In the early morning I stood inside my dark living room, staring out at the shadows and shapes of my property.

My Plymouth wasn't back from the state garage. As I looked out at the oversize station wagon I was stuck with, I found myself wondering how difficult it would be for a grown man to hide under it and grab my foot as I unlocked the driver's door. He wouldn't need to kill me. I would die of a heart attack fust. The street beyond was empty, street lights burning dimly. Peering through the barely parted draperies, I saw nothing. I heard nothing. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Probably nothing had seemed out of the ordinary when Gary Harper had driven home from the tavern, either.

My breakfast appointment with the attorney general was in less than an hour. I was going to be late if I didn't muster up the courage to step outside my own front door and negotiate the thirty feet of sidewalk that would lead me to my car. I studied the shrubbery and small dogwoods bordering my front lawn, scrutinizing their quiet silhouettes as the sky lightened by degrees. The moon was roundly iridescent like a white morning glory, grass silver with frost.

How had he gotten to their houses, to my house? He had to have some means of transportation. There had been little speculation about the killer's ability to move around. Type of vehicle is as much a part of criminal profiling as age and race are, and yet no one was commenting, not even Wesley. I wondered why as I stared at the vacant street. And Wesley's grim demeanor in Quantico still bothered me.

I voiced my concern as Ethridge and I were eating breakfast.

"It may be, simply, that there are things Wesley chooses not to tell you," he suggested.

"He's always been very open with me in the past."

"The Bureau tends to be very closemouthed, Kay."

"Wesley is a profiler," I replied. "He's always been generous with his theories and opinions. But in this instance he's not talking. He's barely profiling these cases at all. His personality has changed. He's humorless, and he scarcely looks me in the eyes. It's weird and incredibly unnerving."

I took a deep breath.

Then Ethridge said, "You're still feeling isolated, aren't you, Kay?"

"Yes, Tom."

"And just a little paranoid."

"That, too," I said.

"Do you trust me, Kay? Do you believe I'm on your side and have your best interests in mind?" he asked.

I nodded and took another deep breath. We were talking in quiet voices inside the dining room of the Capitol Hotel, a favorite watering hole for politicians and plutocrats. Three tables away sat Senator Par-tin, his well-known face more wrinkled than I remembered as he talked seriously to a young man I had seen somewhere before.

"Most of us feel isolated and paranoid during stressful times. We feel alone in the wilderness."

Ethridge's eyes were kind on me, his face troubled.

"I am alone in the wilderness," I replied. "I feel that way because it's true."

"I can see why Wesley is worried."

"Of course."

"What worries me about you, Kay, is you're basing your theories on intuition, going on instinct. Sometimes that can be very dangerous."

"Sometimes it can be. But it can also be very dangerous when people begin to make things too complicated. Murder is usually depressingly simple."

"Not always, though."

"Almost always, Tom."

"You don't think Sparacino's machinations are related to these deaths?"

the attorney general queried.

"I think it would be all too easy to be distracted by his machinations. What he's doing and what the killer is doing could be trains running on parallel tracks. Both of them dangerous, even deadly. But not the same. Not connected. Not driven by the same forces."

"You don't think the missing manuscript is connected?"

"I don't know."

"You're no closer to knowing?"

The interrogation made me feel as if I hadn't done my homework. I wished he hadn't asked.

"No, Tom," I admitted. "I have no idea where it is."

"Is it possible it could be what Sterling Harper burned in her fireplace right before she died?"

"I don't think so. The documents examiner looked at charred bits of paper, identified them as twenty-pound, high-quality rag. They're consistent with fine stationery or the paper lawyers use for legal documents. It's very unlikely someone would write a book draft on paper like that. It's more likely Miss Harper burned letters, personal papers."

"Letters from Beryl Madison?"

"We can't rule it out," I replied, even though I had pretty much ruled it out.

"Or perhaps Gary Harper's letters?"

"There was quite a collection of his private papers found inside the house," I said. "There's no evidence that any of it had been disturbed or recently gone through."

"If the letters were from Beryl Madison, why would Miss Harper burn them?"

"I don't know," I replied, and I knew Ethridge was thinking about his nemesis Sparacino again.

Sparacino had moved quickly. I had seen the lawsuit, all thirty-three pages of it. Sparacino was suing me, the police, the governor. The last time I had checked in with Rose, she had informed me that People magazine had called, and one of its photographers was out front taking pictures of my building the other day after being refused entrance beyond the lobby. I was becoming notorious. I was also becoming expert at refusing comment and making myself scarce.

"You think we're dealing with a psycho, don't you?" Ethridge asked me point-blank.

Orange acrylic fiber connected with hijackers or not, that was what I thought, and I told him so.

He looked down at his half-eaten food and when he lifted his eyes I was undone by what I saw in them. Sadness, disappointment. A terrible reluctance.

"Kay," he began, "there's no easy way to say this to you."

I reached for a biscuit.

"You need to know. No matter what is really going on or why, no matter your beliefs and private opinions, you need to hear this."

I decided I would rather smoke than eat, and got out my cigarettes.

"I have a contact. Suffice it to say he is privy to Justice Department activities-"

"This is about Sparacino," I interrupted.

"It's about Mark James," he said.

I couldn't have been more unnerved had the attorney general just sworn at me.

I asked, "What about Mark?"

"I'm wondering if I should ask you that, Kay."

"What do you mean, exactly?"

"The two of you were seen together in New York several weeks ago. At Gallagher's."

An awkward pause as he coughed and added inanely, "I haven't been there in years."

I stared at the smoke drifting up from my cigarette.

"As I remember it, the steaks are pretty good…"

"Stop it, Tom," I said quietly.

"A lot of good-hearted Irishmen in that place who don't hold back on the booze or the banter-"

"Stop it, goddamn it," I said a little too loudly.

Senator Partin stared straight at our table, his eyes mildly curious as they briefly alighted on Ethridge, then me. Our waiter was suddenly pouring more coffee and inquiring if we needed anything. I was uncomfortably warm.

"Don't bullshit me, Tom," I said. "Who saw me?"

He waved it off. "What matters is how you know him."

"I've known him for a very long time."

"That's not an answer."

"Since law school."

"You were close?"

"Yes."

"Lovers?"

"Jesus, Tom."

"I'm sorry, Kay. It's important."

Dabbing his lips with his napkin, he reached for his coffee, his eyes drifting around the dining room. Ethridge was very ill at ease. "Let's just say that the two of you were together most of the night in New York. At the Omni."

My cheeks were burning.

"I don't give a damn about your personal life, Kay. I doubt anybody else does, either. Except in this one instance. You see, I'm very sorry."

He cleared his throat, finally giving me his eyes again. "Dammit. Mark's pal, Sparacino, is being investigated by the Justice Department-"

"His pal?"

"It's very serious, Kay," Ethridge went on. "I don't know what Mark James was like when you knew him in law school, but I do know what's become of him since. I know his record. After you were spotted with him, I did some investigating. He got in serious trouble in Tallahassee seven years ago. Racketeering. Fraud. Crimes for which he was convicted and for which he actually spent time in prison. It was after all this that he ended up with Sparacino, who is suspected of being tied in with organized crime."

I felt as if a vise were rapidly squeezing the blood from my heart, and I must have become pale because Ethridge quickly handed me my glass of water and waited patiently until I composed myself. But when I met his eyes again, he picked up where he had interrupted his damaging testimony.

"Mark has never worked for Orndorff amp; Berger, Kay. The firm has never even heard of him. Which doesn't surprise me. Mark James couldn't possibly practice law. He was disbarred. It appears he is simply Sparacino's personal aide."

"Does Sparacino work for Orndorff amp; Berger?" I managed to ask.

"He's their entertainment lawyer. That much is true," he answered.

I said nothing, tears fighting to break out.

"Stay away from him, Kay," Ethridge said, his voice a rough caress in its attempt to be tender. "For God's sake, break it off. Whatever you've got going with him, break it off."

"I don't have anything going with him," I said shakily.

"When's the last time you had contact with him?"

"Several weeks ago. He called. We talked no more than thirty seconds."

He nodded as if he had expected as much. "The paranoid life. One of the poisonous fruits of criminal activity.

I doubt Mark James is given to long telephone conversations, and I doubt he'll approach you at all unless there is something he wants. Tell me how it is you were with him in New York."

"He wanted to see me. He wanted to warn me about Sparacino." I added lamely, "Or this is what he said."