David nodded. That much was true.

"Then why is this so hard for you?" Kelley asked. He was sounding angrier. "And it's not only CMV that is upset this time. It's the hospital too. Helen Beaton called me moments ago complaining about the enormously expensive biotechnology drugs that you ordered for this sad, dying patient. Talk about heroics! The man was dying, even the consults said that. He'd had leukemia for years. Don't you understand? This is wasting money and resources."

Kelley had worked himself up to a fevered pitch. His face had become red. But then he paused and sighed. He shook his head again as if he didn't know what to do. "Helen Beaton also complained about your requesting an autopsy," he said in a tired voice. "Autopsies are not part of the contract with CMV, and you were informed of that fact just recently. David, you have to be reasonable. You have to help me or…" Kelley paused, letting the unfinished sentence hang in the air.

"Or what?" David said. He knew what Kelley meant, but he wanted him to say it.

"I like you, David," Kelley said. "But I need you to help me. I have people above me I have to answer to. I hope you can appreciate that."

David felt more depressed than ever as he stumbled back toward his office. Kelley's intrusion irritated him, yet in some ways Kelley had a point. Money and resources shouldn't be thrown away on terminal patients when they could be better spent elsewhere. But was that the issue here?

More confused and dejected than he could remember being, David opened the door to his office. He was confronted by a waiting room full of unhappy patients angrily glancing at their watches and noisily flipping through magazines.

Dinner at the Wilson home was a tense affair. No one spoke. Everyone was agitated. It was as if their Shangri-la had gone the way of the weather.

Even Nikki had had a bad day. She was upset about her new teacher, Mr. Hart. The kids had already nicknamed him Mr. Hate. When David and Angela arrived home that evening, she described him as a strict old fart. When Angela chided her about her language, Nikki admitted the description had been Arni's.

The biggest problem with the new teacher was that he had not allowed Nikki to judge her own level of appropriate exercise during gym and he'd not allowed Nikki to do any postural drainage. The lack of communication had led to a confrontation that had embarrassed Nikki.

After dinner David told everyone that it was time to cheer up. In an attempt to improve the atmosphere he offered to build a cozy fire. But when he descended to the basement, he suffered the shock of seeing yellow crime scene tape around his own basement stairs. It brought back the gruesome image of Hodges' body.

David gathered the wood quickly and dashed back upstairs. Normally he wasn't superstitious or easily spooked, but with the recent events he was becoming both.

After building the fire, David began to talk enthusiastically about the upcoming winter and the sports they would soon enjoy: skiing, skating, and sledding. Just when Angela and Nikki were getting in the spirit he'd hoped, headlight beams traversed the wall of the family room. David went to the window.

"It's a state police van," he said. "What on earth could they want?"

"I totally forgot," Angela said, getting to her feet. "When the crime scene people were here today they asked if they could come by when it was dark to look for bloodstains."

"Bloodstains? Hodges was killed eight months ago."

"They said it was worth a try," Angela explained.

The technicians were the same three men who had been there that morning. Angela was impressed with the length of their workday.

"We do a lot of traveling around the state," Quillan said.

Angela introduced Quillan to David. Quillan seemed to be in charge.

"How does this test work?" David asked.

"The luminol reacts with any residual iron from the blood," Quillan said. "When it does, it fluoresces."

"Interesting," David said, but he remained skeptical.

The technicians were eager to do their test and leave, so David and Angela stayed out of their way. They started in the mud room, setting up a camera on a tripod. Then they turned out all the lights.

They sprayed luminol on the walls using a spray bottle similar to those used for window cleaner. The bottle made a slight hiss with each spray.

"Here's a little," Quillan said in the darkness. David and Angela leaned into the room. Along the wall was a faint, spotty, eerie fluorescence.

"Not enough for a picture," one of the other technicians said.

They circled the room but didn't find any more positive areas. Then they moved the camera into the kitchen. Quillan asked if the lights could be turned off in the dining room and the hallway. The Wilsons readily complied.

The technicians continued about their business. David, Angela, and Nikki hovered at the doorway.

Suddenly portions of the wall near the mud room began to fluoresce.

"It's faint, but we got a lot here," Quillan said. "I'll keep spraying, you open the shutter on the camera."

"My God!" Angela whispered. "They're finding bloodstains all over my kitchen."

The Wilsons could see vague outlines of the men and hear them as they moved around the kitchen. They approached the table which had been left behind by Clara Hodges and which the Wilsons used when they ate in the kitchen. All at once the legs of the table began to glow in a ghostly fashion.

"My guess is this is the murder site," one of the technicians said. "Right here by the table."

The Wilsons heard the camera being moved, then the loud click of its shutter opening followed by sustained hissing from the spray bottle. Quillan explained that the bloodstains were so faint, the luminol had to be sprayed continuously.

After the crime-scene investigators had left, the Wilsons returned to the family room even more depressed than they had been earlier. There was no more talk of skiing or sledding on the hill behind the barn.

Angela sat on the hearth with her back to the fire and looked at David and Nikki, who had collectively collapsed on the couch. With her family arrayed in front of her, a powerful protective urge swept through Angela. She did not like what she had just learned: her kitchen had the remains of blood spatter from a brutal murder. This was the room that in many ways she regarded as the heart of their home and which she had thought she had cleaned. Now she knew that it had been desecrated by violence. In Angela's mind it was a direct threat to her family.

Suddenly Angela broke the gloomy silence. "Maybe we should move," she said.

"Wait one second," David said. "I know you're upset; we're all upset. But we're not going to allow ourselves to become hysterical."

"I'm hardly hysterical," Angela shot back.

"Suggesting that we have to move because of an unfortunate event which didn't involve us and which occurred almost a year ago is hardly rational," David said.

"It happened in this house," Angela said.

"This house happens to be mortgaged to the roof. We have both a first and second mortgage. We can't just walk away because of an emotional upset."

"Then I want the locks changed," Angela said. "A murderer has been in here."

"We haven't even been locking the doors," David said.

"We are from now on and I want the locks changed."

"Okay," David said. "We'll change the locks."

Traynor was in a rotten mood as he pulled up to the Iron Horse Inn. The weather seemed to fit his temperament: the rain had returned to tropical-like intensity. Even his umbrella proved uncooperative. When he couldn't get it open, he cursed and threw it into the back. He decided he'd simply have to make a run for the Inn's door.

Beaton, Caldwell, and Sherwood were already sitting in a booth when he arrived. Cantor got there just after him. As the two men sat down, Carleton Harris, the bartender, came by to take their drink orders.