I finally told Julian what I had been too ashamed to admit. I had nearly followed him into something neither of us could ever undo. We sat together in silence, two cousins who had come dangerously close to sacrificing their lives for the satisfaction of seeing the truth exposed. Neither of us knew what to say, and for once, we didn’t need to pretend we did.

Bianca left the county, and Preston mailed me a lengthy letter. One paragraph begged for forgiveness; the next asked for money. I answered neither request. Instead, I kept the empty bottle of pale red wine on a shelf above my kitchen sink. It wasn’t a trophy or a reminder of Preston. It represented the evening I had tried to be kind to myself and the stranger who had noticed something was wrong. I eventually sent a card to the restaurant for the waiter whose quiet warning had changed everything. He wrote back, admitting he had almost kept silent, and saying he was grateful he hadn’t.