Then he laughed softly. The detective was walking steadily away.

As if he didn’t have a care in the entire world, O’Connell thought, as he watched a seemingly unconcerned Murphy pace down the block and turn toward a parking lot. Or maybe he’s just walking along with all the arrogance of someone who knows he can’t be touched.

Recognition, O’Connell thought, is about context. When you expect to see someone, you will. When you don’t, you won’t. He or she becomes invisible.

Murphy would never imagine that O’Connell had rather easily tracked the detective to his workplace. Murphy would never imagine that in his pocket Michael O’Connell had the detective’s home address and telephone number. Murphy would never imagine that after delivering a beating that O’Connell would follow him out to western Massachusetts. All these things were beyond him, O’Connell thought. And that is why he couldn’t see me, even though I was standing barely twenty yards away from him.

He thought he was finished with me.

O’Connell went back to his car, where he waited and watched, taking time to note when the other few office workers emerged from the building for the evening. One of them was probably Murphy’s secretary. He watched this woman heading in the same direction as the detective had earlier, toward the parking lot. Not nice, O’Connell thought, making the wage slave do the locking up in the evening. Especially someone not really trained in the art of making doors truly secure. After a moment, he turned on the ignition of his car and carefully pulled out, timing his exit to match with hers.

Within forty-eight hours, Michael O’Connell felt he’d acquired enough information to take the next step, which he knew was going to bring him much closer to the freedom to pursue Ashley.

He now knew, within reason, when each of the other offices in Murphy’s building closed up for the night. He knew that the last person to leave each day was the office manager for the counseling center across from Murphy, who merely locked up the front door with a single key. The lawyer who occupied the ground floor had only one paralegal. O’Connell suspected the lawyer was cheating on his wife, because he and the paralegal left together arm in arm, wearing the unmistakable glow of a couple who’d engaged in something illicit. O’Connell liked to think that they were having sex down on the floor, writhing away on some dirty, threadbare carpet. Fantasizing about the locations, the positions, and even the passion helped him pass time.

He didn’t know much about Murphy’s secretary, but he’d acquired a few bits and pieces about her. She was in her early sixties and widowed. She lived alone, a dowdy woman in a dowdy life, accompanied only by two pugs, whom he’d learned were named Mister Big and Beauty. She was devoted to the dogs.

O’Connell had trailed the secretary into a Stop amp; Shop supermarket. It had been easy enough to engage her in a little conversation when she stopped in front of the dog food section.

“Excuse me, ma’am, I wonder if you might help me out… My girlfriend has just adopted a small dog, and I wanted to get some real gourmet pet food, but there are so many to choose from. Do you know much about dogs?”

He suspected that she walked away a few minutes later, thinking, What a nice, polite young man.

Michael O’Connell had parked two blocks away from Murphy’s building, in the opposite direction from the parking lot that all the people who worked there seemed to frequent. It was a quarter before five and he had everything he needed packed in a cheap duffel bag concealed in the trunk. He breathed in and out rapidly, a little like a swimmer preparing to mount the starting block, calming himself.

One tricky moment, he told himself. Then the rest should be easy.

O’Connell exited the car, double-checked to make sure that the meter he had parked at was filled to capacity, then quick-marched toward his target.

At the end of the block, he paused, letting the first shafts of darkness creep around him. The New England night drops abruptly in the first days of November, seeming to pass from day to midnight in a matter of moments. It is an unsettled hour of the day, the time when he was most comfortable.

It was just a matter of getting inside without being seen, especially by Murphy or his secretary. He took another deep breath, placed Ashley firmly in his mind, reminded himself that she would be much closer by the end of the night, and moved rapidly down the street. A lamp blinked on behind him. He considered himself invisible; no one knew, expected, or imagined that he would be there.

When he reached the front door, O’Connell saw the small hallway inside was empty. Within a second, he was inside.

He could hear a whooshing sound as the elevator descended toward him. He immediately walked across the hallway into the emergency stairwell, closing the door behind him just as the elevator arrived. He pushed himself against a wall, trying to imagine the people on the other side of the solid steel. He thought he could hear voices. As sweat ran down under his arms, he imagined Murphy’s unmistakable tones, then his secretary’s.

Need to feed those pugs, he said to himself. Time to get going.

He heard the front door close.

O’Connell looked down at his watch. Come on, he whispered. Day is done. Counseling-center office manager, it’s your turn.

He pushed himself back against the wall and waited. The stairwell wasn’t a particularly good place to hide. But he knew this night it would serve his purposes. Just another sign, he thought to himself, that he was destined to be with Ashley. It was as if she were helping him to find her. We were meant to be together. He moderated his rapid breathing and closed his eyes, letting the patience of obsession overwhelm him, his mind blank except for memories of Ashley.

In his life, Michael O’Connell had broken into a number of empty stores, an occasional house, more than a few factories, and other places of business. He was confident in his expertise as he sat on the cold stairs and waited. He had not even taken the trouble to prepare some sort of wild-eyed story should someone have found him there. He knew that he was safe. O’Connell understood that love was protecting him.

It was nearly seven when he heard the last creaking noise from the elevator. He paused, bending his head toward the sound, and suddenly the world around him descended into darkness. The office manager had hit the master light switches next to the elevator. He heard the front door open, close, then click as the single lock was fastened. He glanced down at his watch, the illuminated face glowing just bright enough to read.

He waited another fifteen minutes before pushing through the door to the stairwell and reentering the vestibule. He was almost surprised by how easy it was all turning out to be.

He peered carefully through the glass front door, up and down the empty street. Then he quickly turned the single dead-bolt lock and let himself out.

Moving quickly, he walked the two blocks to his car and opened the trunk, removing the duffel bag that he’d concealed there.

It took him only a few minutes to return to the office building.

First, he reached inside his bag and removed several pairs of surgical gloves. These he rapidly pulled on, one on top of the other, a double thickness of protection. He took out a spray bottle of ammonia-based disinfectant and generously sprayed the lock handle that he’d touched. As soon as he’d finished that, he once again locked the door. He then sprayed the door handle to the stairwell and any place else he might have put his hands. Next, he climbed the stairs to the second floor, removing a small flashlight on the way up. He had covered the lens with a piece of red tape, cutting the light in half, making it next to impossible to spot from outside, through a window. He took his time, searching the hallway for any signs of exterior security devices, but found none. Michael O’Connell shook his head. He would have imagined that Murphy would select a more secure location. But infrared cameras and video-monitoring systems cost cash. What the building offered was probably the lowest of rents, and therein lay its attraction.