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“What happens now?” she asked, after dropping back into her chair.

Zeke walked over and laid his muzzle in her lap, as if to offer comfort.

“Tom calls us in for questioning,” Steven said, though he was sure she’d only asked rhetorically. “Maybe tonight, probably tomorrow.” He turned a chair around, sat astraddle of it, with his arms resting across the back. “We’re witnesses, counselor.”

And I killed a human being, Steven thought.

A brief flash sparked in her eyes. “I know that,” she said. “I was talking about—I meant—what happens between us?”

A grin tugged at the side of his mouth. “Not too long ago, a lady told me, with some emphasis, that there is no us.”

Melissa sat up straighter, one hand curled around her cup, the other stroking Zeke’s head. “That was before she—I—came face-to-face with my priorities. That happens, when you think you might die.”

Steven nodded. His heartbeat quickened, but she had no way of knowing that, of course. A good thing, to his way of thinking. “What are your priorities, Steven?” she asked.

He took his time replying, even though the answers lived in the very cells of his body, little holograms, each one containing the whole. “Matt. His health and happiness and freedom, my own, my family’s, and everybody else’s. Knowing, when I’m about to fall asleep at night, that I did what I thought was right that day, even if things didn’t turn out the way I hoped they would.” He allowed himself a measured pause. “What about you? What are your priorities, Melissa?”

“The people I love matter most,” she said, after taking a few sips of coffee. Her gaze was fixed on the far side of forever. “The law matters, because without some kind of social order, we’re all in trouble.” She looked down at Zeke. Smiled tenderly. “Animals mean more to me than I ever realized—they’re so devoted and so loyal.”

“Thinking of getting a pet?” Steven asked, when another silence fell.

She smiled, shook her head. “Not right away,” she said. “But I think I’d like to work for Olivia’s foundation, once my term as prosecutor is up. Livie and I used to talk about it a lot, how I could serve as a kind of animal advocate.”

Steven took that in, along with a few sips of coffee. Tried not to look too pleased by what she’d just revealed. He would have bet his best saddle that this woman would remain the Stone Creek County prosecutor until her hair was tinted blue.

“That’s—interesting,” he said.

Zeke lifted his head off Melissa’s lap and started barking again.

They heard the sound of an engine, the slamming of a door.

Brody poked his head into the kitchen a few seconds later. “Is the coast clear?” he asked.

“It’s clear,” Steven said.

Brody’s smile broke over his face like a summer sunrise, full of light. “Good,” he replied. “I’ll go get Kim and Davis and the boy.”

As quickly as that, he was gone again, and Zeke went with him.

Zeke had long since appointed himself the official welcoming committee.

Melissa bit her lower lip. “I know I should ask you to take me home, but—”

Steven closed his hand over hers. “But?”

“But I don’t really want to be alone, and my family would make such a fuss over all the things that could have happened—I don’t think I can face that, tonight, anyway.”

“Stay with me,” Steven suggested, husky-voiced. “I’ll hold you. Nothing more than that, I promise.”

Tears filled her eyes as she searched his for any sign of deception.

“Okay,” she said, just as Matt burst into the house, with Kim and Davis and Brody and Zeke close behind.

MELISSA NOTICED THE PICTURE taped to the refrigerator door only after Steven had given Matt and the others a watered-down version of that night’s events. Kim and Davis and Brody all listened intently.

He left several pertinent details out of his account—the fear they’d all felt when Martine was struck down with the butt of Carter’s pistol, the struggle for that weapon, the shot that ended the robber’s life—but he still managed to convey a lot.

Yes, someone tried to rob the Stop & Shop. Yes, Melissa and I were scared. Both of