Angie stepped closer and touched his arm. She leaned up and kissed his cheek. "I'm very glad you told me that, Charlie. I think fidelity is the most important trait in a relationship. Loyalty. And you don't see much of it nowadays."

He hesitated. "No, I guess you don't."

"I'm going down to the motel and visit the girls and their parents. Would you like to come with me?" She smiled. "As a friend and fellow threat management team member?"

"I'd be delighted." And to Budd's unbounded relief she didn't slip her arm through his as they walked to the van to tell Potter where they would be and then proceeded to the squad car for the short drive to the Days Inn.

They sat in the killing room, the entrance to hell, tears on all their faces.

What was happening now – only a few feet in front of them – was worse than they'd ever imagined. Let it be over soon, Melanie thought, her fingers twitching this mute plea. For the love of God.

"Don't look," she finally signed to the girls. But they all did look – no one could turn away from this terrible spectacle.

Bear lay atop poor Mrs. Harstrawn, her blouse open, her skirt up to her waist. Numb, Melanie watched the man's naked ass bob up and down. She watched his hands grip one of Mrs. Harstrawn's breasts, as white as his own bloated skin. She watched him kiss her and stick his wet tongue into her unresponsive mouth.

He paused for a moment and looked back into the main room. There, Brutus and Stoat sat before the TV, drinking beer. Laughing. Like Melanie's father and brother would sit around the TV on Sunday, as if the small black box were something magic that allowed them to talk to one another. Then Bear reared up, hooked his arms beneath Mrs. Harstrawn's knees and lifted her legs into the air. He began his ungainly motion once again.

Melanie grew calm as death.

It's time, she decided. They couldn't wait any longer. Never looking away from Bear's closed eyes, she wrote a note on the pad of paper that Brutus had torn from her hands earlier. She folded it tightly and slipped it into Anna's pocket. The girl looked up. Her twin did too. "Go into corner," Melanie signed. "By gas can." They didn't want to. They were terrified of Bear, terrified of the horrible thing he was doing. But so emphatic was Melanie's signing, so cold were her eyes that they moved steadily into the corner of the room. Once again Melanie told them to take Mrs. Harstrawn's sweater. "Tie it around gas can. Go -"

Suddenly Bear leapt up off the teacher and faced Melanie. His bloody organ was upright and glistened red and purple. The overwhelming scent of musk and sweat and woman's fluid made her gag. He paused, his groin only a foot from her face. He reached down and touched her hair. "Stop that fucking spooky shit. Stop… with your hands… that bullshit." He mimicked signing.

Melanie understood his reaction. It was common. People have always been frightened by signing. It was why there was such a strong desire to force the deaf to speak and not use sign language – which was a code, a secret language, the hallmark of a mysterious society.

She nodded slowly and lowered her eyes once more to the glistening, erect penis.

Bear strode back to Mrs. Harstrawn, squeezed her breasts, knocked her legs apart, and plunged into her once again. She lifted a hand in a pathetic protest. He slapped it away. Don't sign…

How could she talk to the girls? Tell the twins what they had to do? Then she happened to recall her own argot. The language that she had created at age sixteen, when she'd risked getting her knuckles slapped by the teachers – most of them Others – for using ASL or SEE at the Laurent Clerc School. It was a simple language, one that had occurred to her while watching Georg Solti conduct a silent orchestra. In music the meter and rhythm were as much a part of the piece as the melody; she'd kept her hands close to her chin and spoke to her classmates through the shape and rhythm of her fingers, combined with facial expressions. She'd shown all her students the basics of the language – when she compared different types of signing – but she didn't know if the twins recalled enough to understand her.

Yet she had no choice. She lifted her hands and moved her fingers in rhythmic patterns.

Anna didn't understand at first and began to respond in ASL.

"No," Melanie instructed, frowning for emphasis. "No signing."

It was vital that she convey her message, for she believed she could save the twins at least, and maybe one more – poor gasping Beverly, or Emily, whose thin white legs Bear had been staring at for long moments before he pulled Donna Harstrawn toward him and spread her legs like a hungry man opening up a package of food.

"Take gas can," Melanie communicated. Somehow. "Tie sweater around it."

After a moment the girls understood. They eased forward. Their tiny hands went to work enwrapping the can with the colorful sweater.

The can was now enwrapped by the sweater.

"Go out back door. One on left."

The doorway swept clean of dust by the breeze from the river.

"Afraid."

Melanie nodded but persisted. "Have to."

A faint, heartbreaking nod. Then another. Emily stirred beside Melanie. The girl was terrified. Melanie took her hand, behind their backs, out of Bear's view. She fingerspelled in English. "Y-o-u w-i-l-l b-e n-e-x-t. D-o n-o-t w-o-r-r-y."

Emily nodded. To the twins Melanie said, "Follow smell of river." She flared her nostrils. "River. Smell."

A nod from both girls.

"Hold on to sweater and jump into water."

Two no shakes. Emphatic.

Melanie's eyes flared. "Yes!"

Then Melanie looked at the teacher and back to the girls, explaining silently what could happen to them. And the twins understood. Anna started to whimper.

Melanie would not allow this. "Stop!" she insisted. "Now. Go."

The twins were behind Bear. He'd have to stand up and turn to see them.

Afraid to use her hands, Anna timidly lowered her face and wiped it on her sleeve. They shook their heads no. In heartbreaking unison.

Melanie's hand rose and she risked fast fingerspellings and hand signs. Bear's eyes were closed; he missed the gestures. "Abbé de l'Epée is out there. Waiting for you."

Their eyes went wide.

De l'Epée?

The savior of the Deaf. A legend. He was Lancelot, he was King Arthur. For heaven's sake, he was Tom Cruise! He couldn't be outside. Yet Melanie's face was so serious, she was so insistent that they offered faint nods of acquiescence.

"You must find him. Give him note in your pocket."

"Where is he?" Anna signed.

"He's older man, heavy. Gray hair. Glasses and blue sports coat." They nodded enthusiastically (though this was hardly how they pictured the legendary abbé). "Find him and give him note."

Bear looked up and Melanie continued to lift her hand innocently to wipe her red, but dry, eyes as if she'd been crying. He looked down again and continued. Melanie was grateful she couldn't hear the piggish grunts she knew issued from his fat mouth.

"Ready?" she asked the girls.

Indeed they were; they would leap into flames if it meant they could meet their idol. Melanie looked again at Bear, the sweat dripping off his face and falling like rain on poor Mrs. Harstrawn's cheeks and jiggling breasts. His eyes closed. The moment of finishing was near – something Melanie had read about but couldn't quite comprehend.

"Take shoes off. And tell De l'Epée to be careful."

Anna nodded. "I love you," she signed. Suzie did too.

Melanie looked out the doorway and saw Brutus and Stoat, far across the slaughterhouse, staring at the TV. She nodded twice. The girls picked up their gas-can life preserver and vanished around the corner. Melanie watched Bear to see if their passage was silent. Apparently it was.