"I'm with you," I said.

"Never doubted it," he said. "Three a.m. with Billy. You're all set up."

I tried for a little more sleep, but ended up lying in bed, fully clothed, thinking. Billy was about to stand trial for murder and attempted murder, even when no one in the Bishop household could be entirely excluded as a suspect. Beyond Darwin Bishop, a shadow of doubt still hung over Garret, Claire, and, whether I liked it or not, Julia.

I continued to worry that Tess Bishop's life was dangling from a thread-partly because of her medical condition, partly because she had been poisoned right under the spotlight of the investigation into Brooke's death. Her attempted murder, together with my stabbing, proved that whatever motive was driving the murderer, it fueled violence even when the risk of detection was high. He (or she) was driven to kill. That irresistible impulse wouldn't go away with Billy's arrest or his conviction. It wouldn't disappear until the desired goal had been achieved.

The clock read 2:26 a.m. The Suffolk County House of Corrections was only a fifteen-minute drive from my loft. I pictured Billy being dragged into that place in handcuffs and leg irons, being tossed into a cold cell for the first of many nights until he stood trial. The advice I had given him when he had called me, to surrender and let the justice system work, would probably seem absurd to him now.

Maybe he had had the right idea, after all-to run away from odds stacked so high it would take a miracle for North and me to beat them.

A flash of paranoia again invaded my restored goodwill toward Anderson. I would be leaving my loft in the early hours of the morning, driving to Boston, parking somewhere near the jail, then walking a deserted street to the entrance. If Anderson were behind my assault at Mass General, if he really hadn't gotten over Julia… "Stop ranting," I said aloud. I forced my mind to abandon that train of thought, but the mood of caution stayed with me, probably because my radar screen was tuned to a sensitivity that would twist even the most benign set of data into proof of an invasion.

I actually fell asleep for about fifteen minutes, which left me feeling more tired rather than less, and did something very bad to my back, the middle of which felt as if a clamp had been applied to the base of my right rib cage and tightened until my diaphragm ballooned up into my chest cavity.

I pulled myself out of bed and struggled into the kitchen. I gulped down a glass of milk to calm my stomach, so I could tolerate another couple Motrin. I swallowed them, then gritted my teeth and stretched a little to each side, which nearly brought me to my knees before it started to bring me down to a tolerable level of pain.

I got in my truck and headed toward Boston. Route 1 was empty, and I flew over the Tobin Bridge, around the curves of Storrow Drive, and off the exit ramp to the Suffolk County House of Corrections.

Boston 's Big Dig construction had chewed up most of the parking near the place. The rest was reserved for Corrections Department personnel. I took a spot about five blocks away. I felt for my pistol, then realized I had left it back at the loft. Great timing.

I got out of the truck and walked, more quickly than I would have in daylight, checking around me now and again. I smiled to think what Laura Mossberg would have to say about my behavior-more evidence of post-traumatic stress disorder, my condition having deteriorated after being jumped.

A homeless man stepped into my path about a block from the front door of the jail. His face was covered with a couple days of beard, his eyes were bloodshot, and his breath stunk of alcohol. "You have my money," he barked.

I took a step back. That had to be the most interesting way I'd been asked for a handout in my life. I told him so, reaching into my pocket, watching his hands to make sure they didn't disappear into his clothing and reappear with a weapon.

"You gotta be different," he said. "Everybody's heard it all these days."

We weren't more than a quarter mile from MGH. "I guess you could grab a coffee and head in for a detox," I said.

"I'd rather grab a beer," he said. He winked.

A lot of people would have taken that bit of honesty as a good enough reason to keep their money, but I knew what it was like to need a beer. "Here you go." I handed him two dollars.

"I gave you a five," he said. "Where's my five?"

I smiled. "Now, you're pushing it. Good luck." I walked by him.

I hadn't gotten ten yards down the sidewalk when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around and saw the same man walking toward me at a good clip, his eyes more focused than before, one of his hands down by his side, clutching something that glittered in the light drifting down from the street lamps. I thought of running, but he had closed to within five feet of me.

He smiled, his mouth full of perfect-looking, glistening white teeth, a mouth that seemed to prove he had been laying in wait for me, pretending to be homeless. He raised his arm above his head.

I reared back, cocked my fists karate-style, and waited for him to come a foot or two closer. If all he had was a knife, I'd have him on the ground before he could use it.

He stopped, dropped his arm. "I'm sorry," he said. "I scared you." He slowly held up a silver crucifix. "I forgot," he said. "Thank you. And God bless you." He smiled that toothy grin again, then pointed at his mouth with the crucifix. "Tufts Dental. Free clinic," he said, as if reading my mind. "Got 'em today." Then he turned around and started walking away in the direction of Charles Street, probably to get that beer he wanted, celebrate his new teeth, who knows?

I took a deep breath, talked my heart down to a regular rhythm, and headed for the jail. Maybe a call to Laura Mossberg, I thought to myself, wouldn't be such a bad idea, after all.

Within a couple blocks of the building, I saw television crews starting to swarm into position. I quickened my pace. I didn't want to talk about Billy's case until I had come up with just the right message to counter the story Bishop, O'Donnell, and Harrigan were spinning.

North Anderson had done his job paving the way for my visit with Billy, so I got my visitor's badge at the front desk without any trouble. I signed in, walked through the metal detector, then passed through three separate iron doors, each of which opened as the one behind it slammed closed.

Despite all the times I have visited prisons, I have never lost the feeling of melancholy that coming and going from such places provokes in me. I feel as if I am drowning in questions. By what twists of fate are these people locked up? Who still remembers them as little boys, full of innocence and wonder? And this, getting to the heart of the matter: By what good fortune do I walk the streets a free man? Because I do not feel the great distance between myself and these rapists and murderers and thieves that I presume most others do. I feel separated from them by something wafer-thin and translucent. I think they sense it, too. I carry the scent of their pack. But for the occasional kind words from my unpredictably violent father, but for a teacher in sixth grade who took a liking to me and told me I would amount to something, but for who knows what other myriad, minuscule details of my life story, I can easily imagine that I would be an inmate, too. And I feel this especially when leaving a prison's barbed-wire walls, returning my visitor's badge and retrieving my medical license. I half-expect a dubious stare from an omniscient front desk clerk, a finger raised, Just one moment, then an alarm sounding, a rush of booted feet coming my way, my sentence shouted at me as I am carried off to a cell, the din all but obscuring my plea: "Guilty. Guilty as charged. Guilty as hell."