God, I didn’t want to hurt him. Roofies could interact with alcohol. Dangerously. Google had said so.

I said, “I usually take two.”

I almost whispered it, hiding the words under the moan of the distant cello, in case the daughter was nearby. She might be hiding in the curvy paths of the Orchid Center, waiting to take Spence in hand. I said it as a sop to guilt, even as I rendered him helpless for a woman who wished him ill. And truthfully, I would have done much worse than this to Spence. To anyone. To save Robert.

“Yeah, but you weigh what? A buck-twenty?” He grabbed all three out of my hand and popped them into his mouth, then washed them down with the dregs of his drink.

I was instantly so relieved it made me dizzy. I felt myself sway, putting one hand on an arch to steady myself.

“Easy there, hon!” he said, smiling. “Maybe you needed those pills.”

I smiled back, light-headed. I had obeyed, fully, and whatever happened now, my part was finished. I would get Robert back. She had promised. I was woozy with joy and a thousand other, fainter feelings: guilt and worry and mistrust and a sick, sick fear.

I said, “I took a Lyft here, no worries.”

He smiled. “Then you can drink that Pappy. I’m jealous, but I need to go butter some clients. I haven’t so much as said hello to the Clausens, and you better believe I will hear about it from Jim Astor if they escape before I do.” He turned to go, lumbering up the narrow path. At the turn he paused. “Thanks, Bree. You and Trey, you always have my back.”

Then he was gone. My spine sagged. I almost sat down right there on the hard stone floor. I leaned against the arch instead, digging in my purse for the cheap phone. The mother had told me to text her as soon as I got the pills down Spence, but I wanted to call. I wanted to hear my son breathing or eating or even crying.

There was only one number in the contacts. Robert. I stared at his name, as if the letters could bring me closer to him. I would have him soon, back in my arms. Tomorrow, she’d said. I pressed the message icon instead of the call button. I wanted to do everything perfectly. The hard part was over. I could not mess up now.

It’s done.

It took an endless span of seconds for her to answer. I could see the dot-dot-dot in the window. My heart was still pounding, and I still felt dizzy, but I could not fall apart. Not yet. Not until I had him back.

Good. Now go home.

I didn’t move. I couldn’t. Not without more assurance.

When will you give him back? I felt my body shivering.

When it’s finished. Go home.

I couldn’t tell if she was being reassuring or threatening, or if she was scared, like me. The words could be read as cold, but I remembered the tremble in her voice. Her own child was here, up to something risky. The daughter had to intercept Spence now, tempt him away from the crowd. The mother had to be so frightened for her child. We were alike in this.

My clammy hands texted, I understand. I will get out of your daughter’s way. But please, can you please tell me when I’ll get Robert back?

STOP TEXTING ME AND GO HOME. I’ll call you in the morning.

I felt my head shake back and forth. The morning was a thousand years from now. She’d said “tomorrow” from the start. But I had done what she asked, and I wanted Robert now.

Then a wild hope rose. What if the instructions for getting him back were at my house already? She could have left them there, the way she’d left the phone and the bottle of pills, hanging on my door. She could be setting Robert himself down in my backyard, his infant carrier crushing the basil plants by the window where I’d first seen her. It was a crazy thought, but that didn’t change the effect. All at once I was moving, almost running, flushed with new urgency. Roofies worked fast. Ten minutes, fifteen, Google said. I had to get out, get home, and not see the face of the woman who came to gather up a reeling, slurring Spence. If the mother thought I was a threat to her child, she’d be a threat to mine.

I hurried toward the exit, shoving her phone back into my purse and grabbing for my own so I could summon a Lyft. I went blind around a corner and barreled into a man. We had to grab onto each other to keep from falling.

“Excuse me,” I said, and at the same time, he said, “Sorry.”

A familiar voice.

Marshall Chase stared down at me, surprised, and then his eyebrows pushed together and his steadying hand clamped onto my arm in a squeeze.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he said.

7

A woman banged into Marshall, throwing him off balance. His arms went around her, he inhaled sharply, and he knew instantly that it was Bree. He smelled her roses, not heavy or overly sweet. Roses undercut with earth and herbs that deepened the scent, the way good bitters deepened whiskey.

He’d had a few, so when they steadied, he wasn’t altogether sure who had caught whom. He stared down into her shocked, pale face.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” The words popped out. He’d been thinking about how not to think about her, and here she was, in his arms.

She pulled free, surprised and maybe angry, tottering on precariously high heels that put them almost eye to eye. “Are you following me?”

Marshall blinked. “Am I what? I came in to get out of the crowd for a minute. What are you doing here?” Right exactly here, bowling him over.

She swiped a hand through the air, as if shooing him, then pushed past him, heading out of the building. “I can’t talk to you.”

He fell into step beside her, a wobble in his turn. He wasn’t drunk, but he sure as hell wasn’t sober. Now that there was a safe distance between her body and his, he remembered she’d told him she was sick. So sick that just this afternoon she’d cussed and yelled and threatened him to make him drive her girls. Now here she was at the party.

“Okay, well, can I do anything else for you today? Shine your shoes? Clean out your litter box?” He was ragging on her a little, buzzed enough to revert back to the old friend that he was.

She sped up, saying, “I have to get home.”

Why was she here? He’d come because it was expected, and the food was always good, and it would fill the time with Cara out of town. It was better than sitting home alone thinking about Bree’s odd behavior, and the curve of her hip, and the way her face had lit up with love today when she saw Cara. He’d assumed she would be home in bed. But here she was.