“It was like… it was like she was in another place.”

“Excuse me?”

“Like she wasn’t there. It was like she was imagining she was someplace else, or someone else. I think it was her way of surviving.”

I was listening, nodding my head.

“Who’d you say you were?” he asked, and I told him my name again. “If and when you find Connie, you tell her to get in touch. Would you do that?”

“Sure,” I said.

“What are you? Some kind of private investigator?”

“A reporter,” I said. “I’m a reporter.”

Dad came down to the kitchen.

“It must be dinnertime,” he said, looking at the clock. It was 6:40 p.m. “When did your mother say we were supposed to go over?”

I said, “Huh?”

“What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”

“Something like that,” I said.

The phone rang. I glanced down at the display. Mom. Or possibly Ethan, who had learned some time ago how to use the speed dial on his grandparents’ phone.

I picked up. “Yeah.”

“I can’t find him,” Mom said, her voice shaking. “I can’t find Ethan.”

Part Five

FORTY-SEVEN

For the better part of half an hour, Jan drove randomly. Go a few miles, turn left. Go a few more, turn right. Get on the interstate, go two exits, get off. She hoped the more randomly she drove, the harder she’d be to follow.

And she hadn’t noticed any black Audis in the pickup truck’s rearview mirror. When she got on the interstate, and was able to see a good mile or so behind her, and when there was no sign of the Audi, she started to feel more confident that Oscar Fine was not on her tail.

But that was not a great comfort.

If he could find her once, it seemed likely he could find her again.

She must have looked like a madwoman to other motorists who happened to glance her way. Wide-eyed, her hair a mass of tangles from the wind blowing through the open side windows and the new crack in the windshield. She was holding on to the steering wheel as hard as she could not just to maintain control, but to keep from shaking.

She was a disaster.

Dwayne had to be dead. No way Oscar Fine was letting him walk out of that basement alive.

The question was, how much had Dwayne said before he died?

Did Oscar know who she was?

Did Oscar know who she’d been?

Had he already known before Dwayne walked in to trade his fake diamonds for six million?

Think, she told herself, heading west on the Mass Pike. Think.

One thing was a no-brainer. Banura had turned them in. Once they’d been to see him, and he’d examined what they had to sell, he must have tipped off Oscar Fine. But why was Oscar on alert now, after all this time? Had he been checking in with everyone in the diamond trade regularly for the last six years, reminding them to be on the lookout for those worthless stones as a way of tracking Dwayne and her down?

Maybe. But it was also possible something had triggered Oscar Fine to start looking now, perhaps more vigorously than he had been lately.

Had he seen a news report about her disappearance? Even if he had, those stories carried pictures of her looking like Jan Harwood, and Jan Harwood didn’t look anything like that girl who got the drop on him in the back of the limo. But maybe, when you’ve had someone cut off your hand, you remember a little more than hair color and eye shadow…

Jan let go of the steering wheel long enough to bang it several times with her fist. Was there any part of this that she hadn’t fucked up?

Where to start?

Pulling the stupid job in the first place. Hooking up with Dwayne Osterhaus. Being so incredibly dumb as to not know the value of the goods they’d stolen. Coming back to Banura’s when she knew the deal was too good to be true.

Walking away from what she had.

She glanced down at the dash, saw that the truck was nearly out of gas. Now she had a practical matter to contend with. She took the next exit, which was littered with gas stations and fast-food joints. She put thirty dollars’ worth into the tank, then crossed the street and parked in a McDonald’s lot.

She bypassed the ordering counter, went straight to the ladies’ rest-room, rushed into a stall, and vomited before she could get the seat up. She had her hands on the stall walls, steadying herself. She was sweating and dizzy.

And then she was sick again.

She flushed the toilet and stood in there, blotting her face with toilet tissue. Once she was sure she was ready, she opened the door, went to the sink, and splashed water on her face, trying to cool herself down. A woman helping her daughter wash up at the sink next to hers gave Jan a cautious look.

Jan knew what she was thinking. You’re some sort of crazy lady.

There were no paper towels, just those confounding hot-air blowers, and the last thing Jan wanted blowing on her face was hot air. So she walked out of the restroom, and out of the restaurant, droplets of water running down her face.

She leaned up against the brick wall of the restaurant, keeping an eye on the pickup and the traffic, always on the lookout for a black Audi. She stood there for a good half hour, as though paralyzed, not knowing what she should do next.

A restaurant employee emptying trash cans asked if he could help her. Not really wanting to help, but wanting Jan to move on. She got back behind the wheel of the truck, sat there a moment.

A cell phone rang, making Jan jump. She didn’t even have a cell phone. Then she remembered the one she’d stolen from the woman’s purse at the gas station. She reached into her own purse, found the phone, looked at the number.

There was no way anyone knew how to get in touch with her, was there?

But Dwayne had used the phone to call Banura. He probably had it on his phone’s log.

She flipped it open. “Hello?”

“Who is this?” a woman asked. “Have you got my cell phone? I’ve spent all morning looking for it and-”

Jan broke the flip phone, like she was snapping its spine, got out of the truck and threw the two pieces into a garbage can.

When she got back into the truck, she was shaking.

And thinking. Thinking all the way back to the very beginning. Back to when she pushed the Richlers’ daughter into the path of that car.

Wasn’t that when it all started, really? If she hadn’t done that-and God knows she never meant for that to happen-then her parents would never have had to move away. And then her father’s work might not have gone down the toilet, and he might not have hated her quite so much, and she might not have been so desperate to leave home so young, taken up with someone like Dwayne Osterhaus and-

No, she never meant to kill the Richler girl. She was just angry, that was all. Angry about something she’d said. Constance Tattinger was jealous of Jan Richler. Jealous of the things she had. Jealous of how much her parents adored her. Gretchen and Horace Richler bought her Barbies, and pretty shoes, and on her birthday let her order in Kentucky Fried Chicken. They’d even bought their girl a necklace that looked like a cupcake. It was the most beautiful necklace Constance had ever seen, and she had coveted it from the moment she first laid eyes on it.

One day, when Jan Richler wore it to school, and took it off briefly when it was itching her neck, Constance Tattinger reached into her jacket pocket and took it. Jan Richler cried and cried when she couldn’t find it, and became convinced Constance had taken it. Two days later, on Jan Richler’s front lawn, she told Constance what she believed she’d done, and Constance, angry and defensive, shoved the girl out of her way.

Right into the path of the car.

All these years, the woman who would steal Jan Richler’s identity hung on to that necklace. She’d been tempted many times to throw it away, but could never bring herself to do it. It wasn’t that she loved the piece of jewelry. Far from it. The necklace was a reminder of a terrible thing she’d done. It signified not only the moment Jan Richler’s life ended, but the moment Constance Tattinger’s own life changed forever.