Caught

CHAPTER 25

FUNERAL SERVICES are always pretty much the same. The same prayers, the customary biblical readings, the words of supposed comfort that, especially in situations like this, sound to an outsider's ear like either the most ridiculous rationalizations or obscene justifications. What occurs on the pulpit is pretty much a constant; only the reaction of the mourners alters the mood.

The funeral of Haley McWaid had been a dark, leaden blanket thrown over the entire community. Grief weighed you down, made your limbs heavy, put glass shards in your lungs so that even breathing was agony. Everyone in the community hurt right now, but Wendy knew that would not last. She had seen it with John's premature death. Grief is devastating, all-consuming. But grief merely visits friends, even the closest. It stays much longer, probably forever, with the family, but that was probably how it should be.

Wendy had stood in the back of the church. She came in late and left early. She never looked at Marcia or Ted. Her mind would not let her-would not "go there" as Charlie, who was alive and breathing, liked to say. It was a defense mechanism, pure and simple. That was okay too.

The sun shone bright. It always seemed to be that way on funeral days. Her mind again wanted to go to John, to the closed casket, but again she fought it off. She walked down the street. She stopped at the corner, closed her eyes, and tilted her face toward the sun. Her watch read eleven AM. It was time to meet Sheriff Walker at the medical examiner's office.

Located on a depressing stretch of Norfolk Street in Newark, the medical examiner's office handled Essex, Hudson, Passaic, and Somerset counties. Newark had indeed enjoyed some revitalization of late, but that was a few blocks east of here. Then again, what would be the point of putting an ME office in a trendy spot? Sheriff Walker met her on the street. He always looked a little uneasy with his size, slouching his big shoulders. She half expected him to crouch down and speak to her, the way you would to put a small child at ease, and this somehow made him more endearing.

"Been a busy few days for us both, I guess," Walker said.

The death of Haley McWaid had exonerated Wendy and then some. Vic rehired her and promoted her to the weekend anchor spot. Other news agencies wanted to interview her, to talk about Dan Mercer and how she, the heroic reporter, had brought down not only a pedophile but a killer.

"Where is Investigator Tremont?" she asked.

"Retired."

"He's not finishing up the case?"

"What's there to finish up? Haley McWaid was murdered by Dan Mercer. Mercer is dead. That pretty much ends the case, don't you think? We will continue to look for Mercer's body, but I have other cases too-and who wants to try Ed Grayson for stamping out that scumbag anyway?"

"You're certain Dan Mercer did it?"

Walker frowned. "You're not?"

"I'm just asking."

"First off, it's not my case. It's Frank Tremont's. He seems pretty sure. But it's not totally over. We're digging into Dan Mercer's life. We're looking at any other missing-girl cases. I mean, if it wasn't for Haley's phone found in the room, we'd probably have never tied her to Dan. He could have been doing it for years, with many girls. Maybe other missing kids crossed his path, we just don't know. Still, I'm a county sheriff-and the crimes weren't even committed in my jurisdiction. The feds are on this."

They entered the rather pedestrian office of Tara O'Neill, the medical examiner. Wendy was grateful that they were in a room that looked more like a vice principal's office than anything having to do with human corpses. The two women had met before when Wendy covered local murders. Tara O'Neill was dressed in a sleek black dress-much better than scrubs-but what always surprised her about Tara was that she was shockingly gorgeous, albeit with a Morticia Addams vibe. Tara was tall with long, straight, too-black hair and a pale, calm, luminous face-a look that could be described as sort of ethereal goth.

"Hello, Wendy."

She reached from behind her desk to shake hands. Her grip was stiff and formal.

"Hi, Tara."

"I'm not exactly sure why we need to talk privately like this," Tara said.

"Consider it a favor," Walker said.

"But, Sheriff, you don't even have jurisdiction here."

Walker spread his hands. "Do I really need to go through those channels?"

"No," Tara said. She sat down and invited them to do likewise. "What can I do for you?"

The chair was wood and designed for anything other than comfort. Tara sat with her back straight and waited, ever the consummate professional with a bedside manner that clearly worked best on the dead. The room could use a paint job, but as the old joke goes, Tara's patients never complained.

"Like I said on the phone," Walker said. "We want to hear all you have on Haley McWaid."

"Of course." Tara looked at Wendy. "Should we start with the identification process?"

"That would be great," Wendy said.

"First off, there is no doubt that the body found in Ringwood State Park belonged to the missing girl Haley McWaid. There was serious decay, but the skeleton was intact, as was the hair. In short, she looked very much like herself but with the skin gone. Would you like to see a photograph of the remains?"

Wendy flicked a glance at Walker. Walker looked like he might be sick.

"Yes," Wendy said.

Tara slid the photographs across her desk as if they were dinner menus. Wendy braced herself. She did not have a strong stomach when it came to gore. Even R-rated movies made her queasy. She risked one quick glance and turned away, but even in that second, horrible as it was, she could still see Haley McWaid's features in the horror of decay.

"Both parents, Ted and Marcia McWaid, insisted on seeing their daughter's body," O'Neill continued in a perfect monotone. "They both recognized their daughter and gave us positive identifications. We took it several steps further. The height and size of the skeleton matched. Haley McWaid had broken her hand when she was twelve-the metacarpal bone below what we commonly call the ring finger. The injury had healed but we could still see signs of it on an X-ray. And of course, we ran a DNA test from a sample provided by her sister, Patricia. The match was made. In short, there is no doubt about identification."

"How about a cause of death?"

Tara O'Neill folded her hands and put them on her desk. "Undetermined at this juncture."

"When do you think you'll know?"

Tara O'Neill reached across the desk and took back the photographs. "In truth," she said, "probably never."

She carefully slid the pictures back into the folder, closed it, put it to her right.

"Wait, you don't think that you'll ever determine a cause of death?"

"That's correct."

"Isn't that unusual?"

Tara O'Neill finally smiled. It was radiant and sobering at the same time. "Not really, no. Our society unfortunately is being raised on television shows where a medical examiner can work miracles. They look through a microscope and find all the answers. Sadly, that's not reality. For example, let's ask the question, was Haley McWaid shot? First-and this comes more from the crime scene technicians-no bullets were found at the scene. No bullets were found in the body either. I also ran X-rays and visuals to see if there were any unusual nicks or marks on the bones that might indicate a bullet wound. There were none. If that isn't complicated enough, I still can't definitely rule out a shooting. The bullet might not have struck bone. Since most of the body had decomposed, we wouldn't necessarily see any sign if it just passed through tissue. So the most I can say is that there is no evidence of a shooting and that a shooting is unlikely. Are you following me?"

"Yes."

"Good. I would also conclude the same about a knife stabbing, but we just don't know for sure. If, for example, the perpetrator pierced an artery-"

"Yeah, I think I get that.

"And of course there are many more possibilities. The victim may have been suffocated-the classic pillow over the face. Even in cases where the body is found after a few days rather than a few months it can be hard to determine suffocation for certain. But in this case, after spending most likely three months buried, it is virtually impossible. I am also running some specific drug tests to see if there is anything in her system, but when a body breaks down like this, the blood enzymes get released. It throws many tests out of whack. In lay terms, the body almost turns into something like alcohol as it breaks down. So even those drug tests on remaining tissue may prove unreliable. Haley's vitreous humor-that's the gel between the retina and the lens of the eye-had disintegrated, so we couldn't use that to look for drug traces either."

"So you can't even say for sure it's a murder?"

"I, as medical examiner, can't, no."

Wendy looked at Walker. He nodded. "We can. I mean, think about it. We don't even have a body on Dan Mercer. I've seen cases go to court where no body was found, and like Tara said, this is hardly uncommon with bodies found after this much time."

O'Neill rose, clearly indicating their dismissal. "Anything else?"

"Was she sexually assaulted?"

"Same answer: We just don't know."

Wendy stood. "I appreciate your time, Tara."

After another stiff, formal handshake, Wendy found herself back on Norfolk Street with Sheriff Walker.

"Did any of that help?" Walker asked her.

"No."

"I told you there was nothing here."

"So that's it? It's over?"

"Officially for this sheriff? Yeah."

Wendy looked down the street. "I keep hearing Newark is coming back."

"Just not here," Walker said.

"Yeah."

"How about you, Wendy?"

"What about me?"

"Is this case over for you?"

She shook her head. "Not quite yet."

"You want to tell me about it?"

She shook her head again. "Not quite yet."

"Fair enough." The big man shuffled his feet, his eyes on the pavement. "Can I ask you something else?"

"Sure."

"I feel like an ass. I mean, the timing and all."

She waited.

"When this is over, when this all passes in a few weeks"-Walker tried to raise his eyes to meet hers-"do you mind if I call you?"

The road suddenly seemed even more deserted. "You weren't kidding about timing."

Walker jammed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "I've never been the smoothest."

"Smooth enough," Wendy said, trying not to smile in spite of herself. This was life though, wasn't it? Death made you crave life. The world is nothing but a bunch of thin lines separating what we think are extremes. "No, I wouldn't mind you calling at all."

HESTER CRIMSTEIN'S LAW OFFICE, Burton and Crimstein, was in a midtown Manhattan high-rise and offered fantastic views of downtown and the Hudson River. She could see the military-carrier-ship-turned-museum the Intrepid and the enormous "fun" cruise ships packed with three thousand vacationers and figured that she'd rather give birth than actually go on one. The truth was, this view, like almost any view, just became a view. Visitors were stunned by it, but when you see it every day, much as you never wanted to admit it, the extraordinary becomes commonplace.

Ed Grayson was standing by the window now. He looked out but if he was enjoying the view, he was keeping it pretty hidden. "I don't know what to do here, Hester."

"I do," she said.

"I'm listening."

"Listen to my professional legal advice: Do nothing."

Still staring out the window, Grayson smiled. "No wonder you get the big bucks."

Hester spread her hands.

"So it's that simple?"

"In this case, yep."

"You know my wife left me. She wants to move back to Quebec with E. J."

"I'm sorry to hear it."

"This whole mess is my fault."

"Ed, don't take this the wrong way, but you know I'm bad at hand-holding or false platitudes, right?"

"Oh yes."

"So I'll make it clear for you: You messed up big-time."

"I never beat up someone before."

"And now you have."

"I never shot someone either."

"And now you have. Your point?"

They both went quiet. Ed Grayson was comfortable with silence. Hester Crimstein was not. She started rocking in her desk chair, played with a pen, sighed theatrically. Finally she got up and crossed the room.

"See this?"

Ed turned around. She was pointing at a statue of Lady Justice. "Yes."

"You know what it is?"

"Sure."

"What?"

"Are you kidding?"

"Who is this?"

"Lady Justice."

"Yes and no. She is known by many names. Lady Justice, Blind Justice, the Greek goddess Themis, the Roman goddess Justitia, the Egyptian goddess Ma'at-or even the daughters of Themis, Dike and Astraea."

"Uh, your point?"

"Have you ever taken a good look at the statue? Most people see the blindfold first and, well, that's an obvious reference to impartiality. It's also nonsense since everybody is partial. You can't help it. But take a look at her right hand. That's a sword. That's a kick-ass sword. That's supposed to represent swift and often brutal, even deadly punishment. But you see, only she-the system-can do that. The system, as messed up as it is, has the right to use that sword. You, my friend, do not."

"Are you telling me I shouldn't have taken the law into my own hands?" Grayson arched an eyebrow. "Wow, Hester, that's deep."

"Look at the scales, numb nuts. In her left hand. Some people think the scales are supposed to represent both sides of the argument-prosecution and defense. Others claim it is about fairness or impartiality. But think about it. Scales are really about balance, right? Look, I'm an attorney-and I know my rep. I know people think I subvert the law or use loopholes or bully or take advantage. That's all true. But I stay within the system."

"And that makes it okay?"

"Yep. Because that's the balance."

"And I, to keep within your metaphor, disturbed the balance?"

"Exactly. That's the beauty of our system. It can be tweaked and twisted-Lord knows I do it all the time-but when you keep within it, right or wrong, it somehow works. When you don't, when you lose balance even with the best of intentions, it leads to chaos and catastrophe."

"That," Ed Grayson said with a nod of his head, "sounds like an enormous load of self-rationalization."

She smiled at that. "Perhaps. But you also know I'm right. You wanted to right a wrong. But now the balance is gone."

"So maybe I should do something to set it right again."

"It doesn't work like that, Ed. You know that now. Let it be and the balance has a chance to return."

"Even if it means the bad guy goes free?"

She held out her hands and smiled at him. "Who's the bad guy now, Ed?"

Silence.

He wasn't sure how to say it, so he dived right in. "The police don't have a clue about Haley McWaid."

Hester mulled that one over. "You don't know that," she said. "Maybe we're the ones without a clue."

CHAPTER 26

THE HOME BELONGING to retired Essex County investigator Frank Tremont was a two-bedroom Colonial with aluminum siding, a small but perfectly manicured lawn, and a New York Giants flag hanging to the right of the door. The peonies in the flower boxes burst with so much color that Wendy wondered whether they were plastic.

Wendy took the ten steps up from the sidewalk to the front door and knocked. A curtain in the bay window moved. A moment later the door opened. Though the funeral had ended hours ago, Frank Tremont still wore the black suit. The tie was loosened, the top two buttons of his dress shirt undone. He had missed spots shaving. His eyes were rummy, and Wendy got a whiff of drink coming off him.

Without a word of greeting, he stepped to the side with a heavy sigh and nodded for her to come inside. She ducked into the house. Only one lamp illuminated the dark room. She spotted a half-empty bottle of Captain Morgan on the worn coffee table. Rum. Yuck. Several open newspapers lay strewn across the couch. There was a cardboard box on the floor, loaded with what she figured were the contents of his work desk. The television played some exercise-equipment infomercial, featuring a too-enthusiastic trainer and many young, beautiful, waxed six-pack stomachs. Wendy looked back at Tremont. He shrugged.

"Now that I'm retired I figured I should get some washboard abs."

She tried to smile. There were photographs of a teenage girl on a side table. The girl's hairstyle had been in vogue maybe fifteen, twenty years ago, but the first thing you noticed was her smile-big and wide, pure dynamite, the kind of smile that rips into a parent's heart. Wendy knew the story. The girl was undoubtedly Frank's daughter who died of cancer. Wendy looked back at the bottle of Captain Morgan and wondered how he'd ever crawled out of it.

"What's up, Wendy?"

"So," she began, trying to buy a moment, "you're officially retired?"

"Yep. Went out with a bang, don't you think?"

"I'm sorry."

"Save it for the victim's family."

She nodded.

"You've been in the papers a lot," he said. "This case has made you quite the celebrity." He lifted the glass in mock salute. "Congratulations."

"Frank?"

"What?"

"Don't say something stupid you'll regret."

Tremont nodded. "Yeah, good point."

"Is this case officially closed?" she asked.

"From our perspective, pretty much. The perp is dead-probably buried out in the woods, which I guess someone smarter than me would find ironic."

"Did you pressure Ed Grayson again to give up the body?"

"As much as we could."

"And?"

"He won't talk. I wanted to offer him blanket immunity if he told us where Mercer's body was, but my big boss, Paul Copeland, wouldn't agree to that."

Wendy thought about Ed Grayson, wondered about trying to approach him again, see if maybe now he'd talk to her. Tremont knocked the newspapers off the couch and invited Wendy to sit. He fell into the BarcaLounger and picked up the remote.

"Do you know what show is on soon?"

"No."

"Crimstein's Court. You do know that she's repping Ed Grayson, right?"

"You told me."

"Right, I forgot. Anyway, she made some interesting points when we questioned him." He picked up the Captain Morgan and poured some in his glass. He offered her some, but she shook him off.

"What sort of points?"

"She made the argument that we should give Ed Grayson a medal for killing Dan Mercer."

"Because it was justice?"

"No, see, that would be one thing. But Hester was trying to make a larger point."

"That being?"

"If Grayson hadn't killed Mercer, we would never have found Haley's iPhone." He pointed the remote at the television and turned it off. "She noted that in three months of investigating, we had made no progress and that Ed Grayson had now provided us with the only clue to Haley's whereabouts. She further made the point that a good detective might have looked into a well-known pervert who had connections to the victim's neighborhood. And you know what?"

Wendy shook her head.

"Hester was right-how did I overlook an indicted sex offender with ties to Haley's town? Maybe Haley was alive for a few days. Maybe I could have saved her."

Wendy looked at the confident, if not creepy, depiction of Captain Morgan on the bottle's label. What a frightening companion to be alone with while you drank. She opened her mouth to argue his point, but he stopped her with a wave of his hand.

"Please don't say something patronizing. It'd be insulting."

He was right.

"So I doubt you came here to watch me wallow in self-pity."

"I don't know, Frank. It's pretty entertaining."

That made him almost smile. "What do you need, Wendy?"

"Why do you think Dan Mercer killed her?"

"You mean motive?"

"Yeah, that's exactly what I mean."

"Do you want the list in alphabetical order? As you somewhat proved, he was a sexual predator."

"Okay, I get that. But in this case, well, so what? Haley McWaid was seventeen years old. The age of consent in New Jersey is sixteen."

"Maybe he was afraid she'd talk."

"About what? She was legal."

"Still. It would be devastating to his case."

"So he killed her to keep it quiet?" She shook her head. "Did you find any sign of a previous relationship between Mercer and Haley?"

"No. I know you tried to peddle that at the park-that maybe they met at his ex's house and started something up. Maybe, but there is absolutely no evidence of that, and I'm not sure I want to go there for the parents' sake. Best bet is that, yeah, he saw her at the Wheeler house, became obsessed with her, grabbed her, did whatever, and killed her."

Wendy frowned. "I just don't buy that."

"Why not? You remember the maybe-boyfriend Kirby Sennett?"

"Yes."

"After we found the body, Kirby's lawyer let him be more, shall we say, forthcoming. Yes, they dated secretly, though it was rocky. He said she was really wound up, especially when she didn't get into Virginia. He thought that she might have even been on something."

"Drugs?"

He shrugged. "The parents don't need to hear about this either."

"I don't get it though. Why didn't Kirby tell you all this right from the get-go?"

"Because his lawyer was afraid if we knew the nature of his relationship with her, we'd look at the kid hard. Which, of course, is true."

"But if Kirby had nothing to hide?"

"First, who said he has nothing to hide? He is a low-level drug dealer. If she was on something, my guess is, he provided it. Second, most lawyers will tell you that innocence doesn't necessarily mean anything. If Kirby had said, yeah, we had this rocky romance and she was maybe popping or smoking something I gave her, we would have crawled straight up his ass and built a tent. And when the body was found, well, we'd have really started probing, if you know what I mean. Now that Kirby is in the clear, it makes sense he'd talk."

"Nice system," she said. "Not to mention anal analogy."

He shrugged.

"Are you sure this Kirby didn't have anything to do with it?"

"And, what, planted her phone in Dan Mercer's hotel room?"

She thought about that. "Good point."

"He also has an airtight alibi. Look, Kirby is a typical rich-kid punk-the kind who thinks he's badass because maybe he toilet-papers a house on Mischief Night. He didn't do anything here."

She sat back. Her gaze found the picture of Tremont's dead daughter, but it didn't stay there long. She looked away fast, maybe too fast. Frank saw it.

"My daughter," he said.

"I know."

"We're not going to talk about it, okay?"

"Okay."

"So what's your problem with this case, Wendy?"

"I guess I need more of a why."

"Take another look at that picture. The world doesn't work that way." He sat up. His eyes bore into hers. "Sometimes-most times maybe-there isn't any why."

WHEN SHE GOT BACK TO HER CAR, Wendy saw a message from Ten-A-Fly. She called him back.

"We may have something on Kelvin Tilfer."

The Fathers Club had spent the last several days working on locating the Princeton classmates. The easiest to find, of course, was Farley Parks. Wendy had called the former politico six times. Farley had not called her back. No surprise. Farley lived in Pittsburgh, making a drop-by difficult. So for right now, he was sort of out.

Second, Dr. Steve Miciano. She had reached him by phone and asked for a meeting. If she could help it, Wendy didn't want to tell them what it was about over the phone. Miciano hadn't asked. He said that he was on shift and would be available tomorrow afternoon. Wendy figured that she could wait.

But third, and in Wendy's view, the big priority, was the elusive Kelvin Tilfer. There was nothing on him so far. As far as the Internet was concerned, the man had simply dropped off the planet.

"What?" she asked.

"A brother. Ronald Tilfer works deliveries for UPS in Manhattan. He's the only relative we've been able to locate. The parents are dead."

"Where does he live?"

"In Queens, but we can do you one better. See, when Doug worked at Lehman they did big business with UPS. Doug called his old contact in sales and got the brother's delivery schedule. It's all computerized now, so we can pretty much track his movements online if you want to find him."

"I do."

"Okay, head into the city toward the Upper West Side. I'll e-mail you updates as he makes deliveries."

Forty-five minutes later, she found the brown truck double-parked in front of a restaurant called Telepan on West Sixty-ninth Street off Columbus. She parked her car in an hour space, threw in some quarters, leaned against the fender. She looked at the truck, flashing to that UPS commercial with that guy with long hair drawing on a whiteboard, and while the message "UPS" and "Brown" did indeed come through, she didn't have a clue what the guy was drawing about. Charlie would always shake his head when that commercial came on, usually during a crucial time in a football game, and say, "That guy needs a beat-down."

Funny what occupies the mind.

Ronald Tilfer-at least, she assumed the man in the brown UPS uniform was him-smiled and waved behind him as he exited from the restaurant. He was short with tightly cropped salt 'n' pepper hair and, as you noticed in these uniforms with shorts, nice legs. Wendy pushed herself off her car and cut him off before he reached the vehicle.

"Ronald Tilfer?"

"Yes."

"My name is Wendy Tynes. I'm a reporter for NTC News. I'm trying to locate your brother, Kelvin."

He narrowed his gaze. "What for?"

"I'm doing a story about his graduating class at Princeton."

"I can't help you."

"I just need to talk to him for a few minutes."

"You can't."

"Why not?"

He started to move around her. Wendy slid to stay in front of him. "Let's just say Kelvin is unavailable."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He can't talk to you. He can't help you."

"Mr. Tilfer?"

"I really need to get back to work."

"No, you don't."

"Excuse me?"

"That's your last delivery today."

"How do you know that?"

Let him dangle, she thought. "Let's stop wasting time with the cryptic 'he's unavailable' or can't talk or whatever. It is hugely important I talk to him."

"About his graduating class at Princeton?"

"There's more to it. Someone is harming his old roommates."

"And you think it's Kelvin?"

"I didn't say that."

"It can't be him."

"You can help me prove that. Either way, lives are being ruined. Your brother may even be in danger."

"He's not."

"Then maybe he can help some old friends."

"Kelvin? He's in no position to help anyone."

Again with the cryptic. It was starting to piss her off. "You talk like he's dead."

"He may as well be."

"I don't want to sound melodramatic, Mr. Tilfer, but this really is about life and death. If you don't want to talk to me, I can bring the police in on it. I'm here alone but I can come back with a big news crew-cameras, sound, the works."

Ronald Tilfer let loose a deep sigh. Her threat was an empty one, of course, but he didn't have to know that. He gnawed on his lower lip. "You won't take my word he can't help you?"

"Sorry."

He shrugged. "Okay."

"Okay what?"

"I'll take you to see Kelvin."

WENDY LOOKED at Kelvin Tilfer through the thick, protective glass.

"How long has he been here?"

"This time?" Ronald Tilfer shrugged. "Maybe three weeks. They'll probably let him back out in a week."

"And then where does he go?"

"He lives on the street until he does something dangerous again. Then they bring him back in. The state doesn't believe in long-term mental hospitals anymore. So they release him."

Kelvin Tilfer was writing furiously in a notebook, his nose just inches from the page. Wendy could hear him shouting through the glass. Nothing that made sense. Kelvin looked a lot older than his classmates. His hair and beard were gray. Teeth were missing.

"He was the smart brother," Ronald said. "A freaking genius, especially in math. That's what that book is filled with. Math problems. He writes them all day. He could never turn his mind off. Our mom worked so hard to make him normal, you know? The school wanted him to skip grades. She wouldn't let him. She made him play sports-tried everything to keep him normal. But it was like we always knew he was heading in this direction. She tried to hold the crazy back. But it was like holding back an ocean with your bare hands."

"What's wrong with him?"

"He's a raging schizophrenic. He has terrible psychotic episodes."

"But, I mean, what happened to him?"

"What do you mean, what happened? He's ill. There is no why." There is no why-the second time someone had said that to her today. "How does someone get cancer? It wasn't like Mommy beat him and he became like this. It's a chemical imbalance. Like I said, it was always there. Even as a kid, he never slept. He couldn't turn off his brain."

Wendy remembered what Phil had said. Weird. Math-genius weird. "Do meds help?"

"They quiet him, sure. The same way a tranquilizer gun quiets an elephant. He still doesn't know where he is or who he is. When he graduated from Princeton he got a job with a pharmaceutical company but he kept disappearing. They fired him. He took to the streets. For eight years we didn't know where he was. When we finally found him in a cardboard box filled with his own feces, Kelvin had broken bones that hadn't healed properly. He'd lost teeth. I can't even imagine how he survived, how he found food, what he must have gone through."

Kelvin started screaming again: "Himmler! Himmler likes tuna steaks!"

She turned to Ronald. "Himmler? The old Nazi?"

"You got me. He never makes any sense."

Kelvin went back to his notebook, writing even faster now.

"Can I talk to him?" she asked.

"You're kidding, right?"

"No."

"It won't help."

"And it won't hurt."

Ronald Tilfer looked through the window. "Most times, he doesn't know who I am anymore. He looks right through me. I wanted to bring him home, but I have a wife, a kid…"

Wendy said nothing.

"I should do something to protect him, don't you think? I try to lock him up, he gets angry. So I let him go and worry about him. We'd go to Yankee games when we were kids. Kelvin knew every player's statistics. He could even tell you how they changed after an at-bat. My theory: Genius is a curse. That's how I look at it. Some think that the brilliant comprehend the universe in a way the rest of us can't. They see the world how it truly is-and that reality is so horrible they lose their minds. Clarity leads to insanity."

Wendy just stared straight ahead. "Did Kelvin ever talk about Princeton?"

"My mom was so proud of him. I mean, we all were. Kids from our neighborhood didn't go to Ivy League schools. We were worried he wouldn't fit in, but he made friends fast."

"Those friends are in trouble."

"Look at him, Ms. Tynes. You think he can help them?"

"I'd like to take a shot at it."

He shrugged. The hospital administrator made her sign some releases and suggested they keep their distance from him. A few minutes later they brought Wendy and Ronald into a glass-enclosed room. An orderly stood by the door. Kelvin sat at a desk and continued scribbling into his notebook. The table was wide, so that Wendy and Ronald were at a pretty good distance.

"Hey, Kelvin," Ronald said.

"Drones don't understand the essence."

Ronald looked at Wendy. He gestured for her to go ahead.

"You went to Princeton, didn't you, Kelvin?"

"I told you. Himmler likes tuna steaks."

He still had his eyes on his notebooks. "Kelvin?"

He didn't stop writing.

"Do you remember Dan Mercer?"

"White boy."

"Yes. And Phil Turnball?"

"Unleaded gas gives the benefactor headaches."

"Your friends from Princeton."

"Ivy Leagues, man. Some guy wore green shoes. I hate green shoes."

"Me too."

"The Ivy Leagues."

"That's right. Your friends from the Ivy League. Dan, Phil, Steve, and Farley. Do you remember them?"

Kelvin finally stopped scribbling. He looked up. His eyes were blank slates. He stared at Wendy but clearly didn't see her.

"Kelvin?"

"Himmler likes tuna steaks," he said, his voice an urgent whisper. "And the mayor? He could not care less."

Ronald slumped. Wendy tried to get him to look her in the eye.

"I want to talk to you about your college roommates."

Kelvin started laughing. "Roommates?"

"Yes."

"That's funny." He started cackling like, well, a madman. "Roommates. Like you mate with a room. Like you and a room have sex and you get it pregnant. Like you mate, get it?"

He laughed again. Well, Wendy figured, this was better than Himmler's fish preferences.

"Do you remember your old roommates?"

The laugh stopped as though someone had flicked an off switch.

"They're in trouble, Kelvin," she said. "Dan Mercer, Phil Turnball, Steve Miciano, Farley Parks. They're all in trouble."

"Trouble?"

"Yes." She said the four names again. Then again. Something started to happen to Kelvin's face. It crumbled before their eyes. "Oh God, oh no…"

Kelvin started crying.

Ronald was up. "Kelvin?"

Ronald reached for his brother, but Kelvin's scream stopped him. The scream was sudden and piercing. Wendy jumped back.

His eyes were wide now. "Scar face!"

"Kelvin?"

He stood quickly, knocking over his chair. The orderly started toward him. Kelvin screamed again and ran for the corner. The orderly called for backup.

"Scar face!" Kelvin screamed again. "Gonna get us all. Scar face!"

"Who's scar face?" Wendy shouted back at him.

Ronald said, "Leave him alone!"

"Scar face!" Kelvin squeezed his eyes shut. He put his hands on either side of his head, as though he were trying to stop his skull from splitting in two. "I told them! I warned them!"

"What's that mean, Kelvin?"

"Stop!" Ronald said.

Kelvin lost it then. His head rocked back and forth. Two orderlies came in. When Kelvin saw them, he screamed. "Stop the hunt! Stop the hunt!" He dropped to the ground and started scuttling across the floor on all fours. Ronald had tears in his eyes. He tried to calm his brother. Kelvin scrambled to his feet. The orderlies tackled Kelvin as if this were a football game. One hit him low, the other got him up top.

"Don't hurt him!" Ronald shouted. "Please!"

Kelvin was down on the ground. The orderlies were putting some kind of restraint on him. Ronald begged them not to hurt him. Wendy tried to get closer to Kelvin-tried to somehow reach him.

From the ground, Kelvin's eyes finally met hers. Wendy crawled closer to him as he struggled. One orderly shouted at her, "Get away from him!"

She ignored him. "What is it, Kelvin?"

"I told them," he whispered. "I warned them."

"What did you warn them, Kelvin?"

Kelvin started crying. Ronald grabbed at her shoulder, trying to pull her back. She shrugged him off.

"What did you warn them, Kelvin?"

A third orderly was in the room now. He had a hypodermic needle in his hand. He shot something into Kelvin's shoulder. Kelvin looked her straight in the eye now.

"Not to hunt," Kelvin said, his voice suddenly calm. "We shouldn't hunt no more."

"Hunt for what?"

But the drug was taking effect. "We should have never gone hunting," he said, his voice soft now. "Scar face could tell you. We should have never gone hunting."

CHAPTER 27

RONALD TILFER HAD no clue what "scar face" meant or what hunt his brother might have been talking about. "He's said that stuff before-about hunts and scar face. Like he does with Himmler. I don't think it means anything."

Wendy headed home, wondering what to do with this quasi-information, feeling more lost than when the day began. Charlie was watching television on the couch.

"Hi," she said.

"What's for dinner?"

"I'm fine, thanks. How about you?"

Charlie sighed. "Aren't we past fake niceties?"

"And general human courtesy, so it seems."

Charlie didn't move.

"You okay?" she asked him, her voice registering more concern than maybe she intended.

"Me? I'm fine, why?"

"Haley McWaid was a classmate."

"Yeah, but I didn't really know her."

"Lots of your classmates and friends were at the funeral."

"I know."

"I saw Clark and James there."

"I know."

"So why didn't you want to go?"

"Because I didn't know her."

"Clark and James did?"

"No," Charlie said. He sat up. "Look, I feel terrible. It's a tragedy. But people, even my good friends, get off on being involved, that's all. They didn't show up to pay their respects. They showed up because they thought it'd be cool. They wanted to be part of something. It's all about them, you know what I mean?"

Wendy nodded. "I do."

"Most of the time, that's fine," Charlie said. "But when it comes to a dead girl, sorry, I'm not into that." Charlie put his head back on the pillow and went back to watching television. She stared at him for a moment.

Without so much as glancing in her direction, he sighed again and said, "What?"

"You sounded like your father there."

He said nothing.

"I love you," Wendy said.

"Do I sound like my father when I ask yet again: What's for dinner?"

She laughed. "I'll check the fridge," she said, but she knew that there'd be nothing there and so she'd order. Japanese rolls tonight-brown rice so as to make them healthier. "Oh, one more thing. Do you know Kirby Sennett?"

"Not really. Just in passing."

"Is he a nice guy?"

"No, he's a total tool."

She smiled at that. "I hear he's a small-time drug dealer."

"He's a big-time douche bag." Charlie sat up. "What's with all the questions?"

"I'm just covering another angle on Haley McWaid. There's a rumor the two of them were an item."

"So?"

"Could you ask around?"

He just looked at her in horror. "You mean like I'm your undercover cub reporter?"

"Bad idea, huh?"

He didn't bother answering-and then Wendy was struck with another idea that on the face of it seemed like a pretty good one. She headed upstairs and signed on to the computer. She did a quick image search and found the perfect picture. The girl in the photograph looked about eighteen, Eurasian, librarian glasses, low-cut blouse, smoking body.

Yep, she'd do.

Wendy quickly created a Facebook page using the girl's picture. She made up a name by combining her two best friends from college-Sharon Hait. Okay, good. Now she needed to friend Kirby.

"What are you doing?"

It was Charlie.

"I'm making up a fake profile."

Charlie frowned. "For what?"

"I'm hoping to lure Kirby into friending me. Then maybe I can start up a conversation with him."

"For real?"

"What, you don't think it'll work?"

"Not with that picture."

"Why not?"

"Too hot. She looks like a spam advertising bot."

"A what?"

He sighed. "Companies use photographs like this to spam people. Look, just find a girl who is good-looking but real. You know what I mean?"

"I think so."

"And then make her from, say, Glen Rock. If she's from Kasselton, he'd know her."

"What, you know every girl in this town?"

"Every hot girl? Pretty much. Or I'd have heard of her, at least. So try a town close but not too close. Then say you heard about him from a friend or saw him at the Garden State Plaza mall or something. Oh, maybe give her a real name of a girl in that town, just in case he asks someone or looks up her number or something. Make sure no other picture of her shows up on a Google image search though. Say you just signed up for Facebook and are starting to friend people or he'll wonder why you have no other friends yet. Put in a couple of details under info. Give her a few favorite movies, favorite rock groups."

"Like U2?"

"Like someone less than a hundred years old." He listed some bands she'd never heard of. Wendy wrote them down.

"Think it will work?" she asked.

"Doubtful, but you never know. At the least he'll friend you."

"And what will that do for me?"

Another sigh. "We already discussed this. Like with that Princeton page. Once he friends you, you can see his entire page. You can see his online pics, his wall postings, his friends, his posts, what games he plays, whatever."

The Princeton page reminded her of something else. She clicked on it, found the "Admin" link, and hit the button to e-mail him. The administrator's name was Lawrence Cherston, "our former class president," according to his little write-up. He wore his Princeton orange-and-black tie in his profile pic. Oy. Wendy typed out a simple message:

Hi, I'm a television reporter doing a story on your class at Princeton and would very much like to meet. Please contact me at any of the below at your convenience.

As she hit send, her cell phone buzzed. She checked and saw an incoming text. It was from Phil Turnball: WE NEED TO TALK.

She typed a reply: SURE, CALL NOW.

There was a delay. Then: NOT ON THE PHONE.

Wendy wasn't sure what to make of that, so she typed: WHY NOT?

MEET IN 30 MIN AT ZEBRA BAR?

Wendy wondered why he'd avoided the question. WHY CAN'T WE TALK ON PHONE?

Longer delay. DON'T TRUST PHONES RIGHT NOW.

She frowned. That seemed a little cloak-and-dagger, but to be fair, Phil Turnball hadn't hit her as the type to overreact. No sense in trying to guess. She'd see him soon enough. She typed in "OK" and then looked back at Charlie.

"What?" he said.

"I have to run to a meeting. Can you order yourself dinner?"

"Uh, Mom?"

"What?"

"Tonight is Project Graduation orientation, remember?"

She nearly smacked herself on the forehead. "Damn, I totally forgot."

"At the high school in, oh"-Charlie looked at his wrist though he wore no watch-"less than thirty minutes. And you're on the snack committee or something."

She had, in fact, been put in charge of bringing both sugar/artificial sweetener and milk/nondairy alternatives for the coffee, though modesty prevented her from bragging about it.

Blowing it off was a possibility, but the school took this Project Graduation thing pretty seriously, and she had been, at best, neglectful of her son lately. She picked up the cell phone and texted Phil Turnball:

CAN WE MAKE IT @ 10P?

No immediate reply. She headed into her bedroom and changed into a pair of jeans and a green blouse. She took off her contact lenses and slipped on a pair of glasses, threw her hair back in a ponytail. The casual woman.

Her phone buzzed. Phil Turnball's reply: OK.

She headed downstairs. Pops was in the den. He had a red bandana on his head. Bandanas-or mandanas, as they were sometimes called when men wore them-were a look that worked on very few men. Pops got away with it, but just barely.

Pops shook his head when he saw her approach. "You're wearing old-lady glasses?"

She shrugged.

"You're never going to land a man that way."

Like she wanted to at high school orientation. "Not that it is any of your business, but it just so happens I got asked out today."

"After the funeral?"

"Yep."

Pops nodded. "I'm not surprised."

"Why?"

"I had the best sex of my life after a funeral. Total mindblower in the back of a limo."

"Wow, later will you fill me in on all the details?"

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"Very."

She kissed his cheek, asked him to make sure Charlie ate, and made her way to the car. She stopped at the supermarket to pick up the coffee accoutrements. By the time she arrived at the high school, the lot was full. She managed to find a spot on Beverly Road. The spot technically may have been within fifty feet of the stop sign, but she didn't feel like breaking out a measuring tape. Tonight Wendy Tynes would live dangerously.

The parents were already milling around the accoutrement-free coffee urn when Wendy entered. She rushed over, making her apologies as she put out the various coffee-companion products. Millie Hanover, the HSA president, the mother who always had the perfect after-school arts and crafts activity on well-scheduled playdates, quietly scowled her disapproval. In contrast, the fathers were extra-forgiving of Wendy's tardiness. A little too forgiving, in fact. This was part of the reason Wendy wore the blouse buttoned high, the jeans not too tight, the not-too-flattering glasses on, the hair up. She never engaged the married men in extended conversations. Nev. Ah. Let them call her stuck-up or a bitch, but that was, in her view, better than a flirt, harlot, or worse. The wives in this town treated her with enough suspicion, thank you very much. On nights like this, she was tempted to don a T-shirt that read, "Really, I Have No Interest in Stealing Your Husband."

The main topic of conversation was college; more specifically, whose child had gotten and not gotten into what schools. Some parents bragged, some joked, and, Wendy's personal favorite, some performed "spin" like postdebate politicians, suddenly singing the praises of the "safety" school as though it were better than their original first choice. Or maybe she was being uncharitable. Maybe they were just trying to make the best out of their disappointment.

The bell mercifully sounded, jarring Wendy back to her own school days, and everyone headed into the campus center. One booth invited parents to post speed-limit signs that read, PLEASE DRIVE SLOWLY-WE OUR CHILDREN, which, she guessed, was effective, though the implication seemed to be that you, the driver, don't really love yours. Another handed out window decals letting neighbors know that this house was indeed "Drug-Free," which was nice, if not superfluous, in a "Baby on Board" obvious way. There was a booth run by the International Institute for Alcohol Awareness and its campaign against parents hosting drinking parties called "Not in Our House." Still another booth passed out drinking-pledge contracts. The teen pledges never to drive drunk or get in a car with someone who's been drinking. The parent, in turn, agrees that the teen can call at any hour to be picked up.

Wendy found a seat toward the back. An overly friendly father with a sucked-in gut and game-show-host smile sat next to her. He gestured toward the booths. "Safety overkill," he said. "We're so overprotective, don't you think?"

Wendy said nothing. The man's frowning wife took the seat next to him. Wendy made sure to say hello to the frowning wife, introducing herself and saying that she was Charlie's mother, studiously avoiding eye contact with the antisafety Guy Smiley.

Principal Pete Zecher took the podium and thanked everyone for coming during this "very difficult week." There was a moment of silence for Haley McWaid. Some had wondered why tonight hadn't been postponed, but the school activity calendar was so overwhelmingly crowded there were simply no other free dates. Besides, how long do you wait? Another day? Another week?

So, after another awkward moment or two had passed, Pete Zecher introduced Millie Hanover, who excitedly announced that this year's Project Graduation theme would be "Superheroes." In short, Millie explained in long, they would decorate the middle school gymnasium to look like various comic-book places. The Bat-cave. Superman's Fortress of Solitude. The X-Men's X-Mansion or whatever it was called. The Justice League of America's headquarters. Past years had seen the school decorated in Harry Potter theme, in the mode of the TV show Survivor (maybe that was more than a few years ago, Wendy thought now), even the Little Mermaid.

The idea behind Project Graduation was to give graduates a safe place to party after both the prom and commencement activities. Buses brought the students in, and all chaperones stayed outside. No drinking or drugs, of course, though in past years, some teens had sneaked them in. Still, with the chaperones on hand and buses providing transportation, Project Graduation seemed a great alternative to old-fashioned partying.

"I would love to recognize my hardworking committee chairs," Millie Hanover said. "When I call your name, please stand." She introduced her decorating chair, her beverage chair, her food chair, her transportation chair, her publicity chair, each standing to a smattering of applause. "For the rest of you, please volunteer. We can't do this without you, and it's a wonderful way to help make your child's graduation experience a positive one. Let's remember that this is for your children and you shouldn't rely on others." Millie's voice could have been more patronizing, but it was hard to imagine how. "Thank you for listening. The sheets are out for sign-up."

Principal Zecher next introduced Kasselton police officer Dave Pecora, the town safety commissioner, who proceeded to give the lowdown on the dangers associated with postprom, postgraduation parties. He talked about how heroin was making a comeback. He talked about pharm parties, where kids steal prescription drugs from their homes, put them in a big bowl, and partake in experimentation. Wendy had wanted to do a story about those last year, but she couldn't find any real-world examples, just anecdotal evidence. One DEA official told her that pharm parties were more likely urban myth than reality. Officer Pecora continued to warn against the dangers of underage drinking: "Four thousand kids per year die of alcohol overdose," though he didn't say whether that was worldwide or just the USA or what age those kids might be. He also reiterated the fact that "no parent is doing his kid a favor" by hosting a drinking party. With a stern look, he cited specific cases in which hosting adults were convicted of manslaughter and served jail time. He actually started describing the prison experience in some detail-like the parental version of Scared Straight.

Wendy surreptitiously checked the clock, again like when she was actually in school. Nine thirty. Three thoughts kept running through her head. One, she wanted to get out of here and see what was up with the suddenly cryptic Phil Turnball. Two, she should probably sign up for some committee or another. Even though she was dubious about this whole Project Graduation-part of it seeming like yet another way we cater to our child's every whim, part of it seeming more about the parents than the kids-it would be unfair, per Millie's condescending comment, to make others do all the work for something in which Charlie would partake.

And third, maybe most, she couldn't help but think about Ariana Nasbro and how alcohol and driving killed John. She couldn't help but wonder if perhaps Ariana Nasbro's parents should have attended one of these over-the-top orientations, if maybe all of this apparent safety overkill would indeed save a life during the next few weeks, so that some other family wouldn't have to deal with what she and Charlie had.

Zecher was back at the podium, finishing up with a thank-you-for-coming-out-tonight before breaking up the meeting. Wendy glanced around, looking for some familiar faces, disappointed in herself that she knew so few of her son's classmates' parents. Naturally the McWaids weren't there. Neither were Jenna or Noel Wheeler. Defending her scandalized ex-husband had cost Jenna Wheeler's family greatly in the suburban standings-but the murder of Haley McWaid must have made life here fairly untenable.

Parents started heading to the designated committee sign-in spots. Wendy remembered that Brenda Traynor, the publicity committee chair, was both friendly with Jenna Wheeler and a total gossip-a winning suburban combination. Wendy headed that way.

"Hi, Brenda."

"It's nice to see you, Wendy. Are you here to volunteer?"

"Uh, sure. I was thinking that I could help with publicity."

"Oh, that would be great. I mean, who better than a renowned TV reporter?"

"Well, I wouldn't say renowned."

"Oh, I would."

Wendy forced up a smile. "So where do I sign in?"

Brenda showed her the sheet. "We have committee meetings every Tuesday and Thursday. Would you be up for hosting one?"

"Sure."

She signed her name, keeping her head low. "So," Wendy said, aiming for the subtle and not getting anywhere close, "do you think Jenna Wheeler would make a good member of the publicity team?"

"You're joking, of course."

"I think she has a background in journalism," Wendy said, totally making that up.

"Who cares? After what she did, letting that monster into our community-I mean, that family is gone."

"Gone?"

Brenda nodded, leaned forward. "There's a For Sale on their house."

"Oh."

"Amanda isn't even coming to graduation. I feel bad for her-it's not her fault, I guess-but really, it's the right decision. It would spoil it for everyone."

"So where are they going?"

"Well, I heard that Noel got a job at some hospital in Ohio. Columbus or Canton or maybe Cleveland. All those Cs in Ohio, it's confusing. Come to think of it, I think it's Cincinnati. Another C. A soft C they call it, right?"

"Right. Have the Wheelers moved out there already?"

"No, I don't think so. Okay, Talia told me-do you know Talia Norwich? Nice woman? Daughter's name is Allie? A little overweight? Anyway, Talia said that she heard that they were staying at a Marriott Courtyard until they could relocate."

Bingo.

Wendy thought about what Jenna had said, about Dan, about the part of him she could never reach-but mostly, how had she put it? Something had happened to him in college. Maybe it was time to have another chat with Jenna Wheeler.

She said her good-byes, mingled on her way to the exit, and headed toward her meeting with Phil Turnball.

CHAPTER 28

PHIL SAT in a relatively quiet spot in the back of a sports bar-relatively, of course, because sports bars are not designed for privacy, conversations, or contemplation. There were no guys at the bar with ruddy noses or slumped shoulders, no beaten men drowning sorrows on a stool. No one chose to stare at their emptying glass when there were a seemingly infinite number of wide-screen televisions broadcasting a potpourri of sports and quasi-sports craving their attention.

The bar was called Love the Zebra. It smelled more of barbecue wings and salsa than beer. The place was loud. Company softball teams were enjoying an after-game celebration. The Yankees were playing. Several young women wore Jeter jerseys, whooping it up with a little too much enthusiasm, their dates noticeably cringing at the spectacle.

Wendy slid into the booth. Phil wore a lime green golf shirt with both buttons undone. Tufts of gray chest hair peeked out. He sported a half smile and a thousand-yard stare. "We had a company softball team," he said. "Years ago. When I first started. We'd come to a bar like this after the game. Sherry would come too. She would wear one of those sexy softball shirts, you know the tight white ones with dark three-quarter sleeves?"

Wendy nodded. There was a slur in his speech.

"God, she looked so beautiful."

She waited for him to say more. Most people did. The secret in any interview was the ability to not fill the silence. A few seconds passed. Then a few more. Okay, so much for silence. Sometimes you need to goose your subject too.

"Sherry is still beautiful," Wendy said.

"Oh yes." The half smile remained frozen on Phil's face. His beer was empty. His eyes were glossy, his face red from drink. "But she doesn't look at me the same anymore. Don't get me wrong. She's supportive. She loves me. She says and does all the right things. But I can see it in her eyes. I'm less of a man to her now."

Wendy wondered what to say here, what wouldn't sound patronizing, but "I'm sure that's not true" or "I'm sorry" didn't make the cut. She again opted for silence.

"Do you want a drink?" he asked.

"Sure."

"I've been pounding down Bud Lights."

"Sounds good," she said. "But let me just have a plain Budweiser."

"How about some nachos?"

"Have you eaten?"

"No."

She nodded, thinking he could use something in his stomach. "Nachos sounds like a good idea."

Phil waved over a waitress. She was dressed in a low-cut referee shirt, ergo the bar name Love the Zebra. Her name tag informed them that her name was Ariel. There was a whistle around her neck and, to complete the look, black greasepaint under her eyes. Of course, Wendy had never seen a referee with the black greasepaint, only players, but the mixed metaphor in the outfit seemed to be a mild issue at best.

They placed the order.

"You know something?" Phil said, watching the waitress leave.

Again she waited.

"I worked in a bar like this. Well, not exactly like this. It was one of those chain restaurants with a bar in the middle. You know the ones. They always have green trim and wall decorations that are supposed to reflect a more innocent time."

Wendy nodded. She knew.

"It's where I met Sherry. I worked as a bartender. She was that bubbly waitress who introduced herself right away and asked if you wanted to start with whatever appetizer corporate was pushing."

"I thought you were a rich kid."

Phil gave a half chuckle, tilted back the already-empty Bud Light to drain out the last sip. She half expected him to hit the side of the bottle. "My parents believed we should work, I guess. Where were you tonight?"

"My kid's high school."

"Why?"

"A graduation orientation," she said.

"Did your kid get accepted to college yet?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

She shifted in her seat. "Why did you want to see me, Phil?"

"Was that too personal? I'm sorry."

"I'd just like to get to the point. It's late."

"I was just being contemplative, I guess. I see these kids today, and they're sold the same stupid dream we were. Study hard. Get good grades. Prepare for the SATs. Play a sport, if you can. Colleges love that. Make sure you have enough extracurricular activities. Do all these things so you can matriculate at the most prestigious school possible. It's like the first seventeen years of your life are just an audition for the Ivy Leagues."

It was true, Wendy knew. You live in any of the suburbs around here and during the high school years, the world becomes a ticker-tape parade of collegiate acceptance and rejection letters.

"And look at my old roomies," Phil went on, the slur more prominent now. "Princeton University. The creme de la creme. Kelvin was a black kid. Dan was an orphan. Steve was dirt-poor. Farley was one of eight kids-big Catholic blue-collar family. All of us made it-and all of us were insecure and unhappy. The happiest guy I knew in high school went down the road to Montclair State and dropped out his sophomore year. He still bartends. Still the most content son of a bitch I know."

The shapely young waitress dropped off the beers. "The nachos will be a few more minutes."

"No problem, dear," Phil said with a smile. It was a nice smile. A few years ago, it might have been returned, but nope, not today. Phil kept his eyes on her for maybe a second too long, though Wendy didn't think the girl noticed. Once the waitress was out of sight, Phil lifted his bottle toward Wendy. She picked up hers and clinked bottles and decided to stop this dance.

"Phil, what's the term 'scar face' mean to you?"

He tried very hard not to show anything. He frowned to buy time, even went so far as to say, "Huh?"

"Scar face."

"What about it?"

"What does it mean to you?"

"Nothing."

"You're lying."

"Scar face?" He scrunched up his face. "Wasn't that a movie? With Al Pacino, right?" He threw on a horrible accent and did a terrible impression: " ' Say hello to my little friend.' "

He tried to laugh it off.

"How about going on a hunt?"

"Where are you getting this from, Wendy?"

"Kelvin."

Silence.

"I saw him today."

What Phil said next surprised her. "Yeah, I know."

"How?"

He leaned forward. Behind them came a happy whoop. Someone shouted, "Go! Go!" Two Yankee runners sprinted for home off a hit to shallow center. The first made it easy. There was a throw to the plate for the second, but he slid safely under the tag. Another whoop from the partisan crowd.

"I don't understand," Phil said, "what you're trying to do."

"What do you mean?"

"That poor girl is dead. Dan is dead."

"So?"

"So it's done. It's over, right?"

She said nothing.

"What are you still after?"

"Phil, did you embezzle money?"

"What difference does that make?"

"Did you?"

"Is that what you're trying to do-prove I'm innocent?"

"In part."

"Don't help me, okay? For my sake. For your sake. For everyone's sake. Please drop this."

He looked away. His hands found the bottle, brought it up to his lips quickly; he took a deep, hard gulp. Wendy looked at him. For a moment she saw maybe what Sherry saw. He was something of a shell. Something inside of him-a light, a flicker, whatever you want to come up with-had dimmed. She remembered what Pops said, about men losing their jobs and how it affected them. There was a line in a play she saw once, about how a man who has no job can't hold his head up, can't look his kids in the eye.

His voice was an urgent hush. "Please. I need you to let this go."

"You don't want the truth?"

He started peeling the label off the beer bottle. His eyes studied his handiwork as though he were an artist working with marble. "You think they've hurt us," he said, his voice low. "They haven't. This stuff so far-it's just a slap down. If we let it go, it will all stop. If we keep pushing-if you keep pushing-it will get much, much worse."

The label came all the way off and slid toward the floor. Phil watched it fall.

"Phil?"

His eyes rose toward her.

"I don't understand what you are talking about."

"Please listen to me, okay? Listen closely. It will get worse."

"Who's going to make it worse?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Like hell it doesn't."

The young waitress appeared with nachos piled so high it looked like she was carrying a small child. She dropped it on the table and said, "Can I get you guys anything else?" They both declined. She spun and left them alone. Wendy leaned across the table.

"Who is doing this, Phil?"

"It's not like that."

"Not like what? They may have killed a girl."

He shook his head. "Dan did that."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive." He raised his eyes to hers. "You need to trust me on this. It is over if you let it be."

She said nothing.

"Wendy?"

"Tell me what's up," she said. "I won't tell a soul. I promise. It will be just between you and me."

"Leave it alone."

"At least tell me who is behind it."

He shook his head. "I don't know."

That made her sit up. "How can you not know?"

He threw two twenties on the table and started to rise.

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

"You can't drive."

"I'm fine."

"No, Phil, you're not."

"Now?" he shouted, startling her. "Now you're interested in my well-being?"

He started to sob. In a normal bar, this might have drawn a few curious glances, but what with the blaring televisions and the focus on the games, it barely made a blip.

"What the hell is going on?" she asked.

"Drop this. Do you hear me? I'm telling you this not just for our sake-but yours too."

"Mine?"

"You're putting yourself in harm's way. Your son too."

She gripped his arm hard. "Phil?"

He tried to stand, but the drinks had weakened him.

"You just sort of threatened my kid."

"You got it backward," he said. "You're putting mine in danger."

She let go of him. "How?"

He shook his head. "You just need to leave this alone, okay? All of us do. Stop trying to reach Farley and Steve-they won't talk to you anyway. Leave Kelvin alone. There is nothing to gain here. It's over. Dan is dead. And if you keep pressing, more people will die."

CHAPTER 29

SHE TRIED TO PRESS PHIL for more information, but he just shut down. She ended up giving him a ride home. When she arrived back at her house, Pops and Charlie were watching TV.

"Time for bed," she said.

Pops groaned. "Aww, can't I just stay up till the end?"

"Funny."

Pops shrugged. "Not my best work, but it's late."

"Charlie?"

He kept his eyes on the screen. "I thought it was pretty funny."

Great, she thought. A comedy team. "Bed."

"Do you know what movie this is?"

She looked. "It looks like the wildly inappropriate Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle."

"Exactly," Pops said. "And in our family, we don't stop in the middle of Harold and Kumar. It's disrespectful."

He had a point, and she did love this movie. So she sat with them and laughed and for a little while she tried to forget about dead girls and possible pedophiles and Princeton roommates and threats to her son. The last one, selfish as it sounded, would not leave. Phil Turnball did not hit her as an alarmist, yet he had been willing to-again to quote the teenage vernacular-"go there."

Maybe Phil had a point. Her story had been on Dan Mercer and maybe Haley McWaid. That part of the story was indeed over. She had her job back. She had come out of the whole thing rather well, in fact-the reporter who had exposed not only a pedophile but a murderer. Follow up on that angle maybe. Work with the police to see if there were other victims.

She looked at Charlie lounging on the couch. He laughed at something Neil Patrick Harris playing Neil Patrick Harris said. She loved the sound of his laugh. What parent doesn't? She stared at him for a few more moments and thought about Ted and Marcia McWaid and how they would never hear Haley laugh again and then her mind made her stop.

When the alarm went off in the morning-seemingly after eight minutes of sleep-Wendy dragged herself out of bed. She called for Charlie. No answer. She called again. Nothing.

She hopped out of bed. "Charlie!"

Still no answer.

Panic gripped her, made it hard to breathe. "Charlie!" She ran down the corridor, her heart beating wildly against her rib cage. She turned the corner, opening the door without knocking.

He was there, of course, still in bed, the covers pulled over his head.

"Charlie!"

He groaned. "Go away."

"Get up."

"Can't I sleep in?"

"I warned you last night. Now get up."

"First period is health class. Can't I skip it? Please?"

"Get. Up. Now."

"Health class," he said again. "They teach sex stuff to us impressionable youngsters. It makes us more promiscuous. Really, I think for my moral well-being you should let me stay in bed."

She tried not to smile. "Get. The. F. Up."

"Five more minutes? Please?"

She sighed. "Okay, five more minutes. No more."

An hour and a half later, as health class ended, she drove him to school. What the heck. Senior year and he'd already been accepted to college. It was okay to coast a little, she reasoned.

When she got back home, she checked her e-mail. There was a message from Lawrence Cherston, the administrator of the Princeton class Web site. He would be "delighted" to meet with her at her "earliest convenience." His address: Princeton, New Jersey. She called him back and asked him whether they could meet today at three PM. Lawrence Cherston again said that he'd be "delighted."

After hanging up, Wendy decided to check her fake Facebook profile, Sharon Hait. Of course, whatever had spooked Phil had nothing to do with the Kirby Sennett side of the case. Then again what did this have to do with anything?

Still, no harm in checking Facebook. She signed in and was pleased to see that Kirby Sennett had friended her. Okay, good. Now what? Kirby had also sent her an invitation to a Red Bull party. She clicked the link. There was a photograph of a smiling Kirby holding up a big can of Red Bull.

There was an address and a time and a brief note from ol' Kirby. "Hi, Sharon, would love you to come!"

So much for mourning. She wondered what a Red Bull party was. Probably just that-a party that served the "energy drink" Red Bull, though maybe spiked with something stronger-but she would ask Charlie.

So now what? Should she start up a relationship, see if she could get him to open up? No. Too creepy. It was one thing to pretend you're a young girl to trap a depraved pervert. It was another for the mother of a teenage boy to pretend to be a teenager to get one of his classmates to talk.

So what was the point here?

No idea.

Her phone rang. She checked the caller ID and saw it was coming from the NTC Network office.

"Hello?"

"Ms. Wendy Tynes?" The voice was pinched and female.

"Yes."

"I'm calling from human resources and legal. We'd like you to come in today at twelve sharp."

"What's this regarding?"

"We are located on the sixth floor. Mr. Frederick Montague's office. Twelve sharp. Please don't be tardy."

Wendy frowned. "Did you just say 'tardy'?"

Click.

What on earth could this be about? And who uses the term "tardy" outside of high school? She sat back. Probably not a big deal. Probably needed to fill out some paperwork now that she'd been rehired. Still, why does HR always have to be so damn officious?

She considered her next move. Last night she had learned that Jenna Wheeler had moved into a nearby Marriott. Time to put on her reporter hat and figure out where. She checked online. The three closest Marriott Courtyards were in Secaucus, Paramus, and Mahwah. She called the Secaucus one first.

"Could you patch me through to a guest named Wheeler, please?"

She figured that they wouldn't think to check in under a pseudonym.

The operator asked for a spelling. Wendy gave it.

"We have no guest by that name."

She hung up and tried Paramus next. Again she asked for a guest named Wheeler. Three seconds later, the operator said, "Please hold while I connect you."

Bingo.

The phone was picked up on the third ring. Jenna Wheeler said, "Hello?"

Wendy hung up and headed to her car. The Marriott Courtyard in Paramus was only ten minutes away. Better to do this in person. When Wendy was only two minutes away she called the room again.

Jenna's voice was more tentative this time. "Hello?"

"It's Wendy Tynes."

"What do you want?"

"To meet."

"I don't want to meet."

"I'm not looking to hurt you or your family, Jenna."

"Then leave us alone."

Wendy pulled the car into the Courtyard's parking lot. "No can do."

"I've got nothing to say to you."

She found a spot, pulled in, turned off the engine. "Too bad. Come down. I'm in the lobby. I'm not leaving until you do."

Wendy hung up. The Paramus Marriott Courtyard was scenically located on both Route 17 and the Garden State Parkway. Room views featured either a P. C. Richard electronics store or a window-less warehouse store called Syms, with a quasi-bragging sign that read: AN EDUCATED CONSUMER IS OUR BEST CUSTOMER.

A vacation spot this was not.

Wendy entered the hotel. She waited in a lobby of beige-a sea of beige walls really, countered by a dull forest green carpet, a room enmeshed in the blandest of bland colors, hues so plain they screamed that the hotel was competent and fine, but expect absolutely no frills. Issues of USA Today were scattered about the coffee table. Wendy glanced at the headline and checked out a reader survey.

Jenna appeared five minutes later. She wore an oversize sweat-shirt. Her hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail, making her already-high cheekbones look sharp enough to slice.

"Did you come here to gloat?" Jenna asked.

"Yes, Jenna, that's exactly why I came here. I was sitting at home this morning, thinking about a dead girl found in the woods, and I said to myself, 'You know what would be great right now? The icing on the cake? A little gloating.' So that's why I'm here. Oh, and after this I'm going to go to the pound to kick a puppy."

Jenna sat down. "I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."

Wendy thought about last night, about something as inane as Project Graduation, and how Jenna and Noel Wheeler should have been there, how much they probably wished now that they could have attended. "I'm sorry too. I imagine this has all been hard on you."

Jenna shrugged. "Every time I want to feel sorry for myself, I think about Ted and Marcia. You know what I mean?"

"I do."

Silence.

"I heard you're moving," Wendy said.

"Who did you hear that from?"

"It's a small town."

Jenna smiled without a trace of joy. "Aren't they all? Yes, we're moving. Noel is going to be chief of cardiac surgery at Cincinnati Memorial Hospital."

"That was quick."

"He's very much in demand. But the truth is, we started planning this months ago."

"When you first started defending Dan?"

Again she tried to smile. "Let's just say that didn't help our standing in the community," she said. "We hoped to stay until the end of the school year-so Amanda could graduate with her class. But I guess that's not meant to be."

"I'm sorry."

"Again, Ted and Marcia. This isn't that big of a deal."

Wendy guessed not.

"So why are you here, Wendy?"

"You defended Dan."

"Yep."

"I mean, from start to end. When the show first aired. You seemed so sure that he was innocent. And last time we talked you said that I destroyed an innocent man."

"So what do you want me to say-my bad? I was wrong, you were right?"

"Were you?"

"Was I what?"

"Were you wrong?"

Jenna just stared at her. "What are you talking about?"

"Do you think Dan killed Haley?"

The lobby fell silent. Jenna looked as though she was about to respond but she shook her head instead.

"I don't understand. You think he's innocent?"

Wendy wasn't sure how to reply to that one. "I think there are still some pieces missing."

"Like what?"

"That's what I'm here to find out."

Jenna looked at her as though expecting more. Now it was Wendy who looked away. Jenna deserved a better answer. So far, Wendy had handled this whole case as a reporter. But maybe she was more than that here. Maybe it was time to come clean, admit the truth, say it out loud.

"I'm going to confess something to you, okay?"

Jenna nodded, waited.

"I work with facts, not intuition. Intuition usually just screws me up. Do you know what I mean?"

"More than you can imagine."

There were tears in Jenna's eyes now. Wendy imagined that they were in hers too.

"Factually I knew that I had Dan nailed. He tried to seduce my imaginary thirteen-year-old girl online. He showed up at the house. There was all that stuff in his house and on his computer. Even his job-I can't tell you how many of these creeps work with teenagers, supposedly helping them. It all added up. And yet my intuition kept screaming that something was wrong."

"You sounded pretty certain when we spoke."

"Almost too certain, don't you think?"

Jenna considered that and a small smile came to her face. "Like me, when you think about it-both of us so sure. Of course, one of us had to be wrong. But now I think the truth is, you can never be certain about another person. Obvious, but I think I needed a reminder. Do you remember how I said that Dan was secretive?"

"Yes."

"Maybe you were right about why. He kept something from me. I knew that. We all do that, don't we? No one knows us entirely. In the end, it's kind of a cliche, but maybe you never really know a person."

"So you were wrong this whole time?"

Jenna chewed on her lip for a moment. "I look back now. I think about his secretiveness. I thought it had something to do with being an orphan, you know? The obvious trust issues. I thought that's what ultimately drove us apart. But now I wonder."

"Wonder what?"

A tear rolled down her cheek. "I wonder if it was more, if something bad happened to him. I wonder if there was a darkness there, inside of him."

Jenna stood and crossed the room. There was a coffee urn. She grabbed a Styrofoam cup and filled it. Wendy rose and followed her. She got some coffee too. When they returned to their seats, it was as though the moment had passed. Wendy was okay with that. She had dealt with the intuition part. It was time to return to the facts.

"When we met last time, you said something about Princeton. That something happened to him when he was there."

"Right, so?"

"So I'd like to look into that."

Jenna looked confused. "You think Princeton has something to do with all this?"

Wendy really didn't want to get into it. "I'm just following up."

"I don't understand. What could his college years have to do with anything?"

"It's just an aspect of the case I need to know about."

"Why?"

"Can you just trust me on this one, Jenna? You were the one who raised it last time we talked. You said something happened to him in college. I want to know what."

She didn't answer for a few moments. Then: "I don't know. That was part of the secretiveness-maybe the biggest part, now that I think about it. That's why I mentioned it to you."

"And you have no idea what it was?"

"Not really. I mean, it ended up not making much sense."

"Could you at least tell me about it?"

"I don't see the point."

"Humor me, okay?"

Jenna brought the coffee up to her mouth, blew on it, took a small sip. "Okay, when we first started going out, he'd disappear every other Saturday. I don't want to make it sound as cryptic as all that. But he'd just take off and not say where he was going."

"I assume you asked?"

"I did. He explained to me early in the relationship that this was something he did and that it was his private time. He said it was nothing to worry about, but he wanted me to understand he needed to do it."

She stopped talking.

"What did you make of that?"

"I was in love," Jenna said simply. "So at first, I rationalized it. Some guys play golf, I told myself. Some guys bowl or meet the boys in a bar or whatever. Dan was entitled to his time. He was so attentive in every other way. So I simply let it go."

The lobby door opened. A family of five staggered in and approached the front desk. The man gave their name and handed the receptionist his credit card.

"You said 'at first,' " Wendy said.

"Yes. Well, more than simply at first. I think we'd been married a year when I pushed him on it. Dan said not to worry, it was no big deal. But now it was, of course. The curiosity was eating me up. So one Saturday, I followed him."

Her voice drifted off and a small smile came to her face.

"What?"

"I've never told anyone this. Not even Dan."

Wendy sat back, gave her room. She took a sip of her coffee and tried to make herself look as nonthreatening as possible.

"Anyway there isn't that much more to the story. I followed him for about an hour, hour and a half. He got off at the exit for Princeton. He parked in town. He went into a coffee shop. I felt so silly following him. He sat by himself for maybe ten minutes. I kept waiting for the other woman to show up. I imagined she was some sexy college professor, you know, with glasses and dark black hair. But nobody showed up. Dan finished his coffee and got up. He started walking down the block. It was so weird, following him like that. I mean, I loved this man. You have no idea how much. And yet, like I said, there was something about him I couldn't reach and now I'm skulking around, trying to keep out of sight, and I'm feeling like now, finally, I'm close to learning the truth. And it's terrifying me."

Again Jenna lifted the cup to her lips.

"So where did he go?"

"Two blocks away, there was a lovely old Victorian home. It was in the heart of faculty housing. He knocked on the door and entered. He stayed an hour and left. He walked back to town, got in his car, and drove back."

The hotel receptionist told the family that check-in wasn't until four PM. The father pleaded for an earlier time. The receptionist remained firm.

"So whose house was it?"

"That's the funny thing. It belonged to the dean of students. A man named Stephen Slotnick. He was divorced at the time. He lived there with his two kids."

"So why would he visit him?"

"I have no idea. I never asked. That was it. I never raised it with him. He wasn't having an affair. It was his secret. If he wanted to tell me, he would."

"And he never did?"

"Never."

They drank coffee, both lost in their own thoughts.

"You have nothing to feel guilty about," Jenna said.

"I don't."

"Dan is dead. One thing we had in common, neither of us believed in an afterlife. Dead is dead. He wouldn't care about being rehabilitated now."

"I'm not trying to do that either."

"Then what are you trying to do?"

"Damned if I know. I guess I need answers."

"Sometimes the most obvious answer is the right one. Maybe Dan is everything people think he is."

"Maybe, but that doesn't answer one key question."

"That being?"

"Why was he visiting the dean of students at his alma mater?"

"I have no idea."

"Aren't you curious?"

Jenna thought about it. "You plan on finding out?"

"I do."

"It might have destroyed our marriage."

"Might have."

"Or it might have nothing to do with anything."

"More likely," Wendy agreed.

"I think Dan killed that girl."

Wendy did not reply to that. She waited for Jenna to say more, but she didn't. Admitting that had sucked the energy out of her. She sat back, seemingly unable to move.

After some time had passed, Wendy said, "You're probably right."

"But you still want to know about the dean?"

"I do."

Jenna nodded. "If you find out what it was, will you let me know?"

"Sure."

CHAPTER 30

WENDY GOT OFF THE ELEVATOR and headed to Vic's office. On her way, she passed Michele Feisler-the new young anchorwoman-working at her cubicle. The cubicle had photographs of Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, Peter Jennings. Again Wendy thought, Oy.

"Hi, Michele."

Michele was busy typing. She gave a half-wave, no more. Wendy peered over the woman's shoulder. She was Tweeting on Twitter. In this case, someone had commented: "Your hair looked great on last night's broadcast!" Michele was re-Tweeting it to her followers with a "Using a new conditioner-will tell more soon. Stay tuned!"

Edward R. Murrow would be so proud.

"How's that guy who got both knees shot?" Wendy asked.

"Yeah, it's your kind of story," Michele said.

"How's that?"

"Seems he's something of a perv." She turned away from her computer, but only for a moment. "Isn't that your specialty-pervs?"

Nice to have a specialty, Wendy thought. "What do you mean 'pervs'?"

"Well, you're our resident sex perv, aren't you?"

"Meaning?"

"Oops, can't talk now," Michele said, back typing away. "Busy."

Standing there, Wendy couldn't help but notice that Clark had been right: Michele did indeed have a gigantic head, especially in contrast to that wisp of a body. It looked like a helium balloon on the end of a string. It looked like her neck might collapse under the weight.

Wendy checked her watch. Three minutes until twelve sharp. She hurried down the corridor to Vic's office. His secretary, Mavis, was there.

"Hey, Mavis."

This woman too barely looked up at her. "What can I do for you, Ms. Tynes?"

First time she'd called her that. Maybe someone had sent down a directive to be more formal since her firing. "I'd like to speak to Vic for a second."

"Mr. Garrett is not available." Her tone, usually so friendly, was pure ice.

"Will you tell him I'm headed up to the sixth floor? I should be back soon."

"I will let him know."

She made her way to the elevator. Maybe it was her imagination but there seemed to be a weird tension in the air.

Wendy had been in this building-the network offices-a zillion times, but she had never been on the sixth floor before. Now she sat in an office of startling white, a cubist wonder, with a little waterfall running in the corner. One wall was dominated by a painting of black-and-white swirls. The other walls were empty. The swirls were facing her and very distracting. Across the glass table, in front of the swirls, sat three suits. Two men, one woman-all lined up against her. One man was black. The woman was Asian. Nice balance, though the one in charge, the one who sat in the middle and did all the talking, was the white man.

"Thank you for coming in to see us," the man said. He had introduced himself-had, in fact, introduced all three-but she hadn't been paying attention to names.

"Sure thing," she said.

Wendy noticed that her chair was at least two inches lower than the others'. Classic-albeit amateur-intimidation move. Wendy crossed her arms and actually slid lower. Let them think they have the advantage.

"So," Wendy said, trying to cut through this, "what can I do for you folks?"

The white man looked at the Asian woman. She took out a sheet of paper and slid it across the glass tabletop. "Is this your signature?"

Wendy looked at it. It was her original employment contract. "Looks like it."

"Is that your signature or not?"

"It is."

"And you've read this document, of course."

"I guess."

"I don't want you to guess-"

She stopped him with a wave of her hand. "I read it. So what's the problem?"

"I would like you to refer to section seventeen point four on page three."

"Okay." She started turning pages.

"It references our strict policy about romantic and/or sexual relationships in the workplace."

That made her pull up. "What about it?"

"You've read it?"

"Yes."

"And you understand it?"

"Yes."

"Well," the white man said, "it has come to our attention that you broke this rule, Ms. Tynes."

"Uh, no, I assure you that I did not."

The white man sat back, crossed his arms, and tried to look judgmental. "Do you know a man named Victor Garrett?"

"Vic? Sure, he's the news manager."

"Have you ever had sexual relations with him?"

"With Vic? Come on now."

"Is that a yes or no?"

"It's a big-time no. Why don't you bring him in here and ask him yourself?"

The three of them started conferring with one another. "We plan on doing that."

"I don't understand. Where did you hear that Vic and I…" She tried not to look disgusted.

"We've received reports."

"From?"

They didn't answer right away-and suddenly the answer was obvious. Hadn't Phil Turnball warned her?

"We aren't at liberty to say," the white man said.

"Too bad. You are leveling a serious accusation. Either you have some evidence to show me or you don't."

The black man looked at the Asian woman. The Asian woman looked at the white man. The white man looked at the black man.

Wendy spread her hands. "Do you guys rehearse this?"

They bent toward one another and whispered like senators during a hearing. Wendy waited. When they finished, the Asian woman opened another file and slid it across the glass surface.

"Perhaps you should read this."

Wendy opened the file. It was a printout from a blog. Wendy felt her blood boil as she read:

I work at NTC. I can't say my real name because I'll get fired. But Wendy Tynes is horrible. She is a no-talent prima donna who rose to the top the old-fashioned way: She slept her way there. Currently she is screwing our boss Vic Garrett. Because of that, she gets to do whatever she wants. She was, in fact, fired last week for incompetence, but got hired back because Vic is afraid of a harassment suit. Wendy has had tons of plastic surgery, including nose, eyes, and boobs…

On and on it went. Again Wendy remembered Phil's warning. She remembered what these viral psychos had done to Farley Parks, to Steve Miciano-and now to her. The implications were beginning to sink in: her career, her livelihood, her ability to take care of her son. Rumors always hardened to facts. Accusations are convictions in the public mind. You are guilty until proven innocent.

Hadn't Dan Mercer told her something like that?

Eventually the white man cleared his throat and said, "Well?"

With as much as bravado as she could muster, Wendy stuck out her chest. "They're real. You can squeeze one if you want."

"This isn't funny."

"And I'm not laughing. But I am offering you proof these are lies. Go ahead. Quick squeeze."

The white man made a harrumph noise and gestured toward the file. "Maybe you should look at the comments. They're on the second page."

Wendy tried to keep up the confident facade, but she felt as though her world was starting to teeter. She turned the paper over and scanned down to the first comment.

Comment: I worked with her at her last job and I totally agree. Same thing happened there. Our married boss got canned and divorced. She's trash.

Comment: She slept with at least two college professors, one when she was pregnant. Broke up his marriage.

Now Wendy felt her face burn. She had been married to John when she was at that job. He had, in fact, been killed during her last weeks working there. That lie, in particular, enraged her more than any others. It was so obscene, so unfair.

"Well?" the white man asked.

"These," she said, through gritted teeth, "are total lies."

"It's all over the Web. Some of these blogs have been sent to our sponsors. They were threatening to pull their ads."

"It's all lies."

"And furthermore we would like you to sign a release."

"What kind of release?"

"Mr. Garrett is your superior. While I don't think you have a case, you could sue for sexual harassment."

"Are you kidding?" Wendy said.

He pointed toward the file. "One of those blogs mentioned that you once sued a superior for sexual harassment. Who's to say you won't do it again?"

Wendy actually saw red. She tightened her hands into fists and fought hard to keep her tone even. "Mr… I'm sorry, I forgot your name…"

"Montague."

"Mr. Montague." Deep breath. "I want you to listen to me very closely. Try to pay attention here because I want to make sure you understand." Wendy lifted the file in the air. "These are all lies. Do you get that? Fabrications. The part about me suing an old employer? That's a lie. The accusation that I slept with a superior or a professor? More lies. The accusation that I slept with anyone other than my husband while I was pregnant? Or that I got plastic surgery, for that matter? They are all lies. Not exaggerations. Not distortions. Bald-faced lies. Do you understand?"

Montague cleared his throat. "We understand that's your position."

"Anyone can go online and say anything about anyone," Wendy continued. "Don't you get that? Someone is cyber-lying about me. Look at the date on the blog, for crying out loud. It was posted yesterday and already has all these comments. It's all fake. Someone is intentionally trying to ruin me."

"Be that as it may," Montague began, a phrase that meant absolutely nothing but irritated Wendy like few others, "we feel it would be best if you take a temporary leave of absence while we investigate this charge."

"I don't think so," Wendy said.

"Pardon me?"

"Because if you make me do that, I will make a stink that you'll never get off your shiny suits. I will sue the network. I will sue the studio. I will sue each one of you personally. I will send our beloved sponsors blogs that claim that you two"-she pointed to the white man and the black man-"enjoy having monkey sex on the office furniture while she"-now she pointed to the Asian woman-"likes to watch and spank herself. Is it true? Well, it will be in a blog. Several blogs, in fact. Then I'll go to other computers and add comments, stuff like Montague likes it rough or with toys or small farm animals. Get PETA on your ass. Then I'll send those blogs to your families. Do you get my drift?"

No one spoke.

She rose. "I'm going back to work."

"No, Ms. Tynes, I'm afraid you're not."

The door opened. Two uniformed security guards entered.

"We will have security escort you out. Please do not get in contact with anyone at this company until we have had a chance to look into the matter. Any attempt to communicate with anyone involved in this case will be viewed as possible tampering. Also, your threats directed at myself and my colleagues will be noted in the record. Thank you for your time."

CHAPTER 31

WENDY CALLED VIC, but Mavis wouldn't put her through. Fine. It would be like that. Princeton was about a ninety-minute ride. She spent the drive time both fuming and thinking about what this all meant. It was easy to scoff at ridiculous and unsubstantiated gossip, but she knew that, whatever happened now, these rumors would throw a dark and probably permanent shadow over her career. There had been whispered innuendos before-pretty much a given when even a semi-attractive female rose to prominence in this industry-but now, because some moron had posted them on a blog, they suddenly took on more credence. Welcome to the computer age.

Okay, enough.

As she neared her destination, Wendy started thinking about the case again, about the continuing links to Princeton, about the fact that four men-Phil Turnball, Dan Mercer, Steve Miciano, Farley Parks-had all been set up within the past year.

One question was, how?

The bigger question was, who?

Wendy figured that she might as well start with Phil Turnball because she had something of an in there. She jammed the hands-free phone cord into her ear and dialed Win's private line.

Once again Win answered in a voice too haughty for this one word: "Articulate."

"Can I ask another favor?"

"May I ask another favor? Yes, Wendy, you may."

"I can't tell you how much I needed that grammar lesson right about now."

"You're welcome."

"Do you remember I asked you about Phil Turnball, the guy who got fired for embezzling two million dollars?"

"I recall, yes."

"Let's say Phil was set up and didn't really take the money."

"Okay, let's."

"How would someone go about setting him up?"

"I have no idea. Why do you ask?"

"I'm pretty sure he didn't steal the money."

"I see. And, pray tell, what makes you 'pretty sure'?"

"He told me he's innocent."

"Oh, well, that settles it."

"There's more to it than that."

"I'm listening."

"Well, why, if Phil stole two million dollars, isn't he in jail or even asked to pay the money back? I don't want to go into details right now, but there are other guys-his college roommates, actually-who've been involved in bizarre scandals recently too. In one case, I may have been a patsy."

Win said nothing.

"Win?"

"Yes, I heard you. I love the word 'patsy,' don't you? It denotes or at least suggests giving feminine characteristics to the act of being duped."

"Yeah, it's great."

Even his sigh was haughty. "What would you like me to do to help?"

"Could you look into it a little? I need to know who set Phil Turnball up."

"Will do."

Click.

The abruptness didn't surprise her quite as much this time, though she wished there'd been time for a follow-up, a crack about quick endings being his specialty, but alas, there was no one on the other line. She held the phone in her hand for another second, half expecting him to call right back. But that didn't happen this time.

Lawrence Cherston's home was washed stone and white shutters. There was a circular rose garden surrounding a flagpole. A black pennant with a large orange P hung from it. Oh, boy. Cherston greeted her at the door with a two-hand shake. He had one of those fleshy, ruddy faces that make you think of fat cats and smoke-filled back rooms. He wore a blue blazer with a Princeton logo on the lapel and the same Princeton tie he'd had in his profile pictures. His khakis were freshly pressed, his tasseled loafers shined, and of course he wore no socks. He looked as though he'd started for school chapel this morning and aged twenty years on the walk. Stepping inside, Wendy pictured a closet with a dozen more matching blazers and khaki pants and absolutely nothing else.

"Welcome to my humble abode," he said. He offered her a drink. She passed. He had laid out finger sandwiches. Wendy took one just to be polite. The finger sandwich was awful enough to make her wonder whether the moniker was also an ingredient list. Cherston was already jabbering on about his classmates.

"We have two Pulitzer Prize winners," he said. Then leaning forward, he added, "And one's a woman."

"A woman." Wendy froze a smile and blinked. "Wow."

"We also have a world-famous photographer, several CEOs of course, oh, and one Academy Award nominee. Well, okay, it was for best sound and he didn't win. But still. Several of our classmates work for the current administration. One was drafted by the Cleveland Browns."

Wendy nodded like an idiot, wondering how long she could keep the smile on her face. Cherston broke out scrapbooks and photo books and the graduation program and even the freshman face book. He was talking about himself now, his total commitment to his alma mater, as though this might surprise her.

She needed to move this along.

Wendy picked up a photograph album and starting paging through it, hoping to spot any of her Princeton Five. No such luck. Cherston droned on. Okay, time to make something happen. She took hold of the freshman face book and flipped through it, heading straight for the Ms.

"Oh, look," she said, interrupting him. She pointed to the picture of Steven Miciano. "That's Dr. Miciano, right?"

"Why, yes, it is."

"He treated my mother."

Cherston may have squirmed a bit. "That's nice."

"Maybe I should talk to him too."

"Maybe," Cherston said. "But I don't have a current address on him."

Wendy went back to the face book, summoning up another fake gasp of surprise. "Well, well, look at this. Dr. Miciano roomed with Farley Parks. Isn't he the one who was running for Congress?"

Lawrence Cherston smiled at her.

"Mr. Cherston?"

"Call me Lawrence."

"Okay. Isn't Farley Parks the one who was running for Congress?"

"May I call you Wendy?"

"You may." Shades of Win.

"Thank you. Wendy, perhaps we could both stop playing this game?"

"What game?"

He shook his head, as though disappointed in a favorite student. "Search engines work both ways. Did you really think I wouldn't, at least out of curiosity, Google the name of a reporter who wanted to interview me?"

She said nothing.

"So I know you already signed up for the Princeton class page. And more to the point, I know you covered the stories on Dan Mercer. Some might even say you created them."

He looked at her.

"These finger sandwiches are awesome," she said.

"My wife made them and they're dreadful. Anyway, I assume the purpose of this ruse was to gather some background information."

"If you knew that, why did you agree to see me?"

"Why not?" he countered. "You're doing a story involving a Princeton graduate. I wanted to be sure that your information is correct, so as not to create innuendo where none belongs."

"Well, thank you for seeing me then."

"You're welcome. So what can I do for you?"

"Did you know Dan Mercer?"

He picked up a finger sandwich and took the smallest bite. "I did, yes, but not well."

"What was your impression?"

"Do you mean, did he seem like a pedophile and murderer?"

"That might be a good place to start."

"No, Wendy. He didn't seem like the kind. But I confess that I'm rather naive. I see the best in everyone."

"What can you tell me about him?"

"Dan was a serious student-bright, hardworking. He was a poor kid. I'm the son of alumni-fourth generation at Princeton, in fact. It put us in different circles. I love this school. I'm hardly subtle about that. But Dan seemed awed by it."

Wendy nodded as though this offered her some great insight. It didn't. "Who were his close friends?"

"You mentioned two already, so I assume you already know that answer."

"His roommates?"

"Yes."

"Do you know them all?"

"In passing perhaps. Phil Turnball and I were in glee club together freshman year. It is interesting. As you probably know, freshman roommates are assigned by the school. That could lead to disaster, of course. My freshman roommate was an idiot savant who smoked dope all day. I moved out within the month. But these five all got along for years."

"Is there anything you can tell me about their time here?"

"Like what?"

"Were they weird? Were they outcasts? Did they have any enemies? Were they involved in any strange activities?"

Lawrence Cherston put down the sandwich. "Why would you ask something like that?"

Wendy aimed for vague. "It's part of the story."

"I can't see how. I understand why you'd inquire about Dan Mercer. But if your goal here is to somehow link his college roommates with whatever demons plagued him-"

"That's not my goal."

"Then what is?"

She didn't really want to say much more. To stall for time she picked up the graduation program, started paging through it. She felt his eyes upon her. She flipped more pages and found a photograph of Dan with Kelvin and Farley. Dan stood between them. All three had big smiles on their faces. Graduation. They had made it.

Lawrence Cherston was still looking at her. What's the harm, she thought.

"All of them-his roommates-have had trouble recently."

He said nothing.

"Farley Parks had to drop out of his congressional race," she said.

"I am aware of that."

"Steve Miciano was arrested on drug charges. Phil Turnball lost his job. And you know about Dan."

"I do."

"You don't find that odd?"

"Not particularly." He loosened his tie as though it had suddenly become a noose. "So is that the angle you're taking on this story? Roommates from Princeton all having troubles?"

She didn't really want to answer that one, so she shifted gears. "Dan Mercer used to come down here a lot. To Princeton, I mean."

"I know. I used to see him in town."

"Do you know why?"

"No."

"He would visit the dean's house."

"I had no idea."

It was then, glancing at the program, at the list of students, that Wendy noticed something odd. She had gotten used to searching for the five names-or maybe that picture had set her off. The list was in alphabetical order. And under the Ts, the last name on the list was Francis Tottendam.

"Where's Phil Turnball?" she asked.

"Pardon?"

"Phil Turnball's name isn't on this list."

"Phil didn't graduate with our class."

Wendy felt a strange tick in her veins. "He took a semester off?"

"Uh, no. He was forced to leave school early."

"Wait. Are you saying that Phil Turnball didn't graduate?"

"To the best of my knowledge, well, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying."

Wendy felt her mouth go dry. "Why not?"

"I don't know for sure. There were rumors, of course. The whole deal was kept hush-hush."

She stayed very still, very calm. "Could you tell me about it?"

"I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"It could be very important."

"How? It was years ago-and really, I think the school probably overreacted."

"I won't report it. This is off the record."

"I don't know."

This was no time for subtlety. She had offered the carrot. Time to bring out the stick. "Look, I already said it's off the record, but if you don't come clean, I will go back on it. And I will dig. I will dig up every skeleton I can find to learn the truth. And then it will all be on the record."

"I hate being threatened."

"And I hate being stalled."

He sighed. "Like I said, it wasn't a big deal. And I don't really know for sure."

"But?"

"But, okay, it sounds worse than it is, but the rumor is Phil got caught off-hours in a building where he didn't belong. In short, a campus breaking-and-entering."

"He was stealing?"

"Heavens no," he said, as if that was the most ridiculous thing he ever heard. "It was for fun."

"You guys break into buildings for fun?"

"I have a friend who went to Hampshire College. Do you know it? Anyway, he got fifty points for stealing a campus bus. Some professors wanted to expel him, but like with Phil, it was all part of a game. He just got a two-week suspension. I confess that I participated too. My team spray-painted a professor's car. Thirty points. A friend of mine stole a pen off the desk of a visiting poet laureate. The game ran campus-wide. I mean, all the dorms competed."

"Competed in what?" she asked.

Lawrence Cherston smiled. "The hunt, of course," he said. "The scavenger hunt."

CHAPTER 32

"WE SHOULDN'T HUNT no more…"

That was what Kelvin Tilfer had told her.

Now, maybe, that made some sense. She asked Lawrence Cherston some more about it, about scar face and all the rest, but there was nothing more to learn here. Phil Turnball had been caught where he wasn't supposed to be during a scavenger hunt. He had been expelled for it. The end.

When Wendy got back to her car, she took out her phone to call Phil.

There were sixteen messages.

Her first thought made her heart slam into her throat: Something happened to Charlie.

She quickly pressed down on the V to get her voice mail. As soon as she heard the first message, the grip of fear slackened. A different sort of sick feeling washed over her. It wasn't Charlie. But it wasn't good either.

"Hi, Wendy, this is Bill Giuliano from ABC News. We would like to talk to you about accusations of inappropriate behavior on your part…" BEEP.

"We're writing a story about your affair with your boss and we'd love to hear your side of the story…" BEEP.

"One of the alleged pedophiles you exposed on your show is using the recent reports on your sexually aggressive behavior to ask for a new trial. He now claims you were a scorned lover and set him up…" BEEP.

She hit the cancel button and stared at her phone. Damn. She wanted to rise above it, dismiss the whole thing.

But oh man. She was so screwed.

Maybe she should have listened to Phil and stayed out of it. Now there was no way-no matter what she did-that she'd escape these allegations unscathed. No friggin' way. She could catch the asswipe who posted all this crap, have him (or her) admit during live coverage of the Super Bowl that it was all a pack of lies, and it still wouldn't scrub her clean. Unfair or not, the stink would linger, probably forever.

So no use crying over spilled milk, right?

Another thought hit her: Couldn't the same be said about the men she nailed on her show?

Even if these guys were ultimately proven innocent, would the stink of being a televised predator ever wash off them? Maybe this was all some kind of cosmic payback. Maybe this was karma being a total bitch.

No time to worry about it now. Or maybe it was all one and the same. Somehow it all seemed connected-what she'd done, what happened to the men she exposed, what happened to these guys at Princeton. Solve one and the rest would fall into place.

Like it or not, her life was enmeshed in this mess. She couldn't walk away.

Phil Turnball had been expelled for participating in a scavenger hunt.

That meant, at best, he lied to her when she told him about Kelvin ranting about the hunt. At worst… well, she wasn't sure yet what the worst was. She dialed Phil's mobile. No answer. She dialed the house. No answer. She called Phil's cell again, this time leaving a message:

"I know about the scavenger hunt. Call me."

Five minutes later, she pounded on the dean's door. No answer. She pounded some more. Still no answer. Oh no. No way. She circled the house, peering in windows. The lights were out. She pressed her face to the window, trying to get a better look. If campus police came by, she'd try not to quake in fear.

Movement.

"Hey!"

No reply. She looked again. Nothing. She knocked on the window. No one came to it. She went back to the front door, started pounding again. From behind her a man said, "May I help you?"

She turned toward the voice. When she saw who had spoken, the first word that came to mind was "fop." The man's wavy hair was a tad too long. He wore a tweed jacket with patched sleeves and a bow tie-a look that could only thrive or even exist in the rarified air of upscale educational institutions.

"I'm looking for the dean," Wendy said.

"I'm Dean Lewis," he said. "What can I do for you?"

No time for games or subtlety, she thought. "Do you know Dan Mercer?"

He hesitated as though thinking about it. "The name rings a bell," the dean said. "But…" He spread his hands and shrugged. "Should I?"

"I would think so," Wendy said. "For the past twenty years, he's visited your house every other Saturday."

"Ah." He smiled. "I've only lived here for four years. My predecessor Dean Pashaian was here before then. But I think I know who you mean."

"Why did he visit you?"

"He didn't. I mean, yes, he came to this house. But it wasn't to see me. Or Dean Pashaian for that matter."

"Why then?"

He stepped past her and unlocked the door with the key. He pushed the door open. It actually creaked. He leaned his head in. "Christa?"

The house was dark. He waved for her to follow him inside. She did so. She stood in the foyer.

A woman's voice called out, "Dean?"

Footsteps started toward them. Wendy turned toward the dean. He gave her a look that offered up something akin to a warning.

What the…?

"I'm in the foyer," he said.

More footsteps. Then the female voice-Christa's?-again: "Your four o'clock canceled. You also need-"

Christa entered from their left via the dining room. She stopped. "Oh, I didn't know you had company."

"She's not here to see me," Dean Lewis said.

"Oh?"

"I think she's here to see you."

The woman turned her head to the side, almost like a dog does when trying to contemplate a new sound. "Are you Wendy Tynes?" she asked.

"Yes."

Christa nodded as though she'd been expecting Wendy for a very long time. She took another step forward. Now there was some light on her face. Not much. But enough. When Wendy saw her face, she nearly gasped out loud-not because of the sight, though that would have been enough under normal circumstances. No, Wendy nearly gasped because another piece of the puzzle had just fallen into place.

Christa wore sunglasses, even though she was inside. But that wasn't the first thing you noticed.

The first thing you noticed about Christa-the one thing you couldn't help but notice, really-were the thick, red scars that crisscrossed her face.

SCAR FACE.

She introduced herself as Christa Stockwell.

She looked about forty, but it was hard to get an age on her. She was slender, maybe five-eight, with delicate hands and a strong bearing. They sat at the kitchen table.

"Do you mind if I keep the lights low?" Christa asked.

"Not at all."

"It's not why you think. I know people will stare. It's natural actually. I don't mind it. It's better than those people who try too hard to pretend they don't see the scars. My face becomes the elephant in the room, you know what I mean?"

"I guess so."

"Since the incident, my eyes are sensitive to light. It's more comfortable for me in the dark. How apropos, right? The philosophy and psych majors at this school would have a field day with that one." She stood. "I'm going to have some tea. Would you like some?"

"Sure. Can I help?"

"No, I'm fine. Peppermint or English Breakfast?"

"Peppermint."

Christa smiled. "Good choice."

She flicked on the electric kettle, got out two mugs, put the tea bags in them. Wendy noticed that she kept tilting her head to the right as she went about the task. When she sat back down, Christa just stood still for a moment as if giving Wendy the chance to examine the damage. Her face was, quite simply, horrific. The scars blanketed her from forehead to neck. Ugly, angry lines, purple and red, tore across her skin, raised up as though on a relief map. In the few spots with no lines there were instead splotches of deep red, badly abraded, as if someone had taken steel wool to the skin.

"I'm contractually obligated to never discuss what happened," Christa Stockwell said.

"Dan Mercer is dead."

"I know. But that doesn't change the contract."

"Whatever you say to me will be held in the strictest confidence."

"You're a reporter, aren't you?"

"Yes. But you have my word."

She shook her head. "I can't see why it matters now."

"Dan is dead. Phil Turnball has been fired from his job, accused of stealing. Kelvin Tilfer is in an asylum. Farley Parks has had recent troubles too."

"Am I supposed to feel sorry for them?"

"What did they do to you?"

"Isn't the evidence clear enough? Or should I turn up the lights a little?"

Wendy leaned across the table. She put her hand on the other woman's. "Please tell me what happened."

"I can't see what good it will do."

The kitchen clock above the sink ticked. Wendy could look out the window and see the undergrads walking to class, all animated, young, with the cliched rest of their lives waiting around the corner. Next year, Charlie would be one of them. You could tell these kids that it will go faster than they think, that they will blink and college will be gone and then ten years and another ten, but they won't listen, can't listen, and maybe that's a good thing.

"I think whatever happened here-whatever those guys did to you-started this all."

"How?"

"I don't know. But somehow I think it could all be traced back to it. Somehow, whatever it was took on a life of its own. It is still claiming victims. And I'm caught up in it now. I'm the one who nailed Dan Mercer-rightly or wrongly. So now I'm part of it."

Christa Stockwell blew on the tea. Her face looked as though someone had turned it inside out, like the veins and cartilage had all been dragged to the surface. "It was their senior year," she said. "I'd graduated the year before and was getting my master's in comparative literature. I'd been a financial hardship case. Like Dan actually. We both had jobs while going to school. He worked doing laundry in the men's phys ed department. I worked here, in this house, for Dean Slotnick. I babysat his children, did some household chores, filing, that kind of thing. He was divorced, and I got along great with his kids. So while I got my master's, I was actually living here, in a room in the back. As a matter of fact, I still live there."

Outside the window two students walked by and one laughed. The sound crossed the room, melodic and rich and so out of place.

"Anyway, it was March. Dean Slotnick was out of town for a speaking engagement. The children were staying with their mother in New York City. I'd gone out to dinner that night with my fiance. Marc was in med school, second year. He had a big test in chemistry the next day, otherwise, well, there are so many what-ifs, aren't there? If he hadn't had that test, we would have gone back to his place or maybe, with the house empty, he would have stayed here. But no. Marc had taken enough time off for dinner. So anyway he dropped me off and went to the med library. I had some school-work to do myself. So I brought my notebook right here-I mean, I placed it right on this kitchen table."

She stared at the tabletop as though the notebook might still be there.

"I made myself tea. Just like today. I sat here and was about to start my essay when I heard a noise coming from upstairs. Like I said, I knew no one was home. I should have been scared, right? I remember one time I heard this English professor asking the class what the world's scariest noise is. Is it a man crying out in pain? A woman's scream of terror? A gunshot? A baby crying? And the professor shakes his head and says, 'No, the scariest noise is, you're all alone in your dark house, you know you're all alone, you know that there is no chance anyone else is home or within miles-and then, suddenly, from upstairs, you hear the toilet flush.' "

Christa smiled at Wendy. Wendy tried to smile back.

"Anyway, I wasn't scared. Maybe I should have been. Another what-if. What if I had just called the campus police? Well, it would have changed everything, wouldn't it have? I would be living an entirely different life. On that night, I was engaged to the most wonderful, handsome man. Now he's married to someone else. They have three kids. They're very happy. That'd be me, I guess."

She took a sip of tea, holding the cup in both hands, letting that what-if roll over. "So anyway, I heard the noise and headed toward it. I could hear whispers now, giggles even. Well, now I knew, didn't I? Students. If there had been any fear, it was gone now. It was just some mischief makers, playing a prank on the dean. Something like that. So I went up the stairs. It was silent now. Earlier the voices had sounded like they were coming from the dean's bedroom. So I headed that way. I entered the bedroom and looked around. I couldn't see anyone. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark. Then I thought, What are you doing? Just turn on the lights. So I reached for the light switch."

Something caught in her voice. Christa Stockwell stopped talking. The scars on her face, the red ones, they seemed to darken. Wendy reached out again, but something in the way Christa stiffened made her pull up short.

"I don't even know what happened next. At least, I didn't then. I do now. But then, right then, well, simply put, I heard a loud crash and then my face exploded. That's what it felt like. Like a bomb had gone off on my face. I put my hands to my cheeks, and I could feel the jagged edge of glass there. I actually cut my hands. Blood was streaming down, going in my nose and mouth, choking me. I couldn't breathe. For a second, maybe two, there was no pain. And then it came in like a rush, like my face had been stripped raw. I screamed again and fell to the ground."

Wendy felt her own pulse quicken. She wanted to ask questions, have her back up and offer up details, but she kept still, letting Christa tell the story in her own way.

"So I'm on the ground, screaming, and I hear someone run past. I reached out blindly and tripped him. He fell hard and cursed. I grabbed his leg. I'm not sure why. I was working by instinct more than anything else. And that was when he kicked out to get free." Her voice dropped to a near whisper. "See, I didn't realize it at the time but there were shards of glass-a shattered mirror-all in my face. So when he kicked to get free, his heel shoved the shards farther into my skin, slicing right down to the bone." She swallowed. "But the biggest shard was near my right eye. I might have lost the eye anyway, but that kick plunged the shard like a knife…"

Mercifully she stopped right there.

"That's the last thing I remember. I passed out then. I didn't wake up for three days and when I did, well, I spent the next few weeks in and out of consciousness. There were constant surgeries. The pain was intolerable. I was pretty drugged up. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me go back a little. Campus police heard me scream that night. They caught Phil Turnball in the dean's front yard. My blood was all over his shoes. We all knew that other students were there too. See, there was a scavenger hunt. The dean's boxer shorts were a big prize. Sixty points. That's what Phil Turnball had been after-a pair of boxers. Like I said, a prank. Nothing more."

"You said you heard others. Whispers and giggles."

"Right, but Phil claimed that he'd been alone. His friends, of course, backed up that story. I was in no condition to counter what he said, and really, what did I know?"

"Phil took full blame?" Wendy asked.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"I still don't understand. What did he do to you exactly? I mean, what caused all the cuts?"

"When I came in the room, Phil hid behind the bed. When he saw me reaching for the light switch, well, I guess the idea was to try to draw my attention away. A big glass ashtray got thrown near me. It was supposed to make noise so I'd turn and then Phil could run, I guess. But there was an antique mirror there. It shattered right into my face. Freak injury, right?"

Wendy said nothing.

"I spent three months in the hospital. I lost an eye. My other one was also severely damaged-the retina got severed. For a while I was totally blind. My sight came back gradually in the one eye. I'm still legally blind, but I can make out enough. Everything is blurry and I have tremendous trouble with any sort of bright light-especially sunlight. Again, apropos, don't you think? According to the doctors, my face had literally been sliced off, piece by piece. I've seen early pictures. If you think this is bad… it looked like raw ground chuck. That's the only way I can describe it. Like a lion had eaten my face away."

"I'm sorry," Wendy said, because she didn't know what else to say.

"My fiance, Marc, he was great. He stuck by me. I mean, he was heroic when you think about it. I had been beautiful. I can say that now. It doesn't sound immodest anymore. But I was. And he was so damn handsome. So Marc stuck by me. But he also kept diverting his gaze. It wasn't his fault. He hadn't signed up for this."

Christa stopped.

"So what happened?"

"I made him go. You think you know love, right? But that's the day I learned what love really was. Even though it cut me deeper than any shard ever could, I loved Marc enough to make him go."

She stopped again, took a sip of tea.

"You can probably guess the rest. Phil's family paid me to keep silent. A generous sum, I guess you'd say. It's in trust, paid out to me every week. If I speak about what happened, the payments stop."

"I won't say anything."

"Do you think that worries me?"

"I don't know."

"It doesn't. I have pretty modest needs. I still live here. I kept working for Dean Slotnick, though not with his children. My face scared them. So I became his assistant. When he died, Dean Pashaian was kind enough to keep me on. Now it's Dean Lewis. I mostly donate the money to various charities."

Silence.

"So how does Dan fit into this?" Wendy asked.

"How do you think?"

"I assume he was in the house that night?"

"Yes. They all were. All five. I found out later."

"How?"

"Dan told me."

"And Phil took the fall for all of them?"

"Yes."

"Any idea why?"

"He was a stand-up guy, I guess. But there might have been more. He was wealthy. The others weren't. Maybe he figured, what good would it do him to tell on his friends?"

That made sense, Wendy thought.

"So Dan visited you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"To offer comfort. We talked. He felt horrible about that night. About running out. That was how it started. I was furious when he first came by. But we became friends. We talked for hours at this very table."

"You said you were furious?"

"You have to understand. I lost everything that night."

"Right, so you were justifiably angry."

Christa smiled. "Oh, I see."

"What?"

"Let me guess. I was angry. I was furious. I hated them all. So I plotted my revenge. I, what, bided my time for twenty years and then I struck. Is that what you're thinking?"

Wendy shrugged. "It is as though someone is paying them all back."

"And I'm the most likely suspect? The scarred chick with the ax to grind?"

"Don't you think so?"

"Sounds like a bad horror movie, but I guess…" She tilted her head again. "Are you buying me as the bad guy, Wendy?"

Wendy shook her head. "Not really, no."

"And there is one other thing."

"What?"

Christa spread her hands. She still had the sunglasses on, but a tear escaped from the one eye she had left. "I forgave them."

Silence.

"They were just college kids on a scavenger hunt. They never meant to hurt me."

And there it was. There is such wisdom in the simple-a truth you can hear in the tone, unmistakable for anything else.

"You live in this world, you collide with others. That's the way it is. We collide and sometimes someone gets hurt. They just wanted to steal a silly pair of boxers. It went wrong. For a short time, I hated them. But when you think about it, what good does that do? It takes so much to hold on to hate-you lose your grip on what's important, you know?"

Wendy felt tears push into her eyes now. She picked up the tea and sipped it. The peppermint felt good sliding down her throat. Let the hate go. She couldn't reply to that.

"Maybe they hurt someone else that night," Wendy said.

"I doubt it."

"Or maybe someone else wants revenge for you."

"My mother is dead," Christa said. "Marc is happily married to another woman. There is no one else."

Dead end. "What did Dan tell you when he first came?"

She smiled. "That's between us."

"There has to be a reason why they're all being ruined."

"Is that the main reason why you're here, Wendy? To help them get their lives back?"

Wendy said nothing.

"Or," Christa continued, "are you here because you're worried that you inadvertently set up an innocent man?"

"Both, I guess."

"You're hoping for absolution?"

"I'm hoping for answers."

"Do you want my take on it?" Christa asked.

"Sure."

"I got to know Dan pretty well."

"Sounds like it."

"We talked about everything at this table. He told me about his work, about meeting his first wife, Jenna, about how it was his fault the marriage didn't work, about how they remained close, about his loneliness. It was something we both shared."

Wendy waited. Christa adjusted her sunglasses. For a moment Wendy thought that she was going to take them off, but she didn't. She adjusted them and it seemed as though she was trying somehow to look Wendy in the eye.

"I don't think Dan Mercer was a pedophile. And I don't think he killed anyone. So, yes, Wendy, I think you set up an innocent man."

CHAPTER 33

WENDY BLINKED AS SHE STEPPED OUT of the darkness of that kitchen and onto the lawn of the dean's house. She watched the students in the sunshine. They walked past this house every day, probably having no idea how thin the line was between them and the scarred woman in that house. Wendy stood there for another moment. She tilted her face up to the sun. She kept her eyes open, let them water from the rays. It felt damn good.

Christa Stockwell had forgiven those who hurt her.

She had made it sound so easy. Wendy pushed away the larger philosophical underpinnings-the obvious link to her own situation with Ariana Nasbro-to concentrate on the matter at hand: If the person most wronged had forgiven and moved on, who hadn't?

She checked her cell phone. More messages from reporters. She ignored them. There was a hang-up from Pops. She called him back. Pops answered on the first ring. "A bunch of reporters keep stopping by," he said.

"I know."

"Now you know why I'm against gun control."

For the first time in what seemed like forever, Wendy laughed.

"So what do they want?" he asked.

"Someone is spreading bad rumors about me."

"Like?"

"Like I'm sleeping with my boss. Stuff like that."

"And reporters give a crap about that stuff?"

"Apparently."

"Any of them true?"

"No."

"Damn."

"Yeah. Could you do me a favor?"

"Rhetorical question," Pops said.

"I'm in a pretty bad mess here. Some people may be after me."

"And I'm heavily armed."

"No need for that," she said, hoping it wasn't true. "But I want you to take Charlie somewhere for the next couple of days."

"You think he's in danger?"

"I don't know. Either way these rumors will start rippling through town. The kids in school may give him a hard time."

"So what? Charlie can take a little razzing. He's a strong kid."

"I don't want him to be strong right now."

"Yeah, okay, I'll take care of it. We'll stay at a motel, okay?"

"Someplace decent, Pops. Nothing with hourly rates or mirrored ceilings."

"Got it, no worries. If you need my help-"

"Goes without saying," Wendy said.

"Okay, take care. I love you."

"I love you too."

When they hung up, she called Vic again. Still no answer. Bastard was starting to piss her off. So where to now? Well, now she knew the secret of the Princeton Five, but she still didn't have a clue why it had come back after twenty years. There was, of course, one person to ask.

Phil.

She tried his phone again. Waste of time. So she drove straight to his house. Sherry answered the door. "He's not here."

"Did you know?" Wendy asked.

Sherry said nothing.

"About Princeton. Did you know what happened there?"

"Not for a long time."

Wendy was going to ask a follow-up, but she stopped herself. It didn't matter when or what Sherry knew. She needed to talk to Phil. "Where is he?"

"With the Fathers Club."

"Don't warn him I'm coming, okay?" Carrot and stick time again. Well, stick time anyway. "If you do, it will just mean I'll have to come back to your house. And the next time I'll be angry. I will bring cameras and other reporters and make enough noise to attract your neighbors and even your kids. Do you get my meaning?"

"You're not exactly being obtuse," Sherry said.

Wendy didn't relish threatening this woman, but enough with the lies and getting jerked around.

"Don't worry," Sherry said. "I won't call him."

Wendy turned to leave.

"One thing," Sherry said.

"What?"

"He's fragile. Be careful, okay?"

Wendy wanted to add something about Christa Stockwell, how fragile her flesh had been, but it wasn't her place. She drove over to the Starbucks and pulled into a spot that required "Quarters Only" for the meter. She didn't have any. Too bad. Again she'd live life on the edge.

She felt on the verge of tears again. She stopped at the door of Starbucks and gathered herself.

They were all there. Norm, aka Ten-A-Fly, was in full rap-wannabe gear. Doug had on his tennis whites. Owen had the baby. Phil was in the suit and tie. Even now. Even at this hour. They were all huddled over a round table, leaning in and whispering. Their body language, Wendy could see, was all wrong.

When Phil spotted her, his face fell. His eyes closed. She didn't care. She made her way to the table and glared down at him. He seemed to deflate in front of her eyes.

"I just talked to Christa Stockwell," she said.

The rest of the guys just watched in silence. Wendy met Norm's eye. He shook his head, asking her to stop. She didn't.

"They're going after me now too," Wendy said to him.

"We know," Norm said. "We've been following the cyber-rumors online. We've managed to get rid of a lot of the viral sites but not all of them."

"So it's my battle too now."

"It doesn't have to be." Phil still had his head down. "I warned you. I begged you to stay out of it."

"And I didn't listen. My bad. Now tell me what's going on."

"No."

"No?"

Phil rose to his feet. He started for the door. Wendy blocked his path.

"Get out of my way," he said.

"No."

"You talked to Christa Stockwell?"

"Yes."

"What did she tell you?"

Wendy hesitated. Hadn't she promised Christa not to say anything? Phil used the moment to scoot around Wendy. He headed for the door. Wendy started for him, but Norm stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. She turned angrily toward him.

"What are you going to do, Wendy? Tackle him on the street?"

"You don't have a clue what I learned."

"He got expelled from Princeton," Norm said. "He never graduated. We know. He told us."

"Did he tell you what he did?"

"Do you think it matters?"

That stopped her. She thought about what Christa said, about forgiving them, about them just being kids on a scavenger hunt.

"Did he tell you who is after them?" she asked.

"No. But he asked us to stay out of it. We're his friends, Wendy. Our loyalty is to him, not you. And I think he's suffered enough, don't you?"

"I don't know, Norm. I don't know who is after him and his old roommates-and now me. And more than that, I don't even know whether Dan Mercer killed Haley McWaid. Maybe her killer is still out there. Do you get what I'm saying?"

"I do."

"And?"

"And our friend asked us to stay out of it. It's not our fight anymore."

"Fine."

Fuming, she started for the door.

"Wendy?"

She turned back to him. He looked so ridiculous in that getup, the damn black cap over a red bandana, the white belt, the wrist-watch with a face the size of a satellite dish. Ten-A-Fly. For crying out loud. "What, Norm?"

"We do have that photograph."

"What photograph?"

"The still of the girl in the video. The hooker who accused Farley Parks of soliciting her. Owen was able to freeze the screen and enhance it around the shadow. It wasn't easy, but he got a pretty clear picture. We have it, if you want it."

She waited. Owen handed the eight-by-ten to Norm. Norm brought it to her. She looked down at the girl in the photograph.

Norm said, "She looks young, don't you think?"

Wendy's world, already wobbly, teetered off its axis.

Yes, the girl in the photograph did look young. Very young.

She also looked exactly like the artist sketch of Chynna, the girl Dan claimed that he was supposed to meet at the sting house.

SO NOW SHE KNEW. The photograph was the kicker. Someone had set them up.

But still no why or who.

When Wendy got home, there was only one news van still parked outside. She couldn't believe what station it belonged to. The damn nerve-it was from her own network. NTC. Sam, her cameraman, stood outside with-deep breaths-the balloon-headed Michele Feisler.

Michele was fixing her hair. The NTC microphone was jammed into the crook of her arm. Wendy was tempted to veer her car to the right and take her out, watch that big melon head splatter onto the curb. Instead she hit the automatic garage door and headed inside. The electric door slid closed behind her and she stepped out.

"Wendy?"

It was Michele. She knocked on the garage door.

"Get off my property, Michele."

"There's no camera or microphone. It's just me."

"My friend inside has a gun that he's dying to use."

"Just listen to me a second, okay?"

"No."

"You need to hear this. It's about Vic."

That made her pause. "What about Vic?"

"Open the door, Wendy."

"What about Vic?"

"He's selling you out."

Her stomach dropped. "What do you mean?"

"Open the door, Wendy. No cameras, no microphones, all off the record. I promise."

Damn. She debated what to do, but really, what was the harm? She wanted to know what Michele had to say. If it meant letting Blockhead into her house, so be it. She stepped over Charlie's bike-conveniently abandoned, as always, to block her access-and turned the knob. Unlocked. Charlie always forgot to lock it.

"Wendy?"

"Come around back."

She entered the kitchen. Pops was gone. He'd left a note that he'd picked up Charlie. Good. She opened the back door for Michele.

"Thanks for letting me in."

"So what's this about Vic?"

"The brass want blood. They came down hard on him."

"So?"

"So Vic is being pressured big-time to say you hit on him-to imply that you're somewhat obsessed with him."

Wendy didn't move.

"The station released this statement."

Michele handed her a piece of a paper.

We at NTC have no comment on the matter of Wendy Tynes though we would like to make it very clear that our news manager Victor Garrett did nothing illegal or unethical and has refused any and all advances made in his direction by any person in his employ. Stalking is a serious problem in this country today, and there are many innocent victims made to suffer.

"Stalking?" Wendy looked up. "Is this for real?"

"Nicely done, don't you think? Couched in enough vagaries so that no one can sue."

"So what do you want, Michele? You don't really think I'm going to go on air, do you?"

Michele shook her head. "You're not that stupid."

"So why are you here?"

She took back the statement and held it up. "This isn't right. We aren't good friends. I know how you feel about me…" Michele pursed her over-glossed lips and closed her eyes, as though weighing her next sentence in her mind.

"Do you believe this statement?"

The eyes snapped open. "No! I mean, come on. You? Stalking Vic? Gag me with a soup ladle."

Right then, if Wendy hadn't been so stunned and emotionally raw, she might have hugged Michele.

"I know it's corny, but I became a reporter because I wanted to find truths. And this is crap. You're being set up. So I wanted to let you know what the deal was."

Wendy said, "Wow."

"What?"

"Nothing. I'm surprised, I guess."

"I have always admired you, the way you handle yourself, the way you cover a story. I know how that sounds, but it's true."

Wendy just stood there. "I don't know what to say."

"Nothing to say. If you need any help, I'm here for you. That's all. I'm going now. We're covering that story I told you about-the perv Arthur Lemaine who had both knees shot."

"A new development?"

"Not really. The guy hopefully got what he deserved, but it's still pretty amazing-a convicted child pornographer coaching a kids' hockey team."

Wendy felt the hair stand up on the back of her neck.

Hockey?

She remembered now watching the story with Charlie and his friends. "Wait, he was shot in front of South Mountain Arena, right?"

"Right."

"But I don't get it. I remembered reading that the arena does background checks on the coaches."

Michele nodded. "Yes. But in Lemaine's case, the convictions didn't show up."

"Why not?"

"Because the background checks only turn up crimes committed on U.S. soil," Michele said. "But see, Lemaine is Canadian. From Quebec, I think."

CHAPTER 34

IT DIDN'T TAKE Wendy long to put it together.

Michele Feisler helped. She already had plenty of background on sex criminal Arthur Lemaine, including a family tree. Wendy was impressed with the work Michele had put in already. And okay, maybe Michele's head was a little on the large side, but that was probably accentuated by the fact that she had really narrow shoulders.

"What now?" Michele asked her.

"I think we should get in touch with Sheriff Walker. He's in charge of the Dan Mercer murder."

"Okay, why don't you make the call? You know him." Wendy found Walker's cell phone number and hit send. Michele sat next to her. She dutifully took out her little reporter pad, pen poised. Walker answered on the fourth ring. Wendy heard him clear his voice and say, "Sheriff Mickey Walker."

"It's Wendy."

"Oh, uh, hi. How are you?"

Oh, uh, hi? His voice sounded stiff. And now that Wendy thought of it, wouldn't he have seen it was her on his caller ID?

"I see you've heard those new stories about me," Wendy said.

"Yep."

"Super." This was not the time to go into it. It didn't matter anyway-screw him, right?-but she still felt the pang. "Have you heard about this case of Arthur Lemaine? The guy who got shot in both kneecaps?"

"Yes," he said. "But it's not my jurisdiction."

"Did you hear that Arthur Lemaine is a convicted child pornographer?"

"I think I heard that, yes."

"Did you also hear that Arthur Lemaine is Ed Grayson's brother-in-law?"

There was a brief pause. Then Walker said, "Whoa."

"Whoa indeed. Want more whoa? Lemaine coached his nephew's hockey team. For those who aren't good at family trees, that would be E. J., Ed Grayson's son, the victim of child pornography."

"That is another whoa," Walker agreed.

"And-maybe 'whoa' here-whoever shot Lemaine's knees did so from a distance."

"The work of an expert marksman," Walker said.

"Isn't that what the owner of the Gun-O-Rama said about Grayson?"

"He did indeed. My God. But I don't get it. I thought you saw Grayson kill Dan Mercer because Mercer took the pictures of his son."

"I did."

"So he shot both guys?"

"Well, yes, I think so. Remember how Ed Grayson showed up at Ringwood State Park to help find Haley McWaid's body?"

"Yes."

"He said I didn't get it. But I think I do now. The guilt is haunting him, because he killed an innocent man."

Michele was steadily taking notes-on what, Wendy couldn't imagine.

"Here is how I think it went," Wendy continued. "Dan Mercer is freed. Ed Grayson goes nuts. He kills Mercer and gets rid of the evidence. When he gets home, his wife, Maggie, sees what he's done. I don't know what happens then exactly. Maybe Maggie freaks out. Maybe she says, 'What did you do, it wasn't Dan, it was my brother.' Or maybe E. J. now tells him the truth about his uncle. I don't know. But imagine what must have gone through Grayson's mind. For months he has shown up at every hearing, talking to the media, putting a face to the victims, demanding that Dan Mercer be punished."

"And then he finds out that he killed the wrong guy."

"Right. Plus he now knows that Arthur Lemaine, his brother-in-law, will never be brought to justice. And if he is somehow brought to trial, well, that might destroy his family."

"The scandal of that," Walker said. "Putting his family through it all again. Having to admit to the world that he'd been wrong this whole time. So, what, Grayson maims him instead?"

"Yes. I don't think he was strong enough to murder again. Not after what happened the first time."

"And like it or not, it's his wife's brother."

"Right."

Wendy looked across the table at Michele. She was on her cell now, talking low into the phone.

Walker said, "Word is, Grayson's wife left him. She took the kid."

"Maybe it was because of what he did to Dan."

"Or maybe because he shot her brother."

"Right."

Walker sighed. "So how do we prove any of this?"

"I don't know. Lemaine probably isn't going to talk, but maybe you guys can push him."

"Even so. He was shot in the dark. No other witnesses. And we already know that Grayson is damn good about getting rid of evidence."

They sat in silence. Michele hung up. She took some more notes, drew big long arrows. She stopped, looked at the pad, and frowned.

Wendy asked, "What is it?"

Michele started writing again. "I'm not sure yet. But there's something wrong with this theory."

"What?"

"It might not be a big deal but the timeline is off. Lemaine was shot the day before Dan Mercer."

Wendy's phone vibrated. Call waiting. She checked the incoming number. It was Win. "I have to go," she said to Walker. "Another call coming."

"I'm sorry about my tone before."

"Don't worry about it."

"I still want to call you when this is over."

She tried not to smile. "When this is over," she repeated. Then she clicked over to the other line. "Hello?"

"Per your request," Win said, "I looked into the matter of Phil Turnball's termination."

"Do you know who set him up?"

"Where are you?"

"Home."

"Come to my office. I think you may need to see this."

WIN WAS RICH. Superrich.

Example: "Win" was short for Windsor Horne Lockwood III. His office was located on Forty-sixth Street and Park Avenue in the Lock-Horne high-rise.

You do the math.

Wendy parked in the lot in the MetLife Building. Her father had worked not far from here. She thought about him now, the way he always rolled up his sleeves to the elbow, the act doubly symbolic-he was always ready to pitch in and never wanted to be thought of as a suit. Her father had tremendous forearms. He made her feel safe. Right now, even though he'd been dead for years, she wanted to collapse in her father's big arms and hear him tell her that everything would be all right. Do we ever outgrow that need? John had done that too-made Wendy feel safe. That may seem antifeminist-this warm feeling of security coming from a man-but there it was. Pops was great, but this wasn't his job. Charlie, well, he would always be her little boy and it would always be her job to take care of him, not the other way around. The two men who had made her feel safe were both dead. They had never failed her, but now, with all the trouble swirling around her, she wondered whether a little voice wasn't whispering that she had failed them.

Win had moved his office down a floor. The elevator opened up to a sign reading MB REPS. The receptionist said in a high-pitched squeal: "Welcome, Ms. Tynes."

Wendy nearly stepped back into the elevator. The receptionist was the size of an NFL nose tackle. She was squeezed into a coal black unitard that was like the nightmare version of Adrienne Bar-beau's in Cannonball Run. Her makeup looked as though it had been layered on with a snow shovel.

"Uh, hi."

An Asian woman in a tailored white suit appeared. She was tall and slender and model attractive. These two women stood next to each other for a moment, and Wendy couldn't help but picture a bowling ball about to crash into a pin.

The Asian woman said, "Mr. Lockwood is waiting for you."

Wendy followed her down the corridor. The woman opened the office door and said, "Ms. Tynes is here."

Win rose from behind his desk. He was a remarkably good-looking man. Though he was not really her type, what with the blond locks, the almost delicate features, the whole pretty-boy persona, there was a quiet strength there, an ice in his blue eyes, a coil in his almost too-still body, as though he might make a deadly strike at any moment.

Win spoke to the Asian woman. "Thank you, Mee. Would you mind telling Mr. Barry that we're ready?"

"Of course."

Mee left. Win crossed the room and bussed Wendy's cheek. There was that small delay, that awkward hesitation. Six months ago, they had knocked boots and it had been beyond awesome and pretty-boy features or not, that always stays in a room.

"You look spectacular."

"Thank you. I don't feel it."

"I gather that you're going through a rough spell."

"I am."

Win sat back down, spread his arms. "I'm willing to offer comfort and support."

"And by comfort and support, you mean…?"

Win made his eyebrows dance. "Coitus with no interruptus."

She shook her head in amazement. "You're picking the worst time to hit on me."

"No such thing. But I understand. Would you care for a brandy?"

"No thanks."

"Do you mind if I have one?"

"Suit yourself."

Win had an antique globe that opened up to reveal a crystal decanter. His desk was thick cherrywood. There were paintings of men on a foxhunt and a rich Oriental carpet. An artificial putting green covered the far corner. A big-screen TV hung on one wall. "So tell me what this is about," Win said.

"Is it okay if I don't? I really just need to know who set up Phil Turnball."

"Of course."

The office door opened. Mee entered with an old man wearing a bow tie.

"Ah," Win said. "Ridley, thank you for coming. Wendy Tynes, meet Ridley Barry. Mr. Barry is the cofounder of Barry Brothers Trust, your Mr. Turnball's former employer."

"Nice to meet you, Wendy."

Everyone sat. Win's desk was clear except for one huge pile of what looked like files. "Before we begin," Win said, "Mr. Barry and I both need to know that nothing we discuss here will leave this room."

"I'm a reporter, Win."

"Then you'd be familiar with the phrase 'off the record.' "

"Fine. It's off the record."

"And," Win said, "as a friend, I want your word that you won't divulge anything we say to anyone else."

She looked at Ridley Barry, then slowly back toward Win. "You have my word."

"Fine." Win looked toward Ridley Barry. Mr. Barry nodded. Win put his hand on the tall pile. "These are the files on Mr. Phil Turnball. He was, as you know, a financial adviser for Barry Brothers Trust."

"Yes, I know."

"I spent the last several hours going through them. I took my time. I also examined the computer trades made by Mr. Turnball. I studied his trading patterns, his buying and selling-his ins and outs, if you will. Because I hold you in high regard, Wendy, and respect your intelligence, I diligently scrutinized his work history with an eye toward how Phil Turnball may have been set up."

"And?"

Win met her eyes, and Wendy felt the cold gust. "Phil Turnball did not steal two million dollars. My estimate would be that the number is closer to three. In short, there is no doubt. You wanted to know how Turnball was set up. He wasn't. Phil Turnball orchestrated a fraud that dates back at least five years."

Wendy shook her head. "Maybe it wasn't him. He didn't work in a vacuum, did he? He had partners and an assistant. Maybe one of them…"

Still meeting her eye, Win picked up a remote control and pressed the button. The television came on.

"Mr. Barry was also kind enough to let me go through the surveillance tapes."

The TV screen lit up to reveal an office. The camera had been placed up high, shooting downward. Phil Turnball was feeding documents into a shredder.

"This is your Mr. Turnball destroying his clients' account statements before they get mailed out."

Win hit the remote. The screen jumped. Now Phil was at his desk. He stood and moved toward a printer. "Here is Mr. Turnball printing out the fake replacement statements, which he will subsequently mail out. We could go on and on here, Wendy. But there is no doubt. Phil Turnball defrauded his clients and Mr. Barry."

Wendy sat back. She turned to Ridley Barry. "If Phil is this big-time thief, why hasn't he been arrested?"

For a moment, no one said anything. Ridley Barry looked toward Win. Win nodded. "Go ahead. She won't tell."

He cleared his throat and adjusted his bow tie. He was a small man, wizened, the kind of old man some might call endearing or cute. "My brother Stanley and I founded Barry Brothers Trust more than forty years ago," he began. "We worked side-by-side for thirty-seven years. In the same room. Our desks faced each other. Every single working day. The two of us managed to build a business with gross outsets that exceed a billion dollars. We employ more than two hundred people. Our name is on the masthead. I take that responsibility very seriously-especially now that my brother is gone."

He stopped, looked down at his watch.

"Mr. Barry?"

"Yes."

"This is all very sweet, but why isn't Phil Turnball being prosecuted if he stole from you?"

"He didn't steal from me. He stole from his clients. My clients too."

"Whatever."

"No, not 'whatever.' That's much more than a question of semantics. But let me answer it two ways. Let me answer as, first, a cold businessman and, second, as an old man who believes that he is responsible for his clients' well-being. The cold businessman: In this post-Madoff environment, what do you think will happen to Barry Brothers Trust if it gets out that one of our top financial advisers ran a Ponzi scheme?"

The answer was obvious, and Wendy wondered why she didn't see that before. Funny. Phil had used that question to his advantage, hadn't he? He kept using that as proof he'd been set up-"Why haven't they arrested me?"

"On the other hand," he went on, "the old man feels responsible to those who put their trust in him and his company. So I'm going through the accounts myself. I will reimburse all clients from my personal finances. In short, I will take the hit. The clients who were defrauded will be compensated in full."

"And will be kept in the dark," Wendy said.

"Yes."

Which was why Win had sworn her to secrecy. She sat back and suddenly more pieces came together. Lots of them.

She knew now. She knew most of it-maybe all of it.

"Anything else?" Win asked.

"How did you catch him?" she asked.

Ridley Barry shifted in his seat. "You can only keep up a Ponzi scheme for so long."

"No, I get that. But what made you first start looking into him?"

"Two years ago, I hired a firm to examine the background of all our employees. This was a routine thing, nothing more, but a discrepancy in Phil Turnball's personal file came to our attention."

"What discrepancy?"

"Phil lied on his resume."

"About?"

"About his education. He said he graduated from Princeton University. That wasn't true."

CHAPTER 35

SO NOW SHE KNEW.

Wendy called Phil's cell phone. Once again there was no answer. She tried his home. Nothing. On the way back from Win's office, she stopped at his home in Englewood. No one was there. She tried the Starbucks. The Fathers Club was gone.

She debated calling Walker or maybe, more likely, Frank Tremont. He was the one who handled the case of Haley McWaid. There was a good chance that Dan Mercer had not killed Haley. She thought that maybe she now knew who did, but it was still speculation.

After Ridley Barry left his office, Wendy had run it all by Win. There were two reasons for this. One, she wanted an intelligent outside ear and opinion. Win could provide that. But, two, she wanted someone else to know what she knew as, well, backup-to protect both the information and herself.

When she finished, Win opened his bottom drawer. He pulled out several handguns and offered her one. She declined.

Charlie and Pops were still gone. The house was silent. She thought about next year, Charlie gone to college, the house always this still. She didn't like it-the thought of being alone in a house like that. Might be time to downsize.

Her throat was parched. She downed a full glass of water and refilled the glass. She headed upstairs, sat down, and flipped on the computer. Might as well start testing out her theory. She did the Google searches in reverse-Princeton-scandal order: Steve Miciano, Farley Parks, Dan Mercer, Phil Turnball.

It made sense to her now.

She then Googled herself, read the reports on her "sexually inappropriate" behavior, and shook her head. She wanted to cry, not for herself, but for all of them.

Had this all really started with a college scavenger hunt?

"Wendy?"

She should have been scared, but she wasn't. It just reconfirmed what she already knew. She turned around. Phil Turnball stood in her doorway.

"Other people know," she said.

Phil smiled. His face had that shine from too much drink. "You think I mean to hurt you?"

"Haven't you already?"

"I guess that's true. But that's not why I'm here."

"How did you get in?"

"The garage was open."

Charlie and that damn bike. She wasn't sure what the right move was here. She could try to be subtle, hit her cell phone, dial 9-1-1 or something. She could try to send an e-mail, an electronic SOS of some kind.

"Don't be afraid," he said.

"Do you mind if I call a friend then?"

"I'd rather you didn't."

"And if I insist?"

Phil took out a gun. "I have no intention of hurting you."

Wendy froze. When a gun comes out, it becomes the only thing you see. She swallowed, tried to stay strong. "Hey, Phil?"

"What?"

"Nothing says you have no intention of hurting someone better than whipping out a handgun."

"We need to talk," Phil said. "But I'm just not sure where to start."

"How about how you kicked that mirror shard into Christa Stockwell's eye?"

"You really have done your homework, haven't you, Wendy?"

She said nothing.

"You're right too. That is where it began." He sighed. The gun hung down by his thigh. "You know what happened though, don't you? I was hiding and then Christa Stockwell screamed. I ran for the door, but she tripped me and grabbed my leg. I never meant to hurt her. I was just trying to get away, and I panicked."

"You were in the dean's house because of a scavenger hunt?"

"We all were."

"Yet you took the fall alone."

For a moment Phil looked off, lost. She considered making a run for it. He wasn't pointing the gun at her. It might be her best chance. But Wendy didn't move. She just sat there until he finally said, "Yes, that's true."

"Why?"

"It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. You see, I came into that school with every advantage. Wealth, family name, a prep school education. The others struggled and scraped. I was drawn to that. They were my friends. Besides, I was going to get in trouble anyway-why drag them into it?"

"Admirable," Wendy said.

"Of course, I didn't know the extent of the trouble I was in. It was dark in the house. I thought Christa was just screaming out of fear. I had no idea when I confessed that she'd been hurt that badly." He cocked his head to the right. "I like to think that I still would have done the same thing. Taken the hit for my friends, that is. But I don't know."

She tried to glance at the computer, tried to see if there was something she could click to get help. "So what happened then?"

"You know already, don't you?"

"You were expelled."

"Yes."

"And your parents paid Christa Stockwell for her silence."

"My parents were aghast. But maybe, I don't know, maybe I knew they would be. They paid my debt and then told me to go away. They gave the family business to my brother. I was out. But again maybe that was a good thing."

"You felt free," Wendy said.

"Yes."

"You were now like your roommates. The guys you admired."

He smiled. "Exactly. And so, like them, I struggled and scraped. I refused any help. I got a job with Barry Brothers. I put together a client list, worked hard to keep everyone happy. I married Sherry, a spectacular woman in every way. We made a family. Beautiful kids, nice house. All on my own. No nepotism, no help…"

His voice drifted off. He smiled.

"What?"

"You, Wendy."

"What about me?"

"Here we are, the two of us. I have a gun. I'm telling you all about my nefarious deeds. You're asking questions to stall me, hoping for the police to arrive just in the nick of time."

She said nothing.

"But I'm not here for me, Wendy. I'm here for you."

She looked at his face, and suddenly, despite the gun and the situation, the fear left her. "How so?" she asked.

"You'll see."

"I'd rather-"

"You want the answers, don't you?"

"I guess."

"So where was I?"

"Married, job, no nepotism."

"Right, thank you. You said you met Ridley Barry?"

"Yes."

"Nice old man, right? Very charming. He comes across as honest. And he is. I was too." He looked down at the gun in his hand as though it had just materialized out of thin air. "You don't start off as a thief. I bet even Bernie Madoff didn't. You're doing the best you can for your clients. But it's a cutthroat world. You make a bad trade. You lose some money. But you know you'll get it back. So you move some other money into that account. Just for a day, maybe a week. When the next trade comes in, you'll make it up and then some. It isn't stealing. In the end, your clients will be better off. You just start small like that, a little crossing of the line-but then what can you do about it? If you admit what you've done, you're ruined. You'll get fired or go to jail. So what other choice do you have? You have to keep borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and hope that something will click, some Hail Mary pass will work, so you can get out from under."

"Bottom line," Wendy said, "you stole from your clients?"

"Yes."

"Gave yourself a decent salary?"

"It was part of keeping up appearances."

"Right," Wendy said. "I see."

Phil smiled. "You're right, of course. I'm just trying to give you the mind frame, justified or not. Did Ridley tell you why they first started looking at me?"

She nodded. "You lied on your resume."

"Right. That night in the dean's house-it came back to haunt me again. All of a sudden, because of what happened all those years ago, my whole world began to disintegrate. Can you imagine how I felt? I took the fall for those guys, even though I wasn't really to blame, and now, well, after all these years, I was still suffering."

"What do you mean, you weren't to blame?"

"Just what I said."

"You were there. You kicked Christa Stockwell in the face."

"That's not what started it. Did she tell you about the ashtray?"

"Yes. You threw it."

"Did she tell you that?"

Wendy thought about it. She had assumed, but had Christa Stockwell actually said it was Phil?

"It wasn't me," he said. "Someone else threw an ashtray at her. That's what shattered the mirror."

"You didn't know who?"

He shook his head. "The other guys who were there that night all denied it was them. That's what I meant about not being to blame. And now I had nothing again. When my parents heard about my firing, well, that was the final blow. They disowned me entirely. Sherry and my kids-they started looking at me differently. I was lost. I was at rock bottom-all because of that damned scavenger hunt. So I went to my old roommates for help. Farley and Steve, they were grateful to me for taking the fall, they said, but what could they do about it now? I started thinking, I shouldn't have taken that hit alone. If all five of us had come forward, we could have shared the load. I wouldn't be alone in this. The school would have gone easier on me. And I'm looking at them, my old friends who won't help, and they're all doing great now, all well-off and successful…"

"So," Wendy said, "you decided to take them down a peg."

"Do you blame me? I'm the only one who paid a price for what happened, and now it was like I was finished in their eyes. Done. Like I wasn't worth saving. My family was rich, they said. Ask them for help."

Phil couldn't escape his family, Wendy thought-their wealth, their position. He could want to be like his struggling friends, but he was never really one of them in their eyes-because when push came to shove, he simply didn't belong with the poor any more than they belonged with the rich.

"You learned about viral marketing from the Fathers Club," she said.

"Yes."

"That should have tipped me off. I just looked again. Farley was trashed. Steve was trashed. I was trashed. And there was already enough about Dan online. But you, Phil. There isn't a word about your embezzling crimes online. Why? If someone was out to get all of you, why didn't he blog about your stealing from the company? In fact, nobody knew about it. You told the Fathers Club that you were laid off. It wasn't until my friend Win informed me that you'd actually been fired for stealing two million dollars that you suddenly opened up about it. And when you knew I was down at Princeton, you even got in front of that one too-telling the guys you got expelled."

"All true," Phil said.

"So let's get to your setups. First, you got some girl to play Chynna, Dan's teenage girl, and Farley's hooker."

"That's right."

"Where did you find her?"

"She's just a hooker I hired to play two roles. It wasn't all that complicated. As for Steve Miciano, well, how hard is it to plant drugs in a man's trunk and tell the police to take a look? And Dan…"

"You used me," Wendy said.

"It was nothing personal. One night I saw your TV show and figured, wow, what better way to get back at someone?"

"How did you do it?"

"What was so complicated about it, Wendy? I wrote that first e-mail from Ashlee, the thirteen-year-old girl in the SocialTeen room. Then I posed as Dan in the room. I hid the photographs and the laptop in his house when I visited him. My hooker pretended to be a troubled teen named Chynna. When you told me in my online persona as 'pedophile Dan'"-he made quote marks with his fingers-"to show up at a particular time and place, Chynna simply asked Dan to meet her at the same time and place. Dan showed up, your cameras were rolling…" He shrugged.

"Wow," she said.

"I'm sorry you got involved. And I'm even sorrier I started all those rumors about you. I went too far there. That was a mistake. I feel terrible about that. That's why I'm here now. To make it up to you."

He kept saying that-that part about being here for her. It was maddening. "So you did all that," she said, "you went after all these guys, just for revenge?"

He lowered his head. His answer surprised her. "No."

"Don't be easy on yourself, Phil. You lost everything, so you decided to take down the innocent with you."

"The innocent?" For the first time, anger crept into his voice.

"They weren't innocent."

"You mean because of what they did that night at the dean's house."

"No, that's not what I mean. I mean, because they were guilty."

Wendy made a face. "Guilty of what?"

"Don't you get it? Farley did sleep with hookers. He was a horrible womanizer. Everyone knew. And Steve did use his standing as a medical doctor to illegally sell and dispense prescription drugs. Ask the cops. They couldn't nail him for it. But they knew. See, I didn't set them up. I exposed them."

There was silence now, a deep hum, and Wendy felt her body shake. They were coming to it now. He waited, knowing that she would prompt him.

"And what about Dan?" Wendy asked.

His breathing got a little funny. He tried to get himself under control, but the past was coming at him fast now. "That's why I'm here, Wendy."

"I don't understand. You just said Farley was a womanizer and that Steve was a drug pusher."

"Yes."

"So I'm asking the obvious question-was Dan Mercer really a pedophile?"

"Do you want the truth?"

"No, Phil, after all this I want you to lie to me. Did you set him up so he could be brought to justice?"

"With Dan," he said slowly, "I guess nothing went as planned."

"Please stop with the semantics. Was he a pedophile, yes or no?"

He looked to the left and summoned up something inside him. "I don't know."

That was not the answer she'd been expecting. "How can that be?"

"When I set him up, I didn't think he was. But now, I'm not so sure."

The answer made her head spin. "What the hell does that mean?" "I told you I went to Farley and Steve," he said. "And that they weren't interested in helping me."

"Yes."

"Then I went to Dan." Phil lifted the gun, switched it to his other hand.

"How did he react?"

"We sat in his crappy house. I mean, I didn't even know why I bothered. What could he do? He had absolutely no money. He worked with the poor. So Dan asked me if I wanted a beer. I took one. Then I told him what had happened to me. He listened with a sympathetic ear. When I finished Dan looked me in the eye and said he was so glad I came by. Why, I asked him. He told me how he'd visited Christa Stockwell all these years. I was shocked. And then he told me the final truth."

Wendy saw it now-what Christa Stockwell had kept from her.

"What did Dan tell you when he first came?"

"That's between us."

Wendy looked up at him. "Dan threw the ashtray."

Phil nodded. "He saw me duck down behind the bed. The other guys-Farley, Steve, and Kelvin-they had started sneaking out already. They were halfway down the stairs by the time Christa Stockwell started reaching for that light switch. Dan just wanted to distract her. Give me a chance to run. So he threw the ashtray."

"And it smashed the mirror into her face."

"Yes."

She imagined the moment. She imagined Dan confessing and Christa merely accepting it. They were college kids on a scavenger hunt, after all. Was it all that easy to forgive? For Christa, maybe it was.

"And all these years," Wendy said, "you never knew."

"I never knew. Dan lied about it. He tried to explain why. He was a poor kid, he said. He was on scholarship and scared. It wouldn't help me anyway. It would just destroy him-and for what?"

"So he kept quiet."

"Like the others, he figured I had money. I had family and connections. I could pay off Christa Stockwell. So he never said a word. He just let me take the fall for what he'd done. So you see, Wendy, Dan wasn't so innocent. In fact, in many ways, he was the guiltiest of all."

She thought about it, about the rage Phil must have felt when he learned that he had paid for the crime committed by Dan.

"But he wasn't a child molester, was he?"

Phil thought about that one. "I didn't think so, no. At least, I didn't at first."

She tried to sort through it, tried to make sense of it. And then she remembered Haley McWaid.

"My God, Phil. What did you do?"

"Those guys are right. I'm done. Whatever else was left of me- whatever good was there-it's gone now too. That's what revenge does to you. It eats away at your soul. I should have never opened that door."

Wendy didn't know what door he meant anymore-the one to the dean's house all those years ago or the one to the hatred that made him seek revenge. Wendy remembered what Christa Stockwell had said about hatred, how holding on to it makes you let go of everything else.

But they still weren't done. There was still the matter of Haley McWaid.

"So when Dan got off," Wendy began, "I mean, when the judge let him go…"

The smile on his face chilled her. "Go on, Wendy."

But she couldn't. She tried to follow it, but suddenly none of it made sense.

"You're wondering about Haley McWaid, aren't you? You're wondering how she fits in."

Wendy couldn't speak.

"Go on, Wendy. Say what you were going to say."

But she saw it now. It made no sense.

His expression was calmer now, almost serene. "I hurt them, yes. Did I break the law? I'm not even sure. I hired a girl to lie about Farley and play a part with Dan. Is that a crime? A misdemeanor maybe. I pretended I was someone else in a chat room-but isn't that what you do? You said that the judge let Dan go. That's true, but so what? I wasn't necessarily trying to send them to jail. I just wanted them to suffer. And they did, didn't they?"

He waited for an answer. Wendy managed a nod.

"So why then would I set him up for murder?"

"I don't know," she managed.

Phil leaned forward and whispered, "I didn't."

Wendy couldn't breathe. She tried to slow it down, think it through, take a step back somehow. Haley McWaid had been murdered three months before she was found. Why? Did Wendy think, what, that Phil had killed her just in case Dan got off so Phil could pin it on him?

Did that make sense?

"Wendy, I'm a father. I couldn't kill a teenage girl. I couldn't kill anyone."

It was, she realized, a huge leap between viral trashing and murder, between getting back at some old classmates and killing a teenage girl.

The truth started to sink in, numbing her.

"You couldn't have planted the iPhone in his room," Wendy said slowly. "You didn't know where he was." Her head wouldn't stop spinning. She tried to focus, tried to make sense of this, but the answer was now so obvious. "It couldn't have been you."

"That's right, Wendy." He smiled, and the look of peace returned to his face. "That's why I'm here. Remember? I told you that I came here for you, not me. That's my final gift to you."

"What gift? I don't understand. How did that iPhone get in Dan's room?"

"You know the answer, Wendy. You're worried you ruined an innocent man. But you didn't. There's only one explanation why that phone was in his hotel room: Dan had it the whole time."

She just looked at him. "Dan killed Haley?"

"Of course," he said.

She couldn't move, couldn't breathe.

"And now you know everything, Wendy. You're free. I'm sorry for it all. I don't know whether it makes up for what I did to you, but it will have to do. Like I said in the beginning, that's why I came here-to help you."

Phil Turnball lifted his gun then. He closed his eyes and looked almost peaceful. "Tell Sherry I'm sorry," he said. Wendy raised her hands, shouted at him to stop, started toward him.

But she was too far away.

He placed the muzzle under his chin, aimed up, and pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER 36

FIVE DAYS LATER

THE POLICE CLEANED UP the mess.

Both Walker and Tremont came by to check up on her and hear the story. She tried to be as detailed as possible. The media, too, took a pretty big interest. Farley Parks released a statement condemning those who had "rushed to judgment" but did not reenter the race. Dr. Steve Miciano refused any interviews and announced that he was stepping down from practicing medicine to "pursue other interests."

Phil Turnball had been right about them.

Life returned to quasi-normal in quick order. Wendy was cleared by NTC of any sort of sexual misconduct, but work had become an impossible place. Vic Garrett couldn't look her in the eye. He gave all his assignments to her via his personal assistant, Mavis. So far, the assignments had been crap. If that didn't change, she would take a more aggressive stand.

But not quite yet.

Pops announced that he would be hitting the road by the weekend. He had stayed on to make sure Wendy and Charlie were okay, but as Pops noted, he was "a ramblin' man, a rolling stone." Staying in one place didn't suit him. Wendy understood, but God, she'd miss him.

Amazingly, while her workplace had accepted that the rumors online about her were not true, many of her fellow Kasseltonians did not. She was ignored in the supermarket. The mothers kept away from her during school pickup. On day five, two hours before Wendy was to head out to her PR committee meeting for Project Graduation, Millie Hanover called: "For the sake of the children, I suggest you step down from serving on any committee."

"For the sake of the children," Wendy replied, "I suggest you suck eggs."

She slammed the phone down. From behind her she heard clapping. It was Charlie. "All right, Mom."

"That woman is so narrow-minded."

Charlie laughed. "Remember I told you how I wanted to skip health class because it promotes promiscuity?"

"Yes."

"Cassie Hanover gets excused because her mother's afraid it might corrupt her morals. Funny thing is, her nickname is 'Hand Job' Hanover. I mean, the girl's a total slut."

Wendy turned and watched her lanky son approach the computer. He sat down and started typing, keeping his eyes on the screen.

"Speaking of total sluts," Wendy began.

He looked up at her. "Huh?"

"There are some rumors going around about me. They were put in blogs online."

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think I live in a cave?"

"You've seen them?"

"Of course."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Charlie shrugged, went back to typing.

"I want you to know they aren't true."

"You mean you don't sleep around to get ahead?"

"Don't be a wiseass."

He sighed. "I know it's not true, Mom. Okay? You don't have to tell me that."

She was trying very hard not to cry. "Are your friends giving you a hard time about it?"

"No," he said. Then: "Well, okay, Clark and James want to know if you dig younger men."

She frowned.

"Kidding," he said.

"Good one."

"Lighten up." He started typing.

She started to head out of the room, give him his privacy. If she had done that, it would all have been over now. They had the answers. Phil set up his friends. Dan had snapped and killed Haley. The fact that they couldn't find a motive was irksome but life works that way sometimes.

But she didn't leave the room. She was feeling teary and alone and so she asked her son, "What are you doing?"

"Going through my Facebook."

That reminded her of her fake profile, the Sharon Hait one, the one she'd used to "friend" Kirby Sennett.

"What's a Red Bull party?" she asked.

Charlie stopped typing. "Where did you hear that term?"

Wendy reminded him of how she'd used the fake profile to get in touch with Kirby Sennett. "Kirby invited 'Sharon' to a Red Bull party."

"Show me," he said.

Charlie logged out and stepped away from the computer. Wendy sat down, signed in as "Sharon Hait." It took her a second to remember the password ("Charlie") before she got in. She brought up the invitation and showed it to him.

"Lame," Charlie said.

"What?"

"Okay, you know how the school has these strict zero-tolerance rules, right?"

"Right."

"And Principal Zecher is like a Nazi on this stuff. I mean, if a kid is seen drinking, he can't play for any sports teams, can't be in the New Players shows, he reports it to the college admissions people, the whole works."

"Yes, I know."

"And you know how teens are idiots and always posting pictures of themselves drinking on stuff like, well, Facebook?"

"Yes."

"So anyway, someone came up with the idea of Red Bulling the photos."

"Red Bulling?"

"Yeah. So let's say you go to a party and you're drinking a can of Bud and because you're a loser with self-esteem issues, you think, wow, I'm so cool, I want everyone to see how cool I am. You ask someone to take your picture drinking this Bud so you can put it online so you can show off to your lame-o friends. Thing is, suppose Principal Zecher or his Third Reich minions stumble across it? You're screwed. So what you do is, you photoshop a Red Bull over your beer can."

"You're kidding."

"I kid not. Makes sense when you think about it. Here."

He leaned over her and clicked the mouse. A bunch of photos of Kirby Sennett popped up. He started clicking through them. "See? Look how many times he, his pals, and their various skanks drink Red Bull."

"Don't call them skanks."

"Whatever."

Wendy started clicking through them. "Charlie?"

"Yeah."

"Have you ever been to a Red Bull party?"

"Destination: Loserville."

"Does that mean no?"

"It means no."

She looked at him. "Have you ever been to a party where people drank alcohol?"

Charlie rubbed his chin. "Yes."

"Did you drink?"

"Once."

She turned back to the computer, kept clicking, kept watching Kirby Sennett and his red-faced companions with the Red Bulls. In some of the pictures, you could see the photoshopping. The can of Red Bull was too big or too small or over the fingers or slightly askew.

"When?" she asked.

"Mom, it's okay. It was once. Sophomore year."

She was debating how far to take the conversation when she saw the photograph that changed everything. Kirby Sennett sat front and center. There were two girls behind him, both with their backs to the cameras. Kirby had a wide smile. He held the Red Bull in his right hand. He wore a New York Knicks T-shirt and a black baseball cap. But what drew her eyes, what made her stop and take another look, was the couch he sat on.

It was bright yellow with blue flowers.

Wendy had seen that couch before.

Alone-just the photograph-it would have meant nothing to her. But now she remembered Phil Turnball's last words, about how he was offering her a "gift," that she wouldn't have to blame herself for setting up an innocent man. Phil Turnball believed it-and Wendy had wanted to believe it too. That was the thing. It left her off the hook. Dan had been a killer. She hadn't set up an innocent man. She had, in fact, brought down a murderer.

So how come she still wasn't totally buying it?

The early intuition, the one that said she'd somehow wronged Dan Mercer, the one that had been nibbling at her subconscious from the moment he first opened that red door and walked into the sting house-she had let it go dormant over the past few days.

But it had never gone away.

CHAPTER 37

THE MOVING TRUCK was parked in front of the Wheeler home.

There was a little ramp running up to the open front door. Two men wearing dark gloves and leather weightlifter belts rolled a credenza down it, one repeating the words, "Steady, steady," as though it were a mantra. The FOR SALE sign was still in the yard. There was no UNDER CONTRACT or anything else hung beneath it.

Wendy let the credenza pass and then she headed up the ramp, leaned her head in the doorway, and said, "Anyone home?"

"Hey."

Jenna came from the den. She too wore dark gloves. She had on blue jeans. A bulky flannel shirt hung over her white T. The sleeves of the flannel were rolled up to her wrists, but she practically swam in the fabric. Her husband's, Wendy thought. As a kid, you might use your dad's old dress shirts as smocks. As an adult, you use your husband's for household errands or sometimes, just to feel close to him. Wendy had done the same, loving the smell of her man on it.

"Did you find a buyer?" Wendy asked.

"Not yet." Jenna's hair was tied back, but some strands had come loose. She tucked it back behind her ear. "Noel starts in Cincinnati next week though."

"Fast."

"Yes."

"Noel must have started looking for that job right away."

Jenna hesitated this time. "I guess so."

"Because of the stigma of defending a pedophile?"

"That's right." Jenna put her hands on her hips. "What's going on, Wendy?"

"Have you ever been to Freddy's Deluxe Luxury Suites in Newark?"

"Freddy's what?"

"It's a no-tell motel in the middle of Newark. Have you been?"

"No, of course not."

"Funny. I showed the front desk manager your picture. He said he saw you there the day Dan was killed. In fact, he said you asked for a key to his room."

This was, Wendy knew, a semi-bluff. The front desk manager had recognized Jenna Wheeler and said she'd been there within the past two weeks, but he couldn't say exactly when. He also remembered giving her a key without asking questions-when nice-looking suburban women show up at Freddy's, you never ask for ID-but he didn't remember what room.

"He was mistaken," Jenna said.

"I don't think so. More important, when I tell the police, the police won't think so."

The two women stood there, toe-to-toe, staring each other down.

"You see, that was what Phil Turnball missed," Wendy said. "You heard about his suicide, I assume?"

"Yes."

"He thought Dan killed Haley because, in his mind, there were no other suspects. Dan was in hiding at the motel. No one knew where he was, ergo nobody could have planted Haley's iPhone. He forgot about you, Jenna. So did I."

Jenna took off the leather gloves. "That doesn't mean anything."

"How about this then?"

Wendy handed her the photograph of Kirby Sennett. The bright yellow couch with blue flowers was behind them, wrapped in plastic, ready to be loaded for Cincinnati. Jenna looked at the photograph a little too long.

"Has your daughter told you what Red Bulling is?"

Jenna handed it back to her. "This still proves nothing."

"Sure it does. Because now we know the truth, don't we? Once I give this information to the police, they'll go after the kids harder. They'll get the untouched photographs. I know Kirby was here. He and Haley had a big fight and broke up. When I got him alone, he told me that there'd been a drinking party here, in your house, the night Haley vanished. He said only four kids showed. The police will pressure them now. They'll talk."

Again this was not exactly true. Walker and Tremont had gotten Kirby alone in a room. They threatened everything under the sun to get him to talk. It wasn't until his lawyer got a waiver of confidentiality, not just no prosecution, that he told them about the party.

Jenna crossed her arms. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Do you know what amazed me? None of the kids came forward after Haley went missing. But again there were only a few kids here. Kirby said he asked your stepdaughter, Amanda, about it. Amanda told him that Haley had left here fine right after he did. What with Principal Zecher's zero-tolerance policy, no one wanted to admit to drinking if they didn't have to. Kirby was worried about being thrown off the baseball team. He said another girl was on the wait-list to Boston College and she'd never get in once Zecher told them. So they kept quiet about it, the way kids can do. And really, it was no big deal since Amanda told them Haley had been fine when she left the party. Why would they have doubted that?"

"I think you should leave now."

"I plan to. I also plan to head straight to the police. You know they'll be able to reconstruct that night now. They'll give the other kids at the party immunity. They'll find out you were at the motel, maybe go through the nearby surveillance tapes. They'll realize you planted the phone. The medical examiner will take another look at Haley's corpse. Your web of lies will fall apart with ease."

Wendy turned to leave.

"Wait." Jenna swallowed. "What do you want?"

"The truth."

"Are you wearing a wire?"

"A wire? You watch too much TV."

"Are you wearing a wire?" she asked again.

"No." Wendy spread her arms. "Do you want to-what's the correct terminology?-pat me down?"

The two moving men came back into the house. One said, "It okay if we clear out the teenager's bedroom next, Mrs. Wheeler?"

"Fine," Jenna said. She looked back at Wendy. There were tears in her eyes. "Let's talk out back."

Jenna Wheeler led the way. She slid open the glass door. There was a pool in the back. A blue float drifted alone on the water. Jenna stared at it for a moment. She lifted her eyes and let them travel around the yard, as though she were the prospective buyer.

"It was an accident," Jenna said. "When you hear what happened, I'm hoping you'll understand. You're a mother too."

Wendy felt her heart sink.

"Amanda isn't a popular kid. Sometimes that's okay. You find other interests or you make friends with other unpopular kids. You know how it is. But Amanda wasn't like that. She got picked on a lot. No one ever invited her to parties. It became worse for her after I defended Dan, but really, I'm not sure that was much of a factor. Amanda was the type who cared too much. She sat up in her room and cried all the time. Noel and I didn't know what to do."

She stopped.

"So you decided to throw a party," Wendy said.

"Yes. I won't go into all the details, but it seemed the smart move for all involved. Did you know that all that week, the seniors had been driving to the Bronx because they found someplace that served underage teens? Ask Charlie, he'll tell you."

"Leave my son out of this."

Jenna put up both hands in mock surrender. "Fine, whatever. But that's the truth. They'd all go to this club and get wasted and then they'd drive home. So Noel and I figured we could host something in the house. We would stay upstairs, out of the way, and, well, we would just leave a cooler of beer out. It wasn't like we would push it on them, but come on, you were in high school once. Kids drink. We figured at least we could channel it toward the safest possible environment."

Wendy flashed on that Project Graduation booth with the "Not in Our House" campaign, the one against parents hosting parties. "Safety overkill," that father had called it, and maybe, on one level, she had agreed.

"I assume that Haley McWaid was there?" Wendy said.

Jenna nodded. "She didn't really like Amanda. She'd only been to the house once before. She was just using her for the alcohol, I guess. I mean, only a handful of kids showed up. And Haley McWaid was upset. She was heartbroken about not getting into the University of Virginia. She had a big fight with Kirby. That's why he left early."

Her voice faded away. Jenna looked at the pool water again.

"So what happened?" Wendy asked.

"Haley died."

She said it just like that.

The moving men clunked down the stairs. One cursed. Wendy stood there with Jenna Wheeler. The sun beat down upon them. The yard was hushed, holding its breath.

"She drank too much," Jenna said. "Alcohol overdose. Haley was a small girl. She found an unopened bottle of whiskey in the cabinet. She drank it all. Amanda thought she had just passed out."

"You didn't call nine-one-one?"

She shook her head. "Noel is a doctor. He tried everything to revive that poor girl. But it was too late." Jenna finally turned away from the pool. She looked at Wendy with imploring eyes. "I need you to put yourself in our position for a moment, okay? The girl was dead. Nothing could bring her back."

"Dead is dead," Wendy said, echoing what Jenna had said about her ex-husband during their last meeting.

"You're being sarcastic, but yes, dead is dead. Haley was gone. It was a terrible accident, but there was no bringing her back. So we stood over her body. Noel kept trying to do CPR, but it was useless. Think about it. You're a reporter. You've covered stories on these parties, haven't you?"

"I have."

"You know that parents have ended up going to jail, right?"

"Right. It's called manslaughter."

"But it was an accident. Don't you see? She drank too much. It happens."

"Four thousand times a year," Wendy said, remembering Safety Officer Pecora stating that statistic.

"So Haley is lying there. She's dead. And we don't know what to do. If we call the police, we go to prison. An open-and-shut case. Our lives would be ruined."

"Better than being dead," Wendy said.

"But what good would that do? Don't you get that? Haley was already dead. Destroying our lives wouldn't bring her back. We were terrified. Don't get me wrong. We felt horrible about Haley. But there is nothing to do for the dead. We were scared-you get that, right?"

Wendy nodded. "I do."

"I mean, put yourself in our shoes. Your whole family is about to be destroyed. What would you have done?"

"Me? I probably would have buried her body in a state park."

Silence.

"That's not funny," Jenna said.

"But that's what you did, isn't it?"

"Imagine it's your home. Imagine that Charlie came up to you in your bedroom and brought you downstairs and one of his friends was lying dead. You didn't make the kid drink. You didn't force the alcohol down his throat. And now you might go to jail for this. Or Charlie might. What would you have done to protect your family?"

This time, Wendy said nothing.

"We didn't know what to do, so, yes, we panicked. Noel and I put the body in the trunk of our car. I know how it sounds, but again, we saw another alternative. If we called the police, we were done-and the girl would still be dead. That's what I kept telling myself. I would have sacrificed my own life to bring her back-but that wasn't possible."

"So you buried her in the woods?"

"That wasn't the initial plan. We were going to drive to Irvington or some city, and just, well, we were going to leave her somewhere so she could be found right away-but then we realized that the autopsy would show alcohol poisoning. The police would be able to trace it back to us. So we knew that we had to hide her. I felt horrible about this-about Ted and Marcia not knowing. But I didn't really know what else to do. And then when people started assuming Haley had run away, well, wasn't that better than knowing for certain that your child is dead?"

Wendy did not reply.

"Wendy?"

"You said to put yourself in your shoes."

"Yes."

"Now I'm putting myself in Ted's and Marcia's shoes. Was it your hope that they'd never find out the truth? That one day their daughter was there and the next she vanished and so for the rest of their lives they'd rush to every doorbell and wonder about every phone call?"

"Is that worse than knowing your daughter is dead?"

Wendy did not bother giving an answer.

"And you have to understand," Jenna continued. "We were living in a sort of suspended hell too. Every time our doorbell or the phone rang, we wondered if it was the police."

"Wow," Wendy said, "I feel horrible for you."

"I'm not telling you that to gain your sympathy. I'm trying to explain what happened next."

"I think I know what happened," Wendy said. "You were Dan's next of kin. When the police came to you and told you he was dead, well, it was fortuitous, wasn't it?"

Jenna looked down. She pulled the large flannel shirt tighter against her, as though it might offer protection. She looked even smaller now. "I loved that man. I was devastated."

"But like you said, dead is dead. Dan had already been branded a pedophile, and well, you told me that Dan wouldn't care about being rehabilitated. He didn't believe in an afterlife."

"That's all true."

"The phone records showed the only people Dan called were you and his lawyer, Flair Hickory. You were the only one he trusted. You knew where he was. You still had Haley's iPhone. So why not? Pin it on a dead man."

"He couldn't be hurt anymore. Don't you see that?"

In a terrible way, this part made sense. You can't hurt a dead man.

"You plugged Ringwood State Park into Google Earth on Haley's iPhone. That was another clue. Why, if Dan killed her and buried her there, would she have looked up that park? There'd be no reason. The only conclusion I could draw was that Haley's killer wanted her body found."

"Not her killer," Jenna said. "It was an accident."

"I'm really not up for a semantics lesson here, Jenna. But why did you put Ringwood State Park into Google Earth?"

"Because despite what you think, I'm not a monster. I saw Ted and Marcia-the torment they were going through. I saw what the not knowing was doing to them."

"You did it for them?"

Jenna turned to her. "I wanted to give them some measure of peace. I wanted their daughter to have a true burial."

"Nice of you."

"Your sarcasm," Jenna said.

"What about it?"

"It's a cover. What we did was bad. It was wrong. But you also understand it on some level. You're a mother. We do what we have to do to protect our children."

"We don't bury dead girls in the woods."

"No? So you wouldn't, no matter what? Suppose Charlie's life was at stake. I know you lost your husband. Suppose he was there, on his way to jail for an accident. What would you have done?"

"I wouldn't have buried a girl in the woods."

"Well, what would you have done? I want to know."

Wendy did not answer. For a moment she let herself imagine it. John still alive. Charlie coming upstairs. The girl dead on the floor. She didn't have to wonder what she would have done. There was no reason to take it that far.

"Her death was an accident," Jenna said again, her voice soft.

Wendy nodded. "I know."

"Do you understand why we did what we did? I'm not saying you have to agree. But do you understand?"

"I guess on some level I do."

Jenna looked at her with a tearstained face. "So what are you going to do now?"

"What would you do if you were me?"

"I would let it be." Jenna reached out and took Wendy's hand. "Please. I beg you. Just let it be."

Wendy thought about that. She had come here feeling one way. Had her opinion shifted? Again she pictured John alive. She pictured Charlie coming up the stairs. She pictured the girl dead on the floor.

"Wendy?"

"I'm not up for being judge and jury," she said, flashing now on Ed Grayson, on what he'd done. "It's not my place to punish you. But it's not my place to absolve you either."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm sorry, Jenna."

Jenna stepped back. "You can't prove any of this. I'll deny this whole conversation took place."

"You could try, but I don't think that will help you."

"It will be your word against mine."

"No, it won't," Wendy said. She gestured toward the gate. Frank Tremont and two other police detectives came around the corner.

"I lied before," Wendy said, opening up her shirt. "I am wired."

CHAPTER 38

THAT NIGHT, when it was all done, Wendy sat alone on the porch of her house. Charlie was upstairs on the computer. Pops came out and stood by her chair. They both stared up at the stars. Wendy drank white wine. Pops had a bottle of beer.

"I'm ready to go," he said.

"Not if you have a beer."

"Just having this one."

"Still."

He sat. "We need to have a little talk first anyway."

She took another sip of the wine. Odd. Alcohol had killed her husband. Alcohol had killed Haley McWaid. Yet here they both were, sitting on a cool, clear spring evening drinking. Some other time, maybe when she was stone-cold sober, Wendy would search for the deeper meaning in that.

"What's up?" she asked.

"I didn't come back to New Jersey just to visit you and Charlie."

She turned to him. "Why then?"

"I came," he said, "because I got a letter from Ariana Nasbro."

Wendy just stared at him.

"I met with her this week. More than once."

"And?"

"And I'm forgiving her, Wendy. I don't want to hold on to it anymore. I don't think John would want me to. If we don't have compassion, what have we got?"

She said nothing. She thought back to Christa Stockwell, how she had forgiven the college boys who had done her wrong. She said that if you hold on to hate, you lose your grip on so much more. Phil Turnball had learned that lesson the hard way, hadn't he? Revenge, hate-if you hold on to them too tightly, you could lose the important stuff.

On the other hand, Ariana Nasbro wasn't a college kid playing a harmless prank. She had been a drunk driver, a repeat offender, who had killed her husband. Still, Wendy couldn't help but wonder: If Dan Mercer were alive, would he forgive? Were the situations comparable? Did it matter if they were?

"I'm sorry, Pops," she said. "I can't forgive her."

"I'm not asking you to. I respect that. And I want you to respect what I'm doing. Can you do that?"

She thought about it. "Yeah, I think I can."

They sat in comfortable silence.

"I'm waiting," Wendy said.

"For what?"

"For you to tell me about Charlie."

"What about him?"

"Did you tell him why you came back?"

"Not my place," Pops said. He rose and finished packing. An hour later, Pops left. Wendy and Charlie flipped on the television. Wendy sat there for a moment, the images flickering before her. Then she rose and went into the kitchen. When she came back, the envelope was in her hand. She handed it to Charlie.

"What's this?" he asked.

"It's a letter to you from Ariana Nasbro. Read it. If you want to talk about it, I'll be upstairs."

Wendy got ready for bed and left her door open. She waited. Eventually she heard Charlie making his way up the stairs. She braced herself. He poked his head in the doorway and said, "I'm heading to bed."

"You okay?"

"Fine. I don't want to talk about it right now, okay? I just want to think a little on my own."

"Okay."

"Good night, Mom."

"Good night, Charlie."

TWO DAYS LATER, right before Kasselton High School girls played Ridgewood for the county championship in lacrosse, a memorial service was held at midfield. A big sign that read HALEY MCWAID'S PARK was hoisted up on the scoreboard during a moment of silence.

Wendy was there. She watched at a distance. Ted and Marcia were there, of course. Their remaining children, Patricia and Ryan, stood with them. Wendy looked at them and felt her heart break all over again. Another sign was hoisted below Haley's name. This one said NOT IN OUR HOUSE, and reminded parents not to host drinking parties. Marcia McWaid looked away as the sign went up. She scanned the crowd then, and her eyes landed on Wendy. She gave Wendy a small nod. Wendy nodded back. That was all.

When the game began, Wendy turned and walked away. Now-retired county investigator Frank Tremont was there too, way in the back, wearing the same rumpled suit he'd worn to the funeral. It had helped for him to know that Haley McWaid was dead before he ever got the case. But right now, it didn't seem to help a lot.

Walker wore his full sheriff uniform for the ceremony, complete with gun and holster. He stood on the blacktop talking to Michele Feisler. Michele was covering the event for NTC. She moved away when she saw Wendy approach, leaving the two of them alone. Walker started shifting his feet nervously.

Walker said, "You okay?"

"I'm fine. Dan Mercer was innocent, you know."

"I do."

"So that means Ed Grayson murdered an innocent man."

"I know."

"You can't just let him get away with that. He needs to be brought to justice too."

"Even if he thought Mercer was a pedophile?"

"Even if."

Walker said nothing.

"Did you hear what I said?"

"I did," Walker said. "And I will do my best."

He didn't add "but." He didn't have to. Wendy was doing all she could to rehabilitate Dan's name, but nobody much cared. Dead is dead, after all. Wendy turned toward Michele Feisler. Michele had that pad out again, watching the crowd, jotting down notes like the last time they'd been together.

That reminded her of something.

"Hey," Wendy said to her. "What was that thing about the timeline again?"

"You got the order wrong," Michele said.

"Oh, right. Ed Grayson shot his brother-in-law Lemaine before Mercer."

"Yes. I don't think that changes anything, does it?"

Wendy thought about it, ran it through her head now that she had time.

Actually it changed everything.

She turned toward Walker and saw the gun in his holster. For a moment she just stared at it.

Walker saw what she was doing. "What's wrong?"

"How many slugs did you find at the trailer park?"

"Excuse me?"

"Your crime-tech guys went through the park where Dan Mercer was shot, right?"

"Of course."

"How many slugs did they find?"

"Just the one in that cinder block."

"The one that made the hole in the trailer?"

"Yes. Why?"

Wendy started for her car.

Walker said, "Wait, what's going on?"

She didn't reply. She walked back to her car and looked it over. Nothing. Not a mark, not a scratch. Her hand fluttered up toward her mouth. She bit back the scream.

Wendy got in her car and drove to Ed Grayson's house. She found him out back, pulling weeds. He was startled by her sudden approach.

"Wendy?"

"Whoever killed Dan," she said, "shot at my car."

"What?"

"You're an expert shot. Everyone says so. I saw you aim at my car and fire several rounds. Yet there isn't a mark on it. In fact, the only slug found in the whole park was the one that went through the wall-the first shot you took. The most obvious place."

Ed Grayson looked up from the dirt. "What are you talking about?"

"How could an expert marksman miss Dan from such close range? How could he miss my car? How could he miss the damn ground? Answer: He couldn't. It was all a ruse."

"Wendy?"

"What?"

"Let it go."

They just looked at each other for a moment.

"No way. Dan's death is still on me."

He said nothing.

"And it's ironic when you think about it. When I first got to the trailer, Dan was all bruised from a beating. The cops thought Hester Crimstein had been so clever. She used my testimony to claim that you beat him up-that's how the blood got in your car. What the cops didn't realize was, she was telling the truth. You found Dan. You beat him up because you wanted him to confess. But he didn't, did he?"

"No," Ed Grayson said. "He didn't."

"In fact, you started believing him. You realized that maybe he was innocent."

"Maybe."

"So help me here. You came home. What then-did you push E. J. for the truth?"

"Leave it alone, Wendy."

"Come on. You know I can't. Did E. J. come clean and tell you it was his uncle who took the pictures?"

"No."

"Who then?"

"My wife, okay? She saw me covered in blood. She told me that I had to stop. She told me what happened, that it was her brother who took those pictures. She begged me to let it go. E. J. was moving past it, she said. Her brother was getting help."

"But you weren't going to let it slide."

"No, I wasn't. But I wasn't going to make E. J. testify against his own uncle."

"So you shot him in the kneecaps."

"I'm not dumb enough to answer that one."

"Doesn't matter. We both know you did. And then, what, you called Dan to apologize? Something like that?"

He didn't reply.

"It didn't matter that the judge had thrown the case out," she continued. "My show had destroyed Dan's life. Even now-even after I've come forward and publicly exonerated him-people still think he's a pedophile. Where there's smoke, there's fire, right? He had no chance right then. His life was over. You probably blamed yourself some too, the way you hounded him. So you wanted to make things right."

"Let it go, Wendy."

"And even better, you were a federal marshal. Those are the guys who handle the witness protection program, don't they? You know how to make people disappear."

He did not reply.

"So the solution was pretty simple now. You had to fake his death. You couldn't really find another body or make up a fake police report like you could with your federal subjects. And without a body, you needed a reliable witness-someone who would never side with Dan Mercer. Me. You left enough evidence so the police would believe my story-the one round, his blood, the witness who saw you carry out a carpet, your car at the scene, putting the GPS on my car, even going to the shooting range-but not enough evidence so you could be convicted. You had one real bullet in the gun. That's the first one you shot into the wall. The rest were blanks. Dan probably gave you a blood sample or just intentionally cut himself-that explains the blood left behind. Oh, and even smarter-you found a trailer park where you knew there would be no cell phone service. Your witness would have to drive off. That would give you enough time to sneak Dan out. And when they found that iPhone in his motel room, well, you freaked out for a moment, didn't you? That's why you came up to the park. That's why you wanted information. You were afraid, just for a moment, that maybe you had helped a real killer run away."

She waited for him to say anything. For a moment he just studied her face.

"That's a whale of a tale, Wendy."

"Now, I can't prove any of this-"

"I know," he said. "Because it's nonsense." He almost smiled now. "Or are you hoping to get me on your wire too?"

"I don't have a wire."

He shook his head and started toward his house. She followed him.

"Don't you see? I don't want to prove any of it."

"So why are you here then?"

Tears filled her eyes. "Because I'm responsible for what happened to him. I'm the one who set him up on that television show. I'm the reason the world thinks he's a pedophile."

"I guess that's true."

"And if you killed him, that's on me. Forever. I don't get a do-over. It's my fault. But if you helped him escape, maybe, just maybe, he's okay now. Maybe he'd even understand and…"

She stopped. They were inside the house.

"And what?"

She had trouble getting the words out of her mouth. The tears were coming faster now.

"And what, Wendy?"

"And maybe," she said, "he'd even forgive me."

Ed Grayson lifted the phone then. He dialed a long telephone number. He said some kind of code into the line. He listened for a click. Then he handed the phone to her.