four

When Adam woke up he felt much better. He’d gotten several hours of solid sleep, and it was a bright, sunny day; bars of sunlight were coming through the venetian blinds, spreading into the room. He glanced at the clock - 9:27. He’d decided to cancel his patient appointments for today, but he felt well enough to work and planned to have a few phone sessions.

He didn’t think about the shooting at all until he went downstairs, passing the spot on the staircase where the body had fallen. He didn’t look very closely, but it seemed like the police technicians or ambulance workers or whoever had done an excellent job cleaning up all the blood and even repairing some of the wall damage. It was almost like it hadn’t even happened.

Dana wasn’t in the kitchen, but there was evidence that she’d been there: a coffee mug in the sink; some crumbs- probably from a bagel- on the countertop; the Times, folded open to the crossword puzzle, on the kitchen table. There was no sign that Marissa had been downstairs yet, not that he expected there to be. On most days she slept until at least eleven o’clock, sometimes past noon. Today she’d probably sleep till one or two.

He poured his own cup of coffee, then opened the newspaper. Although he’d spoken to a Times reporter at some point last night, as well as to reporters from the News and the Post, he knew the story about the robbery and shooting couldn’t have made it into today’s papers. But it would be in all of the major papers tomorrow for sure.

He skimmed the front page, reading about the latest bombings in Israel and Iraq, then went right to the sports section. The Jets were playing the Patriots on Sunday and he read about the game. After finishing his coffee and skimming an article in the Times on a promising new drug to treat schizophrenia, he went online with his BlackBerry and e-mailed a patient, Jane Heller, asking her if she wanted to have a phone session this afternoon at four. He also e-mailed Carol, his colleague, to see if she had time for a session sometime this week.

He didn’t hear any fuss outside and wondered if there were still neighbors in front of the house. He went into the living room and parted the shades. A Fox News truck was parked across the street, but that was it.

As he headed upstairs to shower and get dressed, once again he had to pass the spot where the body had been. What had Clements said his name was, Sanchez? Yeah, Sanchez, Carlos Sanchez. Adam stared at the spot for a while, feeling remorseful until he reminded himself that it was Sanchez who’d made the decision that had led to his death, not Adam. If he’d killed someone for no reason, murdered someone, or even if he’d killed someone accidentally, by a mistake he’d made, he’d have something to feel guilty about. For example, if he’d killed someone in a traffic accident, he would’ve had to accept responsibility. But this situation had been completely different. This hadn’t been an accident; this had been self- defense.

Adam went into the shower, and under the hot spray he was able to relax. He remembered the dream he’d had, about the black rat. He wondered why the dream had begun in his office. Was it really work related, or did his office symbolize a familiar place where he felt comfortable? And what was the significance of the black rat beginning as Jodi Roth or Kathy Stappini? The rat was threatening, but Jodi and Kathy were hardly threatening. He thought it might have to do with the therapist- patient relationship in general. As a therapist he was in a position of control, but then he lost control when he was attacked by the rat. So perhaps the dream was about losing control or, more specifically, being attacked. When had he ever felt attacked? He thought of his overbearing mother, his distant father, the bullies who’d tormented him throughout elementary school and ju nior high, and how in his marriage he sometimes felt attacked by Dana. Maybe the rat was actually Dana, symbolically attacking him, smothering him.

He made a mental note to bring all this up in his session with Carol. When he came out of the shower, wrapped in a towel, Dana was in the bedroom, fully dressed in jeans and a long- sleeved black scoop- neck top. She was looking for something in the top drawer of the dresser.

“Good morning,” he said. She waited a couple of beats, then said, “Good morning,” and he could tell she was still angry about the gun. He always knew when she was angry and exactly what she was angry about, though she rarely expressed her anger in an appropriate, productive way.

But he didn’t feel like getting into a big discussion with her about her anger so he said, “Looks like they’re pretty much gone, huh?”

“I talked to a couple of reporters this morning,” Dana said. Her voice was a monotone; she was definitely repressing rage.

“Yeah?” Adam asked. “From where?”

“I don’t know.” She was still searching in the drawer. “TV, newspapers, wherever.”

Adam tossed the towel into the hamper and was naked. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and, as usual, sucked in his gut a little. He wasn’t in such bad shape for his age- only about ten, okay, fifteen pounds overweight- but he was self- conscious about the flab in his midsection. He really had to start running again, get a regular tennis game going at the country club. He played golf frequently, but riding around in a golf cart wasn’t doing much for his waistline. He had to do more crunches, get serious about it. In three years he’d turn fifty, and he wanted to be thin in his fifties.

“Well, it seems to be blowing over,” he said distractedly.

She closed the drawer, then turned toward Adam- still avoiding eye contact- and said, “It’s not here.”

Adam was no longer looking in the mirror, but he was still distracted. “What’s not?”

“The paper I wrote the code to the alarm on.”

Now she had Adam’s full attention, and he looked at her and asked, “What’re you talking about?”

“This morning when I woke up I remembered I had the number, the code, whatever, written down on a little piece of paper. Remember, I wrote it down when we first got the alarm because you had the code on that card they gave you, but I didn’t know it?”

“Okay,” Adam said. Actually, he didn’t remember any of this; he was just egging her on.

“So I thought I put it in the drawer in the bureau in the den, you know, where we keep the old bills, but I checked this morning, and it wasn’t there. And now I’ve checked all over and I can’t find it anywhere.”

“Maybe you threw it out.”

“Maybe, but I really thought it was in the drawer downstairs.”

Dana, unlike Adam, was a very or ganized person and usually didn’t misplace things.

“Did you check thoroughly?”

“Of course I checked thoroughly, but it wasn’t there.”

“Okay, calm down.”

“I am calm,” she said, but she obviously wasn’t. She was making eye contact with him for the first time this morning, glaring at him in a very cold, very distant way.

“So where else can it be?” Adam asked.

“Well, obviously, I thought it was in the drawer up here.”

“Did you check the kitchen?”

“I definitely didn’t put it in the kitchen.”

“What about under the drawer in the bureau? Sometimes things spill out over the top and fall through the-”

“I already checked and it wasn’t there. Should I call Detective Clements and tell him?”

“I think that’s a little ridiculous.”

“Why is it ridiculous? He thinks somebody had the code to the alarm and a piece of paper with the code’s missing.”

“Okay, fine,” Adam conceded. “If you want to call him, call him. It doesn’t really matter one way or another, but I’d just look around once more before you waste his time, that’s all.”

Adam was pulling on his jeans; his damn back was bothering him again. He wasn’t facing Dana, but he could tell she was still in the room. She was probably looking at him angrily with her hands crossed in front of her chest. He turned around for a moment just to see if he was right. Yep, he was.