Siobhan said, “What are you doing here?”

And Edward said, “Hey, Claire. How’s it going with the tent?”

Claire plucked a water chestnut out of a five-pound can and ate it. “Tent’s going up!” she said. What was going on here, exactly? Siobhan could not abide having Edward’s name mentioned in conversation—and yet here they were, alone together. Claire had wondered if something had happened between the two of them at the invitation stuffing at Isabelle’s house—they had both stepped away from the table for a long time. But when Claire had asked, How was it with Edward the other night? Siobhan had shrugged and said, Laborious. As usual. Claire was bowled over by Edward’s presence here. And where was Carter? Was she missing something?

“What are you doing here, Edward?” she asked.

“Oh,” Edward said. He smiled; he had a smile for every occasion, and this one was his “pretending to be innocent” smile. “I was just helping Siobhan fill the wontons.”

“Really?” Claire said. This was the Edward who would eat peanut butter on a roof shingle and who couldn’t tell white Burgundy from lighter fluid?

“She’s in the weeds,” Edward said. “And who wouldn’t be? She is saving our asses, taking the gala on at the last minute.”

“Indeed she is,” Claire said. She glanced at Siobhan to see how she liked being talked about in the third person. Siobhan’s mouth was a tight little pucker, and her freckled nose twitched like a rabbit’s. “I came for that very same reason. To see if I could help. Can I help?”

“I’m fine,” Siobhan said. “I think I’ll just finish up here myself.”

“Yes,” Edward said. “I have a showing at one, anyway.”

“Are you sure you don’t want any help?” Claire said.

“I’m sure.”

Edward jingled change in his pocket. “I may just stay and help Siobhan finish this.”

“I thought you had a showing at one,” Claire said.

“I do.”

“You should go,” Siobhan said.

“Don’t you want me to stay?” Edward asked.

There was an uncomfortable pause.

“Go!” Siobhan said. “Both of you!”

On Wednesday, Gavin went to work, against his better judgment. It was a gamble, one that was almost as quickening as the act of stealing the money in the first place. Had Lock spoken to Ben Franklin? Would the office be stormed by federal agents? Would Gavin be led away in handcuffs? These were real possibilities, he knew, but Gavin’s gut instinct was that he would be safe for at least one more day, and he hoped this was all he would need to figure things out. He had been up all night thinking it through, and he had arrived at a shocking conclusion: He didn’t want to leave Nantucket. He didn’t want to flee to Southeast Asia or anywhere else. And so he had to figure out a way to put the money back. To unsteal it. This was harder than it might seem. He had pilfered the money over the course of a hundred transactions. He couldn’t just deposit the lump sum now. The duffel bag, which contained $52,000, was in the backseat of his Mini Cooper, which was parked, locked up tight, on Union Street. What Gavin needed was for Ben Franklin to back off. Once the gala was behind them and all the summer people went home, Gavin would find a way to quietly square the books. But he couldn’t do it now, with everyone breathing down his neck.

Lock strolled in at five minutes to nine. He looked at Gavin and grinned. “We won at tennis,” he said.

And Gavin, who had decided in the wee hours that the most important thing was not to call any attention to his plight, threw this resolution out the window immediately. “Did you ever catch up with Ben Franklin?” he asked.

“No,” Lock said. “To be honest with you, I don’t have time to deal with him right now.”

“I hear you,” Gavin said. “He’s not quite right upstairs anymore, anyway. You know that, don’t you?”

“I do know it,” Lock said. “I’ll advise Adams to find a new treasurer in the fall. But nobody will want to do it.”

“Nobody,” Gavin echoed. The phone rang.

“Time to get to work,” Lock said.

On Wednesday, Ted Trimble called to say that the chandelier was wired.

“Do you want to come get it?” he asked Claire.

“Yes,” she said.

From the car, Claire called Lock at the office. Things had been stilted and businesslike between them since the catering fiasco, but if anyone should go with her to get the chandelier, it was Lock. And so she asked: Would he go with her to Ted Trimble’s shop and pick up the chandelier? Would he help her deliver it to the rec fields? (They would store it in the concession stand, normally used for Little League games, because it could be locked.)

If I move it myself, Claire said, I’ll break it. I’m so nervous about Saturday, I’m shaking.

You have no reason to be nervous, Lock said.

And yes, he said. He would come help her.

Ted Trimble’s shop was unoccupied when Claire pulled in. A note on the door read: Claire, it’s upstairs! Claire walked up the hot stairs into a cavernous room filled with light fixtures and wires and extension cords and bulbs and stove burners and sections of slant-fin radiator. There were two desks in the center of the room, back-to-back: one for Ted’s secretary, Bridget, and one for his wife, Amie, who did the bookkeeping—but neither Bridget nor Amie was around. The fans were running and the radio was on; it was murderously hot. Claire hadn’t had time to get lunch, and the climb up the stairs made her dizzy.