“Hey, Granddad,” she said. “Aren’t you freezing?”

He shrugged. “It’s a fine day for a walk. I’m just glad I can still make it up that hill.”

Her grandfather had met Alicia back when she and Quinn were at the University of Virginia together. Alicia’s interest in the Civil War was minimal, but she’d loved listening to Murtagh Harlowe tell stories. Quinn had dragged her along on a battlefield tour, explaining how Lee had entrenched his army on the hills above town and fought off Union assaults-too much detail, too much history, for Alicia, the budding, ambitious lawyer. She liked the views of the Rappahannock River and their lunch after the tour in a quaint restaurant in Fredericksburg ’s historic downtown.

Quinn tried to pull herself out of her pensive mood. “What was it Robert E. Lee said up here? About war-”

“At the height of the battle, Lee was reported to have said, ‘It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it.’” Her grandfather looked out from the summit toward the surrounding hills and valley, once witness to so much carnage. “Quinn, are you going to be all right? I’m sorry about your friend’s death.”

On her way to Fredericksburg, Quinn had turned on the radio and realized Alicia’s death had made the news, although no mass of reporters had descended on little Yorkville-not for the drowning of a kayaker. “I’ve been acting like a crazy woman since I found Alicia.”

“You’ve never experienced anything like that before.”

“And I never want to again. It was horrible.” She thought of the gulls but wouldn’t paint that particularly awful picture for her grandfather. “There’s so much I can’t get out of my head.”

“Give yourself time,” he said quietly.

“I have about a thousand questions, it seems like. So much doesn’t add up, at least not in the way people want it to.”

“What people?” But he didn’t wait for her response. “It’s how things add up for you that matters right now. Is there anything you need to do?”

Quinn fixed her gaze on the old cannon. During the battle, Lee’s Hill-Telegraph Hill, as it was known in 1862-served as an artillery position as well as Confederate command headquarters, firing on Union positions and being fired on. Lee himself was almost killed. But his death those bleak days wasn’t meant to be. He would live through the deaths and maiming of thousands more on both sides over the next two and a half years, until the Confederate final surrender at Appomattox.

The Union army, so badly defeated at Fredericksburg, would go on to win the war.

“I keep thinking there’s something I’m supposed to do,” Quinn whispered.

“You’re a catalyst, Quinn. You always have been. You push for answers. You make things happen. You don’t settle.” Her grandfather put a bony hand on her shoulder. “That’s why you wanted to go out on your own. It’ll be why you succeed.”

“It’s only been three months. The jury’s still out-”

“Not for me. If your questions about Alicia’s death need answers, you’ll get them.”

“I don’t want to get arrested.”

He smiled gently. “I’d like you not to get arrested, too. I’m not suggesting you break the law. Short of that, do what you have to do.”

She sighed. “You make it sound so simple.”

“A lot of difficult things ultimately are simple.” He studied her a moment. “Is there a new man involved?”

She thought of Huck Boone, his thick arm around her, his compelling, uneasy mix of self-control and unbridled energy. He hadn’t told her everything, Quinn thought. He hadn’t even come close. “Just another wrong man.”

“Ah.”

A longtime widower, her grandfather nonetheless understood the ups and downs of romance. He’d had relationships but had never remarried after his wife died when Quinn was two. She had no memory of her grandmother, but understood her to have been a gentle soul, too, although both her grandparents had encouraged their only son to be true to his nature as an adventurer and risk-taker.

Her grandfather walked back down the hill with Quinn, and she gave him a ride out to his car at the end of the road, passing intact trenches from the legendary long-ago battle. Somehow, the peacefulness of the landscape seemed to make her feel even more the horror of the death and destruction that had taken place there.

“Trust your instincts,” her grandfather said when she hugged him goodbye.

Traffic back to Washington didn’t bog down. Quinn arrived at her apartment before dark. She had a studio on the third floor of an unremarkable ivy-covered building a few blocks from her office, sacrificing the space she would have had in a cheaper area for location.

Collapsing onto her sofa, she listened to messages from her parents, a string of friends she and Alicia had in common, Gerard Lattimore again and-to her surprise-Brian Castleton, her ex-boyfriend’s voice cracking as he said how much he’d miss Alicia. But Quinn couldn’t help thinking that Brian must have been relieved she hadn’t been around for his call and got her voice mail instead.

She didn’t call anyone back. When the messages finished, she deleted them and stared up at the ceiling, trying to empty her mind. Her apartment, with its soothing, neutral colors, was so different from the eclectic cheerfulness of her bayside cottage. Normally, she could relax in both places, but not now, with guilt and questions swarming, with fatigue sinking her deep into the sofa.

She couldn’t even remember what her plans for the week had been. Work. Dinner with friends one night. Laundry. Grocery shopping. An aide to an Arizona congressman she’d dated three times-two movies, one truncated dinner-had disappeared. She’d known they were doomed when Lattimore had spotted her at the dinner and made a special point of saying hello, and her date had leaned over the table and whispered, “I hate that son of a bitch.”

That was in February. Quinn had decided to take a break from dating. If a guy whose company she enjoyed fell from the sky, okay. If not-she had things to do.

Just as she’d started to take her relationship with Brian for granted-started to think about the prospect of marriage, children-everything fell apart between them, and poof, off he went. And not just because of their different interests or Gerard Lattimore.

“Quinn, you’re just too independent. You don’t need me.”

Now that she had some distance, she realized that he meant she didn’t adore him enough. Love was one thing and all very nice, but adoration was something else altogether, and he needed it. He’d wanted to be stroked and admired and adored and for her not to work such long hours, have the responsibilities she had. He needed to be the center of attention-the total focus of her life.

For weeks, Quinn had believed he’d basically told her she was selfish and boring. Now she realized he hadn’t been looking for the kind of equal, adult relationship she wanted. As much as he pretended he wasn’t self-absorbed and liked a woman with her own career, he nonetheless, at his core, wanted a woman to acquiesce to his every whim-to anticipate his whims. Scoot off to the south of France at the drop of a hat. Blow the budget on a bottle of champagne.

Give up knitting. She remembered how irritated he would get when she was content to spend an evening knitting, sitting next to him while they watched TV or listened to music. Brian had felt as if they’d turned into his grandparents.

The last Quinn had heard, he was seeing another intern. He wasn’t bored, anyway.

Why am I thinking about him?

Because of Alicia, who’d liked Brian. Because she didn’t want to think about all her unanswered questions.

Restless, assaulted by memories, Quinn jumped up and headed outside, the streets crowded with commuters heading home from work, off to cocktail parties and early dinners, running errands. The normalcy helped soothe her taut nerves but made her feel even more isolated and alone.