"Yeah, we're together."

"Kids?"

"No." She looked flustered, and pain flashed across her face. She took a sip of her coffee, and when she spoke again the pain was hidden, put back in whatever box she used to hide it away. "I'm sorry. I heard about what happened to your own family, back in New York."

"Thanks."

"Someone paid for it, didn't they?"

It was a curious way of putting it. "A lot of people paid."

She nodded, then looked at me with her head to one side for a time. "You've changed. You look… older, harder somehow. It's strange seeing you this way."

I shrugged. "It's been a long time. A lot of things have happened since I saw you last."

We moved on to talk of other things: about life in Dark Hollow, about her job teaching part-time in Dover-Foxcroft, about my return to Scarborough. To anyone passing by, we must have looked like old friends relaxing together, catching up, but there was a tension between us that was only partly to do with our past. Maybe I was wrong, but I sensed a need within Lorna, something unsettled and unfocused that was looking for somewhere to alight.

She drained the last of her coffee in a single mouthful. When she put the mug down, her hand was shaking a little. "You know," she said, "after it ended between us, I still thought about you. I'd listen for snatches of information about you, about what you were doing. I spoke to your gramps about you. Did he tell you that?"

"No, he never said."

"I asked him not to. I was afraid, I guess, afraid that you might take it the wrong way."

"And what way would that be?"

I meant it lightly, but instead her lips tightened and she held my gaze with a look half of pain, half of anger. "You know, I used to stand at the edge of the cliffs out at the Neck and pray that a wave would come, one of the big twenty-footers, and wash me away. There were times when I'd think of you and Rand and the whole sad fucking business and dream about losing myself beneath the ocean. Do you know what that kind of pain is like?"

"Yes," I said. "Yes, I do."

She stood then, and buttoned her coat, and gave me a little half smile before she left. "Yes," she said. "I guess you do. It was good seeing you, Charlie."

"And you."

The door closed behind her with a single, soft slap. I watched her through the windows, looking left and right, running a little as she crossed the street, her hands deep in her pockets, her head low.

And I thought of her standing at the end of the black cliffs at Prouts Neck, the wind blowing her hair, the taste of salt on her lips; a woman dark against the evening sky, waiting for the sea to call her name.

Meade Payne lived in a red wood house overlooking Ragged Lake. A long, poorly kept driveway wound up to the yard, where a Dodge pickup was parked, old and partially eaten by rust. There were no chairs on the porch and no dog barked as I drew the Mustang up alongside the truck.

I knocked on the door, but no one answered. I was about to go around to the back of the house when the door opened and a man peered out. He was in his late twenties or early thirties, I guessed, with dark hair and sallow, windblown skin. There was a hardness about him, and his hands were tough and pitted with scars across the backs of the fingers. He wore no rings, no watch and his clothes looked like they didn't fit him quite as well as they should. His shirt was a little too tight on his shoulders and chest, his jeans a little too short, revealing heavy wool socks above black, steel-toed shoes.

"Help you?" he said, in a tone of voice that indicated that, even if he could, he'd prefer not to.

"I'm looking for Meade Payne."

"Why?"

"I want to talk to him about a boy he fostered once. Is Mr. Payne around?"

"I don't know you," he said. For no reason, his tone was becoming belligerent.

I kept my temper. "I'm not from around these parts. I've come from Portland. It's important that I talk to him."

The young man considered what I had said, then left me to wait in the snow as he closed the door behind him. A few minutes later, an elderly man appeared from the side of the house. He was slightly bent over and walked slowly, shuffling a little as if the joints in his knees hurt him, but I guessed that he might once have been close to my own height, maybe even six feet. He wore a pair of dungarees over a red check shirt and dirty white sneakers. A Chicago Bears cap was pulled down low on his head and wisps of gray hair tried to escape from beneath the rim. His eyes were bright blue and very clear. He kept his hands in his pockets and looked me over, his head slightly to one side, as if trying to place me from somewhere.

"I'm Meade Payne. What can I do for you?"

"My name's Charlie Parker. I'm a private investigator out of Portland. It's about a boy you fostered some years back: Billy Purdue."

His eyes widened a little as I said the name and he waved me in the direction of a pair of old rocking chairs that stood at the end of the porch. Before I sat down, he took a rag from his pocket and carefully cleaned the seat. "Sorry, but I don't get many visitors. Always tried to discourage them, mostly for the sake of the boys."

"I'm not sure I understand."

He indicated the house with a movement of his chin. His skin was still quite taut, its color a reddish brown. "Some of the boys I fostered down the years, they were troublesome types. They needed a firm hand to guide them and they needed to be kept away from temptations. Out here "-he waved a hand toward the lake and the trees-"only temptations are hunting rabbits and jacking off. I don't know how kindly the Lord takes to either, but I don't reckon they count for much in the great scheme of things."

"When did you stop fostering?"

"Back a ways," he said, but added nothing more. Instead, he reached out a hand and rapped a long finger on the arm of my chair. "Now, Mr. Parker, you tell me: is Billy in some kind of trouble?"

I told him as much as I felt that I could: that his wife and child had been killed; that he might be a suspect in the killings but that I didn't think that he was; that certain people outside the law believed that he might have stolen some money belonging to them and they would hurt him to get it back. The old man listened silently to all that I said. The hostile young man leaned on the frame of the open door, watching us.

"Do you know where Billy might be now?" he asked.

"I was hoping you might have some idea."

"I ain't seen him, if that's what you're asking," he said. "And if he comes to me, I can't say as I'll hand him over to anyone, 'less I'm sure he'll get a fair hearing."

Out on the lake, a motor boat was moving through the waters. Birds flew from its path, but they were too far away to identify.

"There may be something more to this," I said, weighing carefully what I was going to say next. "You remember Cheryl Lansing?"

"I recall her."

"She's dead. She was murdered along with her daughter-in-law. I'm not sure how long ago; certainly only a few days. If there's a connection to Billy Purdue, then you could be in danger."

The old man shook his head gently. He pinched his lips with his fingers and said nothing for a time. Then: "I appreciate you taking the time to come up here, Mr. Parker, but, like I said, I ain't heard from Billy and, if I do, I'll have to think long and hard about what to do next. As for being in danger, I can handle a gun and I've got the boy with me."

"Your son?"

"Caspar. Cas, to them what knows him. We can look out for each other and I don't fear no man, Mr. Parker."

There didn't seem to be anything more I could say. I gave Meade Payne the number of my cell phone and he stuffed it into one of the pockets of his dungarees. He shook my hand and walked slowly, stiffly, back to the door, humming softly to himself. It was an old song, I thought. I seemed to recall it from somewhere but couldn't place it, something about tender ladies and a handsome gambler and memories haunting the mind. I found myself whistling a little of it as, through the rearview, I saw Caspar help the old man into the house. Neither of them looked back as I drove away.