“I think you should take the car in the driveway,” Griffin said, circling warily. “You know, Viggio went to a lot of trouble to set it up just for you.”

“Shit! He rigged it, didn't he? Well, that just curdles my cheese. I'm the one who told him where to go on-line for the bomb-making guide, you know. Without me, that low-level turd would be nothing.”

David leapt forward, slashing at Griffin's unprotected thigh. Griffin, however, saw him coming, stepped neatly left and slammed him with a fresh uppercut to his left eye. David's head snapped back. He saw stars but didn't go down. Instead he spun away and worked to regroup. Griffin was bigger, all right. But David was smarter, and better armed.

Griffin didn't lunge again but just kept circling. He appeared strangely calm, almost curiously patient.

“Without you, Viggio could've been the College Hill Rapist forever,” Griffin said. “No one could ever rat him out-like you were planning on doing.”

“I wasn't necessarily going to turn him in. What do I care if he's running around this state terrifying college coeds? I sort of considered him a going-away present for you, Griff. Your job would never be boring. Now I'll just have to kill you instead.”

“So you keep saying.”

“What the fuck are you doing, Griffin? Where's the rage, where's the holy war? Don't you remember what I did to Cindy? Do I have to tell you again what her last moments were like?”

“Cindy died surrounded by the people who loved her. We should all be so lucky.”

“I told her every little detail.”

Griffin didn't say anything. David frowned. He didn't like this. Where the fuck was Griffin's rage? He needed his old friend's anger. He fed on Griffin's rage. Griffin's beautiful, dark, mind-fogging hate, which always lured the oversized detective into doing something stupid.

“She tried to close her eyes, Griffin. I held her eyelids open with my fingers. It's not like she could fight me.”

Griffin still didn't say anything. He appeared to be looking behind David at the doorway. David whirled around sharply, saw only the shadowed hall, then had to quickly twist again before Griffin jumped him from behind.

“What you looking at?” David demanded. He was getting the heebie- jeebies again, feeling his control of the situation slip away, though there was no logical reason why.

“I'm not looking at anything.”

“There's no one left, Griffin. I shot your stupid friend, the skinny one, Waters. 'Fraid you can't break his nose anymore, Griffin. He interrupted me in the basement, so I killed him.”

Griffin remained silent.

David waved his knife. “Do you hear me! You're all alone! I killed your friend, I tormented your wife. I murdered ten kids and you didn't do a thing. And now, my good friend, I'm out of jail. Yep, you helped me with that, too. Welcome, Great Sergeant Griffin. Welcome, the aspiring criminal's best friend.”

“Where's Meg?”

“What?” David drew up short again. Something was wrong. None of this was going according to the usual script. He had sweat on his forehead. And he felt… he felt strangely tired. All this effort. He was putting on a good show. What the fuck was up with his audience?

“Where is Meg?” Griffin asked again, circling, circling, circling.

“Meg's irrelevant.”

“You think?” Circling, circling, circling.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you haven't exactly gotten away yet, David. Think about it. You went to a lot of trouble to get out of prison, only to become trapped in your former home. That's a lot of running, I would agree, but not much progress.”

“Shut up.”

Griffin shrugged. “If you say so.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you!” David screamed. “Goddammit, yell at me!”

Griffin didn't say a word. Just circled, circled, circled.

And David… And David… Something went. In his head. Behind his eye. He felt a little pop, as if all of his homicidal fury had just exploded like a neutron bomb. And then his arm was above his head. And then he was running, because he had to kill Griffin. He had to kill this man with his calm face and steady voice and knowing, knowing eyes. Goddammit, after all of this planning, he deserved a better audience.

David screamed at the top of his lungs. He charged forward…

And Griffin pulled his gun out of the small of his back and shot him point-blank in the chest. Pop, pop, pop. David Price went down. He didn't get back up again.

Thirty seconds later, Fitz stepped into the room from where he'd been sheltering Meg in the hall. He approached David's body while Meg peered in cautiously from the doorway. The detective leaned down, discovered no pulse, and looked back up at Griffin.

“That was expertly played,” Fitz said grimly.

And Griffin said, “I learned from a master.”

He came out of the house, Meg and Fitz in his wake. Ambulances had arrived, their lights blazing, their sirens piercing. Funny how he had never heard their approach. In the bedroom, his world had been small, just comprised of David and the lessons of his past. Now it was lights, camera, action.

Jillian came around the house, fresh from her cameo as a fleeing Meg Pesaturo. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair was a long, tangled mess, her clothes were stained with blood. He thought she had never looked better. She glanced at him once, her chin up, her gaze curiously open and proud. Then Meg was flying into her arms and she was holding the girl close, stroking her hair.

Griffin went to the ambulance where they were loading up Waters on a stretcher. An oxygen mask was over Waters's face, but his gaze was alert, focused.

“How is he?” Griffin asked.

“Gotta get to the hospital,” the EMT said.

“He gets the best.”

“Men in blue always do.”

“Mike…”

Waters tried a halfhearted thumbs-up. Then the stretcher was in the back, the doors were closing and the ambulance was pulling away.

More cruisers came screeching down the street. More lights, camera, action.

Griffin stood in the middle of the chaos of his old neighborhood, his old life. He looked at Meg. He looked at Jillian. He looked up at the bedroom where a dead David Price now lay.

And he whispered, “Cindy, I love you.”

The night wind blew down the street and carried his words away.

In the intensive care waiting room, Dan sat with his elbows on his thighs and his fingers digging into his hair. Thirty minutes had passed. It might as well have been a year.

A door opened and closed. Dan finally looked up to see a white-jacketed doctor standing before him. He tried to read the man's face, tried to steel his body before he heard the words.

“Your wife would like to see you.”

“What?”

“Your wife… She suffered an episode. But the good news is, she's now regained consciousness.”

“What?”

“Would you like to see your wife, Mr. Rosen?”

“Oh, yes. I mean, please.”

Dan went down the hall. Dan went into the room. And there was Carol, pale but conscious, lying on the bed. His feet suddenly stilled. He couldn't remember how to move.

“Honey?” he said.

“I heard your voice,” she whispered.

“I thought I'd lost you.”

“I heard your voice. You told me that you loved me.”

“I do, Carol! Oh I do. There has never been anyone else. You have to believe me. I've made so many mistakes, but Carol, I have never stopped loving you.”

“Dan?”

He finally got his feet to move. He took tiny, meek little steps toward the bed. She was awake now, capable of remembering all that he'd done, all of the ways that he had failed her. She was awake and he had not been a good husband, and…

Carol took his hand. “Dan,” she told him quietly. “I love you, too.”