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Then a small face appears at the window over the sink, nose and mouth pressed flat against the glass, one hand waving a spiral notebook. FAITH HARRIS, DETECTIVE is printed on the cover in purple marker. Faith mouths something, very slowly and with enormous emphasis.

STATEMENT.

Carolina laughs. It comes out of her helplessly, with her hand over her mouth and her eyes shut. "Excuse me. I seem to owe a detective a statement."

"She'll take an hour."

"I've got an hour."

She goes. I watch her walk out into the yard and lower herself onto the bottom porch step, so her eyes are level with Faith's. She takes the notebook in both hands like she's been handed something precious. My mother, standing at the edge of the walk with her arms crossed, looks at me through the window. The look is not subtle.

I put the kettle on. My hands are still not quite steady.

Kieran's text arrives while I'm changing out of the uniform.

Cameras up on barn and porch. Marcus has the green. Take the day.

I'm in the hall pulling a flannel over my head when it buzzes again.

How's the guest?

Fine, I type, and then delete it. Type Complicated instead, and send that.

Is that what we're calling it? he writes back.

I'm still trying to think of a reply when I hear Faith in the kitchen informing Carolina that the festival has a hay maze, a bobbing tub, and cider donuts, and that the donuts are, in her professional opinion, the best part. By the time I come downstairs, in jeans and a gray flannel and no badge, it has been decided without me.

"We're going," Faith says.

"It's busy."

"We're going. I'm the detective. I have to protect her."

"From what?"

"From the man who painted her barn. He might be there."

Carolina is looking at me over Faith's head. The question in her eyes is perfectly clear. Is this allowed?

I think about it. The man who did this knows where she's staying. He doesn't know she's here, though, and she's safer in a crowd with a deputy and a seven-year-old than she'd be in the guest room with nothing to do but think about the back door.

"Okay. Ten minutes. Boots on."

"They're already on."

"Then you're ahead of me."

Faith takes Carolina's hand to walk to the green. I don't see her decide to. One moment they're two people on the sidewalk and the next my daughter's fingers are wrapped around Carolina's and swinging. Carolina is walking slower than she normally would to match the length of Faith's stride.

I walk behind them on purpose. It gives me a view of the back of her, the loose chestnut hair under the collar of her coat, the wide swing of her hips, the rounded curve of her calves in boots.

I tell myself I'm keeping an eye out for trouble.

The festival has woken up. A line stretches from the donut wagon almost to the bandstand. The air smells of fried dough and cider and cinnamon so thick you could lean on it. Someone has strung orange lanterns across the green overnight. Kids run between the booths with caramel apples.

Every few steps somebody calls my name and then sees who's next to me.

We make it twenty yards before Margaret Doyle catches me by the elbow. Margaret is seventy, with a silver braid down her back and a pie-flour smudge on her sleeve. She has been telling me to do my exercises since March. She doesn't let go of my arm. "Ethan Harris. Left shoulder. You stopped coming to appointments."