He was seated at his computer, idly toying with the cursor, oblivious to the quiet that surrounded him. The machine was new. After Matthew Murphy had smashed his old one, he had almost instantly gone out and acquired a replacement. After a moment, he turned away, shutting down his machine with a couple of quick clicks.

He felt an overwhelming urge to do something unpredictable, something that would get Ashley’s attention, something that she couldn’t ignore and that would let her know it was useless to run from him.

He stood up and stretched, raising his arms above his head, arching his back, unconsciously mimicking the cats in the hallway. Michael O’Connell felt a surge of confidence. It was time to visit Ashley again, if only to remind them all that he was still there and still waiting. He picked up his overcoat and car keys. Ashley’s family was unaware how close the parallels between love and death really are. He smiled and believed that they didn’t understand that in all of this he was the romantic one. But love wasn’t always expressed with roses or diamonds or a saccharine Hallmark greeting card. It was time to let them know that the picture of his devotion had not changed. His mind churned with ideas.

The phone was ringing as Scott returned to his house.

“Scott?” It was Sally.

“Yes,” he said.

“You sound out of breath.”

“I heard the phone ringing. I was outside. I just got home and had to dash inside. Is everything okay?”

“Yes. Sort of.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, nothing overt has happened. Ashley and Catherine spent the day off doing something, but they won’t say what. I’ve been in my office trying to see our route out of this mess with mixed results, and Hope has hardly said a word since she got back from Boston, except she says we all need to talk once again and without delay. Can you come right over?”

“Did she say why?”

“I told you, no. Aren’t you listening to me? But it has something to do with what she found out in Boston, when she was watching O’Connell. She seems very upset. I’ve never seen her so sullen. She’s sitting in the other room, staring into space, and all she will say is that we all need to talk right away.”

Scott hesitated, thinking about what might have turned Hope so quiet, which wasn’t her usual style in the slightest. He tried not to react to the almost frantic tones he heard in Sally’s voice. She was being stretched thin, he thought. It reminded him of their last months together, before he knew about her affair with Hope, but when, on some deeper, more instinctual level, he had known everything was wrong between the two of them. He found himself nodding and said, “All right. I found out a great deal more about O’Connell, as well. Nothing damn good, and…” He paused again. For the first time since he had driven across the state, the vaguest semblance of an idea had begun to form in his imagination. “I’m not sure how we should use it, but…Look, I’ll be over shortly. How is Ashley?”

“She seems withdrawn. Almost distant. I guess some pop psychologist would say this is the start of a major-league depression. Having this guy in her life is like having some sort of really difficult disease. Like cancer.”

“You shouldn’t say that,” Scott said.

“I shouldn’t be a realist? I should be some sort of optimist?”

Scott paused. Sally could be tough, he thought, and she could be maddeningly direct. But now, with their daughter’s situation, it frightened him. He was unsure whether his we can get out of this thinking or Sally’s we’re in big trouble and it’s getting worse attitude was right. He wanted to scream.

Instead, he gritted his teeth and replied, “I said I’ll be right over. Tell, Ashley…”

He stopped again. He could sense Sally breathing in hard.

“Tell her what? That everything’s going to be okay?” she asked bitterly. “And Scott,” she added after a small hesitation, “try to bring whatever our next step is. Or else a pizza.”

“They are still reluctant,” she said.

“I understand,” I said, although I wasn’t sure that I truly did. “But still, I need to speak with at least one of them. Otherwise the story isn’t complete.”

“Well,” she said slowly, obviously thinking over her words carefully before speaking, “there is one who is willing, in fact, eager, to tell what they know. But I’m not sure that you are completely ready for that conversation.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. One wants to talk, but what? The others are preventing it and think they are protecting themselves? Or are you protecting all of them?”

“They’re not sure that you fully understand their position.”

“Don’t be crazy. I’ve talked to all sorts of people, been all over this. They were in a quandary. I know that. Whatever they did to get out, it would seem justified…”

“Really? You think so? The end justifies the means?”

“Did I say that?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what I meant was-”

She held up a hand, cutting me off, and stood looking across the yard, out past some trees to the street. She sighed deeply. “They were at a crossroads. A choice had to be made. Like so many of the choices that people-ordinary people-are forced to make, it would have profound personal consequences. That’s what you need to understand.”

“But what choice did they have?”

“Good question,” she replied with a small, haunted laugh. “Answer it for me.”

38

Scott walked up the pathway to his ex-wife’s house filled with doubts and uncertainties, all warring within him. When he reached the entranceway, he lifted his hand to ring the doorbell, but hesitated. For an instant he turned back and stared into the edges of darkness that filled the street. He was much closer now to Michael O’Connell, yet he knew that O’Connell still hid from him. He wondered if he was being studied just as closely by their target. He did not know if it was possible to get ahead, to gain an edge. He doubted it. For all he knew, somewhere in that block, right then, right at that moment, O’Connell was standing, hidden by the completeness of the black, watching him. Scott felt a surge of rage within him; he wanted to scream out loud. He imagined that everything that he’d discovered on his research trip, that he’d thought was so unpredictable, was actually totally expected, totally foreseen, and totally anticipated. He could not shake the idea that somehow, as impossible as it would be, O’Connell had learned everything that Scott had done.

A short groan escaped his lips, and he could feel sweat beneath his arms. He took a sudden step away from the door, angry, trying to confront the man he believed was watching, and then he stopped.

Behind him the door opened. It was Sally.

She stared for a moment, out into the night, following the path of Scott’s eyes. In that second, she understood what he was searching for.

“Do you think he’s out there?” Her voice was flat and hard.

“Yes. And no.”

“Well, which is it?”

“I think he’s either right there, right in some shadow or another, watching every move we make. Or else he’s not. But we can’t tell the difference, and so we’re screwed, one way or the other.”

Sally reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. A small act of surprising tenderness, it felt strange to her, as she realized that she had not actually physically touched in years the man whose bed she’d once shared. “Come on in,” she said. “We’re just as screwed inside, but it’s warmer.”

Hope was drinking a beer, holding the cold bottle to her forehead, as if she were flushed with fever. Ashley and Catherine were dispatched to the kitchen, to put together some sort of meal-or, at least, that was Sally’s explanation, as transparent as it was, to get them out of the room where whatever planning was going to happen. Scott could feel some residue of tension, as if the sensation he’d had on the front steps, staring back into the night, had lingered with him. Sally, on the other hand, was organized. She turned to Scott and gestured toward Hope. “She’s barely said a word since she got back. But I believe she found out something.”