mrs. Macey, I think you should have whatever you want. I'm really just the caterer."

"Now, honey, I think of you as my party coordinator. Let's sit down in the living room."

The room was spotlessly clean, as if dust was a sin against nature. Every stick of furniture matched, with the pattern in the sofa picked up in the valance of the window treatments and the narrow border of wallpaper that ran just under the ceiling.

There were two identical lamps, two identical chairs, two identical end tables. The rug matched the curtains, the curtains matched the throw pillows.

All the wood was honey maple, including the cabinet of the big-screen TV, which was currently running a Hollywood gossip program.

"I've got a weakness for that kind of show. All those famous people. I love seeing what clothes they're wearing. You just sit down," Gladys ordered. "Make yourself comfortable. I'm going to get us a nice cold Coke, then we'll roll up our sleeves and dive right in."

As she had the first time she'd toured Gladys's house for pre-party plans, Nell found herself bemused. Every room was tidy as a church pew and as rigidly organized as a furniture showroom floor. Magazines were fanned precisely on the coffee table, and offset by an arrangement of silk flowers in the exact tones of mauve and blues as the upholstery.

The fact that the house managed to be friendly said more, to Nell's mind, about the occupants than the decor.