"That's good, Beth. That's very good. The best defense is a good offense. Let's stay on task. If I can prove that both you and Blues are innocent, you'll only get one message from me. In the meantime, I don't trust either one of us unless we're standing up with our clothes on and it's too cold to take them off."

"I won't go with you," she said, adopting a pout "You can't make me."

"Would you prefer your own front-page story? I don't have a photograph to go with it yet, but sometimes it's better for the reader to create his own picture. Especially when it's a story of a woman taking nude pictures of herself, then claiming a dead man was blackmailing her with the pictures."

"You wouldn't!" she said, wheeling around, her hands planted defiantly on her hips.

"Without pleasure and with regret, I assure you, but I will do it the moment I walk out of here. Rachel Firestone would love to have the story."

"I saw you with her on New Year's Eve. I don't know what you see in a woman like that! She can't love you!" Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes, spilling down past her nose and tracing a wet line along her lips. "Damn you!" she said as she stood crying, her arms limp, her shoulders heaving.

Mason was stunned at Beth's vehemence. Her world was collapsing around her and he was pushing her right up to the edge. Each time she reached out her hand, he was afraid to take it because he didn't know if he could pull her back or if he would be forced to throw her over.

He wrapped his arms around her and she muffled her cries against his chest. He held her while she slowly gathered herself, wiping his sweater with her sleeve, then her eyes and nose.

"God, I'm a mess," she said.

"Not if you like mascara streaks. I understand that's how KISS got the idea for their makeup."

"Screw you," she said, regaining a measure of playfulness.

He said, "Let's go for a drive instead."

"Okay. Let me change."

Beth chose corduroy jeans, ankle-high boots, and a heavy red woolen sweater. She had washed her face and tied her hair back with a bandanna. Not bothering with more makeup, she was scrubbed clean and fresh, indifferent to the crow's-feet and laugh lines that she'd left uncovered. Relieved of the burdens of tears and seduction, she had a fresh vulnerability that pierced Mason's heart. She pulled on her parka, grabbed her purse, and marched to the door while he remained locked in place.

"Let's go," she said. "I'm not going to spend my whole life waiting for you."

Mason pulled the Jeep out onto Ward Parkway, did a lap under the Plaza lights, and headed south. Neither of them spoke. When they'd left the city limits in the distance and the headlights ahead and behind them dwindled to a few, curiosity overcame her.

"Do we keep going until you run out of gas?" she asked him.

"Not much farther," he promised.

A few minutes later, they pulled into the driveway of a farmhouse. Mason got a swift shot of paranoia until a car that had seemed to be following them continued on past the driveway. He got out of the car and walked to the end of the driveway, looking to his west as the car's taillights disappeared over the next hill.

He got back into the Jeep and drove around the farmhouse, down a rutted path, and into a small clearing in the woods. "Let's go for a walk," he told her.

"Are you nuts? In the dark? In this cold?"

"It's invigorating. The Swedish do it all the time. If we had snow, we'd take our clothes off and roll around in it."

Mason grabbed his flashlight from the glove compartment and got out, followed reluctantly by Beth. He led her through the woods, back toward the farmhouse, quieting her with hand signals whenever she started to ask a question. Mason could make out the shape of the farmhouse when a pair of high-beam headlights bounced off the front windows and splashed back into the front yard. Mason turned off his flashlight and pulled Beth down to the ground.

Mason watched as Tony Manzerio, silhouetted by the headlights, took a quick tour of the grounds. Sound travels farther at night, and in the cold stillness he heard Manzerio invoke ghosts and godfathers in frustration at having lost them.

Mason, and Beth waited in the woods until Manzerio drove away, and another twenty minutes to make certain he wasn't coming back.

"Okay," Mason said. "Let's go." He helped her up and began walking toward the farmhouse.

"Wait a minute," Beth said. "The car is back the other way."

"We're not going to the car. We're spending the night here."

Mason walked to the back door of the farmhouse and knelt at the stoop, where he found a porcelain jug. He twisted the top off the jug and removed a key. He unlocked the door and returned the key to the jug.

"Lou Mason, international man of mystery," Beth said as they stepped inside. "Whose place is this?"

"It belonged to a former partner of mine who was killed when he got in over his head in a money-laundering scheme. He used to invite me out here. He was a nice man, gentle but weak, and it got him killed. I kind of look after the place for his family, who live on the West Coast. They're waiting for suburbia to get here before they sell it."

"And you feel safer spending the night with me in an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere than in my nice, warm apartment on the Plaza where we can actually order room service from the Windcrest Hotel? Don't tell me what you're taking because I don't want any of it."

"I didn't intend to come here, but it looked like we were being followed. I'm not much good at playing hide-and-seek in traffic, so I tried a little misdirection and it worked. I don't know if Manzerio was following both of us or just one of us. There's no point in finding out by going back to either of our places tonight. No one will bother us here."

"What about keeping our clothes on?"

"Don't worry. There's no heat or electricity," he told her.

Chapter Twenty-six

"I am not spending the night in a freezing-cold abandoned farmhouse!" Beth said.

"It's a long way to anywhere from here," Mason told her. They were in the kitchen and he shined the flashlight around the room, spotlighting a worn butcher-block table and two vinyl-upholstered chairs. "Let's talk first. Then we can decide about spending the night."

Beth stepped toward the back door. Mason cut her off, aiming the beam of his flashlight at the chairs.

"Oh, please!" Beth said. "You aren't really going to hold me hostage here until I talk. Don't you remember anything from law school? Like kidnapping is against the law? Like coerced confessions are inadmissible?"

"I'm not kidnapping you. You're free to go, but it is a long walk. Just tell me the truth about you, Jack Cullan, your pictures, and his files, and then I'll take you home."

Mason held the flashlight in front of him, pointing the beam at the ceiling like a torch, illuminating their faces as if they were sitting at the edge of a campfire. Beth looked at him across the beam, her mouth clamped shut, her eyes narrowed, waiting for Mason to call off his parlor game. He tipped his head at the table and raised his eyebrows as if to say he wasn't kidding.

Beth slipped her purse off her shoulder and walked to the table, her back to him. Mason waited for her to sit down, then turned off the flashlight and joined her at the other side of the table.

"We'll do this in the dark," he told her. "Just in case Manzerio comes back. I don't want him to see the light." Moonlight sneaked through a break in the clouds and trickled in the window, a ghostly glow that outlined their faces.

"Turn your flashlight on one more time," Beth told him. "I've got a surprise for you."

"You were supposed to keep your clothes on," he said. He aimed the beam at her chest. She pointed a gun at his. "Does that count as a mixed message?" he asked her.