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hear her father’s deep voice, low and lulling. It reminded her of how, when she’d been a child, he used to coax her back from a nightmare. Somewhere in the mix were the light strains of her mother’s voice, urging her brother away from hysteria.
    Slowly, Ellis reached out and laid her hand on Jodi’s knee. “Aunt Jodi,” she said softly, “it’s me, Ellis.”
    Jodi blinked.
    “Are you hurt?” Ellis asked.
    She couldn’t tell if Jodi shivered or shook her head. Her aunt kept her arms wrapped around herself.
    The voices in the kitchen dropped another notch.
    “Are you hurt?” Ellis asked again.
    Jodi’s voice was shaking when she said softly, “He didn’t touch me. Just”—she waved her hand around the room—“did this.” Her forehead furrowed and her mouth twisted. She sobbed, “He doesn’t understand what it’s like f-f-for me. He doesn’t know . . . I h-had to do it. I couldn’t bear to hear that man’s name ever again.”
    “Had to do what, Aunt Jodi?”
    Jodi unfolded a crumpled tissue in her hand and blew her nose.
    “What did you have to do?” Ellis asked. “Why is Uncle Greg so mad?”
    “I had us taken off the list.”
    “What list?” Even as she asked it, Ellis began to assemble the pieces.
    “For notification of the parole hearing.” Fresh tears slipped from her eyes. “I just want to f-forget.” The last words rode out on a choked sob.
    After all they’d been through, how could Jodi have done such a thing? Ellis felt a fraction of her uncle’s rage. It took all of her compassion, all of her self-control, not to leap to her feet and carry on just as Greg had.
    Right then, her mother entered the room with a tall glass of water. She held it in front of Jodi’s face and said gently, “Drink this.”
    “Did you know?” Ellis asked her mother.
    “Not until now.”
    As Ellis watched her mom sit down beside Jodi and slide a comforting arm around her, it struck her—maybe for the first time—the unusual nature of the relationship between these two women. They hadn’t been friends before Greg and Jodi were married; their relationship had been born solely of that marital bond. Even though Greg was Marsha’s brother, Marsha had somehow managed to balance that fact with her sustained friendship with his exwife.
    Momma’s words when she had told Ellis her aunt and uncle were getting a divorce came back to her: “
It’s not Aunt Jodi’s fault, and it’s not Uncle Greg’s. Their marriage is another of Hollis Alexander’s victims—he killed it just the same as he took away our poor Laura. Greg and Jodi both need our love and support.
”
    And her mother lived up to that commitment, even now.
    Ellis looked at the aftermath of this most recent storm, at the shattered belongings, the broken woman.
    Alexander was still hurting his victims, even without setting foot on Belle Island.
    Hollis Alexander stood on a Charleston sidewalk that had been broken and heaved by the gnarled roots of the live oak that grew between it and Logan Street. He took a satisfied breath of free air and studied the black lacquered sixpanel door and the four steps that led up to it.
    There had been a recent repair where the edge of a concrete step had chipped—smooth and white, bleached bone against weather-pitted gray.
    The brass knocker had dulled. The windows were clouded with rain spots and dust. Vegetation threatened to swallow up the house.
    Hollis pulled a comb from his pocket and ran it through his hair. Then he climbed the steps and sounded the heavy knocker.
    Even though fifteen years locked up like an animal had marked his soul, his body had weathered it well; the image in the mirror told him he hadn’t changed all that much on the outside. Good. She would see him as she always had, as the boy who had befriended her, the boy she trusted.
    It was taking a long time for her to answer. But that was to be expected.
    Finally, the door opened. Justine Adams looked up at him from her wheelchair.
    The