Or was he? He could have slipped her one and knocked her out for the night. Was that why she'd felt so totally groggy this morning? And she'd thought he couldn't drive, but he was out driving right now. Last night, while she was zonked, he could have slipped out and—

No. Stop. This is insane.

But putting the letter together with what had been going on… they fit too well. And he seemed so interested in the results of the drug screen. Was that because…?

Coincidence. Had to be.

But if Jerry had bought roofies, where would he hide them?

God, she hated herself for doing this, but she was going to have to search the place. Not finding any wouldn't mean anything, of course—he could have used them all or taken them with him—but she hoped it might ease her mind.

6

Jack had removed the wig, the mustache, the nostril dilators, and the cotton pledgets from inside his cheeks. He hadn't been sure how well Dawn would remember him from their one meeting in Work, but decided not to take any chances.

What a stroke of luck that Bolton had left Dawn home alone on the first day of surveillance. He'd expected—and been mentally prepared for—a wait of up to a week.

He wondered what had drawn Bolton out tonight. Didn't matter—it had given Jack a chance to put the letter and test results in Dawn's hands. Whatever happened next would be a matter of luck and circumstance. Dawn's youth and naivete would work in Jack's favor.

Ideally, she would swallow the whole story—why not? It was all true—and come running out of the house.

More than likely she'd be in complete denial at first; but after a while she'd start to recognize a few parallels between her experience and the letter.

Even if she was so enthralled with Bolton that she stayed in denial and showed the letter to lover boy, it would cause a major disruption in Bolton's life, maybe even enrage him enough or panic him enough to do something stupid enough to throw a big-enough monkey wrench into the Creighton clinical trial to shut it down.

One thing Jack knew he wouldn't do was hurt Dawn—because what hurt Dawn would hurt the baby.

But no matter what she did with it, that letter was going to rock Jeremy Bolton's world.

7

Jeremy sat at a corner table in Work sipping a Bud and waiting for Dirty Danny to show. The guy was usually here by now, bothering everybody to buy his shit. Where the fuck was he? An hour here and no sign of him. Jerry couldn't ask about him because that would connect him and Danny—the last thing he needed. But it hadn't stopped people from asking what had happened to him.

"How's the other guy look?"… "What happen? Step in front of a truck?"… "Dawn catch you with another babe?"… and on and on.

He felt like he was going to explode.

He didn't have a firm plan yet. He figured it best to play it by ear. Get Danny to meet him outside… tell him he had a customer for him, real para-noid but with a major jones. Anybody else and Danny might be suspicious. But he knew Jeremy, knew he wasn't hurting for dough or drugs. He'd come along. Drive him to a secluded spot, use the trusty tire iron—no surprises this time—then strip him of his wallet and of most of his stock. They'll call it a drug deal gone bad. Another pusher gone. No loss.

But the damn guy had to show first. And Jeremy had to wait. Couldn't risk putting it off till tomorrow. If word got out tonight that the cops found roofies in Moonglow, tomorrow would be too late.

Getting rid of Danny would do it. Then he'd be home free. Dawn was his alibi against any suspicions the cops might have about him and Moonglow, and even any she herself might have. He'd dropped the gloves in a strip mall trash bin; they were probably in the county dump by now. The roofies had gone down a storm drain. Nobody and nothing to connect him to the dead Mrs. Pickering.

Yep. Home free after tonight.

8

"Oh, God!" Dawn wailed. "Oh, /VO!"

She knelt outside the closet in the extra bedroom—"the shit closet," he'd called it. Seconds ago she'd been on her feet, but her knees had given way.

She'd started going through Jerry's backpack, looking for roofies. She'd come up empty everywhere else, and then she'd unzipped the main compartment.

She hadn't found drugs. She'd found something a lot worse.

A Talbot's bag containing a quarter million in cash.

She'd seen it before. At Mom's place. Only one way Jerry could have got his hands on this.

She screamed.

Oh, God, he killed Mom. But she was already out of their lives. He had no reason to hurt her. Unless—

Oh, shit! If the letter was right about him killing Mom, it could be right about why he'd done it.

To keep her from finding out that he was her rapist, that he was Dawn's father.

My father?

This was a nightmare, a total nightmare. Had to be. She was going to wake up any second and find herself next to Jerry and write this off as the worst dream of her life.

But even if that happened, who was Jerry, really? She didn't know.

One thing she did know was that she could so not count on this being just a bad dream.

A line from the letter came back to her: / suggest you vacate the premises.

Totally.

Clutching the wall for support, she struggled to her feet and lurched toward the hall. Thoughts cascaded through her brain in a jumbled avalanche, tumbling, bouncing off each other without connecting, without coherence. She had to get out, find a place away from here to think, sift out truth from lies, if she could.

If she could…

But how could she know—ever really know the truth about this?

What I'm telling you is easily verifiable. Simply bring samples of his hair . . . and yours to any commercial lab and ask for a paternity DNA analysis.

Just what she'd do. Because she totally had to know.

She stumbled to the bathroom and found his hairbrush. He used it a lot, saying he was afraid it was thinning on him and he'd read where regular brushing would stimulate it. She used to think it was cute, but now nothing seemed cute.

She grabbed a comb and cleaned the brush, removing a lot more than a dozen strands. She stared at the tangle in her hand.

What if this proved that Jerry was really her father?

For God's sake, Dawn, he's old enough to be your father!

How many times had Mom said that?

Other memories followed… straddling him in ecstasy, sucking his—

She leaned over the toilet and vomited.

Had to get out of here. But Jerry had her car. So what? She'd take his. Do anything to get away and stay away until she'd figured this out.

But stay where? Her house was out. A motel? But she didn't have much money.

The bag.

She rushed back to the shit closet and grabbed the bag from where she'd dropped it, then hurried down to the main floor. She grabbed a set of Jerry's keys from the bowl and was heading for the door when she saw lights sweep across the windows. She peeked out and saw her Jeep pulling into the driveway.

No! No. she couldn't confront him, couldn't even face him or stand being in the same room with him until she knew the truth. Had to get out.

Since she couldn't take his car, her first thought was to run—go out the back door and keep on going. But that wasn't going to work. And even if she could somehow get to her car, he'd only chase after her in his.

She looked down at the bowl where they tossed their keys when they came in, and had an idea.