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could slip out of the restaurant without having to pass right by them.
    Then Joe’s voice carried to her again, louder than the others, and it was as if no time had passed at all. “She was one hell of an easy lay, wasn’t she? All you had to do was crook your finger, and she’d spread her legs. I did her once behind the bleachers with my parents sitting about ten feet away.”
    Grace’s chest constricted as they laughed, which made it difficult to breathe. With Joe, it had been even more complicated than wanting so desperately to be liked. She’d felt she owed him some type of compensation for the loss of his uncle.
    â€œShe once asked me if she could be my girlfriendfor a few weeks,” Tim said. His voice was much lower than Joe’s, but she heard enough words to be able to string them together. “I told her yes before I screwed her, then broke up with her right after.” His subsequent laugh was a bark of disbelief. “It’s amazing how anyone that stupid could get into Georgetown.”
    Someone—Buzz?—must’ve smacked him because he groaned.
    â€œ Stupid? Come on. She’s definitely not stupid. She was—” his voice dropped, but she managed to cull the meaning “—screwed-up…something weird going on in that house….”
    â€œThere wasn’t anything weird going on until they killed my uncle,” Joe said defensively.
    â€œYou don’t know what happened to your uncle,” Tim said, a little more clearly. Joe started to argue, but Tim raised a hand. “And, trust me, they were weird from the beginning.”
    â€œBecause of her bitch of a mother,” Joe grumbled.
    After that, there were several whispered remarks. But Grace wasn’t listening; she was struggling to hang on to her composure.
    Unfortunately, her stomach wasn’t cooperating. It churned and ached as her mind painted pictures of what she’d done with these men when they were boys.
    She’d tried to make up for those mistakes ever since. But it wasn’t enough, was it? It was never enough.
    â€œGo say hi to her, Joe,” Tim said. “Maybe you can do her right here. If you make her squeal, maybe she’ll tell you what happened to your uncle.”
    Joe’s response was a muted snarl as the man who’d been ordering now joined the others at the table. “What’re you guys talking about?” he asked, his words resonating clearly.
    Grace hadn’t seen this guy’s face, but she didn’t need to. It was Kennedy Archer—the most handsome, the most athletic, the most admired of them all. She knew him instantly but couldn’t stop herself from looking up to confirm it.
    He hadn’t gotten fat. Nor had he gone bald, like some of his friends. He was still tall and broad-shouldered, with dark-blond hair and dimples on either side of his poster-boy smile. And, according to the campaign signs all over town, he was running for mayor, hoping to take the seat his father had occupied for so long.
    Their eyes met. Surprise lit his face as recognition dawned, and he quit yanking on the tie he’d been trying to loosen.
    Grace turned immediately away. In the restaurant business, four o’clock was the slowest part of the day. What were the chances that Kennedy Archer and his bunch would gather at the pizza joint while she was here, just like they used to when she worked behind the counter at sixteen?
    She remembered watching every move they made, trying to anticipate their needs, to be funny, cool—and had to bite her lip to contain her roiling emotions. She hadn’t expected to confront them all at once, hadn’t prepared herself for the feelings that doing so might evoke. It seemed as though they’d shoved her back into the skin of the needy child she used to be.
    How could she let that happen? Why hadn’t she seen it coming?
    She’d been too focused on what mattered to her as an