Chapter 6: The Rehearsal Dinner

I didn't need to guess the rehearsal dinner.

I called the woman with the clipboard from the parking lot of Sunset Cove and asked.

"Harbor Table in Bodega Bay, six o'clock," she said. "Oh. I thought you knew."

"Thank you," I said. "I do now."

Cillian drove me there on Friday evening.

I had told him I'd go alone, and he'd said he would only wait in the truck.

At six-fifteen he came in behind me anyway and stood by the coat rack.

Harbor Table was a long restaurant with a wall of windows over the water.

Forty people sat at three long tables with candles between the plates.

I saw Thurston first, at the head of the middle table.

Next to him sat a very small, very upright old woman in a lavender suit. His grandmother.

Darrell and Garrison sat across from them.

Mom and Dad were at the end, with Mara beside Mom in a pink dress and a wide, bright smile.

Her smile slipped when she saw me.

The room didn't go quiet at once.

It went quiet from the door outward, table by table, as people turned to see what the others were looking at.

I was wearing jeans and the canvas jacket, with the harvest still on my boots.

I walked down the length of the room to the middle table.

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