“Does your cell phone work here?”

He nodded.

“Can I make a phone call without it being traced?”

My father handed it to me.

I called the number for Lucy’s sister. She answered with a soft, “Hello,” that sounded a lot like Lucy.

“Hi, this is a friend of Lucy’s. Izzy McNeil.”

“Oh, Izzy! She’s been worried about you. Hold on…”

In the background I heard the sister calling Lucy!, and then the footfalls of children.

Then Lucy was on the phone. “Izzy?” Wait just a second, I’m taking the phone outside. I heard a door opening and closing, then a few soft footfalls. “Okay, sorry about that. I don’t like to talk in the house anymore in case Michael…you know. Anyway, where are you?”

For a second, I wondered if I should answer her question. Lucy had said that Michael must have been taping her phone conversations or bugging the house, but if Lucy was truly back with Michael (and wanting so badly to make her marriage work) maybe she was the one who told Michael and Dez that we would be at the Nature Museum. It was Lucy, after all, who had begged me to meet her there that day.

“Izzy? Are you there?” Lucy said.

The sound of Lucy’s sweet voice made me realize how much I adored this girl and at the same time how much I hated how suspicious I’d grown over the last year. I trusted Lucy. I always trusted Lucy. And I wouldn’t go through life mistrusting everyone. I glanced at my dad, wondering if maybe that was how he had lived his life.

“I’m back in town,” I said. “I’m all right. How are you?”

She sighed. “I’ve been better. I’m just so glad to know you’re okay.”

“How are things with Michael?”

Another sigh. “I’ve almost hit my limit if you want to know the truth. He keeps saying he’s not working with Dez, or with anyone like that, but Izzy, he still has money. I mean, he lost the bank job and he’s getting sued by them, but he’s still paying our mortgage and he’s still buying new clothes and going out for big dinners.”

“You don’t know where he gets the money?”

“No. I’ve never handled the finances, and when I ask, he tells me not to worry about it. When I push he tells me he came into family money, but Izzy, I know his family. They don’t have this kind of cash.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m so confused. I still want our marriage to work. Or at least logically I want that.”

“Have you been talking to Mayburn?”

“No.” Her voice was so low I almost couldn’t hear her. “And it’s killing me.”

“Lucy, I’m just going to cut to the chase here. I need your help.”

“Of course. What kind of help?”

“Basically, I need some dirt on Dez Romano.”

“Oh, Izzy, I told you. He is a bad, bad guy. Just stay away from him.”

“I’d like to.”

“Does this have to do with Mayburn? I told him that I need to make these decisions on my own.” Her voice was louder now, bordering on irritation. “He thinks that-”

“Luce, this has nothing to do with Mayburn. It has to do with my brother.”

“I didn’t even know you had a brother.”

For some reason, that made me choke up. “Charlie. And Dez kidnapped him.” I told her the situation.

“Oh my God.” Lucy sounded shocked. “Oh my God,” she said again.

“We’re trying to get some information to lord over Dez so that we walk into the situation with some kind of bargaining power.”

“Sure, I get it. But how could I possibly help with that?”

“You could get information from Michael.”

“When he was arrested, they confiscated the laptop he used to have. He doesn’t even use a computer anymore now that he’s not working.”

“But he’s got information in his head.”

“He’s never told me anything, Izzy, and Michael always keeps everything close to the vest.”

“So if your marriage is going to work, he’d better start communicating, don’t you think?”

“It’s not that easy, Izzy.”

“I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but giving it a try will help you as much as us. If he has information about Dez Romano, you’ll know he’s been lying to you. If not, and you believe him, then maybe it will be the push you need to really make an effort to have this marriage work out.”

Lucy went silent.

My dad glanced at me, waiting for the answer.

Finally she spoke. “Michael is supposed to be home any minute. Give me an hour.”

Thanks so much,” Lucy DeSanto said to her sister, who was piling her kids and Lucy’s too in the car.

“No problem. We’ll hit the playground, and we’ll go to the diner for lunch. I’ll keep them out of your hair for a few hours.”

“You’ve got the wheat pretzels, right? Because if they get fussy about the food at the diner, they’ll both eat those.”

“I’ve got the pretzels.” Her sister, who looked just like Lucy but taller and built more solidly, gave her a long look. “You know I think Michael is an asshole.”

“Give me a break, okay? We’ve been through this and-”

Her sister held up her hand. “I know, I know. What I was going to say was that I think he’s an asshole, but if you guys can put this back together, and he can make you happy again, then I’ll be happy. And I’ll even remove the asshole status from his name.”

Lucy laughed. “Thanks.”

When they were gone, Lucy headed back into her house, feeling excited about the time that she carved out for her and Michael. On one hand, it would force her to make an effort to be more intimate with him, something she needed to do anyway. She and Michael hadn’t fooled around in so long, that she almost couldn’t remember what it was like. These days, when she thought about sex, she could only see John Mayburn. Even when she thought of comfort, of friendship, it was John to whom her mind always returned.

Lucy climbed the steps to their bedroom, thinking that while Michael was in jail, she had come to think of John as her new family. But her kids deserved the chance to grow up with their father. And she reminded herself that she had been very much in love with Michael for a very long time in her life. Love like that couldn’t just disappear, she told herself. Not entirely. There must be something left of it they could salvage. And right now she going to try and find that something. If it went well, this time together might put them back on track. If it didn’t, if it appeared that Michael was still working with Dez, well…it made her stomach sick to think of it, but at least then, as Izzy had said, she would know.

She heard Michael’s car pull into the garage. She hurried up the final few stairs, wanting to change into some lingerie under her clothes, something she hadn’t done in a very long time.

Lucy pulled her t-shirt over her head, walked into her bedroom and went across the large room to the lingerie chest, which Michael had bought shortly after their honeymoon. It was filled with all those panties and negligees and nightgowns her girlfriends gave her for her bachelorette party. Lucy loved wearing sweet, sexy things like that and her use of the lingerie had lasted for a long while-for all the years when she and Michael had been truly happy.

Then Michael seemed to suffer a crisis of identity. Or maybe it was a crisis of family. He seemed angry with her and the kids, angry with himself. During the bleakest of times, he would lash out at her, calling her pathetic, saying she had no idea what the real world was like, making her feel like an idiot for being just a mother as he would say. But then Michael was promoted at the bank, and all of a sudden, he returned to life again, spending time with the kids, the black moods swept away.

But the distance that had grown between them remained part of the family, and she spent an awful two years, watching him strut around Chicago, driving his fancy car, building their fancy house, but feeling as if she was watching someone else, someone she didn’t know. Over the years, her lingerie was slowly stowed into the two bottom drawers of the chest.