Following dinner, they settled by the fire while Jenny showed them photographs. She had brought maybe two dozen-all of Abigail at Christmas dolled up a variety of different outfits and sitting among mountains of presents. "She's getting so big," Wendy said.

"Too big. Her babyhood is just flying by."

"How's Karen doing?" Chris asked.

"Karen? Who's Karen?"

"Your other daughter," he said, suddenly feeling a chill of embarrassment.

"Kelly."

"Kelly," he said, and slapped his forehead. "What's the matter with me?"

I'll tell you what's the matter, a voice inside whispered. It's happening: Your brain is dying.

Wendy shot him a look of concern. She knew what he was thinking.

Like how you forgot where you left the axe this morning, and how you have to make lists to remind you of things, and how you put the milk in the pantry and the cereal in the fridge the other day, and how simple head calculations you now have to do on paper, and those moments of disorientation when you step into the next room.

Wendy had said it was stress and anxiety, but he knew better. He could almost feel clusters of brain cells clot and die.

His eyes dropped to the photo of Abigail and thought how he would never see his son grow up. How he would never know Adam as a boy or young man. How in two years, if he were still alive, he would look at Adam and not know who he was from all the other alien faces in the world. Like Sam.

A particularly virulent form of Alzheimer's.

He'd rather die first than put Wendy and Adam through that.

"She's better, thank you," Jenny continued with an exaggerated singsongy voice that said she had nothing else to say about Kelly. "But would you believe it that in just five months Abigail will be two years old? I'm going to have a big party. Which reminds me." Without missing a beat, she pulled a bright red package from her bag. "Belated Merry Christmas."

Wendy unwrapped it and froze. It was a copy of If I Should Die. She studied the cover and dustjacket copy and photo. Then she put the book in a desk drawer and left the room without a word.

Perplexed, Jenny looked at Chris. "I didn't mean to upset her."

There was one thing Chris hadn't forgotten. March third. "Tomorrow was to be the publication party."

But the gaps in Jenny's thinking had less to do with pathology than thoughtlessness, Chris concluded.

"Oh, I forgot. Well, it's not like you'll be living in hiding forever. You're getting yourself a lawyer, right?"

Chris tried to shake his mind clear. "We're working on that."

For a moment they both stared into the fire which sputtered and flamed vigorously.

"So," Jenny said finally, "tell me about this Elixir stuff. Does it really work?"

Chris wished Wendy hadn't broken down and told her. "On lab animals it does."

"What does it actually do?"

"It appears to protect them from diseases associated with aging."

"Like what?"

Like Alzheimer's.

Like Alzheimer's.

Like Alzheimer's.

And he saw Methuselah whipping through complicated mazes as if wired.

"Arthritis, cancer, heart disease."

"Oh my, that's wonderful. And somebody thinks it's good enough for people." She rubbed a kink in her neck. "Frankly, I could use a little of that myself. Ted, too. He's pushing fifty."

Chris could hear Wendy upstairs in the baby's room. It was feeding time. He could also hear the ticking of the old grandfather clock in the corner. In a year he could be brain-dead.

"Is it possible to see what the fuss is all about?" Jenny asked. "The Elixir stuff?"

"There's really nothing to see."

"Christopher, I'm not going to tell anybody," she said with mock hurt.

Jenny had driven seven hundred miles with hot IDs for two fugitives at the top of the FBI's Most Wanted list, so he could not in good faith refuse her. "It's just that we've been walking a tightrope up here."

Jenny got up. "I understand perfectly. You're under a lot of stress."

Chris nodded. Stress.

He got up and led her downstairs to the wine closet. He unlocked it and pulled out one of the trunks. Two hundred and twelve ampules had been packed like glass bullets in styrofoam.

"Oh my," Jenny said. She removed one and held it up to the light. "And this can keep you alive indefinitely?"

"It it appears to have some such effects on monkeys." He played coy to discourage questions, but she was impervious. Being a former nurse, she wondered how they had figured out the proper dosages to give the animals. Chris explained it was trial and error until they determined that a fifteen pound monkey was could tolerate 10 milligrams.

"So, for a 150-pound man it would be ten times that, right?"

"I guess."

"So, how long could one of these keep a monkey going?"

"About ten years each."

"That much?"

"It's very concentrated, so it would have to be cut with saline. I'm getting cold," he said, and made a move to leave. The questions were making him uncomfortable. So was the pull of those ampules.

But Jenny disregarded him. "Is it just one shot and they go on and on?"

"More like once a month." He wanted to go back upstairs.

"And if they don't get their monthlies?"

"They die."

"I see." She held up the ampule. "Do you ever get tempted yourself?"

He felt the skin across his scalp prickle. "Nope."

He made a move to close the trunk when Wendy called down from upstairs. He stepped outside the closet to hear her better. A moment later he stepped back in. "One order of zinfandel," he said.

"I second the motion," Jenny chortled, and stepped outside while Chris hunted for a bottle.

He went to secure the trunk, but Jenny had already done that. For a moment it puzzled him that she had taken such liberty. And he would have said something, but she was already on her way upstairs. Just like Jenny: driven by presumptions and tidiness.

Chris locked the door and headed up, thinking about how good the wine would taste. Maybe he'd have just half a glass. If his brain cells were dying, what the hell difference would a little wine make?

The next morning before she left, Chris asked Jenny if she would call the Rose Hill nursing home in Connecticut to check on Sam's condition. She agreed and he gave her the number and some instructions. A little after ten, Jenny drove off in the van. In her handbag she carried the photos of Wendy and Chris and sample signatures. Also, two ampules of Elixir.

On their eighteenth night, Chris drove to a call box outside a fire station in Rumford. The street was dark and deserted. A little after nine, Jenny's call came through. But after a few seconds he could tell something was wrong. Had the authorities cornered her? Did she and Ted fear they were getting in too deeply? Was it a money problem?

"Chris, I'm sorry. It's your father. He's dead."

"Oh no."

"I did just as you said: I identified myself as an assistant prosecutor from Massachusetts…"

"When did it happen?" Chris asked.

"Ten days ago. They said his remains were cremated, which was the home's policy when next of kin couldn't be located. I'm sorry, Chris."

He felt the grief well up in him, but he pushed it back. "Thank you, Jenny." He hung up and headed home, concentrating on driving under the speed limit.

He arrived at the cottage around eleven. Wendy and the baby were in bed. But he knew he would not be able to sleep. He knew he would have to confront the full force of his grief and guilt. So he sat on the couch and turned on the television.

One of the channels was playing The Wild One with a lean, young Marlon Brando swaggering about the screen in tight jeans and a hurt truculent look. Today he was a three-hundred-pound bald and wheezy mound of fat draped in black tunics to hide what time had done to him.