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When Tess's best friend, Lennie, goes missing, Tess holds out hope that a simple accident has delayed or trapped her somewhere - but on some level she can already feel her absence. When the police confirm that Lennie has been found murdered, the pain is impossible to bear.
Ted Lacey comes to town to help the police better understand the crime, to get to know the families involved, and to comfort the community. His skill is to fade into the background in order to see everything with clarity, and he sees Tess etched in full relief: a woman on her own terms, outside the boundaries of wife, mother, or friend. In the shock that follows Lennie's death, Tess is drawn to Ted Lacey in ways she can't explain. At a time when she should pull her husband and four children in close, she finds herself stepping away, powerless in the face of her attraction to Ted Lacey's steady presence. In a world where grief has suspended all rules, Tess uncovers emotions long buried, and she unravels the extraordinary skein of secrets, evasions, and repressed passion her life has become.
