My stepmother called just as the day was folding into evening, her voice dripping with a satisfaction so sharp I could almost see the smile stretching across her face. She told me, with deliberate precision, that I would never set foot in the family beach house again—that every lock had already been changed.

On the third trip, as I maneuvered the reading chair through the side door of the beach house, I found Madeline sitting on the back steps.

I nearly dropped the chair.

She stood up awkwardly. “I knocked.”

“I was in the garage.”

She looked thinner than she had the day before, less polished, hair in a rushed ponytail, no makeup, no designer athleisure armor. Just a tired young woman in jeans and a navy sweater, sitting with her hands between her knees like someone waiting outside a principal’s office.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

She glanced at the chair. “I thought maybe you found it.”

“I did.”

“Good.”

I set the chair down inside and came back to the steps, staying an arm’s length away. “Are you here to apologize or gather intelligence?”

Her mouth tightened. “Do you always do that?”

“Do what?”

“Make everything sound like a courtroom.”

I almost said only when I’m dealing with people who need one, but something in her face stopped me.

“No,” I said instead. “Sometimes I just expect ambushes because I was raised in them.”

That landed. She looked away.