By A Spider's Thread

Chapter Twenty-eight

ZEKE WAS DISTRACTED WHEN THEY ENTERED THE CITY limits of New Troy, Ohio, not that the fact would have registered with him even under normal circumstances. The only thing that announced the town was a small sign, the paint faded and battered, with the usual Lions Club and Knights of Columbus insignias fastened to the post. The old state highway continued as rutted and cracked as it had been outside the town's limits, and the scenery was the now-familiar mix of broken-up farms and fast-food places, interspersed with the occasional nondescript warehouse. Even if he had been focusing on the world around him, he wouldn't have noticed New Troy, and it wouldn't have mattered if he had. Later he would remind himself of this fact over and over again. It wasn't his fault. There was nothing he could have done.

As it was, he was barely aware that he was driving, that he was in Ohio or even on planet Earth. Natalie was haranguing him about the early start, asking what the rush was when they didn't have to work that day, but he just tuned her out.

The twins were gibbering in that weird-ass secret language, which usually drove him up a wall, but their noise could have been birdsong this morning. He had been in a fog since eight-thirty last night, after stopping at a library right before closing and checking the e-mail account Lana had set up for him on Hotmail. Under a blank subject heading, Lana had written these words: Amos is dead.

It was a punch to the gut, another fucking contingency to roll with, when he'd been doing nothing but rolling since Natalie showed up in Terre Haute with three kids in tow. He wished he could talk it out, share his troubles with someone. Amos dead, everything ruined. But how could he explain to Natalie that the plan to kill Mark was now hopelessly fucked, when Natalie didn't even know there was a plan to kill Mark? Not even Lana knew that part. All she had been promised was that she would eventually be repaid for all the favors she had done Zeke over the years.

He had a thousand questions for Lana, but he made it a rule to never send e-mail from the account. He was no Luddite, but the Internet was one of those things that had sprung up while he was inside, and he didn't know how much of a trail it left. He didn't want to call Lana collect either, given that a private detective was already nosing around asking questions about Natalie. If he really needed to talk to her, he could always buy a phone card, use it, and throw it away. But with money tight, he hated to part with even ten miserable dollars.

Amos dead. Unthinkable. It was like some huge tree coming down in a storm, or a mountain collapsing. Amos shot to death on his own farm, which seemed even more unlikely. The Garrett County authorities were carrying it as a homicide, Lana had written in her dry, just-the-facts style, but it was expected to be ruled self-defense. A man and a woman had been questioned, and they were quite persuasive in their insistence that Amos had tried to kill them. The sheriff's office wouldn't release the names to Lana-her status as an ex-wife didn't give her that much clout-and the online version of the Cumberland newspaper hadn't posted anything as of last night. So Zeke was left to figure it out on his own. Had Amos panicked, believing that the pair were undercover cops onto his illegal enterprises? But Amos, much as he had hated prison, would have gambled on short time rather than risk big time for killing someone in law enforcement. Plus, he knew his rights. He wouldn't have feared anyone who didn't show him a warrant.

"The speed limit is thirty-five here," Natalie said. "You better slow down."

They had found Lana's name in Amos's papers. Messy and disheveled as he was about his appearance, he had always been meticulous about his affairs. Apparently he kept a folder with all the paperwork pertaining to their brief union. They had stayed friendly, if not friends, because Lana had been gracious enough to claim it was the farm she couldn't live with, not Amos. But even thick-skinned Amos must have known that Lana just couldn't hack sleeping with him. It was one thing to help a guy out in prison, to get so carried away with Zeke and Natalie's romance that she ended up marrying some poor geek so she wouldn't be left behind. Lana was always trying to do what Natalie did, and always getting it a little bit wrong. But it was quite another kettle of fish, as Zeke's father would say, to live with the guy once he got out, especially in godforsaken Grantsville.

Shit, what else was in Amos's papers? Did he keep records of the jobs he did, computer templates for the various things he forged? What if they found copies of the driver's license he had manufactured for Natalie, or the title to this car, or information about the contraband that now sat in a shoe box between Natalie's feet? Even the strictly legal stuff, like the temporary tags, could be a problem if Natalie's real name surfaced anywhere. Then again, it wasn't an open investigation. With Amos dead, there was no real reason to look into his business. That would just be more paperwork for everybody.

Only with Amos gone, who was going to kill Mark? It was another body blow to Zeke's perfect plan. First Natalie shows up, which was bad enough, but with the kids as well, which was a fucking nightmare. Still, Zeke had figured that when Mark was finally killed, he could send Natalie and the kids back with a carefully rehearsed story, one that omitted any mention of him. A runaway wife, even one who claimed to be brutalized in order to get welfare checks, would go home to bury her husband properly. It would have been tricky-the more Natalie had to do, the trickier things got-but it would have worked.

Now Amos was dead, killed just days before he was supposed to kill Mark. Did Boris know anyone that Zeke could use, much less trust? Zeke couldn't risk getting in touch with him, not while he was in prison. Besides, Boris would just want to know when they were going to deposit the money they had been promising him, ever since he threatened to tell Mark about Zeke and Natalie. He couldn't turn to Lana, because she told Natalie everything. The bottom line is that being an outlaw wasn't Lana's gig, despite her association with Boris, her marriage to Amos. She was just a follower. Left to her own devices, Lana would have been content with her dull life, painting fingernails and toes, having a Friday-night splurge at some tacky chain restaurant on Reisterstown Road. Acting as Zeke's intermediary had been the little bit of spice she'd needed. She was the eternal plain girl, the second banana, one of those strange women that always seemed to pop up in the movies, living only to support and bolster the star.

"Do I have to work again today?" Natalie demanded, her voice somehow piercing the fog in his head.

"Got to do your bit at least. We're scraping bottom."

"It's so hard, remembering all those dates. And you know how these women look at you, when you can't say your babies' birthdays bam, bam, bam? Like you're a bad mother, that's how. Last time I forgot, I used the real ones by mistake."

"You have to use the fake ones, Natalie," he said, pretending a patience he didn't feel. "Fake names and fake dates. We've been over this."

"Why? What difference does it make?"

Angry, he began to press on the accelerator, then caught himself. Too late-a motorcycle cop emerged out of the gray, misty morning, red and blue lights flashing. It all came back to Zeke in that moment. He was in New Troy. New Fucking Troy, a speed trap so notorious he had heard about it up in Terre Haute, where an Ohio insurance agent was doing a stretch for his own little money-laundering scheme. The guy was always complaining that what he had done was small-time compared to the shakedown the cops in his hometown had perfected. New Troy, Ohio, an incorporated city that provided no services except a police department that wrote speeding tickets.

"Don't say a word," he told Natalie.

"I told you to slow down-" she began, biting off the rest of her sentence when he glared at her.

He wasn't speeding, not really. But okay, no sweat, he'd take the ticket, no matter how bogus. Pay the fine up front, in good American cash, and thank God they had some. No-thank Amos, wherever his soul was wandering. The car's title was clear, the temporary tags clean, Natalie's bogus license untraceable. Even Zeke's license was legal. He had gotten it fair and almost square his first week, through the state-to-state reciprocity program. After all, his Maryland license had lapsed only five years ago.

"You've got a brake light out," the cop said after looking at the registration and license. "That's a two-hundred-dollar fine."

"Really?" He should let it go at that, he knew he should, but it was so goddamn infuriating to be gouged by a yokel cop, a guy that Zeke could rook in almost any other situation. "The funny thing is, I don't even remember hitting the brakes in the last mile or two. I was just driving at a nice steady"-he glanced at the speed limit sign-"thirty-five."

"Yeah, you kept to the legal limit, but you definitely hit your brakes at one point. Right one's working, left one's out." The guy's voice was dry, robotic. "We collect our fines in cash. Two hundred dollars. If you don't have the money, I'll escort you to our lockup, and you can wait there until someone wires it to you."

The amount of money gave Zeke pause. It was most of what they had left. Even fast-food restaurants and cheap motel rooms added up, and this old clunker drank about thirty dollars of gas per day. And there was no guarantee they'd make a nickel today. Still, easier to pay the fine than prolong the encounter or give out any information.

He couldn't have taken more than fifteen seconds to think the problem through, but those fifteen seconds proved disastrous. Natalie, who had never paid a traffic ticket in her life, leaned across Zeke and smiled at the cop. "The brake light was working yesterday, Officer, so perhaps it just wiggled loose while we were driving. If we promise to get it fixed as soon as we can, could you just let us go this time?"

The young cop was charmed, like almost every man who had ever looked into that face. Which was piss-poor luck in this case, because he said, "Well, let's pop the trunk and see if I can fix it for you right now."

Zeke and Natalie knew better than to look at each other then, not that they needed to. It was easy for Zeke to guess what she was thinking. Her: Isaac is in the trunk. How will we explain that? As for him, he hoped she couldn't decipher his thoughts: Stupid bitch, now he wants to open the trunk. Happy now?

Zeke eased himself out of the car, taking his time, praying that inspiration would strike him as he walked the short distance. He was lucky, he supposed, that it wasn't a newfangled car with a trunk that could be popped with a latch by the driver's seat. But what would he do, once he reached the back of the car? How do you explain a kid sleeping in the trunk? That was probably a five-thousand-dollar fine in New Troy, and a trip to family court. He would lie, that was it, pantomime trying to open the trunk, then say the lock was fussy, they hadn't used it for weeks. That's why the luggage was on the roof. Beautiful. No one ever said he couldn't think on his feet.

And if the cop didn't buy it-God knows what Zeke would do if the guy didn't buy it. Had he called in the plates? Had their presence on this road, in this spot, at this time, already been recorded somewhere? Zeke wasn't sure. He thought every cop called in his traffic stops, but maybe this podunk speed trap didn't bother. He tried to remember if he had seen the cop making the call into the radio unit on his shoulder. Had he or hadn't he? It didn't matter. Zeke was going to talk his way out of this, give him two hundred dollars, and get the hell out of Dodge at a perfectly legal thirty-five mph.

He inserted the wrong key in the lock, using the one for the ignition and thanking God that old cars like this still used two keys instead of a universal one. What if Isaac shouted or tried to call attention to himself? But he wouldn't. He would just assume Zeke was taking him out, that it was time for breakfast. He had probably fallen back to sleep in the trunk. Unless-what if the little pisher had fiddled with the brake light, hoping for just this occurrence? Oh, fuck him. Fuck him.

"Man, this lock is such a pain in the ass. Um, rear. That's why we're not even using the trunk for most of our stuff, because I can't get in here most of the time."

It was going to work, the guy was buying it, Zeke saw that instantly, and relief flooded his body. Once he was out of Natalie's view, the cop's goodwill had evaporated. He just wanted to write up the infraction, get the cash, and let Zeke go. Who knows? Maybe some New Troy cops pocketed the occasional fine. He was almost positive the guy hadn't called in their tags.

"Look, don't mind the missus. The light's clearly out. I'll pay the fine and get it fixed up the road. If you'll just-"

The sharp report of a gunshot made Zeke jump straight up in the air, and he wondered for a moment if the cop had killed him and he just couldn't feel it yet. He waited for the burning pain he was sure would follow, felt his middle to see where the bullet had hit.

But it was the cop who sank to the ground, his bland, white-boy Ohio face registering no emotion at all.

It was only then that Zeke saw Natalie, standing by the car's right rear fender. She had taken the gun from the shoe box at her feet and shot the poor guy through the back. Well, the apple didn't fall far from the tree. Just his luck that Natalie was as impulsive and crazy and, yes, stupid as her old man. You try and try to be someone other than your old man, but it's always the same.

He thought she might start screaming, but Natalie surprised him by returning quickly to her seat, subdued and chastened, as if waiting for him to yell at her. Instead he got behind the wheel and did a neat U-turn. They had passed a sign for I-70 not too long before, and the interstate suddenly seemed worth the risk. They would go the opposite direction, east toward Columbus. He'd stop at the first rest area, put the luggage in the trunk, and get Isaac out. Little mud on the tags, just in case, and they might be able to escape notice for a while. But that was a temporary fix. They had to get rid of this car, buy a new one, and they didn't have enough cash on hand to do that. Should they chance going to work, or should they take care of the car first? Car first. He'd have to spring for a phone card now, call Lana, get her to wire them as much cash as possible.

The twins were weeping in the backseat. They had seen everything. Great, just great. Two little witnesses to a capital crime. Another kid in the trunk, doing his damnedest to get them caught at every turn. Amos dead, but Mark still alive. A plan ten years in the making, shattered with two gunshots, one on a Maryland farm, another in an Ohio town that he never should have driven through. Zeke thought of himself in the prison library, reading and taking notes, using his time to devise a foolproof scheme to end up with Mark's wife and Mark's money. Twenty-four hours ago, he was still on target. Now it all seemed impossible. He should abort, dump the whole family out on the side of the road, head for the border, save himself. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Natalie was murmuring to the twins, telling them that everything would be okay, that the man fell down because he and Zeke were playing a game. Her voice did have a soothing quality, and he found himself getting a grip, reassessing. Car first. In a different car, with three kids in the backseat, no luggage on the roof, they'd be much harder to make. New car, then a new plan.

And if it came down to it, Zeke would drive straight to Baltimore and kill Mark Rubin himself, if only to prove that he was capable of doing what he set out to do.

Chapter Twenty-nine

TESS HAD BEEN PARKED OUTSIDE ADRIAN'S FOR ALMOST two hours-joints beyond stiff, stomach hollow enough to echo-when her cell phone rang.

"Anything?" Mark Rubin asked.

"No. She left her apartment at nine-thirty, came straight to work, and she's been here since."

"You do know Adrian's has a separate entrance for deliveries, right?"

"Yes, I'm aware of that." Tess was cross at being second-guessed. She thought she had gained some ground with Mark yesterday, but his crust must have replenished itself overnight. "I have Lana's car in view, and I'm far enough back so I have sight lines of both entrances. Hey-how do you know that Adrian's has a side entrance?"

"Because I'm parked about thirty feet from it."

She shifted her gaze to the right. Yes, there was Rubin's dark blue Cadillac, windows rolled down. He gave her a discreet wave.

"Are you checking up on me?"

"Not exactly." There was actually a note of apology in his voice. "When I woke up this morning, I just couldn't imagine going to work, trying to pretend I had my mind on business. I liked being part of things yesterday. You told me you were going to be watching Lana, so I thought I would, too."

"Watching the detective, huh? Were you outside her apartment, too?" It would be humiliating beyond belief if Mark Rubin had managed to follow her in that huge boat of a Cadillac.

"Actually, I didn't know where she lived, so I just came here and waited. She arrived"-Tess watched him pull out a small pad and read from it-"at nine fifty-five a.m."

"And are you planning to follow us both when she leaves here?"

"Well…" His tone told Tess that was exactly what he had intended, although he was beginning to see how silly it was.

"Look, leave your car there and come sit in mine. We'll do this together."

"Mine's nicer."

"Is everything a negotiation with you?"

"Yes."

Tess had to laugh at Mark's honesty on this point. "Well, if we use your car, I get to drive. Following someone is tougher than it looks. But if you'll trust me to take the wheel of your Cadillac, we can use your car."

"Deal."

They passed another hour in the Cadillac, and even its wider, plusher seats did little for Tess's various aches. She had heard of tourist-class syndrome, the potentially lethal blood clots that developed on long plane rides. Could there be private-eye syndrome as well?

"This is pretty mind-numbing," Mark admitted, as if reading her thoughts.

"Not to mention other parts."

"You should structure your fee system so you charge more for surveillance."

"I do. At least we have each other for company. Imagine doing it alone."

"Awful. For me anyway. You're more of a loner."

"Where did you get that idea?"

"I don't know." Mark was embarrassed now, as if he had said something unintentionally tactless. "You seem so self-sufficient. Other than your Uncle Donald, I've never heard you talk about your family. You're not married, you mentioned a boyfriend once, but you've never even said his name. When we were… delayed in Grantsville yesterday, the only worry you seemed to have was your dogs."

Lord, her life sounded bleak coming from Mark Rubin's mouth.

"How did you sleep last night?" she asked, hoping to change the subject. "Considering the delay in Grantsville."

"Fine. I told you, it's not going to be a problem for me."

"Then why use euphemisms? Whoa-manicurist in motion."

Lana barreled out of the front door, her stride rapid, but otherwise displaying none of the self-consciousness of a person who expects to be followed or watched. She was simply in a rush. She jumped into her car and pulled onto Reisterstown Road, heading south. Tess followed, trying to stay two car lengths back, gunning a yellow at one point.

"Shit," she said, catching a flash of light from the corner of her eye. "That intersection had a camera."

"I'll pay the ticket when it comes," Mark said. "Just don't lose her."

Within a matter of miles, the sleek, upscale shops had given way to the more run-down stores in the neighborhood where Vera Peters lived. There were delis, bookstores advertising Judaica, the shell of the old Carvel stand where Mark had claimed to have met Natalie.

"Maybe she's going to see Natalie's mother or someone in her old neighborhood," Tess said, but the words were barely out of her mouth when Lana's car made an abrupt right-hand turn into a small shopping center. She parked outside an off-name convenience store in what appeared to be an old Fotomat store. Tess followed, parking as far from the store as possible.

"Where do you think she's going?" Mark asked, agitated.

"For all we know, she's buying a pack of cigarettes. Although I have to say the transaction seems to be taking an unusual amount of time. She's the only customer in the store, and she's been talking to the guy at the cash register since she went in."

They squinted through the store's dirty window, protected-Tess hoped-by the slant of the sun, which should create a glare on the Cadillac's windshield. Lana and the man were having a spirited back-and-forth. She kept shaking her head and pointing a credit card at him for emphasis. The man seemed unmoved by whatever plea she was making, indicating something on the counter and shrugging as if to say, What can I do? An exasperated Lana finally gave him the card, tapped the counter impatiently for another five minutes, then left empty-handed.

"Tough call," Tess said to Mark. "We can follow her, or we can go in there and find out what this was about. He has a sign advertising fax services and wire transfers."

"He won't tell us. No responsible businessman would reveal that kind of information. Let's stay with her."

"The key word is 'responsible.' I'm betting that someone who runs a convenience store called the Royal 7 leans toward the disreputable side."

The man behind the counter was big and burly, probably Mark Rubin's age, but more roughed up by life. Tess found herself fixated on his ears, which were rimmed with dark, furry hair. Between the ears and the eyes, which were green with a yellowish cast, he looked as if he had wandered out of some fantasy novel's dark side. He could be Gollum or at least a golem.

"What?" he asked, before Tess even had a chance to say anything, as if he were in the habit of anticipating trouble.

She thought of various lies to tell. She was from immigration and she suspected that the woman who had just left the store was an illegal alien; what could he tell her about her activities? Or Lana Wishnia was a fugitive and they were bail bondsmen who would give him a cut of their fee if he helped them in any way.

But she just didn't feel like making the effort. Instead Tess let her suede jacket fall open, giving him a glimpse of the gun on her belt, and said, "The woman who was just in here-I need to know what kind of business she transacted."

"You're not police," he said.

"No, but I have friends in the police department, and in the state department of licensing and regs, even in the health department, and I'm sure any one of those agencies could find a beef with your store, whether it's the hot dogs that have been sitting on that grill for the past week or the gas pump that can afford to dispense gas at ten cents below the going rate because it's shorting your customers a few ounces on the gallon."

The man smiled, amused by Tess's bravado. "She wired two thousand dollars via e-mail to a Western Union store in Zanesville, Ohio."

"Which store?"

"Only one I found." He showed Tess the address in a directory. "She said it was going to someone named Wilma Loomis."

"The name mean anything to you?" Tess asked Mark Rubin.

"It sounds as if it should, but… no, no, I'm drawing a blank."

"What about Zanesville?"

He shook his head.

Tess turned back to the grinning counterman, whose enjoyment of their discomfiture seemed out of proportion. "What the hell is so funny?"

"There's a server problem. Transfers usually take only fif-teen minutes, but this one's going to take at least an hour, maybe two. That's why the girl was so upset. So while you're standing here, Wilma Loomis is still in Zanesville, waiting for the money. Too bad Zanesville is more than an hour's drive from here. But, like Einstein said, it's all about relativity."

"Were you a physics major before you started running an off-brand convenience store?"

The guy smirked. How Tess loathed him. He had no way of knowing how deeply his words cut, how Mark Rubin must yearn to manipulate time. Go back six hours and he could be in Zanesville now, waiting for his family to arrive at the Western Union office, assuming that the transfer was intended for Natalie. Go back six days and he could be sitting at a molded plastic table in McDonald's in French Lick, Indiana, a man's death no longer on his hands. Go back a month and he could refuse to leave for work on a Friday morning, have a chance to dissuade Natalie from this mysterious journey before it began.

"But we can play with time and space," Tess said. "In certain parts of the country."

Plucking Rubin's sleeve, she motioned for him to follow her outside, where she quickly dialed Gretchen O'Brien on her cell phone. Tess prayed for a voice, not voice mail. The prayer was answered. Perhaps Mark did have an in with God, because Tess didn't see how she rated.

"Gretchen? Tess. Didn't you just add someone to the network in the central Ohio area?"

"Yeah, east of Columbus. A retired librarian, with amazing online research skills. Great at financial stuff-SEC filings, Dun amp; Bradstreets-"

"I need some more basic legwork. We've got a lead on our missing family, at a Western Union store in Zanesville. They're stuck there for an hour because the server's down."

"But you don't have any paper on them, right? No warrant, no legal way to hold them?"

"No. If she finds them, she should just follow them as discreetly as possible, calling me on my cell to update their location. We'll start heading west on I-70 to get a head start and hope that they're heading east. Meanwhile, tell her the client will pay her hourly rate plus expenses plus a bonus if she has to go beyond eight hours today."

"Okay, but you should know she's not exactly used to this kind of fieldwork."

"She's within an hour of Zanesville, which is all that matters. Just get her on the phone and get her on the road as quickly as possible. She's our only shot."

"Too bad we don't have a Learjet, gassed up and ready to go from some central location."

"Very funny, Gretchen."

"Who's joking? I have big plans for the SnoopSisters. Sky's the limit. I've registered the domain name snoopsisters.com and I'm looking to get some sort of trademark protection. We're going to be the Starbucks of private investigation. You've got to think big, Tess."

Tess was too busy thinking little, hoping this one precious clue would bring Mark Rubin's children back to him.

They stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts on Reisterstown Road before heading to the highway.

"Kosher," Mark explained. "And quick.".

"I usually don't have a chocolate frosted for lunch, but sugar and caffeine will be a boon. Zanesville is at least eight hours from here. But if they head east, we could catch a break and overlap them."

"We're due for a break, don't you think?"

"Definitely." Tess, who had taken the first driving shift, was grateful she had a reason to stare straight ahead. She still didn't know whether to tell Mark what Larry Kirsch had said about Natalie's visits to the prison, the "services" she had provided. "Mark"-the name still felt funny in her mouth, but he didn't correct her-"how much do you know about Natalie's life before you met?"

"How much could there be to know? She was eighteen."

"And she had already decided to embrace Orthodox Judaism before she met you?"

"Yes, but she didn't know how to go about it. That was why she sought me out. Her father suggested I could help her find a rabbi who would oversee her education, prepare her for a bat mitzvah."

"How… propitious."

"What are you suggesting?"

"Nothing," she lied. "But her father's attempt to blackmail her later-"

"I told you, I was never tempted by Boris's games. Marriages must be based on trust. Whatever Boris wanted to tell me about Natalie was unimportant. She was so young. What could she possibly have done that couldn't be forgiven?"

Tess's thoughts were going somewhere else. If all Boris had on Natalie were his allegations about their own little prison-outreach program, as it were, she could have bluffed her way around that. A few tears, a convincing story, and Mark would have been willing to believe it was all a vile lie. Boris had something more concrete on his daughter-and a potential buyer, as he had told Tess, but one who hadn't paid him yet. If I don't get my due by the end of the month, he had said, I'll put it back on the market. Why had he been so definite about the date? Something was supposed to happen this month, the same month Natalie had disappeared.

"You should sleep," she told Mark. "We don't know how long we're going to be spelling each other behind the wheel of this car."

"I can't sleep," he said. "I got maybe two hours last night."

"You told me you slept fine last night."

"Two hours is fine for me. It's about as much sleep as I've had in the past month."

They had reached the turnoff that had taken them to western Maryland the day before, but the skies were not threatening today. The countryside's beauty had a mocking edge-the trees crimson and gold, the hills still green. Tess's cell phone rang, and she picked it up, expecting her emergency dog-sitter.

"Tess Monaghan?" The voice was an older woman's, enthusiastic and a little breathless. "This is Mary Eleanor Norris, and I've got 'em in my sights."

Chapter Thirty

ISAAC NOTICED THE CAR FIRST BECAUSE IT WAS A MlNI Cooper, a gold one. He loved Mini Coopers. He and his father had watched The Italian Job-the real one, not the remake-just last month. His father said he was pretty sure Michael Caine might be Jewish, which surprised Isaac because he didn't know Jews could have English accents. This Mini Cooper wasn't right behind them, but it never lagged more than a few car lengths back. The other cars on the highway whizzed past Zeke, who was driving a very steady fifty-five, staying in the right lane, unusual for him. He didn't drive fast, but he liked to zig and zag, muttering under his breath at the other drivers.

Then again, it was odd to be on such a big highway, which Zeke never seemed to pick. Plus, he had taken Isaac out of the car earlier than usual, and everyone seemed to be acting weird. Whenever Isaac glanced over his shoulder, the Mini Cooper was there. He twisted his body, so he was looking out the rear window, trying to catch the driver's eye. It was a woman, an old one. She had gray hair, and she used her cell phone from time to time, which shocked Isaac. He didn't think old people did dangerous things like that. He was even more shocked when she lit a cigarette. He didn't know anyone who smoked, except Zeke. Paul at his father's store sometimes smelled of tobacco, but that was from a pipe, which wasn't so bad because you didn't do it as much.

The driver noticed Isaac looking at her and pulled into the adjacent lane, keeping at the same pace. She seemed to give Isaac a friendly nod, but he wasn't sure. With a swift glance over his shoulder at Zeke, he began working his hand. She waved back. No, no, no, he wanted to scream. Watch me. Pay attention. But of course, he mustn't make any noise, mustn't do anything that Zeke would notice.

Too late. "How long has that car been back there, Warren?"

Isaac didn't answer. He never answered to that name.

"Yo, Isaac, my man. The gold Mini Cooper. Has it been with us for a while?"

"I'm not sure," he said.

"Since we left the store?"

"I didn't see it at the store," Isaac said, which was true.

"So how long? Ten minutes? Fifteen?"

"I don't have a watch," Isaac said. "You took it away from me, remember? You threw it away on the second day because it beeped every hour on the hour and you said it made you crazy."

Zeke had done just that, yanking it from Isaac's arm and throwing it out the car window while he drove. I spent the last ten years of my life living on a schedule, he had said. I don't need to be reminded of every hour going by. Well, duh, school was like that, too, and Isaac never complained.

"I'm probably just paranoid," Zeke said to Isaac's mom. "It's not like the Ohio State Police drive Mini Coopers. Probably just some anxious driver who doesn't want to scratch her precious little toy."

Isaac's mom glanced back. Something bad had happened, but Isaac couldn't figure out what. The twins weren't speaking at all anymore, and his mother had said only a few words to him since Zeke took him out of the trunk, her tone dull and strange. And although the man at the store had given his mother lots of cash-cash, not a check, which was different-they had been given only apples and bananas for lunch. Not that Isaac minded. Fruit was always kosher.

"We're getting close to Wheeling," Zeke said. "Let's see what happens if we exit there."

They left the highway at one of the first entrances to the West Virginia town, and the Mini Cooper followed, much to Isaac's joy. Zeke began driving recklessly, gunning the car through red lights, making sudden turns, but the Mini Cooper was always there, a determined gold bug. Isaac couldn't help rooting for it. He didn't know why the car was following them, but it had to have been sent by his father. He tried to give the driver a little wave, one that Zeke couldn't see, to show that he was on her side.

"Turn around, Isaac," Zeke said.

"But I'm carsick, and this helps."

"Don't be silly. Looking backward makes it worse. Looking forward is what helps."

"No, it really does help him," his mother said, taking his side for once. "I don't know why, but he likes to look out the back when he's sick."

Unable to shake the determined little car, Zeke pulled into a drive-through lane at a Burger King. It was past three, but the line was a long one, moving slowly. The Mini Cooper didn't join the line but parked on the street opposite the restaurant's exit. Car by car, Zeke edged up the line, placing an order for two cheeseburgers and two milk shakes, then finally rounding the corner, out of the Mini Cooper's sight.

"Slide over, Nat," Zeke muttered. "Take the wheel. And when you get the food, just pull over as if you're going to eat it here in the parking lot."

"Why? What-"

"Trust me," he said, and Isaac wished he could say, No, don't trust him. Please stop trusting him. But his mother scooted across the seat, taking the wheel, and Zeke ambled away from the car as if he didn't have a care in the world. He headed toward the street, but he didn't walk toward the Mini Cooper. Instead he turned right, strolling away from it.

A few minutes later, as Isaac sat ignoring the cheeseburger his mother had placed in his lap, he saw Zeke walking back, but now he was on the other side of the street. He had left his jacket in the car, so he was in just a T-shirt, but he had taken the baseball cap he always wore, and it was pulled down tight. The woman behind the wheel of the car was talking on her cell phone, glancing at the Plymouth from time to time.

Look behind you, Isaac wanted to scream. Watch out for that man in the baseball cap. He thought about trying to get out of the car and running toward her, but he had a twin on either side, so he couldn't move without crawling over one of them, and his mother would probably grab him before he got out. He wondered if he should lean over the seat and start pressing the horn, but that still wouldn't get the woman in the Mini Cooper to look at Zeke. He watched, his stomach flip-flopping, as Zeke suddenly ducked down behind the Mini Cooper. Had he dropped something? He straightened back up a minute later and started walking in the other direction. He disappeared from sight again, and Isaac could tell that his mother was worried. She began to shake, muttering to herself.

"He's going to leave me," she said. "I've ruined everything. He can't stay now."

Isaac thought it would be wonderful if Zeke left, but he couldn't stand to see his mother so upset.

"Mama?"

"What?"

It was one of the first times they had been alone, out of Zeke's earshot, since the trip began. Isaac and his mother used to talk all the time, about all sorts of things. Not the same things he discussed with his father. In fact, Isaac did most of the talking, and his mother listened. But she had seemed so interested in everything he had to say-about school and books and what he had done that day. She didn't know all the things his father knew. She was not a person you would go to if you wanted to find out how something scientific worked or learn about a World War II battle. But she had always been someone Isaac could count on.

"Why don't we live with Daddy anymore?"

"It's hard to explain."

But she had said that before, over and over again, and he wasn't going to settle for that answer anymore.

"Do you love him?"

"Not in the way a woman needs to love her husband."

"Why not?"

"Only God can explain that, Isaac. It's not something people can control, who they love, who they don't."

"But you loved him when you married him, right? You loved him once?"

No answer.

"You have to love people to marry them."

"I suppose."

"Mama-do you love me?"

"Of course I do." These words seemed to rush out of her. "More than anything in the world, Isaac."

"But if you stopped loving Daddy, couldn't you stop loving me, too? Are you going to leave me someday?"

His mother began to cry, sobbing harder than the twins ever did, which was not at all what Isaac wanted. He patted her shoulder, trying to comfort her, begging her to stop. The twins, seeing their mother cry, began to weep, too, wailing like animals who had been hurt.

"Pretty soggy in here," Zeke said, sliding into the passenger seat. "Now, dry off and start driving. She won't follow us."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Just drive, Natalie. Take the highway east, all the way back into-" Zeke paused, looked at Isaac. "Just head east, and I'll tell you how to get where we need to go. I want to buy new wheels-and dump these. We'll park this wreck in a shopping center somewhere, take the tags."

"Won't the missing tags just make them notice it sooner?"

"Maybe. But it also means they have to get inside, check the VIN number, which will lead them back to Amos. And that's a dead end these days, you'll pardon the expression."

Isaac glanced over his shoulder, silently rooting for the Mini Cooper. The car started to follow them as they headed up the street, but there was a horrible whap-whap-whap noise, and it stopped abruptly, lurching toward the curb.

"I punctured her tires," Zeke said, laughing. "Let her spend the afternoon in Wheeling. We'll be over the state line before she figures it out."

Isaac watched as the Mini Cooper faded from view. He waved, not sure what else to do, then made a thumbs-up sign, so the driver wouldn't feel too bad. She had done her best, but it was so hard to win with Zeke. It was like Battleship. He was going to have to wait for Zeke to make a mistake. But in Battleship, Isaac remembered, it was the littlest boat that was the hardest to find, and that made it the most powerful.

Chapter Thirty-one

The Roy Rogers at the rest stop wasn't kosher, not that it mattered. Mark Rubin had no appetite after Mary Eleanor's last call, in which she confessed she had lost the family in Wheeling.

"She said everyone looked good," Tess said, not for the first time. She was feeling guilty for being able to enjoy food, much less taste it. But she was famished, and the last Roy Rogers in Baltimore had closed its doors months ago, so this meal was a treat for her. "She saw all the kids, especially Isaac, who kept peering over the backseat and waving at her."

"They looked happy?" Mark traced the lines on the place mat on the tray that held his bottle of water. It was a cartoon showing a family's fun-filled day-capped off with a stop for Roy Rogers fried chicken, of course.

"She didn't say happy. Just healthy, intact. All present and accounted for."

"And the man?"

"I told you." Mark had been asking the same questions again and again. "She described him the same way the McDonald's crew did-tallish, thin but muscular build, dark hair. He was wearing a baseball cap, so she didn't get a good look at his face. Besides, she was staring at the back of his neck most of the time."

Mark didn't look up, just kept tracing the cartoon's family trip, from home to swimming pool to the movies to Roy Rogers and back again.

"Did she say if he was… handsome?"

"Mark-"

"She's with him by choice. He left her and the children in the car for ten minutes and walked away, with mis midwestern librarian parked across the street from mem. All Natalie had to do was drive off, or walk over to the woman and ask for help."

Tess bent over her fries. She had thought that Mark had come to accept the idea that Natalie had left of her own volition and remained away for her own reasons, whatever they might be. Perhaps Tess should not have withheld the information about Natalie's past. But Mark so clearly didn't want to know the worst about his wife. Tess could kill a man, but she still couldn't break bad news to one.

"Mark-we've placed them for the second time in a week. We have a description of the car and the temporary tag numbers. We know they're moving around, probably to escape detection. But they have to light somewhere eventually. Lana's money is only going to tide them over for so long, and she can't have that much socked away, even if she's the best manicurist in the whole Mid-Atlantic region. Plus, they were headed east, closer to us."

"So we should go talk to Lana, demand to know what she knows."

"I'm not a cop. I can't hold a private citizen in a room and interrogate her."

"No, but you can do what you did to the guy at the convenience store."

"Show her my gun and bluff?"

That actually won a halfhearted smile from Mark.

"You could use the same kind of threats. She's a manicurist, right? Threaten to turn her in to the IRS for underreporting her tips if she doesn't talk to you. Or I could run a credit report on her, see if she has any bad debts. A young woman like that tends to get carried away from time to time."

"I don't know, Mark. Her devotion to Natalie seems unshakable. I don't think she's going to fall apart if we find out she was delinquent on a department-store account."

"Then let's go pay her a visit at her place of work. People don't like that. I know I wouldn't be pleased with one of my employees if a private detective and a distraught father came to my shop and started making a lot of noise."

Tess studied Mark Rubin. He was, as always, impeccably dressed, wearing a lightweight gray suit, white shirt, and a silk tie in a conservative pattern of navy and maroon. When they had pulled into the rest stop, he had told Tess he needed to say his evening prayers and walked away from the complex, finding a quiet spot near a copse of trees. He was dignified, a man of what Tess's mother would call good bearing, but his dignity was beginning to fray. She saw the signs of wear in his red-rimmed eyes, in the hair that was at least a week past its normal trim.

"Tomorrow," she said. "I'll go to Lana's salon first thing."

"We will go to the salon first thing in the morning."

"In the morning," Tess agreed. "First thing."

"And tonight?"

"Tonight," she said, her voice gentle, "you should do whatever it takes to get some sleep, whether by prayer or pill."

Tess did not take her own advice. In bed, the greyhound all but wrapped around her in a fit of separation anxiety, she began making lists, free-associating. French Lick, she wrote, adding the date that Natalie had been spotted there.

Zanesville . Wheeling. There was no pattern to discern, geographical or otherwise. The towns just boiled down to three not-big places in the Midwest. Sighing, she checked her e-mail, which included a reminder that the SnoopSisters had their weekly "chat" tonight-or brainstorming session, as Gretchen insisted on calling it. Tess normally skipped the chats, which were held late to accommodate those in the Pacific time zone, but she wanted the others to know how hard the new recruit had worked.

The sisters were already engaged in fast and furious talk, their "voices" falling over each other like dialogue in a Howard Hawks film. Mary Eleanor was not on the log of participants, so Tess waded in, described their newest colleague's valiant efforts, then proclaimed herself stumped. She expected only sympathy, not solutions. But Jessie Ray in Texas piped up.

JR: I have a theory.

TM: Have at me.

JR: What if your runaway wife is using social services?

TM: How can she? She's always moving. She can't settle down somewhere and get AFDC.

SF (that was Susan Friend in Omaha ): They don't even call it AFDC anymore, Tess. That went out with the Clinton administ ra tion. It's a whole new world of acronyms out there.

GOGO (Gretchen liked the look of her initials squared): More acronyms, but fewer dollars.

JR: True. But some states do have discretionary emergency funds. We're talking tiny amounts-$200 here, $400 there. Enough to check a family in to a cheap motel for a couple of days. Others will cut you a check to buy a used car, if transportation is the thing standing between a woman and a job. The idea is to get a family settled, then start the more onerous paperwork for real services. But you could take the money and split, and they wouldn't do a darn thing about it. No one's going to chase you down and make you take more government aid.

Tess typed: Interesting. But would it leave a paper trail?

JR: Possibly. There's a little-known child-support enforcement program that searches federal databases for deadbeat dads, which are my specialty. It has a lot of flexibility-it can do sophisticated Boolean searches with variables, using suspected aliases in combination with data the applicant is less likely to fake. Downside is, it can take months because it searches millions of records. Veterans, federal employees, anything the feds have access to. But if you know you only want to look at social-services programs in a handful of states, it might go a little faster.

Worth a try , Tess typed, although she doubted Mark Rubin would be placated by something so passive. He didn't want search engines crawling along millions of entries in government databases. He wanted to get in his car and just start driving until he found his family and brought them home.

A virtual door creaked audibly, and the log at the bottom of the screen showed that M'E-Mary Eleanor-had entered the room.

M'E: Hey, gang. I'm the new girl.

TM: All hail Mary Eleanor. She did amazing work today.

The Sisters responded with a variety of hip-hip-hooray emoticons.

M'E: I'm not sure I deserve to be saluted. Gosh, those kids are cute, tho. The one little boy kept giving me a thumbs-up, and doing a sort of Zorro thing, like he was cheering me on. Makes me feel worse for losing them.

TM: Please, no girly self-deprecation here. You tracked them to Wheeling . You told us they were all safe and well. It was-she stopped for a moment, trying to find the right word, one that would be positive but truthful-meaningful to their father, to know his children are well.

She bade the sisters good-bye, her fingers exhausted. The phone rang at almost the precise moment she disconnected from the Internet. It was silly to think the phone's peal was angry and insistent, as if someone had been trying to get through for a while. Yet that's exactly how her caller sounded.

"You missed the appointment with the caterer," Kitty said without preamble. "We waited and waited for you at the Brass Elephant, but you never showed up. I need to know what you think about quail."

"Given the way this country is going, I think anyone can be president."

"Tesser." In thirty-two years Tess's Kitty had never once raised her voice to her niece, or anyone else. Her low, sweet tone was as much a part of her charm as her reddish curls, peachy skin, and perfect figure. Even now she didn't sound exactly loud, but there was an unaccustomed edge to her voice. "This is serious."

"So I'm guessing what was once described as nothing more than a large party where a couple of people happen to get married has turned into a big-ass nightmare of a wedding."

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the phone, and Tess wondered if Kitty was so far gone that she might take offense, or even start crying. Tess was really getting sick of making people cry. To her relief, Kitty laughed instead. A rueful laugh, to be sure, but the laugh of a woman who still had some perspective.

"I'm sorry. PMS."

"You still…"

"Tess, please. I'm only forty-five. The thing is, I worry when you don't show up for an appointment, and I can't find you at home or in your office. I should carry your cell phone number, but I never remember it and you don't always answer it. You didn't used to be so hard to find."

"You didn't used to worry about me so much."

"No, not really. But last summer was a… bit of a jolt."

Last summer. Kitty made it sound so far away. Tess glanced at the scar on her knee and remembered sitting in the vacant parking lot waiting for an ambulance. If it had been a horror film, the man she had left for dead might have risen again in the endless minutes it took for her 911 call to be answered. But when Tess Monaghan killed a man, she was nothing if not thorough. The cops who arrived at the scene had been almost perverse in their admiration for her work. At least the shooting part. She could tell that the other wound, the one that had been truly defensive, made even the cops queasy.

Kitty had come with Crow to the emergency room at Harborview Hospital. The three had agreed to protect Tess's parents from the full knowledge of what had happened to their daughter in the warehouse. For once Tess had been thankful for the dulled-down newspaper prose, which reduced the most horrific night of her life to a simple construct. Miss Monaghan followed the suspect to an abandoned warehouse, where she managed to kill him after he inflicted fatal injuries to her associate. A grand jury declined to indict, deciding she acted in self-defense and discharged the full clip only because she was panicky.

Tess could not fault the newspaper reporter for rendering the event dryly and somewhat inaccurately. She had refused repeated attempts to enlarge the tale, to participate in what the more persistent reporters promised would be empathetic narratives. The only reporter to whom she would have entrusted the full story was her old friend Kevin Feeney. And he, to his eternal credit, wanted no part of it-and not just because it was a conflict of interest to write about a friend. "I don't need to know, Tess," he had said. "If you want to confide in me, I'm here for you. But I don't want the Blight's subscribers to read about the night you almost died while they're chomping on eggs and sausage with their mouths open."

If only Crow could have been spared as well. But he knew everything, and this had made him intent on protecting her in every way. He had started working longer hours at the Point, the bar that Tess's father ran, so Tess wouldn't fret about neglecting her own work. He began speaking of the business degree he hoped to earn, his always-accessible enthusiasm as engaged by the bar and restaurant business as it had once been by music and art. He called her countless times a day and demanded she check in. His marriage proposal, Tess believed, was his last-ditch attempt to protect her from herself. He thought he could keep her safe.

But no one could keep anyone safe in this world. And Tess didn't want a bodyguard. She didn't want people peering at her, faces anxious and voices low, as if she were an invalid or an unpredictable animal. She wanted to be who she used to be, before she'd killed someone. She wanted that mark off her permanent record. But that couldn't be and would never be, so she soldiered on. Let time do its magic act. When people told Tess that time healed, she knew it was true. But she also knew that time could use a little Neosporin in its kit. It left some unsightly scars.

"I really do take fewer chances," Tess told Kitty, thankful that Amos's death would never make the papers this far east. Baltimore, with its two hundred-plus homicides a year, didn't have any attention to spare for other towns' shootings. "I'm much more careful than I was."

"If you say so. How's Crow?" A non sequitur, and yet not. Had Kitty's intuitive brain made the connection?

"Fine."

"He'll be back for the wedding?"

"I'm sure he plans to be." Damn, she shouldn't sound quite that vague, as if she never spoke to him. Luckily, Kitty was too wedding-addled to catch the slip.

"His mother's doing well?"

"Very well. And it's nice for them, being together as a family. They like each other."

"Tess, we all like each other."

"Now. More or less. But aren't Uncle Jules and Uncle Lester feuding?"

"I speak only for the Monaghan side. The Weinsteins have to keep track of their own craziness. But you should be grateful to have so many relatives, complicated as they are. Tyner has virtually no family, just a first cousin, and he's a Baltimore bachelor from way back."

"You'd think that euphemism would die out, as society becomes more open-minded about homosexuality."

"Society is becoming more open-minded? What country are you living in, my dear? Today's Baltimore bachelors continue to mingle with all those oh-so-happily married Baltimore husbands, the closeted men with houses in Guilford, society wives, and beautiful children at the city's best schools. Right now I'm trying to figure out if I should invite an old friend, his wife, and his boyfriend, who's also a friend of mine. Separate invitations, of course, but still. What's the etiquette?"

"It's hard, isn't it?"

"Planning a wedding?"

"Being human."

"Tesser, is there something you want to tell me?"

"No," she lied.

Chapter Thirty-two

IT WAS WELL PAST DUSK BY THE TIME LANA PULLED INTO the shopping center outside Martinsburg, West Virginia, and the children were tired and cranky. The limited wonders of the mall had ceased to entrance them hours ago, and the twins whined in their incoherent babble, demanding to know when they might eat dinner, go to bed, or watch television.

Isaac was quiet, but his stoicism bothered Zeke even more than the twins' whining. The kid was unnatural. Be a kid, he wanted to shout at him, loosen up. He wondered if Isaac had been more boyish before this began, just as Zeke had been more of a kid before his father's death and his mother's remarriage. If he had known that the boy existed, would he have even tried to carry this off? For there was no escaping it: He was going to do to Isaac exactly what had been done to him, which had never been the plan. Worse, actually. Yet he wasn't a monster, he wasn't a bad guy.

He wasn't, as he kept reminding Natalie, the person who had changed everything by killing a cop.

It was true, he thought, staring idly at the things for sale in the mall. Nothing left to lose was a kind of freedom. Nothing left to lose meant you had everything to gain.

Lana looked grim and unhappy when she finally arrived.

"I don't know what you want me to do," she said. "The money I wired you this morning is all I had. I'm tapped out. I won't be able to pay for the cash advance when my credit-card bill comes due."

"Maybe Amos will leave you something in his will, for old times' sake."

"Don't joke about that." Her voice was sharp and fierce, as if she had actually cared about the guy. "Do you realize who was on his property when he died? Mark. Mark and some woman. So he's dead because of me, because Mark somehow figured out I took Natalie there when she decided to leave."

"Really? Mark was there?" That made no sense. Zeke had chosen Amos for the job because he'd been assured the two had had no contact since Amos left prison. Had Amos lured him there, instead of doing the job when Mark was transporting furs? That had been Zeke's plan, a nice little robbery that made perfect sense. Killing Mark on the farm was stupid beyond belief. "But I thought you said the police told you two people were there. Who was the other one?"

"All I know is that it was a woman."

"Really." The apple sure didn't fall far from the tree. Maybe Mark was as big a dog as his own father, taking up with another woman the moment Natalie disappeared. Maybe before. Wouldn't that be sweet? "Any idea who she is?"

"I don't know for sure, but there was that private detective he hired to find you. She knows about the post-office box, too. I got a certified letter saying I should call someone who knew everything, but I ignored it. There's no law against having a mailbox."

"Good girl." Lana needed a lot of stroking, almost as much as Natalie, if such a thing were possible. "Does she know about me?"

"She didn't when I talked to her. But they found Amos, they went to Amos. Natalie's father may have told."

"No. Boris would never tell. Besides, I wasn't in the stupid group, remember? The last thing I wanted to do in prison was sit and play Passover. I've had my fill of bitter herbs."

Of course, Lana had no idea what he was talking about. She knew even less about Judaism than Natalie had, before Zeke had taken Natalie in hand and taught her what she needed to know to snare Mark.

"What's going on, Zeke? You said something bad had happened, something else, and you needed the money for a car, but I had to come, too-"

He held up a hand. "You don't want to know, Lana. Trust me. But it's bad, really bad. Natalie and I will spend the rest of our lives on the run. That's why we need you to buy the new car, over in Hagerstown. Your name is clean. You can buy a car with the cash you sent us, title it, then give it to us with a notarized note saying we have permission to drive it. No one's going to connect a car purchased in Hagerstown with a car abandoned in West Virginia. This car just takes them back to Amos, who's dead."

"But if they find the car and they do connect it to whatever you've done, then I'll be in the middle of it."

"If you don't know anything, you haven't done anything. Like I said, it will all go back to Amos, and dead men tell no tales."

Only Zeke's father had. Zeke's father had come to him over and over again, insistent as the old ghost in Hamlet. As Zeke grew older, he tried to argue with him. The autopsy report said suicide, Pops. Why would I commit suicide? Because you burned down the building and killed the watchman, the one you didn't know was there. Why would I do that? Because the store was going down the tubes. Your partner went off and grew rich selling furs in suburbia, while you tried to make money selling designer dresses in downtown, six blocks from the department stores that got them first and sold them cheaper. It was good old-fashioned Jewish lightning, Dad. Yes, but who threw the lightning bolt? Who gained? Who truly gained? I was dead, and my reputation was ruined. Aaron Rubin ended up with everything, and I ended up with nothing. Suicide or homicide? I pulled the trigger, but someone guided my hand.

"Look," Zeke said, his voice harsh in spite of his best efforts, "you have to convince Natalie to send the goddamn kids back with you. Tonight."

"No. The cops will ask me questions if I show up with the kids, try to give them back to Mark. I don't want to get involved."

"Drive them to Vera's, ring the doorbell, and run. It's about time she met her grandchildren. Besides, it will be nice for Mark to have his kids around."

"Since when do you care about what's nice for Mark?"

Again, he couldn't tell Lana that he wanted the rest of Mark's life, short as it was destined to be, to have a pleasant ending.

"Anyway, Natalie's not going to let those kids go for anything now. Look at her."

Natalie and the children were sitting on the edge of a lackluster fountain. She held Penina in her lap, clutching her so tight that Zeke could see how the fabric of the girl's dress wrinkled beneath her mother's grasping fingers. Efraim was leaning over, trying to fish coins from the murky bottom. Isaac reached out and held his belt so he wouldn't fall in. Something about the almost-unconscious brotherly affection between the two boys made Zeke feel sad, then angry.

He should have had a little brother, a real one. He should have gone to New York and Montreal on buying trips with his father, then had a son to take with him on his. He should have had a nest egg to build his business. Then he wouldn't have pushed so hard and been forced to take shortcuts to stay afloat. He wasn't a bad guy. He had wanted a legitimate life. He never set out to cheat anyone, much less hurt people.

One day you're a guy on the phone making deals that are shady but legal. The next day the cops are coming through the door wanting to know where you got the shipment of Steve Maddens at ten cents on the dollar. And he had no idea his little credit-card scam was a federal offense. The big boys on Wall Street stole billions and gave up 8 percent of their profits. Zeke took the only kind of float anyone would give him and gave up 100 percent of his life for ten years.

"Let's go buy a car, Lana, you and me. I'll drive over to Hagerstown with you, help you pick it out. You can go home from there."

"And when do I get paid back?"

"When I do." He put his hand on her cheek. Natalie was too gone to catch the gesture, which normally would have sent her into spasms of jealousy, but Lana liked it. Lana had always liked him a little more than she should, a fact that had come in handy all these years. "You'll get back every penny, with interest. Just be patient."

Natalie awoke in the middle of the night and went into the bathroom, but not because she felt any need. She just couldn't sleep, and she didn't want to lie in the dark listening to all that breathing. She understood why the children could sleep-Isaac had not seen the man fall, the twins did not really understand what happened-they had been told it was all a game. But how could Zeke look so peaceful? How did he sleep so contentedly?

Because Zeke was not a killer. She was. She was her father all over again. And if she were her father all over again, what would her children be?

The light was sickly here, a greenish yellow, and she leaned toward the mirror, touching the lines and shadows in her reflection, as if they were a part of the reflected Natalie but could not be found on her own face. So beautiful still. It was not vain to say so, only realistic, a fact. This was her dowry, and it had been sold over and over, with varying results.

What would become of her? Her mother's face bore the sad testimony of what age and a hard life did to a woman. Not even Natalie would always be beautiful. Even if she took good care of herself and didn't smoke, age would come for her. Zeke said he loved her for more than her looks, but she wasn't sure she believed him. After all, she loved Zeke for his.

If she had it to do over again, would she have forgotten Zeke and learned to love, really love, Moshe? He was kind, he was loving, he provided for her. If she had loved him just a little more, she would not be here, and she would not be a killer. But the fact was, he had never stirred anything in her. And while the children had created a powerful bond between them as parents, her feelings for Zeke simply could not be denied.

So here she was, in a motel in West Virginia, with a man who had yet to make love to her in a complete way. All that talk about things being perfect, a honeymoon suite at the Ritz-Carlton, room service and white fluffy robes and Egyptian cotton sheets. Natalie didn't know how to tell him she had already been in the honeymoon suite at the Ritz-Carlton and, while it was all very nice, you didn't get to take the robe home unless you paid for it.

They weren't going to make it. She wasn't sure where they were going or what they were doing, but her heart told her they were doomed. She should have sent the children back with Lana tonight. Zeke had urged, cajoled, wheedled, and finally shouted, shaking her for her refusal to do what he said was best. So he was like her father, too. But she could not bear to give them up. She felt safer with them for some reason. As long as she had her children, she was still a good person, a mother. A woman who loved her children could never be in the wrong.

Disgusted with her, Zeke had gone to Hagerstown with Lana, determined to buy a car before the evening was out. Hagerstown was only an hour away, yet they had been gone five hours, with Zeke returning in the new car well after midnight. He and Lana were giggling, clearly buzzed from something. Probably Sex on the Beach cocktails, if Natalie remembered Lana's drinking preferences. Strange, she didn't even know what Zeke would drink in a bar, because she had never been in one with him. It seemed unfair that Lana would have an opportunity with Zeke that Natalie had never had, but she was too tired to work up a rage about it. Lana would leave tomorrow morning, after sleeping off her drunk on the floor of the motel room.

But if Zeke had cheated on her and she found out-she would cut it off. Why not? She had killed one man and destroyed another. For Natalie had no doubt that Mark's life was empty without her.

She sank to the toilet seat, cradling her head in her arms, longing to cry but worried that even muffled tears might be overheard. She wouldn't mind if Zeke came to comfort her-he owed her that much-but the children would be upset if they saw her crying for the second time in a day. Since they'd left home, she had been very conscious of being happy, of making everything seem as if it were a wonderful adventure. Even today, when that strange car began to follow them, she had not let the children see how nervous she was.

It was odd, almost a letdown, when she realized that the driver was a woman. Did she want it to be a police officer? Was there some part of her that simply longed for this to be over? No, she had been surprised because she'd expected to see Moshe at the wheel of that car. Every day since she left, Natalie realized, she had expected to see him.

She knew him so well, perhaps better than she would have if she had truly loved him. No one was allowed simply to walk away from Mark Rubin. She had listened to him on calls, haranguing people long past the point of winning an argument, insistent on being heard. His voice ground people beneath it the way Natalie might squash a bug under her shoe. Zeke didn't understand that part of Mark, but it was why Natalie had run, taking the children with her, instead of waiting for Zeke to send for her. She knew Mark Rubin-how thorough he was, how determined he could be about getting his way.

She knew him, she realized, better than she knew the man in the other room.