“So Emma and Max will get it?”

“Yep.”

“How do you feel about that?”

Grace shrugged. “You know what I’m realizing?”

“I’m all ears.”

“The reason I never pushed Jack? It had nothing to do with respecting privacy.”

“Then what?”

“I loved him. I loved him more than any man I’d ever met…”

“I feel a ‘but’ coming here.”

Grace felt the tears press against her eyes. “But it all felt so fragile. Does that make sense? When I was with him-this is going to sound so stupid-but when I was with Jack, it was the first time I was happy since, I don’t know, since my father died.”

“You’ve had a lot of pain in your life,” Cora said.

Grace did not reply.

“You were scared it would go away. You didn’t want to open yourself up to more.”

“So I chose ignorance?”

“Hey, ignorance is supposed to be bliss, right?”

“You buy that?”

Cora shrugged. “If I never checked up on Adolf, he probably would have had his fling and gotten over it. Maybe I’d be living with the man I love.”

“You could still take him back.”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

Cora thought about it. “I need the ignorance, I guess.” She picked up her glass and took a long sip.

The printer finished whirring. Grace picked up the sheets and started examining them. Most of the phone numbers she knew. Point of fact, she knew almost all of them.

But one immediately jumped out at her.

“Where’s six-oh-three area code?” Grace asked.

“Beats me. Which call?”

Grace showed her on the monitor. Cora moved the cursor over it.

“What are you doing?” Grace asked.

“You click the number, they tell you who called.”

“For real?”

“Man, what century do you live in? They have talkies now.”

“So all you have to do is click the link?”

“And it’ll tell all. Unless the number is unlisted.”

Cora clicked the left mouse button. A box appeared saying:

NO RECORD OF THAT NUMBER.

“There you go. Unlisted.”

Grace checked her watch. “It’s only nine-thirty,” she said. “Not too late to call.”

“Under the missing-husband rule, no, not too late at all.”

Grace picked up the phone and inputted the number. A piercing feedback, not unlike the one at the Rapture concert, slapped her eardrum. Then: “The number you have called”-the robotic voice stated the number-“has been disconnected. No further information is available.”

Grace frowned.

“What?”

“When was the last time Jack called it?”

Cora checked. “Three weeks ago. He talked for eighteen minutes.”

“It’s disconnected.”

“Hmm, six-oh-three area code,” Cora said, moving to another Web site. She typed in “603 area code” and hit the enter button. The answer came right up. “It’s in New Hampshire. Hold on, let’s Google it.”

“Google what? New Hampshire?”

“The phone number.”

“What will that do?”

“Your number is unlisted, right?”

“Right.”

“Hold on, let me show you something. This doesn’t work every time, but watch.” Cora typed Grace’s phone number into the search engine. “What it will do is search the entire Web for those numbers in a row. Not just phone directories. That won’t do it because, like you said, your number is unlisted. But…”

Cora hit return. There was one search hit. The site was for an art prize offered at Brandeis University, her alma mater. Cora clicked the link. Grace’s name and number came up. “You were judging some painting award?”

Grace nodded. “They were giving out an art scholarship.”

“Yep, there you are. Your name, address, and phone number with other judges. You must have given it to them.”

Grace shook her head.

“Throw away your eight-tracks and welcome to the Information Age,” Cora said. “And now that I know your name, I can do a million different searches. Your gallery Web page will come up. Where you went to college. Whatever. Now let’s try with this six-oh-three number…”

Cora’s fingers flew again. She hit return. “Hold on. We got something.” She squinted at the screen. “Bob Dodd.”

“Bob?”

“Yes. Not Robert. Bob.” Cora looked back at Grace. “Is the name familiar?”

“No.”

“The address is a PO box in Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire. You ever been?”

“No.”

“How about Jack?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, he went to college in Vermont, so he might have visited New Hampshire, but we’ve never been there together.”

There was a sound from upstairs. Max cried out in his sleep.

“Go,” Cora said. “I’ll see what I can dig up on our friend Mr. Dodd.”

As Grace headed up toward her son’s bedroom, another pang struck deep in her chest: Jack was the house’s night sentinel. He handled nightmares and nocturnal requests for water. He was the one who held the kid’s foreheads at 3 A.M. when they woke up to, er, throw up. During the day, Grace took care of the sniffles, the taking of the temperatures, the heating of chicken soup, the forcing down of Robitussin. The night shift was Jack’s.

Max was sobbing when she reached his room. His cries were soft now, more a whimper, and somehow that was more pitiful than the loudest of screams. Grace wrapped her arms around him. His little body was shaking. She rocked back and forth and gently shushed him. She whispered that Mommy was here, that everything was okay, that he was safe.

It took Max a while to settle. Grace brought him to the bathroom. Even though Max was barely six, he peed like a man-that is to say, he missed the bowl entirely. He swayed, falling back asleep as he stood. When he finished, she helped him pull up his Finding Nemo pajamas. She tucked him back in and asked if he wanted to tell her about his dream. He shook his head and fell back asleep.

Grace watched his little chest rise and fall. He looked very much like his father.

After a while she headed back downstairs. There was no sound. Cora was no longer clacking the keyboard. Grace entered the office. The chair was empty. Cora stood in the corner. She gripped the wineglass.

“Cora?”

“I know why Bob Dodd’s phone was disconnected.”

There was a tightness in Cora’s voice, one Grace had never heard. She waited for her friend to continue, but she seemed to be shrinking into the corner.

“What happened?” Grace asked.

Cora downed a quick sip. “According to an article in the New Hampshire Post, Bob Dodd is dead. He was murdered two weeks ago.”

chapter 16

Eric Wu stepped inside the Sykes house.

The house was dark. Wu had left all the lights out. The intruder-whoever had taken the key out of the rock-had not turned them on. Wu wondered about that.

He had assumed the intruder was the nosey woman in the lingerie. Would she be smart enough to know not to turn the lights on?

He stopped. More than that: If you have the forethought not to turn on the lights, wouldn’t you have the foresight not to leave the hide-a-key in plain sight?

Something did not add up.

Wu lowered himself and moved behind the recliner. He stopped and listened. Nothing. If someone was in the house, he would hear them move. He waited some more.

Still nothing.

Wu mulled it over. Could the intruder have come and gone?

He doubted it. A person who would take the risk of entering with a hidden key would look around. They would probably find Freddy Sykes in the upstairs bathroom. They would call for help. Or if they left, if they found nothing amiss, they would have put the key back in the rock. None of that had happened.

What then was the most logical conclusion?

The intruder was still in the house. Not moving. Hiding.

Wu treaded gently. There were three exits. He made sure all the doors were locked. Two doors had bolt locks. He carefully slid them into place. He took the dining room chairs and placed them in front of all three exits. He wanted something, anything, to block or at least slow down an easy escape.