He drove around replaying the meeting with Ross until he had worked up the necessary resolve. Then he headed back to Belmont Hill.

Ross's house was black. And being that it was a weekday, the street was dead with no traffic or midnight strollers.

Quentin pulled into the driveway and slipped on the surgical gloves. Because Ross had trouble sleeping, he had come to depend on Xanax. He also had drunk at least two glasses of brandy, making a dangerous combination.

Using Margaret's key, Quentin slipped in through the kitchen. The only sound was the hum of the refrigerator. Because the place was old, the floors creaked as he made his way to the front stairs. There he slipped off his shoes, then climbed, stopping with every step to listen. Nothing but the occasional creaks of the house settling. He was nervous but resolute. There were no options, he reminded himself.

"A mission with no margin for error."

"A mission whose stakes are beyond mortal."

Elixir was the one thing separating him, maybe even Robyn, from the grave. Something Ross could never appreciate.

The bedroom door was open, and the light of the clock radio cast a green glow on the hump of Ross's body. It would have to be quick and precise. Fortunately the upstairs had wall-to-wall carpet which allowed him to move with catlike stealth.

Ross lay on his back, the only comfortable position given his lower lumbar problems. From the fluttery sounds, he was in deep chemical sleep.

For a moment Quentin watched the man and cleared his mind of all but his resolve.

no margin for error

Quentin snapped on the light. Without waiting for a reaction, he spread open the lids of Ross's right eye and rammed the needle of the syringe high into the white of the eyeball above the iris, pressing the plunger all the way in.

By reflex Ross's head snapped to the side as he let out a hectoring cry. So as not to tear the eyeball or pop it out of its socket, Quentin let go, horrified at how the needle stuck in Ross's face and flopped as he screamed and convulsed. Ross's hands rose to grasp the syringe but froze in the air, paralyzed from the shocking pain.

Quentin threw himself full-body onto Ross, pinning his arms and legs to the mattress. Ross continued to shriek as his face contorted in agony and his head flopped about with the needle still buried in his eyeball.

Die, goddamn it! Die! Quentin screamed in his head.

Tubarine was rated six out of six on the scale of toxicity. It was supposed to work within twenty to thirty seconds. Ross was supposed to experience total paralysis-total muscle depression. Instead, he was still struggling, his mouth moving, and his lungs still pressing out long hideous squeals.

Then he remembered the Xanax-alprazolam, a muscle relaxant like tubarine. Over the years, Ross had built up a tolerance intensified by the alcohol. Christ! This could go on forever.

To stop the awful cries, Quentin clamped one hand onto Ross's mouth and pulled the needle out with his other-only to find himself inches from his eyes, one huge and gaping, the other spurting ocular fluid. Through his gloved fingers he felt Ross groan. It was maddening. His muscles were supposed to be useless by now. Yet his legs still twitched and his pelvis rose in an obscene parody of sexual intercourse.

For what seemed an interminable spell, Quentin lay on top of Ross's body, until, at last, he felt it go into neuromuscular paralysis. His mouth slacked open and his upper torso relaxed, rendering his diaphragm useless and his lungs dead pockets of air. In reflex, Ross's head twitched to catch a final breath, then settled against the pillow, a final gasp rising from his throat-a corrupt miasma of brandy that passed into Quentin's own lungs.

As Quentin jerked himself off the body, the sudden release of pressure forced a plug of vomit to spasm out of Ross's throat and into Quentin's face.

Revolted, Quentin dashed to the toilet and scrubbed himself clean, fighting to contain the contents of his own stomach, aware that the stench was seeping into his clothes. He removed his shirt and lathered it until all traces of odor were gone.

When he reentered the bedroom Ross was staring directly at him, a thick pudding of vomit on his mouth. Quentin's heart froze as he expected Ross to rise up. But he was dead. Unmoving, unbreathing, unfeeling. His face blue.

Quentin wiped the liquid from Ross's offended eye which was red and swollen but which would shrink to normal by morning once the body fluids had settled. He then turned him onto his side to affect the sequence of events of a heart attack. Vomiting is a symptom, not the cause of death; by reflex a victim would try to keep his throat open. Given Ross's age and heart condition, Quentin was certain there would be no autopsy. The brandy glass in the sink and Xanax on the nighttable made the perfect scenario. Even if there were an autopsy, his body would manifest no visible signs that he died of anything other than natural and predictable causes. Which was why Quentin had targeted Ross's eye. The blood vessels would disseminate the substance throughout his system while the hole would be virtually invisible.

And in two days the obituary would read that Ross Darby had passed away at his home at the age of seventy-four, suffering a heart attack in his sleep, and leaving behind a grieving daughter, Margaret Darby Cross, and granddaughter Robyn, and son-in-law, Quentin W. Cross, who would assume the position of Chief Executive Officer of Darby Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

And God was in His heaven, and all's right with the world.

Quentin turned off the light and went home to bed.

19

By their third week, they had worked out a communications routine with Jenny. She would call every fourth night at a designated time from public phones in Kalamazoo to public phones around Lake Placid.

The good news was that Ted had made contact with a couple of street-wise guys who could get them phony licenses. It would cost two thousand dollars and they would need photos and signatures under new names. Jenny would drive out in a safe car to be swapped for Chris's rented van, which Ted would turn over to a chop shop. Before they hung up, Jenny mentioned that Wendy's book had been published to good reviews, and because of all the publicity it had made some local bestseller lists. "Too bad I'll miss the book tour," Wendy said grimly.

Four nights later Jenny arrived in a two-year-old Ford Explorer. In case she had been followed, Chris met her at a highway rest stop twenty miles away. When he was certain that nobody had tailed her, he led the way to the cottage.

Jenny had brought forms to sign and a Polaroid for IDs. In blackened hair and beard Chris would not be easily mistaken for the TV photos. And Wendy was now a blond and twenty-five pounds lighter than in her author photos.

Jenny had not been to the lodge for nearly fifteen years. Besides the remoteness, it was not her kind of place. Nor Ted's, whose idea of a getaway was Las Vegas.

"Better you than me," Jenny had said, looking around the old place.

"But we had some good times," Wendy reminded her, still amazed at the fact that Jenny had arranged for their new IDs and driven all the way out here by herself and undetected. Sometimes Jenny's reaction was so unpredictable that Wendy felt guilty for ever underestimating her. The element of danger seemed to have given Jenny new resolve. Perhaps new motherhood had created a greater sense of family, sharpening her protective instincts.

"Between the snow and mud, the bugs and mice, this place would drive me crazy. But," she added, "I supposed it's a good place to raise kids. They'd be far from all the rot out there. Unless, of course, you got one of those awful satellite dishes. Gosh, the stuff they're showing on television these days. No wonder kids are so screwed up."