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stairs. “Hey, beautiful,” Chris Durand called.
    The place was empty except for the two of us. And Gus, of course. I looked down at my new uniform—Snowden Family Clambake sweatshirt, jeans, and work boots. Clearly, “hey, beautiful,” was a meaningless greeting as far as Chris was concerned.
    “Keep me company while I eat breakfast?” he asked.
    “It’s the middle of the day for you.”
    “The cops want to see me again at nine. I figure I better get something in my stomach. Might be there for a while. My day is shot, anyhow.”
    While Chris placed his order, I went to the dining room and sat down in the booth that, somehow over the last couple months, I’d come to think of as “ours.”
    Chris came in and sat across from me. He was so handsome that even all those years past my seventh grade crush, he took my breath away. He had light brown hair worn a little too long and the most astonishing pair of green eyes. His strong chin, covered with a day’s growth of beard, had at its center, God help me, a dimple. At thirty-four, his face had weathered from outdoor work, but that only added to his charm.
    “How are you doing?” I asked.
    “Moved down to my boat on Saturday.” Chris owned a beautiful wooden sailboat, the Dark Lady , a thirty-three foot Maine-made Hinckley he kept in the marina just around the bend from Gus’s place. He also owned a lakeside cabin he’d purchased from his parents when they couldn’t take the winters anymore and fled south. Every summer, he rented out the lake house for the season and moved onto the Dark Lady . Even with three jobs, it was the only way to afford both.
    “That’s not what I meant.” I could tell he hadn’t misunderstood. He was deliberately avoiding the topic of the murder.
    “I know,” he admitted.
    I’d discovered Ray Wilson’s body on Morrow Island, and Chris had, apparently, been the last person known to see him on the mainland. The two events were separated by time and geography, but it still felt to me like we’d shared a traumatic experience. My sense was we needed to talk about it.
    “Okay,” Chris said as if reading my thoughts. “You first.”
    I walked him through that morning. Waiting for Ray on the Jacquie II . Tony leaving to search for him. Michaela’s nervousness on the boat. The moment when I opened the doors at Windsholme and saw what I saw.
    “So he was just hanging there? That’s tough.”
    The sympathy in his voice brought tears to my eyes. It was the first time, awake and fully conscious, I allowed myself to feel the horror of what had happened . . . because I felt so safe when I was with Chris.
    I focused on lining up the salt and pepper shakers, the sugar, syrup, and catsup bottles in a row and managed not to cry. “But what about you? The state police want to see you again?”
    “Two hours yesterday. More today. You heard I drove the victim back to his hotel Friday night in my cab? Of course you did. Everyone in town knows it.”
    In a bigger town, it might be considered a conflict of interest for the bouncer in a bar to have the power to take away a patron’s keys and then load that person into a cab the bouncer owned. But in Busman’s Harbor everyone wore multiple hats and we thought nothing of it.
    Gus dropped a huge plate of blueberry pancakes and a side of bacon in front of Chris. “Thanks.” Chris was genuinely surprised. Gus didn’t believe in table service.
    “Don’t get used to it.”
    Chris picked the plastic maple syrup dispenser out of the little formation I’d created and applied its contents to his pancakes.
    “Tell me, from the beginning,” I said.
    He dug into his pancakes and ate. The moment stretched and I wondered if he was going to say anything. Finally, he spoke. “They all came into Crowley’s about ten, a little after. Since it’s so early in the season, I was the only bouncer on, working just inside the door, checking IDs. From there, I can keep my eye on the bar and the dance floor,