Timmie wasn't safe anywhere. She collected a bouquet of bruises, a cracked finger, and a loosened tooth from the evenings when baseball didn't help, and a wagonload of frustration at the restrictions that kept her father out of a safe place.

The good news, she supposed, was that being that preoccupied effectively squashed any wayward urges to change the system. She didn't have the energy to so much as give a damn that Ellen might have gotten away with murder. She didn't say bad things about Van Adder or call Murphy about suspicious death rates. It was all she could do to handle the trauma at home, much less dig up more at work.

Murphy did call, but only to ask again for a chance to talk to Joe. Nursing her sore finger and a crashing headache, Timmie almost agreed. But she knew that until she got Joe really settled somewhere, a talk about his life would only make matters worse. As it was, Joe swung from delightful, rambling lectures on the precious gifts of history, literature, and baseball to harrowing rages that ate up the nights, when the darkness stole his sense of certainty.

He wanted to run away. He just couldn't remember how to get there, or why it was Timmie would keep him from doing it. Timmie, his baby. Timmie, who had always sneaked off with him for day games at the stadium and night toots on the town. Timmie, who smiled at his singing and cheered at his heroes.

By the time Friday came, Timmie was at the end of her rope. Her friends had helped, her daughter had invented an imaginary playmate who had two parents and no grandfather, and Timmie had learned her own limitations. She was a trauma nurse. She acted quickly and thought on her feet. But she had no business struggling for inches with a man who would never get better, because she simply didn't have the patience for it.

She'd always said she'd use her last resort as a last resort. The last resort came when she walked back into the house from shopping to find her father pointing a pistol at her.

"Joe, knock it off," she said, by now at least comfortable with the fact that his memory of Joe was more solid than his memory of Daddy.

He straightened, stained and rumpled and frightened, the gun shaking so badly in his hand he'd probably hit the ceiling before he hit Timmie.

Where'd he get the damn thing? she wondered as she set the grocery bag down on top of a pile of old curtains. It immediately tipped over, spilling tomatoes and cantaloupe and lettuce like vegetarian boccie balls. Timmie didn't bother to notice.

"Joe, put the gun down. You don't need it."

"I... you know how tough this neighborhood is?" he demanded, swinging the gun around in punctuation. "I need protection."

"Tell it to the cop who's behind you," she suggested, sidling closer. Sweating. Wondering what had happened to the latest baby-sitter. Had there been shots fired? Were the police even now on the way here?

Her father smiled suddenly, like a choirboy caught cadging a smoke behind the rectory. "Oh, Timmie, my girl, you lie like an amateur."

"You need to put the gun down, Da. It's going to hurt somebody."

"Yeah," he admitted, studying the thing as if it were an insect. "Me. If I'm lucky."

New shakes. Terrifying images of her father blowing his brains all over her grandmother's cabbage rose wallpaper.

"But not today," Timmie insisted. "Today's the seventh game of the series. Milwaukee, Dad, remember? You can't tell me you're going to miss finding out if the Cards can pull it out."

Flickers of disquiet marred his face like ripples on a lake. Uncertainty, embarrassment, fear. He chuckled, but it was the chuckle of someone terrified that they'd forgotten something important and didn't know what.

"Daddy, come on," Timmie pleaded, praying she knew where the videotape was, chancing a few steps closer through a minefield of fruit and vegetables. "Game's going to start any minute. You don't want to miss Ozzie's backflip."

The gun wavered, lowered. Timmie heard the sirens at the same instant she made that last leap and took the gun from her father's hand.

"We have to hurry," he insisted, turning without a qualm for the back room.

Timmie stood there and shook and knew that it was time to grovel.

* * *

"Timmie? Is that you?"

Timmie sat in the stiff old brown wingback in the living room, the phone in one hand, her best Louisville slugger in the other. She'd already knocked the Nerf ball clean off its line with it. Now she was just using it for balance.

"I need some help," she admitted, closing her eyes. If she opened them, she'd just see the van Gogh print she'd cut off a calendar and framed for her wall. One of the later ones, all energy and hot, weird color, laid down in the scatological brushwork of madness. Like she needed the reminder.

There was silence on the other end of the line. Jack Buck was talking from the back room again, where Mrs. Falcon had been found crouched beneath the bed two hours earlier. It was where she'd hidden to call the police when Timmie's dad had escaped. It was where she'd tendered her resignation when Timmie had followed the telephone cord to unearth her.

"Please," Timmie added now, as if it would help. "Just this once."

Another pause that almost made her hope.

"I don't think so."

Timmie fought hard not to cry. "I can't do this alone. The only home that can control him is too expensive, and it doesn't take Medicare. I need a loan, but the banks won't help. Please."

"It wasn't worth a free house after all, was it?"

Timmie closed her eyes. Fought the bile at the back of her throat. Rubbed hard at her chest. "Please."

"Just like that? What makes you think after all this time I care what happens to him?"

"How about your granddaughter, Mom? Do you care what happens to her?"

Timmie heard the click and didn't believe it. Not until the phone beeped and the recorded operator came on to suggest that if Timmie intended to make a call she could hang up and try again. She hung up. She didn't think she could try again.

* * *

"Timmie Leary, it's your lucky day!" Ellen greeted her when she walked into the lounge.

"You couldn't tell by how it's gone so far," Timmie assured her, setting down her nursing bag and dropping into the chair.

Ellen's homely flat face immediately folded into planes of concern. "Your dad?" she asked gently.

Even as exhausted as she felt, Timmie found a smile for Ellen. "Yeah, I'm afraid so. We just didn't have a good day today." Nothing like an understatement to clear your palate.

Ellen was a good nurse. She smelled the euphemism and sat down, hand on Timmie's knee. "Oh, honey, I'm sorry. What can I do?"

Put him out of his misery, Timmie thought immediately, and regretted it even faster. God, she must be tired if she was even admitting to that kind of temptation.

"Figure someplace better than the back of a hall closet to hide a handgun," she said, then regretted that, too. Ellen looked appalled. "It's okay," Timmie soothed her friend. "He's fine."

"You haven't heard from anyplace?"

Timmie grimaced. "Golden Grove. The flagship in the GeriSys fleet of old folks' warehouses."

Ellen gaped. "Oh, Timmie, you can't. GeriSys is awful. Three different states are investigating them for neglect and fraud."

"I know I can't. But it may get to the point where I can't not. Megs isn't safe in that house with him anymore."

Rolling her neck to loosen it a fraction, Timmie began pulling out her supplies for the shift. It occurred to her that she should have been grilling Ellen, figuring a way to get evidence from her to prove she'd killed her husband. In fact, she'd thought it pretty much every day for the last week.