Behind me I heard a shriek from Backus and then silence. My eyes now adjusted to the dim light, I saw Rachel step out of the alcove and come toward me. She held her gun raised in both hands, her elbows locked. The weapon was pointed past me. I slowly turned as she stepped by. At the precipice, she pointed the gun down toward the darkness into which Backus had fallen. She stood stock still for at least a half a minute before being satisfied that he was gone.

Silence gripped the house. I felt the cool night air against my skin. She finally turned and came to me. Grabbing my arm, she pulled me up until I was standing.

"Come on, Jack," she said. "Come out of it. Are you hurt? Are you hit?"

"Sean."

"What?"

"Nothing. Are you all right?"

"I think so. Are you hit?"

I noticed her looking at the floor behind me and turned around. There was blood on the floor. And shattered glass.

"No, that's not me," I said. "You hit him. Or the glass got him."

I stepped back to the edge with her. There was only blackness below. The only sounds were the breeze through the trees down there and traffic noises filtering up from further down.

"Rachel, I'm sorry," I said. "I thought it… I thought it was you. I'm sorry."

"Don't say it, Jack. We'll talk about it later."

"I thought you were on a plane."

"After I talked to you I knew something wasn't right. Then Brad Hazelton called and told me what you had called him about. I decided to talk to you before I left. I went to the hotel and saw you leaving with Backus. I don't know why but I followed. I guess it was because Bob had sent me to Florida before when he should have sent Gordon. I didn't trust him anymore."

"How much did you hear up here?"

"Enough. I just couldn't make a move until he holstered his weapon. I'm sorry you had to go through all of that, Jack."

She stepped back from the edge but I stayed there, staring into the darkness.

"I didn't ask him about the others. I didn't ask him why."

"What others?"

"Sean, the others. Beltran got what he deserved. But why Sean? Why the others?"

"There's no explanation, Jack. And if there was, we'll never know it now. My car's down the road a bit. I need to go back and call for backup and a helicopter to search the canyon. To make sure. I better call the hospital, too."

"Why?"

"To tell them how many of those pills you've taken and to see what we should do about it."

She started walking toward the entrance alcove.

"Rachel," I called after her. "Thanks."

"Anytime, Jack."

50

Pretty soon after Rachel left I passed out on the couch. The sound of a close helicopter invaded my dreams but not enough to wake me. Finally, when I awoke on my own, it was three in the morning. I was taken to the thirteenth floor of the federal building and placed in a small interview room. Two dour-faced agents I had never met before asked me questions for the next five hours, going over my story again and again until I was sick of regurgitating it. For this interview they did not have a stenographer sit in the corner of the room with her machine because this time we were talking about one of their own and I had the feeling that they wanted to sculpt my story into the form that could best serve them before putting it down on the record.

Sometime after eight they finally said I could go down to the cafeteria for breakfast before they brought the stenographer in and made a formal record. By then we had been over the story so many times I knew exactly how they wanted me to answer nearly every question. I wasn't hungry but I wanted out of that room and away from them so badly I would have said yes to anything. At least they didn't escort me down to the cafeteria like a prisoner.

I found Rachel sitting there, alone at a table. I bought a coffee and a sugar doughnut that looked like it was three days old and went over.

"Can I sit here?"

"It's a free country."

"Sometimes I wonder. Those guys, Cooper and Kelley, they've held me in that room up there for five hours."

"You've got to understand something. You're the messenger, Jack. They know you are going to go out from here and tell the story in newspapers, on TV, probably a book. The whole world will know about the FBI's one bad apple. It doesn't matter how much good we do or how many bad guys we stop, the fact that there was a bad guy among us is going to be a big, big story. You are going to be rich and we are going to have to live with what comes after. That, in a nutshell, is why Cooper and Kelley aren't treating you like a prima donna."

I studied her for a few moments. It looked like she had eaten a full breakfast. I could see egg yolk smeared on her empty plate.

"Good morning, Rachel," I said. "Maybe we can start over."

That just got her mad.

"Look, Jack, I'm not going to treat you gently, either. Just how do you expect me to react to you now?"

"I don't know. The whole time with those guys I've been answering their questions but doing nothing but thinking about you. About us."

I studied her face for reaction but got none. She was looking down at her plate.

"Look, I could try to explain to you all the reasons I thought it was you but it wouldn't matter. It all comes down to me, Rachel. Something in me is missing and… I couldn't accept what you offered without some suspicion, some kind of cynicism. It was from that small doubt that everything grew and got blown out of proportion… Rachel, you have my apology and my promise that if I were given a new chance with you I would work to overcome it, to fill that void. And I promise you that I would succeed."

Still nothing, not even eye contact. I became resigned. It was over.

"Rachel, can I ask you something?"

"What is it?"

"Your father. And you… Did he hurt you?"

"Do you mean did he fuck me?"

I just looked at her, silently.

"That's part of me and my life I don't have to talk to anyone about."

I turned my coffee cup on the table, staring at it like it was the most interesting thing I'd ever seen. Now I was the one who couldn't look up.

"Well, I've got to get back up there," I finally said. "They only gave me fifteen minutes."

I made a move to stand up.

"Have you told them about me?" she asked.

I stopped.

"About us? No, I've been trying to avoid that."

"Don't hold back with them, Jack. They already know, anyway."

"You told them?"

"Yes. There was no point in trying to hide anything from them."

I nodded.

"What if I tell them and they ask if we still are… if we still have a relationship?"

"Tell them the jury's still out."

I nodded again and stood up. Her use of the word jury reminded me of my own thoughts of the night before when in my mind, as the jury of one, I had reached a verdict about her. I thought it was only appropriate now that she should be weighing the evidence against me.

"Let me know when you reach a verdict."

I dropped the doughnut into the trash can by the cafeteria door on my way out.

It was almost noon before I finished with Kelley and Cooper. It was also not until then that I heard about Backus. Walking through the field office I noticed how empty it was. The doors to all the group rooms were open and the desks empty. It was like a detective bureau during a cop's funeral, and in a way it was. I almost walked back to the interrogation room where I had left my inquisitors to ask them what was going on. But I knew they didn't like me and wouldn't tell me anything they didn't want or have to tell me.

As I passed the communications room, I heard the chatter of two-way radio talk. I looked in and saw Rachel sitting alone in the room. She had a microphone console in front of her on a desk. I walked in.