"Garage door this time," McElwayne, her partner, said. "Okay, let's take a look."

I followed them through the mud room and into _ the garage, and instantly knew this was no false alarm. The garage door had been pried up about six inches, and when we got down to look through the opening, we saw footprints in the snow leading to the door and then away from it. There were no apparent tool marks except for scrapes on the rubber strip at the bottom of the door. The footprints were lightly dusted with snow. They- had been left recently, and that was consistent with when the alarm had gone off, McElwayne got on the radio and requested a B amp;E detective, who showed up twenty minutes later and took photographs of the door and footprints and dusted for fingerprints. But once again, there really was nothing more the police could do other than follow the trail of footprints. It led along the edge of my yard and out to the street, where the snow was chopped up by tires.

"All we can do is step up patrol around here," Butler told me as they left. "We'll keep an eye on your house as best we can, and if anything else happens, call nine-one-one right away. Even if it's just a noise that bothers you, okay?"

I paged Marino. By now it was midnight.

"What's going on?" he asked.

I told him.

"I'm coming over right now."

"Listen, I'm all right," I said. "Battled, but all right. I'd rather you stay out there looking for him instead of coming here to baby-sit me,°"

He seemed unsure. I knew what he was thinking.

"It doesn't seem his style is to break in anyway;" I added.

Marino hesitated, then he said, "There's something you ought to know. I didn't know if I should tell you. Talley's here."

I was stunned.

"He's the head of the squad HIDTA sent in."

"How long has he been here?" I tried to sound curious and nothing more.

"Couple days."

"Tell him hello," I said as if Talley meant very little tу me anymore.

Marino wasn't fooled.

"Sorry he turned out to be such an asshole;" he said.

The minute I hung up, I contacted the orthopedic unit at MCV and the nurse on duty didn't know who I was and wouldn't release any information about anything. I wanted to talk to Senator Lord. I wanted to talk to Dr. Zenner, to Lucy, to a friend, to someone who cared, and at that moment I missed Benton so acutely I thought I couldn't go on. I thought of being buried in the wreckage of my life. I thought of dying.

I tried to revive the fire, but it was stubborn because the wood I'd carried in was damp. I stared at the pack of cigarettes on the coffee table but didn't have the energy to light one up. I sat on the couch and buried my face in my hands until the spasms of grief subsided. When a sharp rapping sounded on the door again, my nerves ached tut I was just so tired.

"Police," a male voice said from outside as he rapped again with something hard like a nightstick or blackjack.

"I didn't call the police," I said through the door.

"Ma'am, we've gotten a call about a suspicious person on your property," he said. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, yes," I said as I turned off the alarm and opened the door to let him in.

My porch fight was out, and it had never occurred to me he might be able to speak without a French accent, and I smelled that dirty, wet doglike smell as he pushed his way in and shut the door with a back-kick. I choked on the scream in my throat as he smiled his hideous smile and reached out a hairy hand to touch my cheek, as if his feelings for me were tender.

Half of his face was lower than the other and covered with a fine blond stubble, and uneven, crazed eyes burned with rage and lust and mockery from hell. He tore off his long black coat to net it over my head and I ran and this all happened in a matter of seconds.'

Panic hurled me into the great room and he was on my heels making guttural sounds that didn't sound human. I was too terrified to think. I was reduced to the childish impulse of wanting to throw something at him and the first thing I saw was the jar of formalin that held part of the flesh of the brother he had murdered. - I snatched it off the coffee table and jumped on the couch and over the back of it and fumbled with the lid, and he had out his tool now, that hammer with the coiled handle, and as he raised it and grabbed for me I dashed a quart of formalin in his face.

He shrieked and grabbed his eyes and throat as the chemical burned and made it difficult for him to breathe. He squeezed shut his eyes, shrieking and grabbing at his doused shirt to rip it off, gasping arid burning like fire as I ran. I grabbed my gun off the dining-room table and hit the panic alarm as I fled out the front door into the snow. On the steps my feet went out from under me and my left arm shot down like a brace to stop my fall. When I tried to get up, I knew I'd broken my elbow, and I was shocked to see him staggering after me.

He clutched the railing as he blindly made his way down, still screaming, and I was sitting at the bottom of the steps, panicking, pushing myself back as if I were crewing. His upper body was dense with long pale hair that hung from his arms and swirled over his spine. He fell to his knees, scooping up handfuls of snow and rubbing it into his face and neck again and again as he fought for breath.

He was within reach of me and I imagined him springing up any moment like a monster that wasn't human. I raised my pistol but couldn't pull back the slide. I tried and tried, but my fractured elbow and torn tendons wouldn't let me bend my arm. '

I couldn't get up. I kept slipping. He heard my noise and crawled closer as I scooted back and slipped and then tried to roll. He gasped and then lay facedown in the snow, the way children make angels, as he tried to lessen the pain of his severe chemical burns. He dug up snow like a dog, piling it over his head and holding handfuls against his neck. He reached out a matted arm to me: I couldn't understand his French, but I believed he was begging me to help him.

He was crying. Shirtless, he was- shivering from the cold. His nails were filthy and ragged, and he wore the boots and pants of a laborer, perhaps someone who worked on a ship. He writhed and screamed, and I almost felt sorry for him. But I wouldn't get close to him.

Tissue was hemorrhaging into my fractured joint. My arm was swelling and throbbing, and I didn't hear the car drive up. Then Lucy was running through the snow, almost losing her balance several times as she racked back the slide in the forty-caliber Glock she loved so much, and she fell to her knees close to him, assuming a combat position. She pointed the stainless steel barrel at his head.

"Lucy, don't!" I said, trying to pull myself up to my knees.

She was breathing hard, her finger on the trigger.

"You goddamn son of a bitch," she said. "You fucking piece of shit," she said as he continued to moan and wipe his eyes with snow.

"Lucy, no!" I yelled as she gripped the pistol more tightly in both hands, steadying it.

"I'm going to put you out of your misery, you fucking son of a bitch!"

I crawled toward her as feet and voices sounded and car doors shut.

"Lucy!" I said. "No! For God's sake no!"

It was as if she didn't hear me or anyone. She was in some hateful, angry world of her own. She swallowed hard as he writhed and held his hands over his eyes.

"Stop moving!" she yelled at him.

"Lucy," I moved closer and closer, "put the gun down."

But he couldn't stop moving, and she was frozen in her position, and then she wavered just a bit.

"Lucy, you don't want to do this," I said. "Please. Put the gun down."

She wouldn't. She didn't answer me or look my way. I became aware of feet all around me, of people in dark battle dress, of rifles and pistols all held in safe positions.