Her voice drifted off.

"I can't believe he's dead. This is going to sound corny, but Rick was such a special soul. He was genuinely kind. He believed in justice and humanity. And someone killed him. Someone intentionally ended his life."

I said nothing.

"I'm stalling," she said.

"No rush."

"Yeah, there is. I need to get this over with. If I slow down, I'll stop and I'll fall apart and you'll never get it out of me. Berleand, he probably knows this already. It's why he let me go. So let me give you the abridged version. Rick and I graduated, we got married, we worked as reporters. Eventually we ended up at CNN, me in front of the camera, Rick behind it. I told you that part already. At some stage we wanted to start a family. Or at least I did. Rick, I think, was more uncertain-or maybe he sensed what was coming."

Terese moved toward the window, gently pushed the curtain to the side, and looked out. I moved a foot closer to her. I don't know why. I just somehow needed to make that gesture.

"We had fertility problems. It's not uncommon, I'm told. Many couples have them. But when you're in the throes of it, it seems as though every woman you meet is pregnant. Fertility is also one of those problems that grows exponentially with time. Every woman I met was a mother, and every mother was happy and fulfilled and it all seemed to come so naturally. I started avoiding friends. My marriage suffered. Sex became only about procreation. You become so single-minded. I remember I did a story on unwed mothers in Harlem, these sixteen-year-old girls getting pregnant so easily, and I started to hate them because, really, was that cosmically fair?"

Her back was to me. I sat on the corner of the bed. I wanted to see her face, just part of it anyway. From my new vantage point, I was getting a sliver, maybe quarter-moon view.

"I'm still stalling," she said.

"I'm here."

"Maybe I'm not stalling. Maybe I need to tell it this way."

"Okay."

"We saw doctors. We tried everything. It was all pretty horrible. I was shot up with Pergonal and hormones and Lord knows what. It took us three years, but finally we conceived-what everyone called a medical miracle. At first, I was scared to even move. Every ache, every pang, I thought I was miscarrying. But after a while, I loved being pregnant. Doesn't that sound antifeminist? I always found those women who go on and on about their wonderful pregnancy to be so irritating, but I was as bad as any of them. I loved the rushes. I glowed. There was no nausea. Pregnancy would never happen for me again-this was my one miracle-and I relished it. The time flew by and before I knew it, I had a six-pound, fourteen-ounce daughter. We named her Miriam after my late mother."

A cold gust blew across my heart. I knew now where this had to end.

"She would be seventeen," Terese said, her voice sounding very far away.

There are moments in your life when you feel everything inside of you go quiet and still and fragile. We just stayed there like that, Terese and I and no one else.

"I don't think a day has gone by in the last ten years when I don't try to imagine what she'd be like right now. Seventeen. Finishing up her senior year of high school. Finally past the rebellious teen years. The awkward adolescent stage would be over, and she'd be beautiful. She'd be my friend again. She'd be getting ready to start college."

Tears filled my eyes. I moved a little more to my left. Terese's eyes were dry. I started to stand. Her head snapped in my direction. No, no tears. Something worse. Total devastation, the kind that makes tears seem quaint, impotent. She held up her palm in my direction as if it were a cross and I a vampire she needed to ward off.

"It was my fault," she said.

I started shaking my head, but her eyes squeezed shut as if my gesture were too strong a burst of light. I remembered my promise and backed away and tried to make my face neutral.

"I wasn't supposed to be working that night but at the last minute they needed someone to anchor at eight o'clock. So I was home. We lived in London then. Rick was in Istanbul. But the eight PM hour-man, I wanted that coveted time period. I couldn't pass that up, now could I? Even if Miriam was asleep. Career, right? So I called a good friend-Miriam's godmother actually-and asked if I could drop her off for a few hours. She said no problem. I woke Miriam up, and I stuck her in the back of the car. The clock was ticking and I needed to be in makeup. So I drove too fast. The roads were wet. Still, we were almost there-quarter of a mile away at the most. They say you don't remember a big accident, especially when you lose consciousness. But I remember it all. I remember seeing the headlights. I spun the wheel to the left. Maybe it would have been better if I had just gone headfirst. Killed me and spared her. But, no, it was side impact. Her side. I even remember her scream. It was short, more like an intake. The last sound she ever made. I was in a coma for two weeks, but because God has a sick sense of humor, he let me live. Miriam died on impact."

Nothing.

I was afraid to move now. The room was still, as though even the walls and furniture were holding their breath. I didn't mean to, but I took a step toward her. I wonder if that's part of comforting-that it's often selfish, that the comforter often needs as much, if not more, than the comfortee.

"Don't," she said.

I stopped.

"Please leave me alone," she said. "Just for a little while, okay?"

I nodded but she wasn't looking at me. "Sure," I said, "whatever you need."

She didn't respond, but then again she had made her wishes pretty clear. So I moved to the door and let myself out.

9

I walked back out onto the Rue Dauphine, numb.

I turned left and found a spot where five streets met and sat at yet another outdoor café called Le Buci. Normally I liked to people-watch, but it was hard to concentrate. I thought about Terese's life. I got it now. Rebuild your life so it looks like… what exactly?

I took out my cell, and because I knew it would distract me, I called my office. Big Cyndi picked it up on the second ring.

"MB Reps."

The M stands for Myron. The B stands for Bolitar. The Reps is because we represent people. I came up with this name on my own and yet I managed to remain modest about my marketing skills. When we repped athletes only, I called the agency MB SportsReps. Now it is MB Reps. I will pause until the applause dies down.

"Hmm," I said. "Modern Madonna, complete with that British accent?"

"Bingo."

Big Cyndi could vocally impersonate nearly anyone or any accent. I say "vocally" because when a woman is north of six five and three hundred pounds, it is hard to get away with your killer Goldie Hawn impression in person.

"Esperanza in?"

"Please hold."

Esperanza Diaz, still best known by her professional wrestling moniker Little Pocahontas, was my business partner. Esperanza picked up the phone and said, "You getting any?"

"No."

"Then you better have a damn good reason for being there. You had meetings lined up for today."

"Yeah, sorry about that. Look, I need you to dig up all you can on Rick Collins."

"Who is he?"

"Terese's ex."

"Man, you have the weirdest romantic rendezvous."

I told her what had happened. Esperanza went quiet and I knew why. She worries about me. Win is the rock. Esperanza is the heart. When I finished explaining, she said, "So right now Terese isn't a suspect?"

"I don't know for sure."

"But it looks like a murder and a kidnapping or something?"

"I guess."

"So I'm not sure why you need to be involved. It isn't connected to her."

"Of course it's connected."