Darwin Bishop was the next to offer a prayer. My jaw tightened as I watched him climb the stairs to the altar. He gripped each side of the lectern and slowly took stock of the room, much as he might at a corporate gathering. His eyes were dry. "Wisdom 3:1-7," he said. In an unwavering voice, he read:

"But the souls of the just are in the hands of God and no torment shall touch them.

"They seemed in the view of the foolish to be dead and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us utter destruction.

"But they are in peace."

Brooke had died, horribly. It was Bishop who seemed at peace. I felt my blood pressure rising as he went on:

"Chastised a little they shall be greatly blessed because God tried them and found them worthy of himself.

"As gold in the furnace, he proved them, he took them to himself.

"In time of their visitation they shall shine and shall dart about as sparks."

I turned and walked quietly out to the lobby, not wanting to watch Bishop or listen to him or risk seeing Julia kiss him when he took his seat.

I did want to offer Julia my condolences. I waited until the end of the mass, when the family formed its receiving line.

The Bishops stood to one side of the altar, accepting a seemingly endless stream of sympathies. Julia, in a simple black fitted dress that I am embarrassed to say made my heart race even in the presence of tragedy, stood next to the priest. Darwin stood on his other side.

I shook Garret's hand first. His grip was firm and, as I looked at him, his gray-blue eyes met mine with composure, if not chilliness. I stepped in front of Julia's mother next. She was an elegant and slim woman, about sixty-five, battling tears. I took her hand. "I'm sorry about your granddaughter," I said, recognizing how inadequate the words inevitably sounded.

"Thank you," she said, leaving her hand in mine. "You are?"

"Frank Clevenger," I said, not expecting the name to register with her.

"I thought you might be," she said, glancing toward Julia, a few feet away.

I moved on toward Julia. I couldn't help feeling that it was appropriate for me to have met her mother, that there was some small chance I might become important in both of their lives, even after the investigation was over. It was a warm feeling, but I fought it. I wanted to maintain my balance until Brooke's murder had been solved. But in the instant I took Julia's hand, my plans for equanimity evaporated. Darwin Bishop had moved off several feet, obviously not wanting to greet me, and I found myself locked in a private moment with his wife, at their daughter's funeral, staring into her eyes as she stared into mine. "I'm so…" I stumbled, wanting to avoid the cliché.

She took my hand, moving her thumb along the inside of my wrist. "I appreciate your being here. I know it was asking a lot of you."

"You could ask for more," I whispered, drunk with her presence. Her black hair and green eyes, together with skin as smooth and radiant as I ever expect to see or touch, made me feel further than ever from the tenement house I grew up in. Add the chaser of feeling just a little outclassed by Julia's wealth, a little lucky to be smiled upon by a woman with so many options, and my balance was truly put to the test.

"Are you staying on the island?" she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Where?"

I could feel myself falling. "The Breakers," I said. Letting go of her hand was an act of will, but I sensed that if we lingered any longer, it would raise eyebrows. I instinctively glanced at Garret and saw that he had already registered the emotional exchange between his mother and me. He shot me a look full of confusion and anger. "I hope I see you soon," I told Julia, and walked away, headed toward the back of the church.

I wasn't quite to the door when someone behind me grabbed my arm. I whirled around and found myself face-to-face with Darwin Bishop. His face had a look of fragile indulgence on it. "There's a part of me that likes your audacity," he said, still holding my arm.

Half of me wanted to share my condolences with him. The other half wanted to break his hand. "I don't think this is a good place to talk," I said.

"It's not the place I would have chosen, especially for you to romance my wife," Bishop said.

"That's not…" I started.

He let go of my arm. "You're in over your head," he said, in a tone that was almost fatherly. "Your instincts aren't serving you."

"Thanks for the advice," I said, and left it at that. I turned to go, but he grabbed hold of my arm again. I turned back to him.

"You know how you told me you have one skill?" Bishop said. "You're a burrower. Nothing more, nothing less."

"That's what I told you."

"I thought about that. And I realized I've really only got one skill myself."

"Which is?" I said.

"I pick winners from losers. In anything. It doesn't matter whether it's stocks, people, businesses, ideas. It's like a sixth sense with me."

I thought back to Bishop's bet on Acribat Software, down forty-five percent in a year. But that fact was a petty distraction; his billion-dollar fortune obviously meant he could see things other people would miss-in the markets, and perhaps elsewhere. "That's a valuable skill," I said.

"I rely on it," he said. "And my sixth sense tells me you're about to lose everything." He smiled. "I can smell it coming." He turned and walked away.

I watched him take his place again in the receiving line. My pulse was racing, and the muscles in my right arm were tense from holding back with the right cross I would have liked to deliver to his chin. But thinking about it now, what probably bothered me most was that I knew he was right, at least about one thing: I would have told anyone else in my place to stand back from the boundaries I was starting to cross.

11

I got back to my room at The Breakers at 9:40 p.m. I had grabbed takeout shrimp and arugula gourmet pizza for dinner-nothing being regular anything on Nantucket -and eaten it on my way back to the hotel. The night had turned windy and rainy, and that, together with the late hour, gave me a good excuse to bow out of spending the night at North Anderson 's. I called him at home and got the customary urgings toward safety that I would expect from a friend. Double-lock the door, no unexpected midnight repairs to the plumbing, and so forth. I sidestepped them, told him I'd be fine, that I was leaving the island in the morning and not returning for at least a day. I had business to attend to back in Boston, including another visit to Lilly at Mass General.

The management had left my bottle of wine back inside my room, on my nightstand. I smiled at its persistence, grabbed it, and was about to bring it far down the hall, where it couldn't find its way back to me, when the phone rang. I picked up. "Clevenger," I said.

"It's Julia."

"Where are you?" I asked.

"Downstairs."

I didn't know exactly how to respond. "In the lobby…" I said, for filler. Thinking of her just three floors away- alone-made me start to think what it would be like to hold her, without worrying that we might be seen.

"I need to be close to someone I trust," she said. "Just for a few minutes. I…" A moment of silence. "I want to tell you what it was like for me at the church tonight, what I really felt."

I knew the smart thing to do would be to join her in the lobby or meet her for coffee at the Brant Point Grill. But knowing what to do and actually doing it are different things. "I'm in room 307," I said.