I said, "I know who he is."

She'd apparently worked through her hesitation. Her words began pouring forth in a strong voice.

"Joey… forced me to have sex with him one day shortly after school started in 1988. He was fifteen I think, maybe fourteen. I was thirteen."

She took a deep breath before she continued.

"The only person I ever told what happened that day… was Mariko. No one else. I told her what Joey did to me three days before she disappeared. Three days before… she was murdered.

"That is my story."

I was stunned but, for some reason, not surprised. I wanted to comfort her, but she appeared composed and tranquil. I forced myself to refrain from reaching out to touch her hand. I said, "I'm so sorry."

She shook her head.

"Don't. Don't misunderstand. I'm not seeking your compassion. This isn't about me. This is about Mariko. And about whoever killed her. Obviously, I have reason to fear it might have been Joey." "You said that Joey forced you to have sex with him. You didn't say he raped you." My reply seemed to please her. She said, "A curious distinction, right? This vantage that I have now, today-that of a grown woman-provides perspectives I didn't have when I was thirteen. At thirteen, I felt I had done something wrong.

That I had failed, somehow. That perhaps I had lured him into assaulting me. Or that I should have been more, I don't know, aggressive in repelling his advances. At thirteen, I was ashamed of what happened. You can appreciate that, I hope."

I hoped my face reflected the fact that I could appreciate it.

"Now? Now I'm older, maybe wiser. I feel that Joey took advantage of me. Was I raped? I'm not sure. Did he threaten me? No. Did he overpower me? Yes. Was I terrified? Absolutely."

"It sounds to me as though you were raped."

She lowered her chin and placed her hands on the table, her fingers spread, her eyes locked to her fingertips.

"Is it that easy for you? To listen to a few words someone says about something painful in her past and proceed to cast judgments about the motives and lives of others? People you have never met? Is it really that easy for you? I've lived with the consequences of what happened that day for almost half my life now and still it seems that the judgments I make about what occurred are no more constant than the clouds."

I considered my words for half a minute before I spoke.

"I don't mean to trivialize that struggle, Satoshi. I'm only reflecting back the reality of what you're saying Joey did to you."

She wasn't mollified.

"You and your organization are out looking for villains, Dr. Gregory. I've handed you one. Joey Franklin may indeed be an evil man. I know he did an evil thing to me when we were both children. Be careful with that knowledge. For you, Joey Franklin may be a villain and he may be the right villain. But he may also be the wrong villain."

Her anger was so tempered, so measured, that I didn't quite know how to understand it.

"Why now, Satoshi? Why bring this to light now?"

"Because you, and Locard, seem to care about what happened to my sister. That's why. I can offer you no proof of anything. If pressed, I couldn't even prove that Joey did to me what I am accusing him of doing. The only person I ever told about the…" She shook her head.

"The only person I ever told was Mariko.

She's not here. All I can do now is say, "Look over there." So that's what I'm saying. Go and look over there. I don't know what you'll find."

The line she was drawing may have connected two points, but it didn't feel straight. It was bent, as a beam of light is refracted by water.

"You've obviously given this a lot of thought, Satoshi. How do you figure it?

Why would Joey kill your sister and his own sister?"

She crossed her arms across her chest.

"I don't know the answer to that. I wonder, of course, if Mariko confronted him after I told her what he did to me.

Perhaps Mariko told Tami first and they confronted Joey together. The reality is that I'm as lost in the dark as you are." She paused and examined the fingers on her hands as though they were foreign objects.

"What happens… in the darkest places… what happens in the black space between confrontation and rage… is something I don't profess to be familiar with." "You never told your parents what you suspected?"

She looked up and almost smiled.

"I spoke once… of what happened… and my sister and her friend died within days. Why would I speak of it again?" Somehow her question was void of sarcasm.

"You feared for your parents' safety?"

"I was a child. I was in a strange country. I was in a new town. I'd been molested by a boy twice my size. My sister had disappeared. You wonder if I feared for my parents' safety? I feared everything-I feared that the sky would fall to the earth, that the oxygen would disappear from the air."

"Do you still fear for their safety? Is that why you insist on not telling anyone what you've told me?"

She looked around the room, her eyes jumping.

"Just as there are many kinds of safety, there are many ways to inflict pain.

For my parents, this would be a novel one. I have no desire to hurt them any more. I have lived too many years with the lingering suspicion that they already suffer the consequences of what happened to me, even though they don't even know it occurred. I don't wish to impale them on that sword and draw fresh blood." She shook her head.

"No. My parents won't learn of this."

A group of four students took a table across the room. They were loud as they settled. I watched Satoshi watch them. Within moments three of them were reading. The fourth was busy constructing a perfect cheeseburger. I leaned forward and whispered, "You seem to have already come to the conclusion that Joey was capable of killing your sister and Tami Franklin."

"Capable?" She shrugged and momentarily appeared puzzled by the word.

"The question isn't one that I've ever struggled with. He forced himself on me.

What I know is that he was capable of that."

I lowered my voice again.

"But whoever murdered your sister and f.ua

Tami also mutilated their bodies. If you are indirectly accusing Joey, then he has to be capable of that as well."

She nodded slowly. " Is that the larger sin, Dr. Gregory? The mutilation? Is that where everyone is still getting lost? Give me back my sister absent her toes-I'll take her gladly. Gladly. Tami with only one hand? I would welcome her in a second and every day I would caress her stump with lotion. And what about me, losing my virginity at thirteen? Rather irrelevant now, don't you think? The mutilations were distractions back then. And apparently the mutilations are distractions now. It's your responsibility not to be distracted"

"You said 'everyone is still getting lost." What did you mean?"

"The amputations. Tami's hand and Mariko's toes. It distracted everyone back then. It convinced them that a stranger was at work. Someone more evil than any of us could ever be. The mutilations cracked the mirror that they needed. The mutilations blackened the glass so the town couldn't look at itself, at its own reflection. Instead, they began sweeping back the brush, searching for psychopathic strangers and… we took comfort there. All of us."

I thought about the meaning of her words and the truth that was so near that surface.

I pushed my chair back from the table, maybe six inches, just to stretch my legs. Without reflecting long enough, I asked, "What about now, Satoshi? Have you been able to move on, too?"

Her eyes narrowed before they softened. Her chin rose a centimeter or so. She shook her head.

I didn't know how to interpret her expression or her refusal. Had she told me no, she wasn't able to move on, that perhaps she still wasn't able to trust or to love? Or was she telling me that no, she wasn't going to visit that territory with a stranger? I guessed the former, then in the next second, the latter.