In the garage, he realized that his breathing gear was still out at Calb's, and the paint he was using always specified breathing gear. That meant a trip to Broderick.

He'd gone to Broderick without a thought in his mind. As he came into town, he saw a silver SUV pulling out of the body shop, heading out on the highway, north. He pulled into the spot that the SUV had just left and found the shop deserted. Not unusual for a Sunday. He ran the door up with his remote control, went inside, and got the breather gear. Didn't feel the slightest vibration from the silver truck.

"Loren?" A woman's voice called to him. He looked back to his right, and saw an older woman walking across the highway from the church. "Hey," she called. "Did you talk to Katina?"

"Not since last night. She said she was heading back here… " And for a moment, Singleton thought the woman was going to tell him that Katina was missing. If she'd gone missing, for any reason, he might be cooked.

"She was here, until ten minutes ago," the woman said. She was an older woman, who looked like a Saturday Evening Post caricature of Grandma. "She tried to call you-she's probably down at your place, now. She said if you came by, looking for her, to tell you that she'd wait."

"All right."

"Did you talk to the state policemen?"

"No… "

"They were just here. They've been going around town."

"Silver truck?"

The woman nodded. "Yes. You just missed them."

THEY WERE HEADED north. To Letty West's? He thanked the woman, and as soon as she was back in the church, headed north out of town, after the silver SUV. He was no more than fifteen minutes behind it, he thought. He took it slow going out, looking for their car at West's house. It wasn't there-in fact, there was no car at West's. Of course, they might have come back past Calb's when he was getting the breathing gear, but he hadn't seen or heard any traffic, and the shop was quiet.

They were headed north…

Then it hit him. Shit. The dump. He denied it to himself -Couldn't be the dump.

He wheeled the Caddy out of the parking lot and put his foot down. The Cadillac would make a hundred and ten. He had to fight the undulating highway and the soft suspension, but he stuck with it, pushing the car as hard as he could. The dump road came up in four minutes, with no sign of the silver truck. He turned the corner, eased down the road… saw nothing until he came to the entry.

Turned in.

There they were, caught like deer in the headlights. The whole goddamned bunch of them, standing around the SUV.

He lifted a hand, mind gone blank, backed out, and raced away…

THE SCENE WENT round and round in Singleton's brain, and he couldn't stop it. There were too many permutations, but it all came back to one problem: he didn't believe in coincidence. The state cops had been out there with Letty West for a reason.

He'd put the two girls four feet down in the center of the landfill, under the clay cap. He'd dug through to the garbage layers, shoved the bodies in, refilled the holes and carefully tamped down the clay. Even if he went out to look for the bodies, now, he'd be lucky to get within twenty feet of them. Letty West, if she'd been back in the woods and had seen him cutting the holes, would never be able to put the cops on the exact spot.

Still: if they knew he'd been involved, they'd find a way to get him. Christ, they might hit the house. In fact, that's the first thing they'd do. If they found the money, he'd be gone.

And what else did Letty know? Had she seen his Caddy at Deon's? He'd parked it in the back, but he'd seen her walking down the creek behind the place. Had she seen it there? He'd been there often enough. Did she know he'd gone to Vegas with James Ramone and later with Deon and Jane?

He better get a story. He needed a story, and a good one. And he needed to think about Letty West.

Goddamnit. He looked at himself, caught his own eyes in the rearview mirror. He'd never been like this. Could this be fear?

KATINA WAS AT his house, sitting on the back stoop in the cold, a brown grocery sack next to her leg. He pulled into his driveway and she stood up, hugging herself across the chest, jiggling up and down, trying to keep warm.

"Where've you been?"

"Had to go in for a couple of hours," he said. "Got guys running all over the place with this Deon thing." He got his keys out, unlocked the house, and she picked up the sack and followed him inside. He walked on through to the front hall, took off his coat, hung it, leaned back against the wall, and pulled off his boots.

"Something wrong?" she asked.

He didn't exactly jump, but felt himself twitch. "Huh?"

"You look a little stressed."

"Just, uh, wish I didn't have to work tonight," he said. "Anything new with the Deon thing? From Gene?"

"Not that I've heard. The state police have been going around town, talking to people. Talked to Ruth for quite a while. She didn't have much to tell them."

"Good. Be dumb."

"The Lord looks over the innocent," she said. "I brought a couple of rib-eyes and some veggies. I thought we could eat here."

"That'd be good," he said.

THEY HAD A quiet afternoon, Katina cooking, Singleton looking through car trader magazines. Calb had a computer on his desk, and he'd shown Singleton how to get online and browse car-rehab sites. Singleton did it, from time to time, but preferred paper. He trusted the magazines-he liked the color and he liked to lie on his couch and look at a photo for a long time, thinking what he might have done with the same car. He had a hard time doing it this afternoon: he kept thinking about the scene at the dump, with the two cops and Letty West.

He finally got up and went into the hall to call Mom; he got no answer. Probably at the casino, he thought-she usually was on Sunday nights. She liked her slots. Since she'd come into the money, she'd moved up to the dollar machines.

He went back to the couch and dozed fitfully, the odors from the kitchen getting better and better, almost driving the Letty West demon out of his head. Then Katina called him into the kitchen and he found a tablecloth on the kitchen table, and a couple of white candles, in fancy glass candleholders. He said, "Whoa."

"I thought you'd like it," Katina said. She blushed a little, as though she were shy about it, or maybe it was the heat from the stove. She'd made a salad with white seeds that looked like sunflower seeds, but weren't, and mashed potatoes to go with the steak.

Singleton sat down and said, "Pretty okay," then popped up and said, "You forgot the ketchup."

She said grace, as she always did, and then was quiet, until they were halfway through dinner, when she asked, "Have you ever thought about having a child?"

He said, "What?"

SINGLETON DIDN'T KNOW exactly what had happened, there, during dinner and afterward. They'd watched television and then wound up in bed, again, which was fine with him-but he'd gotten up to watch the ten o'clock news, and to get into his uniform, and she'd left, light-footed and apparently lighthearted, singing to herself.

He watched the news: they were still talking about Sorrell, and they had a quick piece of tape with Letty West, but it was old tape that he'd been seeing for a couple of days. He dozed for a while, sitting in front of the tube in the La-Z-Boy. When he woke up, he groped around for his cigarettes, found them, found the matchbox, and ripped the match down the igniter strip.

In the flare of the match, it occurred to him that the Sorrell killings had been no problem at all. He'd just gone and done it. Nothing pointed at him and a threat had been eliminated.

Truth be told, he realized as he stared into the flame, he'd enjoyed knocking down the Sorrells. Nothing to do with his mother-he'd enjoyed it for himself. Here was that king-shit Sorrell guy, all the money in the world, all big and smart and walking around in his house in silk pajamas, and here was Singleton, with his little ole mother…