"I feel like a fool, really. Perhaps I always knew, but how could one in my place ever even suggest that you were doing…what you were doing? I, not even a doctor.

"And who was to say it was the wrong thing, to put these people beyond pain, even if I had been sure? No one even questioned the deaths before, so how could I accuse you when everyone else seemed to take these things for granted?"

Rajan's clipped tones were speeding up and he forced himself to slow down. "Then when I saw you with Mr. Markham's IV, I thought again I must have been wrong. I did not want to know. I was too afraid to say anything. Then I was afraid because I had not said anything sooner. But now I am most afraid of all, because I know if I accuse you, you will accuse me. But I was not at the hospital for all these killings, and I know you had to be, because you did them."

He was at the end. He closed his eyes for the strength to finish. "So please, Doctor. Please. You must tell the police I was with you when these people died. You will be my alibi. And, of course, I shall be yours."

"You can't be serious?" Ross's tone was harsh, filled with disbelief and even outrage.

But he was still on the line. Rajan had seen similar bluster among the vanquished during bridge tournaments, and even chess games, when in fact they had known all was lost.

"Your nerve amazes me, Mr. Bhutan. Are you sure that's all you want?"

"No, not quite. I'm afraid I will have to be leaving the country soon. So I will also need to have fifty thousand dollars, please. Tonight. In cash."

Panic was the devil.

Ross had a core belief that it was a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate acts. His great talent, he sometimes thought, was in recognizing the desperation of others.

Emergency at the office, he told Nancy. Something to do with an audit. Yeah, even Friday night. These people worked all the time. He had to go in, but he'd make it up to her. Tell the Sullivans he was sorry-to make up for the last-minute cancellation of their dinner date, maybe they'd fly them all up to Tahoe next weekend.

In his office, behind the locked door, he was pulling the tenth pitiable little stack of bills out of his safe. This man Bhutan…he shook his head, almost smiling at the man's naivete. Fifty thousand dollars for what he knew? That was yet another problem with most people-very few had a clue about value. If it were Ross, it would have been ten times that, and a bargain at the price. But perhaps Bhutan really was being shrewd. If he accused Ross, Ross would indeed accuse him, but that would lead to awkward questions about why he had not spoken up sooner.

Just for a moment, he stood stock-still, trying to remember. He had been alone in the room. He was certain. Bhutan had not come in until he was done. Could he really have seen him from the hall? Seen him without being seen?

Not that it was going to matter. He couldn't take the chance that Bhutan would panic and talk to the police despite being paid. Or not panic and decide he needed more money. Or just do something stupid and give them both away.

And if Bhutan was bluffing, if he really hadn't clearly seen Ross at the IV, so much the worse for him. He actually presented an excellent opportunity to resolve this increasingly sticky problem.

The bills would be back in here by tomorrow morning, although he would miss owning what he called his Bond gun. There was a certain charm in the Walther PPK that his father had chanced upon in a downtown gutter one evening, and had eventually given to him. He loved the secret sense of sin it gave him, the thrill of private power.

Carla had brought it all upon herself. "I know what you've been doing," she told him in the hospital that morning. He was almost certain that she was referring to his second source of income, the kickbacks. But it might have been the other, the patients. He'd had a sense that Tim was closing in on that somehow. Checking his drop-in dates at the hospital. Asking questions he must have thought were subtle.

The accident had thrown Carla into a panic. And under that panic was an insane, inflexible resolve. There was no mistaking the hysterical edge to her control as he'd come up to her in the corridor outside the ICU. Seeing her husband smashed up, intubated, unconscious, had undone her. Ross walked up to her, ready with a comforting hug and some platitudes about bearing up and supporting each other. But her eyes had been wild and desperate as she whirled on him. "Don't you dare insult me with your phony sympathy."

"Carla? What?"

"Whatever happens here, you're finished with us, Mal, with all of this. You think this will free you, don't you? You think this will be the end of it."

He tried again, a comforting hand on her arm.

"Don't touch me! You're not our friend. You're not kidding me anymore. You're not Tim's friend and you never have been. Do you think he hasn't told me what you've been doing? Well, now I know, and I will not forget. Whatever happens to him-whatever happens!-I promise you, I will take you down. That's what he wanted, that's what he was going to do to save the company from all you've done to destroy it, and if it's the last thing I do, I will see that it happens."

"Carla, please. You're upset. You don't know what you're saying."

But she'd kept on, sealing her own death sentence. "Even if Tim doesn't pull through, I'll owe it to his memory to take it to the board. Even to the police."

After the explicit threat, did she think he wouldn't act? Could she imagine he wouldn't? Unless he acted swiftly, boldly, without mercy, he was done.

Knowing this and what he had to do, Ross first had to disarm her. He took her hands forcefully in both of his. They were eye to eye. "Carla. First let's get through this. Let's get Tim through it. I have made mistakes and I'm sorry for them. But so have we all. I promise you we'll work it out. If I have to leave, so be it. But never say it has anything to do with our friendship. Nothing can touch that. That's forever."

The plan presented itself full-blown. Potassium would leave no trace, and the hospital's PMs were hopelessly shoddy. If the medical examiner hadn't autopsied Tim-and Ross had never envisioned that-the whole plan would have worked. He realized that if he could make it appear that Carla was distraught enough to kill herself and her family, the police would never even look for a murderer. He would use the gun Tim kept in his home office.

When he got to the house, the upstairs lights were out. He wanted the kids to be asleep so he would not have to see them. He would do that part in the dark. They would feel nothing, suspect nothing. Sleep.

But Carla stood inside the door and at first would not open it to him. "There's nothing to talk about, Mal. We're all exhausted and at the end. We can meet tomorrow."

But he'd worn her down. "Please, Carla. I know Tim must have told you some things, but we were working them out, just like we always have. I loved the man. I need to explain. I need you to understand."

"There's nothing to understand."

"Then I need you, at least, to forgive me."

And she'd paused a last time, then unlocked the chain. As he entered, he took the Walther from his pocket and told her they needed to walk quietly to the back of the house.