No wonder winning the attention of men was so important to Julia. "You think that's the reason she chose modeling as a career?" I asked. "No one ignores the woman on the runway."

"I would think so," Candace said. "I think it's the reason she made a great many choices in her life."

"Such as?" I said.

"Her marriage, for one-staying as long as she did. I don't think someone else would have taken the abuse for so long."

Candace was right, of course. Julia had learned to tolerate marathons of abuse as a girl, when she was powerless to do anything about it.

"So, why didn't you leave?" I asked, surprised at the edge in my voice. It was a question I could have asked my own mother, which explained the anger I was feeling.

Candace looked down at her hands, shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "I was wrong. I should have."

That confession was all it took to swing me back toward empathy. No doubt Candace had her own traumatic life history that explained why she would let her sadistic husband stay in the house. "Julia got out, eventually," I said. "She filed that restraining order and enforced it. That took a lot of bravery."

"I think she's on the right track now," Candace said. She nodded at me. "She found you, after all."

Candace went up to bed, and I started walking back to the guest cottage. The night was cool, about sixty degrees, with a salty breeze off the ocean. The full moon glowed so round and white that it looked like a fake-some idealized version of reality from a kid's drawing.

Halfway to the cottage, I noticed the light still on in Julia's bedroom. Her shutters were open, and I could see Julia pulling her T-shirt out of her shorts. I stopped and stared as she arched her back and pulled the shirt over her head, exposing her perfect breasts. She unbuttoned the top button of her shorts and began to unzip them, the cloth on either side of the zipper falling away from the graceful angles of her pelvis. Even after touching and tasting her again and again, I still hungered to watch her step out of those shorts and the thong she wore underneath.

Just as Julia bent her arms, moved her hands to her waistband, and arched her back, I heard footsteps behind me. I wheeled around and saw Billy standing about fifteen feet from me, half in shadows. I felt like a peeping Tom, caught red-handed. But another part of me felt like I had caught Billy peeping. Had he been lurking outside Julia's window, waiting for her to undress?

"You okay?" I said, not certain what else to say.

He didn't answer.

"Billy?"

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

He sounded so embarrassed and frightened that my worry about his voyeurism was overtaken with worry for him. "We can talk this through," I said, walking toward him. I stopped short after just a few steps. What I saw made me lightheaded. "What the hell happened?" I said.

Billy looked down and ran a trembling hand over his blue and white pinstriped shirt, the front of which was covered with blood. His fingers and palm glistened ruby red in the night.

I broke into a sweat colder than the night air. "Are you all right?" I said instinctively. I stepped closer.

"I think… I might have killed somebody," he said. He started to cry.

I stopped moving. "Killed… Who?" I said. My eyes frantically searched Billy's other hand for a weapon. I didn't spot one. "Tell me what happened."

He looked at his own bloodied hand.

"What happened?" I shouted.

"I can't remember," he said.

I had to pull Billy toward the cottage. He stared ahead with vacant eyes, occasionally stumbling, nearly collapsing at the threshold. I caught him and helped him to the couch, then unbuttoned his blood-soaked shirt and peeled it off him. He was shaking badly. I was still shocked to see the scars Darwin Bishop's belt had left across his back. I wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. "Tell me what you do remember," I said.

He hung his head. "I messed up."

"Messed up, how? C'mon, Billy. Tell me."

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

I picked up the phone. "Tell me every single thing you remember, or I'll call the police, and you can tell them," I said.

He took a deep breath, let it out. He opened his eyes, but kept looking at the floor. "I was with my friend Jason," he said. "We went to the movies. When we got out, three guys from his school were waiting for him. They started bugging him, calling him names. Faggot, pussy, wimp, stupid shit like that. I should have just walked away."

"But you didn't," I said.

"I warned them." He shook his head, gritted his teeth. "I told them, 'Get the fuck away from us. Or I'll…" "

"Or you'd-what?"

His upper lip started to tremble. "Kill them." He looked straight at me.

"Then what happened?"

"One of them came right up to me." A tear escaped his eye, ran down his cheek. "He spit in my face."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"I hit him. Then, I'm not sure. Everything just… went black."

I wish I had a thousand dollars for every assailant who claims amnesia for the attack. "How did you make it back home?" I asked.

"I guess I was, like, on autopilot. I don't remember much of anything, until I saw you."

I didn't want to call the police unless I absolutely had to. I needed to know what had actually happened. "Can you tell me Jason's phone number?" I asked Billy.

"508-931-1107."

That was quick recall, for somebody struggling with his memory. I picked up the phone and dialed.

"Hello?" a woman answered after a single ring, her voice thick with pretension-lingering too long on the l's, underpronouncing the o. Hellllleeew?

"This is Dr. Frank Clevenger," I said. "Is this Ms. Sanderson? Jason's mother?"

"It is," she said, tentatively.

"I'm a close friend of Julia Bishop and her mother, Candace," I said. "Billy's with me right now."

"Oh," she said. Her voice was chilly.

"He's pretty shaken up," I said. "I was hoping you could fill me in on what happened tonight."

"All I can tell you is what Jason told me."

Had I asked for more? "Please," I said.

Sanderson sighed, as if I were asking the world of her. "We've had a continuing problem with a group of boys at Jason's school. We're year-round here, you know, and they've teased him for an eternity-all the way back to second grade. Jason isn't a slight boy, but he has the habit of retreating when confronted."

I had a sneaking suspicion Jason had gotten into that habit at home, backing down from Mommy. "Children can be very cruel," I said. "And, tonight? What happened tonight?"

"More of the same, apparently. Just name-calling."

More of the same. Sanderson wasn't being very helpful. "Billy came home with blood on his shirt," I said, hoping to shift her mind into gear. "Did Jason mention a fight?"

"A fight. Well, yes, of course. If you want to call it that. Billy attacked the three boys," she said. "Bloodied noses. Split lips. Apparently, a broken arm."

Relief washed over me. At least it didn't sound like Billy had killed anyone. "Is Jason all right?" I asked.

"He's frightened. He said Billy flew into a terrible rage." She paused. "He was actually foaming at the mouth."

"Did Jason mention that one of the boys had spit at Billy first?"

"No," she said. "As I understood it, name-calling seems to have been the extent of it, until Billy-"

"Billy can't stomach bullies," I said. I glanced at the scars across his back.

"I understand," Sanderson said. Her tone suggested otherwise. She was silent a few moments. "I am glad you called, on another front," she said finally, her voice descending into an almost comical mixture of pretension and gravity, like William F. Buckley stammering that you had cancer and your situation was utterly hopeless.