Tony slipped his finger around the trigger of the Glock. "Yes, we had a session together, and she told me about tracking down the girl from the concert in Kansas City. I was stunned. I knew if she looked hard enough, she'd find me."

"So why not just kill her?"

"If Nicole were killed, people would wonder why, but if she wound up in jail for murder, it would all just go away. I knew Nicole. She never wrote anything down. She was always forgetting our appointments because she didn't keep a calendar."

"So you killed her husband and his girlfriend and planted evidence against her."

"She was always leaving hair behind on that couch," Tony said. "It was actually pretty easy. It all went underground again for years until Eric started nosing around. He was raving about me raping you, raping Tanjy, about what a monster I was, about who I'd raped in the past. Can you imagine the horror? All these years, I've kept the secret, I've beat my demons down into a box. Now this fool was going to expose me over something I didn't do."

"What happened?"

"I went over there and waited until you were both home. You're right. I needed to get that mug back."

"Why wait for me?"

"This time, I wanted to kill you both," Tony explained. "I wanted the focus to be on you, not Eric. But like I say, you weren't in bed together. And the frame-up worked with Nicole, so I figured I could make it work again."

"What about Helen Danning?"

Tony shrugged. "Loose ends."

"You bastard."

"If anyone found her, the arrow was going to point straight to me. She had to go. And you know what? It was such a thrill doing it again. To stop fighting the desire and finally give in after all these years. It was like reliving my greatest triumph to lay another body out in Enger Park. It was like yelling it to you and Stride and the whole world. I'm back, baby, I'm back. I told Serena there comes a time when you have to look your past in the eye and decide who you really are. I know who I am, Maggie."

Maggie's skin shivered. She stood up. "Let's go, Tony."

"No, I don't think so."

"There's no way out." She stepped closer to the desk.

"Actually, there is. I've always known the way out. I knew one day the monster would come back, and I would have to exterminate him. I was kidding myself to think I could hold out forever."

"Tony," she said, her voice a warning.

"It's okay, Maggie. I'm a psychiatrist. I know how these things work. You know the trick to committing suicide? Speed. Hesitation is the enemy. If you put the gun in your mouth and think about it, well, you won't do it. I've had lots of people sit on my couch and tell me about it, and the fact is, if you don't pull the trigger immediately, you never will."

"Put the gun down."

"I want you to remember something, Maggie."

She didn't take her eyes off the gun. Her whole body was still, as taut as a cable spanning the towers of a bridge. She was measuring how fast she could run, how far she could jump.

"Cops like you and Stride think you can spot the monster," Tony went on. "You think if you look in someone's eyes, you can see what's in their heart. The fact is, you don't have a clue. You really don't. Everyone wears a mask."

Maggie jumped. She shouted as she took two steps and leaped across the desk, her arms outstretched like the talons of a hawk as it drops toward the earth, her fingers curled, clawing for the gun. She wasn't nearly fast enough. Tony swallowed the black barrel of the Glock and pulled the trigger, just like that, without a millisecond of hesitation, and he was already dead as she came across the desk. The explosion jangled her brain like a marble rolling around an empty bowl. She kept coming anyway, momentum carrying her, and her body spilled into Tony's as they both tumbled head over heels and landed together, and his blood, tissue, and shards of bone spattered across her skin and clothes.

Stride kicked in one door. Teitscher kicked in the other. They both thundered in, guns leveled.

"I'm okay!" Maggie screamed. She shoved Tony's fleshy corpse away from her own small body, and she stood up, spitting his blood out of her mouth and wiping her face with the back of her arm. She wobbled on her feet, but she stood over him, unable to tear her eyes away. "I'm okay."

Ten years of her life came and went with the man lying on the floor. She heard Stride say something, but didn't hear what it was. The gunshot was still roaring in her head, making her deaf. She had a vision of Eric on the floor, remembering the sprawl of his naked body, and she still didn't feel anything at all. When she finally looked up, she stared into the crazy reflections of the dark glass, and somewhere out there, she thought she saw the Enger Park Girl in the woods, not desecrated and alone, but alive and dancing. The beat she was following was an Aerosmith song. That was the way it was supposed to be, the way it should have been, with that girl out there paying no attention to her at all.

She felt Stride's arm around her.

"I'm okay," she said again.

65

Abel Teitscher stabbed a shrimp from a greasy paper plate, where it was swimming in a candy-red sauce. It was rubbery as he chewed, but his tongue relished the sweet-and-sour tang, even though it tasted burnt. He took a forkful of fried rice, too, and then washed it all down with a sip of green tea. He leaned back against the stiff frame of his old sofa and watched a school of lemon tetras race around his fish tank in streaks of shining blue.

Sinatra was singing softly on the stereo. Ring-a-ding-ding.

It was a Monday like any other Monday, and like lots of Tuesdays and Wednesdays, as well. Potsticker Palace. Old music. Bubbles whooshing in the tank. "Dad, you've got to get out more," his daughter told him when she called from San Diego, but it was easy to say that when you were living in California.

She was right, though. He was lonely. It wasn't warm enough yet for the spring crime wave to wash over the city, so he didn't have to spend his evenings closeted away in his cubicle in City Hall. Sometimes that was easier than being home.

His doorbell rang, surprising him. He twisted around and looked out the living room window and saw a dirty Ford Taurus under the streetlight that he didn't recognize. He got up, noticing the wrinkles in his untucked white dress shirt. His gray slacks were baggy, because his waist had shrunk by a couple inches in the past year, and he hadn't bothered buying new clothes. He just cinched his belt tighter.

He opened the door.

"Hello, Abel," Nicole Castro said.

They stared at each other across the threshold. He felt self-conscious standing there, wondering if he had Chinese sauce on his mouth. He wiped his face. "Hi."

"Can I come in? It's okay, I'm not going to kill you."

"Funny."

He pulled the door wide, and Nicole wandered into the living room. She was dressed in a Minnesota Vikings jersey and jeans, with a new pair of Nikes. Her gray hair was still short, a prison cut. Her hands were in her pockets. She looked as uncomfortable as he felt.

"I heard you got out," he said. "I'm happy for you."

"Yeah. Free bird, that's me."

She stood in the middle of the room, biting her lower lip.

"You want some Chinese?" he said.

"No, that's okay. It looks like cherry barf, Abel."

"Yeah, it's only so-so, but it's kind of a routine for me."

"Uh-huh."

He rubbed his own flattop steel hair and tried to think of something to say. "Look, I'm sorry, Nicole. I don't know what else I can tell you. I didn't trust you, and I was wrong."

"Actually, I came here to apologize to you."

"What the hell for?"

"For thinking you set me up all these years."

"I would never do that," Abel said.