There was a knock on his door. “Yeah,” he called out listlessly.

It was his parents. It had been, what, forty-eight hours since Katie had died? They looked like they hadn't slept a minute since. Like something inside them had… broken.

They sat on the edge of the bed across from him. “Ben,” his dad said. “What we said the other night… it wasn't right. It wasn't… correct.”

Ben shook his head, afraid to speak.

“We're… devastated, honey, you know that,” his mom said. She started to cry but managed to keep going. “When something like this happens, people sometimes blame others, even the people closest to them. Because if you blame someone, it's easier to believe someone had some control over what happened, that it could have been prevented.” A quaver had entered her voice and she stopped, took a deep breath.

“But that's not right,” she went on, her voice getting higher now. “Not everything can be controlled. Accidents… sometimes they just happen, baby, and it's not your fault.”

She was crying harder now, her eyes pleading with him through her tears.

“If it was anyone's fault, it was mine,” his dad said. “I wasn't clear when I told you about coming home. You didn't do anything wrong, Ben, and we were wrong to suggest that you did.”

Ben looked at them. He understood what they were doing. He could even imagine the conversation that had led to it: We have to protect him from the guilt. We can't saddle him with this, no matter how true it is. He's too young.

The problem was, the way they were now trying to protect him made the guilt a hundred times worse. Their previous recriminations had made him angry, and the anger was at least partly protective. Now, with the recriminations lifted, his anger dissipating, the truth shone through with a new and awful clarity.

Because deep down, he'd known what his father really wanted. The old man didn't trust Wally and wanted to be sure that Ben-Ben personally-would get Katie home safely. Maybe he didn't spell it out to the last detail because he didn't want to seem overbearing, overprotective, but that's where he was coming from. Ben had just been looking for a loophole, that's all, because it was his night and he was the conquering hero and Larissa Lee wanted to fuck him. He'd known, but pretended not to.

Ben wanted to tell them no, it wasn't their fault, his dad had been clear, Ben had understood fine but hadn't wanted to listen. Admitting it, owning up to it, it was the right thing to do, no matter how hard it was.

He tried to say something, but… he didn't. Maybe he was afraid to speak, afraid that if he did, he would lose control. Or that he'd say something wrong and make it worse. So he said nothing instead. His parents kept crying. Eventually his mom got up and left, and his dad followed her.

Part of him understood they needed to have the rest of the conversation now, that otherwise it wouldn't happen ever. But another part of him whispered that his parents were already bearing as much as they could; he needed to leave them alone for a while. There would be other opportunities for him to admit his guilt, sometime in the future when it could be discussed to the tune of a little less confusion and agony.

And he'd listened to that second voice. Just as he'd listened when Katie had told him, No, he's cool. He'd listened to what he'd wanted to hear.

Jesus, two turning points in as many days. And he'd gone the wrong way at both.

Why weren't those turning points marked? LETHAL CURVE AHEAD. CAUTION. Something like that. Something that might warn you: Hey, the seemingly humdrum decision you're about to face? It's actually your whole fucking life.

Ben sighed and shook his head. Then he went out to find an Internet café and a public phone.

14 NO NONSENSE

There was a knock on Alex's door. Wanda, the receptionist, poked her head in.

“Alex, I have a call from someone asking for you who won't identify himself and insists that I should come get you personally and bring you up front to take the call there. What do you want me to do?”

Alex thought, What the hell? And then, Ben.

But why was he calling on the office line? How did he even know the number?

“Sure, I'll come take it,” he said, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

He walked down to Wanda's station. Wanda pressed a button and handed him the receiver.

“This is Alex,” he said.

“I got your message.” Ben's voice.

There was a pause. Alex said, “How did-”

“Give me a number to call you back on, something not connected to you. The woman who answered the phone-is she carrying a cell phone? Ask her to borrow it.”

Alex asked Wanda if he could borrow her phone for a moment. She gave him the number and he passed it along to Ben.

“I'll call you back,” Ben said, and the line went dead.

Alex smiled at Wanda as he took her phone. “Paranoid client. New technology. Does something like this every time he wants to talk to me. I'll just be in the conference room for a few minutes. I'll be right back.”

Wanda gave him a slow ooo-kay nod. Her phone was already buzzing as Alex stepped into the conference room and closed the door behind him. He opened the phone and said, “How did you know to call me here?”

“You're not in your office, are you?”

“No, I'm standing in an empty conference room. How did you know to call here?”

“It's the middle of the morning out there. Where else would you be?”

“I mean, how did you know where I work?”

“Your e-mail address has the domain name sullivangreenwald. I Googled the names.”

Oh. He should have realized that. “Well, why bother? I left you my cell phone number. What's all this about?”

“I don't know what kind of trouble you've gotten yourself into, or with who. E-mail is insecure. Cell phone signals can be intercepted. Your office could be bugged, your line might be tapped. It's less likely someone would tap the general line into your office because that's not the line you would be expected to talk on. It wasn't perfect, but I didn't have a better way to respond to your e-mail. Okay?”

Alex was simultaneously rattled and reassured. Rattled at how easily someone could pinpoint his whereabouts. Reassured because obviously Ben knew all about this stuff. On top of both, he resented the lecture. He suppressed the feeling and explained what had happened.

When he was done, Ben said, “So you're saying the inventor was killed, the patent examiner was killed, and you were about to be killed, because of this new technology.”

“You think that's crazy?”

“Depends.”

“On?”

“On a lot of things. But three incidents in thirty-six hours… that's a lot of coincidence to swallow.”

“I thought so, too.”

“You talk to the police?”

“Yeah. They seem to think it's a collection of random events. It doesn't look like there's much they can do.”

“So? What are you going to do?”

Why the hell do you think I'm calling you? he wanted to shout. I don't know what to do.

He fumed for another moment, then said, “I don't know.”

There was a long silence. Ben said, “You have something to write on?”

Alex pulled over a notepad on the conference room table and picked up a pen. “Yeah.”

“Turn off your cell phone and leave it off. You can check your voice mail from random pay phones. Stay away from home for a few days. Go to the bank-not your usual branch-and take out a lot of cash. Don't go to the places you usually go and don't use your usual routes. Check into a hotel. Pay cash for everything, don't use your credit cards, don't use your name. Don't allow yourself to wind up anywhere where there are no other people around. Stop being polite and start being suspicious.”