For weeks, she had told herself Audrey’s withdrawal was adolescence. She had told herself the silence at dinner was stress. She had told herself the bedroom door closing upstairs was privacy. She had told herself the sleeve in Audrey’s fist was nothing because Scott had sighed when Rachel mentioned it and said, You do this. You see one weird thing and build a case.
Maybe she did.
Maybe she had seen weird things before Derek ever volunteered to drive Audrey.
The thought landed with enough force to make her straighten.
There had been the barbecue in August.
Derek and Scott had been out on the patio arguing—not angrily, exactly, but with the strained politeness of men accustomed to agreeing. Rachel had walked outside carrying a bowl of salad and heard Scott say, “I asked you for the reconciliations.”
Derek had noticed her first.
He smiled immediately.
Work crap, he had said.
