“I loved her,” he says to no one in particular.

And I believe him.

Chapter 20

It’s almost nine by the time Harry and I pull up to my Windmill Lane cottage. A candy-apple Mustang is parked behind Luke’s pickup in our newly shoveled driveway. Harry whistles and strolls around it as soon as we get out of the Jeep, and then he points out the Harvard bumper sticker. “Looks like your son has a visitor,” he says, shaking his head. “Damn, that guy’s doing something right.”

“What does that mean?”

He shrugs. “You saw his heartthrob,” he says. “And she drives this to boot .”

I stare at him.

“This isn’t one of the new ones,” he tells me, examining the car again. “This baby is restored—vintage.”

I’m feeling a bit vintage myself at the moment.

“I wonder if she has trouble getting parts,” he adds.

I continue to stare. I’m not about to discuss Abby Kendrick’s parts. Certainly not with Harry. He runs one gloved hand along the hood and chuckles. “That Luke,” he says, “I’ve got to hand it to him. He’s doing something right.”

“So you mentioned.”

Harry looks up all of a sudden, his eyes wide, as if he’d forgotten I was here until just now. “Of course,” he says in a professorial tone, “I prefer a more mature woman myself.”

“You’re not helping your cause.” I head for the back stairs.

“Preferably with a not-so-high-maintenance car,” he says to my back.

“Give it up, Harry.”

“With extremely high mileage,” he calls after me.

“Not helping.”

“And a low-to-the-ground chassis.”

We’re laughing uncontrollably by the time we spill through the kitchen door, more from fatigue than anything else. Harry pours a glass of Sancerre for me and opens a Heineken for himself, while I slice a loaf of French bread and take a wheel of Camembert and a bag of green grapes from the refrigerator. Not until we go into the living room do I realize it’s dimly lit. My son has taken a stab at ambiance. A first, as far as I know.

A floor lamp in the far corner is on its lowest setting and two tapered candles flicker on the coffee table. The only other light in the room is the glow behind the glass doors of the woodstove. Abby Kendrick is seated on the couch, flanked by Luke and Danny Boy, and it’s tough to tell which of them is more smitten. Danny Boy’s tail wags when he sees me, thumps harder when Harry comes into the room, but he doesn’t budge from Abby’s side. “I’m going to remember this,” Harry tells him, “the next time you want your ears scratched.”

Luke flips on the light by the couch as soon as we join them. No need for ambiance now that Harry and I are here. I’m surprised he doesn’t blow out the candles. “Harry,” he says, “this is Abby Kendrick.”

Harry shakes her hand. “Hello, Abby,” he says. “We were just admiring your Mustang. It’s a beauty.”

I arch my eyebrows at him. He must be using the royal we.

“And you know my mom,” Luke says to Abby.

“Yeah.” She smiles at me as I set the fruit and cheese platter on the coffee table. “We met the other day.”

Luke was surprised—and a little bit worried, I think—when I told him I’d met Abby on Tuesday morning. I’m pretty sure he was wondering if I’d said anything he should be embarrassed about, but he had the good sense to keep his concern to himself. “You two are in early,” I say as I sink into one of the overstuffed chairs facing the couch.

“Yeah,” Luke says, “we were thinking about watching a movie, but there’s not much on.” He picks up the remote and hits the power button, as if he needs to prove it. An acid reflux ad extinguishes what little ambiance was left in the room.

“You have trouble finding parts for that thing?” Harry asks Abby. He’s a one-issue candidate sometimes.

She shakes her head. “My dad knows a guy in Southie,” she says, “who services it for us. He never seems to have any trouble finding parts.”

Southie is South Boston. If you know the right guy in Southie, you can get just about anything.

Abby looks like she has more to say on the matter of Mustang parts, but her eyes dart to the TV behind me and she stops talking. Harry and I both turn to see what’s caught her eye. Bold print in the center of the screen says BREAKING NEWS: UPDATE ON THE HOUR. A banner at the top says BODY OF SENATE AIDE FOUND IN CAPE COD WATERS.

“On Cape Cod today,” a familiar Boston anchorwoman says, “the body of Michelle Forrester, the Senate aide who’s been missing since Thursday, was found in the shallows of Pleasant Bay, off the coast of Chatham. More at eleven.”

“Jesus,” Luke says.

The color drains from Abby’s face. “Did you know?” she asks me.

I nod. “We heard about it this afternoon.”

“Does my father know?”

“Yes,” I say. “He just left our office.”

“How is he?”

“He’s upset,” I tell her honestly. “Like everyone else involved, he’s extremely upset.”

“I’m sorry,” she says to Luke, “but I should go. My dad must be a mess.”

She’s right about that.

“And my mother,” she adds. “Oh, God.”

“Okay,” Luke says. “Sure. I’ll walk you out.”

Harry and I are quiet as they put on their coats and head for the kitchen door. “That’ll be interesting,” Harry says as it shuts behind them.

“What will?”

“The dynamic in the Kendrick household tonight,” he says. “You saw Chuck in the conference room. He’s not going to be able to hide his pain, not even from his wife.” He runs his hands through his tangled hair. “What in God’s name does it feel like to watch your spouse grieve his dead lover?”

I shake my head at him. I hope I never know.

Danny Boy leaves the couch, trots across the room, and rests his grayish-red head on Harry’s knees. “Oh, now you know who I am,” Harry says. He’s a pushover, though; he scratches Danny Boy’s ears anyway.

“You know,” Harry says, abandoning one ear long enough to point at the front window, toward the driveway, “if things work out here, you could land yourself some influential in-laws.”

“Please,” I say, “don’t go there.”

“Just think,” he says to Danny Boy, “we could be eating our Thanksgiving dinners with a senator’s family.”

Danny Boy’s tail thumps against the living room floor; he must be a Democrat. I hate to disappoint him, but my head hurts when I even try to imagine Thanksgiving dinner with Honey Kendrick. Coffee was complicated enough. “I don’t think so,” I tell Harry. “There’s not enough Valium on the planet.”

“Think we interrupted?” he asks, pointing toward the driveway again.

“Interrupted what?”

He doesn’t answer; he just does the Groucho Marx thing with his eyebrows.

“Never mind,” I tell him. “I’m sorry I asked.”

The kitchen door slams and Luke appears in the living room doorway a few seconds later. He looks serious, worried even, but his eyes are bright, his cheeks flushed. And something tells me it’s not just the winter wind that accounts for his high coloring. He points toward the road out front, toward the fading sound of Abby Kendrick’s candy-apple coupe. “Is she great,” he says eagerly, looking from Harry to me, “or what?”