“A money egg,” I said, bitter, and she smiled, wry and almost apologetic.

“I have to stop you playing,” she said. “If you piss me off enough, I’ll hit back and blow this for both of us. I want my money, sure. That’s the main thing. But I like you, Amy. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

It was an insane claim, since she was the one who’d be doing the hurting, but she said it in a way that sounded simple and sincere. I thought this was the real Roux again. All her Char-ish mannerisms from the walk had fallen away, and there was no sign of the exotic newcomer who had fascinated my whole book club. With me she’d alternated between predator and provocateur, keeping me scared and off balance, but even that was gone. This was the woman I had glimpsed before, when she’d dropped the games and talked to me about what I owed the universe. She was being downright human, a woman I would have liked, a lot, if we’d met in California.

In this quiet, before Luca came, I decided to try a different plan. A kinder one. For a moment I would try to be human back.

“That money isn’t mine.” Opening my cabinet, I got out a cup and poured her the last of the coffee I’d made for Maddy and Davis, one-handed. “You’re not really taking it from me. It’s Charlotte’s. You understand?” I passed her the cup, and she took it, but she didn’t answer the question. “It was always meant for Paul and Char. That money is a wall between them and any bad thing that life throws. If one of them gets sick or loses a job, I have to be able to help.” Every word landed like gospel, because every word was true. This was why I’d never touched the remaining funds, or even siphoned more to Tig. It was for Char and everybody she held dear. I could see that my words had an effect on Roux. She was listening, both hands wrapped around the mug, as if for warmth. “You say you’re acting for the universe, restoring balance, but you’re robbing some kids who lost their mother.”

After a moment she shook her head. “That’s too easy.”

“Nothing about this is easy!” I said, and I had to work to keep my voice down. Oliver was truly out now, a heavy weight on my chest and shoulder. Lord help us if I woke him.

She shook her head again, calm and certain. “That money is. It came from your family. You didn’t earn it. If Char got cancer, what would it cost you, personally, to step in and throw cash at the problem? Nothing. After you pay me off, shit gets real. Her chemo or your family vacation? Her meds or your new car? If you cover her ass when it costs you, it will actually mean something.”

This was her, the real Roux. The one who had her kid believing she was helping people make amends, balance-checking karma, acting as a twisted version of a confessional. I hadn’t realized how deeply she believed it until now. She hadn’t been BS’ing me. She really saw herself as some kind of antihero, which meant that deep down she must want to be a good person. It also meant that she was right: We were more alike than I wanted to admit.

I tried again to reach her. “Don’t kid yourself. You’re not doing something noble, Roux. You stumbled across my life and immediately stuck your hand out.”

She looked at me with genuine surprise and then straightened, setting the mug down.

“Stumbled? You think I’m here by accident?” She leaned in, fierce and serious. “Nothing is by accident. I was looking for you, Amy. I sought you like a grail, and that was before I ever heard your name. I knew that your name would come to me. A name always does. I worked to find you, striking up conversations in bars and parks, book clubs and gyms and churches. I know how to get strangers talking. It’s not even hard. People are so hungry to be listened to, and most of ’em walking this shithole planet have a story about injustice, the taker or the ruiner who wrecked them on the way through. At the same time, every person alive is starved to confess their own dark moments, because what they really want, deep down, is to pay.” She stepped closer, fixing me with the bright eyes of a true believer. “I’m the weapon, not the wielder. I follow the stories, and the road they take me down is the road that was always meant to be. That has to be. I was following a different story, heading for Baton Rouge, until I stopped by that garage in Mobile Bay. When Tig Simms started talking, I knew that the road was turning me. I go where I’m sent.”

“Sure. Because karma,” I said, my voice loaded with irony. It was so easy for me to dismiss her story, see her as the villain. Would it be this easy for Char to dismiss mine? But I couldn’t think of that. I had to win, so Char would never have to face that choice. “Not because I had more money than the Baton Rouge guy.”

My words landed, but not hard. She laughed and stood down, giving me an acknowledging bow.

“Well. A girl’s gotta eat,” she said, so glib I knew that her human moment was over. “Go about your business. I’ll be here.”

And so she was. She stayed all day, watching me like I was television. Must-see TV, even, trailing me from room to room as I put Oliver down, then cleaned up the kitchen. It set me on edge, especially since I felt something disdainful in her steady gaze.

Halfway through loading the dishes, I went and got Hearts in Atlantis off my shelf and thrust it at her.

“Stop watching me,” I said. “Just sit over there and read this.”

To my surprise, she did as she was told, heading to the keeping-room sofa. Even so, the book seemed like a prop. I could feel her gaze following me over the top of its open pages.

“What?” I said at last.

“Nothing. Just . . . this is really what you do? Dishes?”

I fixed her with a baleful eye. “Everyone does dishes, Roux. Even the queen of England has at some point in her life rinsed out a teacup.”

“I know. It’s just . . .” She shook her head and then waved her own words away, looking down at the book. She didn’t say anything more. Not then.

By eleven, Luca arrived, ready to take another quiz, excited about pool dives. Roux made us wait for Maddy, though.

“You don’t want to leave your little friend out, eh?” she said, as if Maddy’s pleasure were her great concern. Maddy did want to be there for Luca’s dives, but I’d told her it might not be possible. Now Roux was taking her side, for no reason I could see. She had yet to get Maddy’s name right.

Roux stuck all day, even escorting me to Lisa Fenton’s house to drop off Oliver before the dives. She only tapped out when the kids and I loaded the car with equipment and headed down to Tate Bonasco’s house.

Tate was blackly disappointed to hear that Roux had gone off to the gym. She was dressed to the nines, her house sparkling clean, wanting to show off for a woman who hadn’t bothered to come.

“Is she coming tomorrow?” Tate asked, plaintive.

“Dunno,” I said, and herded my excited teenage ducklings to the backyard.

There was a moment, that first moment when Luca swapped his snorkel for his regulator and let himself sink, that not even my current circumstance could ruin. We went down in tandem, face-to-face. Maddy was already under, revolving around us in slow circles like a happy moon. He held his breath for the first three seconds, a reflex, and then he remembered that that was the first rule, to never hold his breath.

He inhaled, and I watched his eyes go wide behind the mask, shining with the magic of it. It was so counterintuitive, to be under, to breathe in. I knew he was hooked. I loved this part of my job, but even as I took him through the skill sets, I could feel time leaking away. He showed me he could clear his mask and recover his regulator, and then I had him give Maddy the signal for “out of air.” A secondary air source was standard for safe diving, and Maddy’s was built into her BCD. She handed Luca her own regulator and put the alternate in her mouth. Linked by her equipment, they swam the length of the pool together, side by side, sharing air. Halfway to the end, Luca tucked Maddy’s arm through his. It was necessity, not romance. The short hose linking them was pulling at his mouth. Even so, when we came up, Maddy’s eyes were shining.

Meanwhile Roux was off doing sun salutations, her house empty, her secrets unguarded, and I was held hostage by her own son’s safety. She’d bet, quite rightly, that I wouldn’t leave a novice teenage diver on his own. Not even in the contained water of the pool, not even with Maddy there.