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you, then the missing money would have served to enrage her all the more.”
    “A cheerful thought. You really are not a glass-half-full kind of man, are you?”
    He watched the moonlight ripple on the jewel-black lake for a moment.
    “Have you talked to Dev about the case?” he asked.
    “Some,” Grace said. “But I haven’t gone into great detail. The thing is, I don’t know Devlin very well. Between you and me, I think he has some doubts about my innocence.”
    Julius decided that it was not a good time to confirm her theory.
    “Does Dev know you’ve got a stalker?” he said instead.
    “I haven’t told him about the emails, if that’s what you mean.”
    “Yes, it’s exactly what I mean.”
    “This isn’t his case,” Grace said. She sounded defensive.
    “Did you mention them to Irene?”
    “No. I don’t want to make her any more concerned than she is already.”
    “Dev is the chief of police in this town. He needs to know what’s going on. Talk to him tomorrow morning.”
    Grace hesitated. “Okay. But there really isn’t anything Devlin can do about this.”
    “Dev’s a good cop. He might have some ideas. Meanwhile try to get some sleep.”
    “Oh, sure, easy for you to say.”
    He couldn’t think of a response to that. He had a feeling he wouldn’t get a lot of sleep, either.
    “Good night,” he said again.
    “Hang on, I’ve got a question. You said that your father came around asking for money after you got rich.”
    Should have kept my mouth shut,
he thought.
    “That’s right,” he said. “So?”
    “Did you give him the loan?”
    “He and I both knew it wouldn’t have been a loan because he would never have repaid it.”
    “Did you give him the money?” Grace asked quietly.
    Julius looked out over the water. “What do you think?”
    “I think you did a deal based on emotion. You gave him the money and I have a hunch it was never repaid.”
    Julius’s mouth twitched at the corner. “Right on both counts. It was the worst investment I ever made. Still don’t know why I did it.”
    “The why is easy,” Grace said. “He was your dad. You broke Rule Number Two for him.”
    “No surprise that it turned out badly.”
    “You did what you had to do.”
    “Good night,” he said.
    “Wait, what’s Rule Number One?” she asked.
    “Trust no one.”
    He ended the connection and clipped the phone to his belt. He stood at the end of the dock for a while longer, meditating on the conversation.
    It hadn’t really been phone sex, he decided. But talking to Grace had seemed a lot more intimate than any of the sexual encounters he’d had since his divorce.
    •   •   •
    H e was right about one thing—sleep was hard to come by. At two-fifteen he got up, pulled on his jeans and a jacket and went outside into the cold night. He walked to the end of the dock and looked across the expanse of dark water toward the Elland house.
    The back porch light was still on and a weak glow illuminated the curtains in all the windows. He knew the night-lights would still be on at dawn when he went past the house on his morning run. They had been lit up all night, every night since Grace had arrived in Cloud Lake.

Eight
    T he phone rang just as Grace dropped a slice of multi-grain bread into the toaster. She glanced at the screen, saw her sister’s name, and took the call.
    “Are you calling to tell me that you’re pregnant again?” she asked. “If so, congratulations.”
    “I’m calling,” Alison said, “because I just saw the news about the embezzlement at the Witherspoon Way Corporation. Are you all right?”
    Alison was using her crisp, no-nonsense lawyer voice. That was never a good sign.
    “Word travels fast,” Grace said. “And, yes, I’m fine.”
    Phone in hand, she walked to the window. It was her favorite time of day. The late winter sun was not yet up, but there was enough early light in the sky to transform the surface of the lake into a steel mirror. As she watched,