He had come back for the contract.

Still, she finished her coffee, and she agreed to go to the manor — not because he asked, but because she had something to say, and she wanted to say it to all of them at once.

What struck her, watching him drip on the diner floor, was how the arithmetic of his panic gave him away completely.

If Emiliano had come through that door because he was ashamed — because somewhere on the drive up the mountain he had pictured his wife walking alone in the rain and could not bear it — she might have found something to work with.

People can be cowards in a moment and redeem it in the next.

But he had not come because of the rain.