"You didn't exactly…"

"Yes, I did. I thought that if she showed, there was maybe a two percent chance of taking her alive. I set her up to be killed, and she was."

More silence, then Mallard said, "Good. Fuck her. She killed Malone."

"And that's your last word on it."

"It is. Fuck her."

"You're a hard man," Andreno said, and he wasn't smiling.

AT THE GRAVESIDE, the mourners dropped dirt on the coffin, while Lucas, Mallard, and Andreno hung back. Treena Ross cried, wiping her nose with a big white hanky. She was still crying when the service ended, and people began to drift away. She walked past Lucas and Mallard as they headed to their car, and she called, "Hey, FBI."

They looked at her and she said, "I was never that stupid, you know?"

Lucas nodded, and couldn't suppress an acknowledging smile. "We know."

WHEN EVERYBODY ELSE was gone, Lucas and Andreno dropped handfuls of dirt on Rinker's coffin at the bottom of the grave. Mallard watched. He hadn't had much to say after Lucas's pronouncements on Rinker. And when Lucas and Andreno came away from the grave site, he said, "I'll leave you here. I've got a ride downtown."

"Okay."

They shook hands and Mallard said, "You done good, Lucas. You ever need a job…"

"I'll call," Lucas said.

Andreno dropped him back at the airport and said, "Well. I'm probably not as bummed out as you are, because I never knew her. But I'm gonna have a hard time getting back to the fuckin' golf course."

"You ever do any undercover work?" Lucas asked.

Andreno's eyebrows went up. "From time to time. I make a real good traveling salesman, for some reason."

"You know about my new job. You could be getting a call."

Andreno nodded and said, "Lucas, I'd owe you more than I could tell you."

BACK IN ST. PAUL that night, Weather asked if he were feeling better. He'd been shuffling around with his hands in his pockets, hangdog and moody. She'd been playing something light on the piano, maybe Chopin, and he'd been watching the tag end of a meaningless football game.

"I'm okay, really," he said.

"Okay for the real wedding?"

"Sure. Two weeks. I'm up for it-and the house. The house is looking good, if we could just get the goddamn parquet guys to put in the trim."

"Calm down."

"Yeah." He took a deep breath and exhaled, looked up at her perched on the arm of the couch. "I wouldn't want to do this again. Run into another Rinker."

"I don't think there could be another Rinker," Weather said. She bounced and smiled and said, "Ouch."

"What?"

"The kid just kicked me."

Lucas put a hand on her belly. "Matt, or maybe Sam. New Testament or Old. Emilie spelled with an i-e, like the French do, or Annie, with an i-e, like the English."

"But never Clara."

"Never Clara," Lucas said. "Clara's gone."