The cool night air hit him like another bad memory, but all he could think of was what game Ashley had invented, and why she had thought that his father could help her. Someone had been lying.

He slid behind the wheel of his car, fired up the engine, and decided he needed the answer to those questions immediately.

Hope had listened to the argument, then the clatter of a short fight. She gripped the automatic in her hand tightly, holding her breath when she saw Michael O’Connell lurch through the door and stride to his car only a few feet away from where she was hidden. She waited for him to back down out of the driveway, then accelerate rapidly into the night.

The next moment, she knew, was critical.

Sally had told her, Do not delay. Not for one second. As soon as he exits, you must enter.

She rose up.

Hope could hear Sally’s voice in her ear.

Do not hesitate. Do not wait. Go straight inside. Don’t say a word. Just pull the trigger. Don’t look back. Leave.

Hope took a single deep breath and emerged from behind the carport. She rapidly crossed through the small arc of light to the side door. She looked down and saw her left hand close on the door handle and thrust herself into the house.

Hope was in the kitchen, but she could see through the entryway into the living room, just as Scott had described. She stood there, nearly frozen, and watched Michael O’Connell’s father begin to pick himself up off the floor.

He turned toward her. He did not look surprised.

“Mr. Jones send you?” he asked as he straightened himself up, dusting himself off. “You missed the punk by less than a minute. That was his car peeling out of here.”

Hope lifted the weapon and assumed a firing stance.

The older O’Connell looked confused.

“Hey,” he said sharply. “It’s the goddamn kid you want, not me.”

Everything in the world was suddenly exaggerated. Every color was brighter, every sound louder, every smell more pungent. Hope’s breathing seemed to echo in her ears, a cascade of rushing noise. She tried not to think about what she was doing.

Aiming directly at the old man’s chest, she pulled the trigger.

And nothing happened.

The detective carried a large box with a broken red-tape seal over to his desk. He dropped it in the middle with a thudding sound, then leaned forward with a small grin and asked me, “You know how kids are on Christmas morning? When they stare at all those packages wrapped up underneath a tree?”

“Sure. But what…”

“Collecting evidence is a little like all those presents. The kids always think that the biggest present will be the best, but often it isn’t. It’s the less-significant, less-flashy box that really holds the most valuable gift. In a sense, that’s what happens with us. It might be the smallest thing that becomes the biggest, when you finally get to trial. So, when you arrive at a crime scene and pick up this or that, or when you execute a search warrant, you need to consider all the pieces.”

“And in this case?”

The detective grinned. He pulled out a handgun, encased in a plastic bag, with another red evidence seal closing it. He handed me the weapon, and I peered at it through the transparent shield. I could see the residue of fingerprint dust on the handle and the barrel.

“Be careful,” he said. “I don’t think that sucker’s loaded, but the clip is in the handle, so I can’t be sure.” He smiled. “You’d be surprised how many near-fatal accidents occur in property rooms when people start waving around guns that are supposed to be unloaded.”

I held the weapon cautiously. “Doesn’t look like much.”

The detective nodded. “Piece-of-shit weapon,” he said with a small shake of his head. “About as cheap as you can find. Manufactured by some company in Ohio that machine-stamps out each part of the weapon and then screws it together, sticks it in a box, and ships it off to some disreputable dealer. A good gun shop would never carry crap like this. And no real professional would ever use it.”

“Still, it works.”

“Sort of. Twenty-five automatic. Small caliber. Lightweight. Professional killers-and we don’t get a whole lot of those around here as you might imagine-like twenty-two- and twenty-five-caliber weapons, because they’re easy to fit a homemade silencer to and, when loaded with a magnum bullet, do the job clean and nice. But they’d never use a throwaway gun like this. Too unreliable. It’s not easy to handle, the safety and the action both jam, and unless it’s fired at extremely close range, it’s not very accurate. And it doesn’t pack much punch, either. Wouldn’t stop a moderately sized pit bull or rapist, unless you managed to get ’em in the ticker or some other fatal spot with the first shot.”

He smiled again as I turned the weapon over in my hands.

“Or you fired it real, and I mean real, close. Like lover close.”

Again he grinned.

“And, generally speaking, it isn’t wise to get that near the person you’re trying to kill.”

I nodded, and the detective plumped back down in his seat.

“See, learn something new every day.”

I held the weapon up again, holding it to the light, as if it could tell me something.

“Of course,” the detective said, “now that I’ve told you how damn bad that weapon is, on the other hand, it seemed to do the trick. Sort of.”

44

Hope realized instantly that she had made a mistake.

Her mind racing with the wildest of possibilities, she placed her thumb against the safety switch and pushed it down, making certain it was in the firing position. She lifted her gloved left hand and fumbled with the action to push a round into the firing chamber-all of which she should have had the sense to do before she’d entered the house. The top snatched back, cocking the weapon. She had a terrible thought that neither she nor Sally had even bothered to check if the gun was properly loaded.

In that second, she did not know whether to flee or continue.

O’Connell’s father, his hands starting to rise in a gesture of surrender, suddenly let loose an immense bellow and threw himself across the room toward Hope.

As she raised the gun into a firing position for the second time, he closed the distance between them. As she pulled the trigger, he slammed into her.

She could feel the gun buck in her hand, heard a snapping sound and a thud, and then she spun backward, slamming into the kitchen table, upending it with a crash, sending empty liquor bottles flying across the room, shattering against walls and cabinets. Hope was knocked to the floor, the breath almost smashed out of her. O’Connell’s father, growling visceral, terrifying noises, fell on top of her. He was clawing at her face mask, trying to get his fingers around her throat, punching her wildly.

If her first shot had hit him, she could not tell. She tried desperately to lift the weapon, to fire again, but O’Connell’s hand suddenly clasped down viselike on her own, and he tried to force the weapon up into the air.

Hope kicked out, jabbing her knee into his groin, and she felt him gasp in pain, but not so much that his assault diminished. He was stronger than her, she could sense this immediately, and he was trying to bend the weapon back, so that its barrel would rest against her chest, not his. At the same time, he continued to pound her with his free hand, flailing away. Most of the blows missed, but enough landed so that sheets of red pain appeared behind her eyes.

Again she kicked, and this time the force of her leg slammed both of them back, sending more debris flying around the room. A wastebasket tumbled, spreading pungent used coffee grounds and empty egg shells across the floor. She could hear more glass breaking.