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mishaps. Even so, in such a close-knit group, there might be unknowns. Maybe the years had spread far and wide enough to weaken the bonds that held them together, pushing the joints and junctures where they were connected.
    The only person left to ask in their original group of five—Cooper, Shawn, Annabelle, Mae and Knox—was Mae.
    Annabelle grabbed her car keys, left Keeley a quick note that she’d run to the store and instead headed out to the county road that led to Mae’s horse farm.
    The asphalt unwound as her mind reeled backward—to the day Knox had left on his hunting trip. Nothing had seemed amiss. She’d kissed him goodbye. They’d said, “I love you.” He’d pulled out of the driveway and waved out the driver’s-side window. This was her last memory of him; she’d gone over it a million times and knew it to be true: he’d smiled and waved, a shadow from the magnolia tree crossing his forehead.
    The memory was as palpable as a person sitting in the passenger seat while Annabelle drove toward Mae’s house. Mae had been the last to know about her and Knox’s wedding. Their joy had been subdued in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo, which had just blown up the coast. They’d gone from one friend to the next and informed them of their decision to marry.
    The simple ceremony had been held in the pasture of Knox’s family farm. Annabelle wore a white dress borrowed from Aunt Barbara in Atlanta, and Knox slipped his grandmother’s wedding ring onto her finger. She’d been twenty years old. They’d moved into the guest house at the far end of the Murphy property and started their life together. Every time anxiety had overcome Annabelle, Knox had said, “Trust me.” And she had.
    Now Annabelle parked in Mae’s driveway and heard his words again. Trust me.
    “I’m trying. I’m really trying,” Annabelle said out loud in the car. She tried to remember the peace she’d felt when she’d relied on Knox before— Trust me —and how those words had comforted her during the tortuous days when she couldn’t find him during Hurricane Hugo. His “trust me” had always been enough.
    But now the words she’d said to Mrs. Thurgood echoed in her head, stronger and louder than Knox’s . What if everything I’ve ever believed about my life was a lie? What if all I trusted and relied on wasn’t true ?
    She jogged up to the front door. Mae answered her knock with a cup of tea in one hand. “Well, hello, Belle.” She hugged Annabelle with her free arm, held her mug out to the side. “You okay?”
    Still in the foyer, Annabelle plopped into a side chair, which was probably meant just for show.
    Mae pulled up another chair, sat and faced her. “What’s happened?”
    And for the third time that day, Annabelle repeated the story. “No,” Mae said when Annabelle finished.
    “Yes.”
    “Men are so stupid. They have everything they’ve ever wanted right in front of their faces, and they still think they need to go find it somewhere else. But, just damn, I never thought it would be Knox.”
    “So, you think it was an affair?” Annabelle leaned forward, touched Mae’s knee.
    “Isn’t that what you just said?”
    “No, I said they found a woman—I didn’t say I knew who she was or why she was there.”
    “Oh, I just assumed. I’m sorry.”
    “Yeah, that’s the problem. I just assume, too. But now I don’t know. There could be . . . other reasons; through all the trials, you’ve always been a dear friend. But you’ve also been Knox’s friend, and if you’ve kept a secret for him or kept something from me, I need to know now. It will come out in the papers, and the police are looking for the woman’s identity. . . . If you know, please tell me.”
    Mae shook her head. “I have no idea. I really don’t. I never, ever saw Knox with anyone but you. Ever. He never talked of anyone else. You knew everyone he knew that I know.”
    Annabelle looked at Mae’s face, stared hard and long; she was