“You want me to bring them back here,” he said. “You can’t bring them back yourself.”

“That’s right.”

“I will be talking to them, but I can’t promise how that’s going to happen. I might have to go to Boston.”

“That wouldn’t work for me. I need to get them to California or the civil case goes bye-bye.”

Cheney spread his hands. Nina said, “Do what you can.”

“I’ll do that.”

“You’ll let me know how it goes?”

“You’ll be the first to know.”

He opened the door to the reception area for her. “Thanks for the break,” he said. “I appreciate it. How’s my friend Paul?”

“Fine. He has plenty of business down in Carmel.”

“Give him my best.”

It was three-thirty when Nina left the police station on Johnson Boulevard. She would remember that later, that and everything else, with the same crisp clarity the day displayed as she drove down the boulevard. The deep blue of high altitude reflecting off the enormous hidden body of water close by shaded the mountains. Few people were about. They were watching football, hiking, gambling, picnicking by the water, anything except driving through town.

The trees that stood everywhere, even right here in the heart of town, seemed to float in this blue air, scented with resin.

She would remember the trees, too.

Chelsi’s tiny studio, sandwiched between a closed watch-repair store and a beauty parlor called Hair ’n Now in the strip mall just before Al Tahoe Boulevard, had an open door with a sign that read Therapeutic Massage Only above it. Nina knocked at the entry and entered the front room with its enthusiastic ferns and posters of acupuncture points and scoliotic backs.

“Hey, Nina.” Chelsi wore red running shorts and running shoes. She was in amazing shape. She had a rolltop desk tucked in the corner, where she was writing out bills. Her fine blond hair had been pulled into one of those negligent buns that manage to look both efficient and chic on the right person.

“Hi.”

“I’m not going to talk about Aunt Sarah today, I just wanted you to know that, because this is your time, you know? Except, I just wanted to say, sorry about Uncle Dave and my dad. They get into it sometimes. I hope you got the information you needed.”

“No worries,” Nina said. “We are making progress. I’ll be updating your uncle in a day or two.” She went into the massage room and took off her clothes and lay down on the table with her towel.

“Ready?” Chelsi called from the other room. She came in and the soft music began drifting through the room as she rubbed oil onto her hands. “I’m generating energy,” she said. “Have you had more headaches?”

“A couple.” The hands began making long movements up and down her back.

“What were you doing just before it started?” She had asked that question before.

“I’ve been thinking about that. One of the headaches was definitely caused by fatigue and stress. The other one-you know, they often come right when I’m ready to go to sleep. You know what I do before I sleep?”

“Make love?” Chelsi giggled.

“I read.”

“We’re zeroing in on it now,” Chelsi said. “You mentioned reading a few times. I’m ready to make my diagnosis now. This move here, you might hear or feel some cracking. Just ride with it.”

Deep within the skeleton, some ancient sorrow protested, then disentangled itself reluctantly from Nina’s spine and dissolved forever. “You haven’t been swimming this week,” Chelsi said.

“Is that the reason for my headaches?”

“No. But if you don’t swim, your back will start going out from all the sitting.”

“I’ll swim. But what’s the diagnosis?”

“Maybe you need glasses.”

“Hmm. But my vision is perfect.”

“Maybe just reading glasses.”

“I have those.”

“But you said your vision is perfect.”

“You know. Reading glasses don’t count.”

“Maybe you need stronger ones. Don’t buy them from the drugstore.”

“Those are for old people, not me!” Nina wailed.

“That’s what they all say.” Chelsi giggled once more.

“Okay. I’ll get my eyes checked out. There’s someone I’d like to introduce you to, Chelsi. That feels really good, right there.”

Chelsi didn’t have any difficulty following this massage-table train of thought. “Like who?”

“A young man. My investigator. His name is Wish.”

“You mean, like a blind date? Because I don’t do things like that. This muscle between your shoulder and neck is called the trapezius.”

“He’s such a nice guy,” Nina said. “I know you’d have fun. I just-I see the two of you meeting.”

“Yeah, you’re an old lady of thirty-six, better start matchmaking for other people,” Chelsi said. “What about you?”

“I’m open,” Nina said. “Even in my advanced state of decrepitude.”

“Interesting that you should talk about this Wish boy. I’ve been thinking about guys I know, wondering who I could fix you up with.”

“No need. I’m doing fine through the Internet,” Nina said, and they both laughed. Chelsi massaged her legs thoroughly, using the light oil that she had warmed as she rubbed her hands. Nina turned over and Chelsi began on her jaw, which did not want to unclench. Eventually the jaw fell open obediently, though, and hung down toward her chest, doofus-style. The eye muscles said thank you and surrendered. Nina reached the Zen zone.

“That darn buzzer,” Chelsi said. She gave Nina a final set of kneading strokes on her shoulders and polished them off with a pat on the hand. “See you outside,” she said.

Nina didn’t get up right away. She let herself float in this state of well-being, not thinking, not planning, not even feeling guilty about doing nothing.

Finally she opened her eyes to that peculiar luminousness coming through the open window, got off the table, and went to the hook where her jeans and polo shirt hung. Her underwear was on the chair and she stepped into her underpants, noting how supple she felt, how easily her back bent, swearing to herself to exercise more and maybe take up yoga.

She remembered later that she saw a movement from the corner of her eye. Her senses were very acute at that moment, and she noted that the movement came from the screened open window. With an intuition born of this unusual acuity she dove under the massage table, hearing the two knocks at the door that announced Chelsi was coming in at the same time.

A movement. Under the table. Knock knock. It went like that.

Chelsi opened the inner door and came in in her red shorts. Nina was facing her, wearing nothing but lace panties from Victoria ’s Secret, crouched on the linoleum floor under the table like some half-naked precursor of a human, and their eyes locked. Chelsi’s eyebrows began to draw together in puzzlement and her lips parted.

There was a bang, sharp, enormous. A large red hole appeared in Chelsi’s right cheek and her expression began to turn from bewilderment to agony. Another bang. Chelsi fell backward against the door, a red stain on her blue shirt, her eyes still open and still puzzled. She looked down at her shirt, tried to raise her hand to her face, but the hand lifted only briefly.

She slid to the ground.

Nina let out a shriek of horror and pain. It echoed around her brain and she thought, Now he’ll come in and finish me off too. She saw Chelsi on the floor a few feet away, watching her, her eyes so surprised, so disbelieving, shaking her head slightly even as the blood ran down her face, down her shirt.

Nothing happened during the ensuing longest minute of Nina’s life. Just maybe, she heard some slight noise in the parking lot that she translated as the shooter leaving.

Nina crawled the few feet across the floor and grabbed Chelsi by the arm. She dragged her under the table. One eye open now, not two. Chelsi wasn’t conscious anymore. She was gasping, leaking blood too fast to survive.