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David and his blond, all-American good looks. No. Katie didn’t look like David. She didn’t look like either of them. But it wasn’t a question she could refuse to answer. Not without arousing Alan’s curiosity even further.
    “Yes,” she finally answered, her first real lie bitter on her tongue. “A lot of people thought she looked like David.”
    “Was he Latin?”
    An image appeared in Maureen’s mind of a small dark woman-child with great brown eyes—so like Katie’s—and a soft melodic voice. “Yes,” she said, the words like ashes in her mouth. “Her father was Latin.”
    Alan nodded as if satisfied, for the moment anyway, and went back to studying the darkness. Then he asked, “How did he die?”
    With a sigh, Maureen hesitated. Strange that the memory of David’s death brought no pain, merely sadness, like an old wound properly healed.
    “If you’d rather not talk about it …”
    “No, that’s okay.” David was a safe subject. She could talk about him. It would keep Alan from asking other questions that she’d find more difficult to answer. “It was a car accident. He’d been out with clients. It was late …”
    “Drinking?”
    “Yes, but it wasn’t the alcohol. We were having problems.” She hesitated again, wondering how much to tell him. “He got home late. We argued, and he stormed out of the house. I think he was sober by then, but angry. Too angry to be driving.”
    She stopped, thinking about that night and the way she’d lashed out at David. “Anyway, the next thing I knew, the police were at my door, and David was dead. He drove his car into a canal.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Yes, me too.” She’d been so angry with David, not just that night, but with what he’d become, what he’d been doing to their marriage. But, she had loved him. “I should have tried to stop him. I knew he shouldn’t be driving, but …”
    “You didn’t.”
    “No. It wouldn’t have done any good, but I should have tried. Actually, at the time, I was glad he left. I was afraid our arguing would wake Katie.” She looked away, feeling the same flush of guilt she always felt when she thought of those last moments with her husband.
    “You can’t blame yourself.”
    She looked at him and saw the sincerity in his eyes, the concern. “I don’t really.”
    Sighing again, she pushed her hair away from her face and leaned back against the porch. Why was she telling him all this? She thought of Katie and reminded herself it was easier to speak of David than of other things. Besides, it felt good to finally talk to someone about it.
    They sat quietly for a moment, Maureen thinking how strange it was that she had chosen Alan to tell about David’s death. She’d never told anyone before. Oh, she’d given the police the facts, but she had never told anyone the things she’d just revealed.
    “What about Katie?” Alan asked after a few minutes. “How did she take it?”
    This, too, saddened her. Katie hardly missed David. At least that’s what Maureen had thought. Until tonight. When Katie had made Alan promise, and it reminded Maureen of all the times David had broken his promises to the two of them.
    “She asked about him for a while. She named her favorite stuffed animal after him. But she was only two, and she didn’t know him very well. He was very busy.”
    “Too busy for his own daughter?”
    She thought she heard anger in his voice, and it surprised her. “Yes, well, that’s part of what we argued about.”
    “I see.”
    Maureen closed her eyes and nodded, thinking that maybe he did understand—at least about what she’d told him. Of course, she couldn’t tell him about the money, the debts she’d known nothing about until after David’s death. Nor could she tell him about Katie, and the people who wanted to take her away. No, Maureen couldn’t tempt fate by expecting him to understand about that.
    Alan watched her as she sat lost in her own thoughts. He hadn’t expected to