Lock came back from lunch at one o’clock and said, “Damn! I forgot to call Ben Franklin!”

Gavin coughed. His throat was . . . blocked. Ben Franklin?

“Ben Franklin?” he said.

“Yeah,” Lock said. “He took a look at the financials. Nice that he takes an interest now, for the first time ever, when I am insanely busy with other things.”

Insanely busy with other things. Yes: Gavin had been so busy answering the phone and taking care of other gala business and thinking of sex with Isabelle French that he hadn’t even noticed the financial records were missing. Gavin’s breathing was shallow; he needed the bathroom. Jesus, he had to get out of here before he was arrested. Go home, get the duffel bag with the money, and leave. Get to Hyannis, at least, then decide where to go. He should have had a better plan! But he had expected to go undetected for a lot longer than this. Ben Franklin took the financials? Unthinkable. Ben Franklin was completely clueless. Even if he looked at the financials, would he know what was going on? Would he see the cash taken from every deposit? Would he be able to figure it out?

Gavin had to leave. The less fanfare attending his departure, the better. He should just say he was going to Even Keel for an iced coffee and never return.

But the fact of the matter was . . . Gavin didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to leave this office, which had kept him busy and engaged—and had, for the past few weeks, anyway, felt like the center of the universe. The work he was doing fulfilled him; he went home happy. To leave the office now, with the best, most exciting moments to come, with the concert, which Gavin was attending with Isabelle French, on the horizon, would be horrible. To leave Nantucket forever would be even worse. And his parents! Just last night the three of them had had dinner together at the Pearl, and both his parents had remarked on how well he seemed to be doing. Gavin had finally received some much-sought-after approval. Furthermore, it struck Gavin for the first time that his parents were older people—his father now had a hearing aid—and there was no one in the world to care for them but him.

What have I done? Gavin thought. Stupid, idiotic, moronic, immature, insecure, dishonest, small-minded, shortsighted, and pathetic: that only began to describe the little game he’d been playing since last October. What was money? Money was nothing. What Gavin wanted was esteem, and just as he was starting to get it legitimately, his crimes were catching up with him.

How to undo? he wondered. There must be a way.

“I’m going to call Ben right now,” Lock said. “Hold my other calls.”

Gavin nodded briskly. He had no time to undo. He had to get out of there. But then he heard footsteps on the stairs, and Heather slunk in around the corner, the picture of teenage discontent.

“Dad,” she said.

Lock, who was dialing, hung up the phone. “Jesus, I forgot!” He jumped up. “Those are what you call whites?”

Heather shrugged. She was wearing a pink Lacoste shirt, a pair of almost-faded-to-white denim shorts, and a green grosgrain-ribbon belt. And Tretorns that had been laced up backward so that they tied by her toes.

“We have a father-daughter tennis match,” Lock said to Gavin. “Couldn’t have come at a worse time, but we have to play, don’t we?”

“You say so,” Heather said.

“We have to! Greta and Dennis Peale? We’ll kill them!” He turned to Gavin. “Are you okay to hold down the fort?”

“Okay,” Gavin said.

Claire was on her way to the rec fields to “supervise” the construction of the tent. Claire would not be consulted about a single decision, but the gentleman at the town parks and rec department, which owned the fields, wanted a representative from Nantucket’s Children “on hand” in case there were any questions. Claire had called Isabelle to see if she wanted to do this or to help Claire do this, but Isabelle did not answer her phone. She was still pissed about the magazine article. So Claire decided she would go and sit alone in the baking sun while the crew from Tennessee assembled the forty-thousand-square-foot tent.

She sat at a picnic table, drinking diet iced tea, playing solitaire. She tried to make the cards say something: Stay with Lock, or leave him? Continue to pray for strength, or just exhibit it, reclaim her life, work on her marriage? She loved Lock and she hated him. The worst things about adultery, it seemed, were countless.

At noon, when the crew broke for lunch, she left.

On the way home, she stopped by Siobhan’s commercial kitchen to see if she could help somehow. She couldn’t construct a tent, but with direction she could whip up a batch of curried mango chutney.

Claire walked into the kitchen without knocking. Why would she knock? She expected a kitchen full of people—Siobhan, Carter, Alec, Floyd, Raimundo, Vaclav. It was, after all, the middle of August, and Island Fare had a herculean task ahead of them. By not knocking, however, Claire interrupted something. She blew into the kitchen—which had all of the fans running, possibly masking the noise of her entrance—and caught Siobhan and Edward by surprise. Edward Melior? It just wasn’t possible. But yes—he and Siobhan were at the long stainless steel counter, standing very close to each other. Siobhan saw Claire first and jumped and pushed Edward away, or so it seemed, and Edward whipped around and saw Claire—and whereas his face registered guilt, it also registered relief. Claire was not Carter.

“Hi,” Claire said brightly and casually, as though there were nothing about finding Edward Melior in Siobhan’s prep kitchen that shocked her. On the counter were the makings for the crispy pork wontons. Claire pointed to the stack of wonton wrappers and said, “Yum, my favorite.”