In an Evil Time

1

Wednesday Night

He sat in the dark Lexus, on the dark street, waiting dry-mouthed for the man he was going to kill. It was twenty of eleven by the radium dial of his watch; he’d been here an hour and still no sign of Rakubian. Habitual, every minute of the bastard’s time jealously budgeted, his weeknight regimen as strict as an army recruit’s... he should have been home long ago.

Hollis shifted position to ease cramped muscles, the pressure in his bladder. In the cold darkness he could hear the beat of his heart, or imagined he could. Steady. Accelerated but steady. One hand lay quiet in his lap, the other resting on the Colt Woodsman on the seat beside him. Palms and underarms sweat-free. Yet the dryness threatened to close his throat, and he could feel his nerves squirming inside him like a nest of night crawlers.

Across the curving, mist-choked street Rakubian’s house loomed black and fuzzy-edged behind its front tangle of yew trees and shrubbery. Small place by St. Francis Wood standards, Spanish style, set well back from the street and well apart from its neighbors. A line of eucalyptus ran along the west side, their elongated shadows thick as unstirred ink. One advantage there. The fog was another. It was dense enough to blur lights and distort shapes, hide him when he crossed to the house and back almost as effectively as it hid him now behind the opaque film of wetness it had laid over the windshield.

The house and property were familiar enough; he and Cassie had visited Angela a few times in the early months, when her marriage had still been tolerable and she’d hidden the truth about Rakubian out of loyalty instead of fear. But at the same time it was an alien place. It had never been hers, was never allowed to be hers, in any way. Furnishings, decor, landscaping, everything Rakubian’s, all carefully selected and rigidly governed. As he’d selected and was still trying to govern her even though her divorce had been granted. Rakubian, the control freak. Rakubian, the psychotic abuser.

Once more Hollis let himself remember the night six weeks ago, when she’d finally had enough and the whole ugly truth came out. The details were etched as if with acid on the walls of his mind: Angela standing on the dark porch, Kenny beside her crying and clutching her hand, her face pale and her body hunched, saying in a hurt little girl’s voice, “Daddy, can we come home, can we please come home?” Her shamed unveiling of the bruises, welts, scabbed cuts and scratches, old marks as well as new ones. Her confession about the beatings, most of them done with Rakubian’s fists but that night with an antique walking stick, and his threats to do worse to her if she didn’t obey him. “Discipline,” he’d called it — punishment for imagined flirtations, for violating one of his other strict rules of wifely conduct. And the abject, hammered-down misery in her voice when she begged their forgiveness for letting it go on so long, saying, “I would’ve left him sooner if he’d hurt Kenny, but he didn’t... terrorized him but never hit him. Kenny doesn’t really exist for David because he’s another man’s son. It’s me he’s obsessed with, me he wants to hurt.”

Hollis held on to the memory, using it like a bellows to stoke the fire of his hate and resolve. It was what would let him get out of the car when Rakubian finally came home, and walk over there and ring the bell, and put a bullet point-blank into his brain when he opened the door.

No words, no hesitation.

Look him in the eye and kill him.

Take a human life, even one as sick and worthless as David Rakubian’s. Him, Jack Hollis, law-abiding citizen, staunch believer in the Judeo-Christian ethic and the sanctity of life. Commit cold-blooded, premeditated murder.

But there was simply no other option. He’d been through the alternatives so many times and none of them were any good. If there was one thing the experts agreed on, it was that nothing short of a death — not a divorce decree, not the antistalking laws, not restraining orders, not support groups or round-the-clock bodyguards or the victims moving away and changing their names or even hiring a couple of thugs to break bones — would stop the committed stalker. And that was exactly what Rakubian was, committed and lethal. All the letters and phone calls, the thinly veiled and escalating threats, said so. So did the incident last week: showing up when Angela was at Long’s Drugs, trying to force her and Kenny into his car in front of witnesses, punching her when she resisted. They’d had him arrested, and a few hours later he was out on bail. A judge had finally granted a temporary restraining order, and already he’d found ways, sly lawyer’s tricks, to circumvent it.

Hollis conjured up another memory — the conversation in Rakubian’s office the day he’d made the mistake of going there to confront him, not long after her return home.

“You have no right to interfere in my personal affairs, Hollis. Angela isn’t yours any longer, she’s mine.”

“The hell she is. She’s filed for divorce, she wants nothing more to do with you.”

“I don’t believe in divorce. I won’t accept it. Angela will never be free of me, why can’t you and she understand that? She’ll always be my wife. I’ll always love her more than life itself.”

“You beat her like a dog!”

“I disciplined her. A wife needs discipline to learn to cleave unto her husband.”

“You’re a goddamn sadist, Rakubian.”

“Hardly. What I am is an old-fashioned realist. The world would be better off if there were more men like me. I take my marriage vows and duties seriously and I believe in them to the letter. For better or for worse, till death do us part.”

“I won’t let you hurt her any more than you already have.”

“You have no say in the matter. What I do or don’t do is between my wife and me.”

“Stay away from her! Stay away from my grandson!”

“I suggest you remember what I’ve told you, that you tell Angela to remember it. For better or for worse, till death do us part.”

The implication, the promise had been crystal clear: If I can’t have her, no one else will. Oh, yes, no mistake — Rakubian was the classic profile of a homicidal stalker. Inflexible as stone, egotistical, delusional, sociopathic. A ticking time bomb. Allow him to live, and before too much longer he would explode in the deadliest way imaginable.

Taking his life first wasn’t murder; it was self-defense, an act of survival. Either David Rakubian died or Angela would die. Kenny, too, most likely. Cassie, Eric, himself... anyone Rakubian perceived as standing in his way was at risk. Hollis would not let that happen. His family meant more to him than anything else, including his own life.

Yet the enormity of the act still frightened and sickened him. Determination on the one hand, revulsion on the other. As if he were existing on two overlapping planes, half on one and half on the second, a schizoid state that would end only when he squeezed the Woodsman’s trigger.

If he squeezed it.

If he could go through with it.

He kept telling himself he would, but how could any man with his background, his moral code, be absolutely sure until the moment came? Decide to take a life, be convinced it was morally justified, even crave the relief it would bring... conceptual abstracts, like one of the buildings he designed in its embryonic stage. An edifice of the mind. Drawings, blueprints didn’t make a building a reality; steel, stone, wood, brick, physical labor created the actual structure. Same principle here. Rakubian’s death and his family’s safety could not become a reality until the trigger was squeezed, a bullet tore through flesh, bone, brain tissue.

An image came into his mind: Rakubian sprawled on the terra-cotta floor of his foyer. Blackened hole in his face, blood, twitching limbs, eyes glazed and sightless. Another image: himself standing on the porch, smoking gun in hand, the knowledge of his responsibility swelling and distorting his features until they were no longer recognizable.

Another image: the buck, thirty-five years ago.

His child self inside the bright red hunting jacket, the hiking boots pinching his toes, the rifle cold-hot in his hands, his eyes staring down at the bloody spasming body of the deer and watching it die. Pop’s arm tight around his shoulders, the stillness of the woods and the lingering after-echoes of the shot and the animal’s last gurgling, dying breaths. And Pop saying, “Good clean lung shot, son, I’m proud of you,” Pop saying, “Just take it easy, the first kill is always the hardest,” Pop saying, “Be a man, now, wipe the puke off your mouth and get hold of yourself,” Pop saying, “It’s your buck, Jack, you killed it and by God you’re going to gut and dress it.”

Eleven years old. First kill. Only kill. Went hunting twice more with the old man, froze up and couldn’t fire at the only other deer that came his way, Pop saying disgustedly that time, “Buck fever, after you already lost your cherry. I’m ashamed of you, boy.” And Pop red-faced and angry the second year, when he learned his son had left camp with an unloaded rifle; stomping around in the chill mountain air and shouting, “This is the last time you come out with me, the goddamn last time. You haven’t got the guts for a man’s sport.”

Wrong, Pop. It wasn’t a matter of courage at all. An outdoorsman, the old man, all rough edges and surface feelings and lack of imagination. He’d mistaken sensitivity, empathy for cowardice. His son had guts, all right; a man knows if he does or doesn’t, proves it to himself in a hundred different ways as he matures, and Jack Hollis refusing to shoot another deer — or to hook a fish in Tomales Bay, or to play contact sports, or to do any of the other things Bud Hollis considered manly — had nothing to do with the stuff he was made of. Neither was being able or unable to kill a hated enemy a test of his courage. Of his humanity, yes. Of the essence of him, yes. But not of his manhood.

Come on, Rakubian, he thought.

Damn you, come on!

Growing edgier by the minute, and nothing to he done about it. Normally he was a patient man, but an hour of sitting like this in the cold car had frayed him raw inside. The longer the wait went on, the harder it would be to use the .22. No denying that. He could call it off, go home, return tomorrow night, but it would be twice as hard to nerve himself to it a second time. Stick it out another twenty or thirty minutes, at least. He could stand that much more.

Maybe, he thought then, he ought to do this a little differently. Go over there right now, hide in the shadows near the attached garage where he could empty his bladder. When Rakubian drove in, drift inside behind the car and use the gun in there. The garage walls were thick and would muffle the shot, even with the door open. Another factor: It would be too dark in the garage for anyone happening by to see in from the street. On the porch, he’d be in clear view because Rakubian would almost certainly put on the outside light before opening the door...

No. Bad idea. Suppose it was another hour or more before Rakubian showed? With the blowing fog, the night was bitter cold; waiting outside, even bundled in his overcoat, he would numb and cramp before long. He didn’t have his gloves and he couldn’t fire the .22 with stiffened fingers. Nor was there any guarantee he’d be able to enter the garage without Rakubian seeing him and taking some kind of counteraction. Or that he’d be able to get close enough, or see clearly enough, to put him down with a single shot.

The original plan was still the best. Stay put, wait it out here. Wait five minutes after Rakubian got home, then walk over, ring the bell, shoot him as soon as he opened up. A quick glance to make sure he was dead, then walk, not run, to the car and drive away.

Chances were no one would hear the shot; a .22 Woodsman makes a pop not much louder than a released champagne cork. And with any luck no one would see him, notice or be able to identify the car’s make or color. He would be suspected, of course, because of that stupid outburst in Rakubian’s office, but Gabe Mannix would alibi him for tonight if necessary — all he’d have to do was ask. Two other things in his favor: a man like Rakubian, a ruthless personal-injury attorney, must have plenty of other enemies. And the Woodsman had been Pop’s, an old target pistol he’d never bothered to register.

He might just get away with it, at least in this life. If he didn’t, well, it might not matter much in the long run. Even if a good criminal attorney pled extenuating circumstances, got a murder charge reduced to manslaughter, he still had the goddamn cancer to contend with. Maybe he’d get lucky and beat the odds there, too... and maybe he wouldn’t. No point in worrying about it now. The important thing, the only important thing, was to keep his family safe.

Hollis ran a hand over his face, felt and heard the heel of his palm scrape on patchy beard stubble. Poor job of shaving this morning. Too keyed up, his hand not quite steady. Missed a few spots, nicked himself in three or four places. Cassie had noticed the bad shave and the edginess both, commented on them. After twenty-six years of marriage they were sensitive to each other’s moods. The look on her face when he’d told her he would be home late, he had an important meeting with a prospective client. Her afternoon call to the office, the questions, the unease in her voice. If he hadn’t cut her off short, she might have tried to bring it out into the open. He hated lying to her, but it was better than an open confrontation. Nothing she could say would have changed his mind anyway.

Headlights appeared at the intersection two blocks down, threw a wash of diffused yellow-white against the fog as the car turned upstreet toward him. He slid lower beneath the wheel, as he had the other times headlights approached, his hand closing around the hard rubber handle of the .22. The beams speared closer, moving slowly, making a blinding oblong of the mist-streaked windshield. And flicked past, the car’s tires hissing on the pavement. Not Rakubian. The car kept on going and vanished around the curve behind him.

The pound of his heart seemed drum-loud. He willed himself to relax, working his shoulder muscles as he sat up. The side window was lowered enough so that he could look over the top of the glass; he put it down the rest of the way to clear off condensation, took deep drafts of the chill night air. The wind, moist and salt-flavored, made his skin tingle clammily. He rolled the window partway up again, held his watch close to his eyes.

11:05.

What if Rakubian stayed out all night? He’d been alone six weeks now... another woman? No. Not the way he felt about Angela. His appetites, sexual and otherwise, were too obsessively centered on her.

Long business meeting or dinner? Some kind of social function? Where the hell was he?

Hollis’s saliva glands seemed to have dried up; swallowing had become painful. His breathing was off, the pressure in his bladder acute, and now his lower back and hips ached. One of the symptoms that prostate cancer is spreading: nagging pain in the back, hips, or pelvis. Symptom of stress, too, he told himself. Don’t start imagining things.

Another set of headlights appeared, smeared by fog and the wet window glass into one long misshapen fan, approaching from the direction of West Portal. The lights swept past the little hillside park where St. Francis ended, and when they turned into Monterey and came uphill toward him, he sank low on the seat again so his eye level was just above the window frame. The windshield once more became a dazzling oblong — and a moment later the beams swung sharply away, into the driveway across the street.

Rakubian.

He let out a ragged breath, caught up the Woodsman and held it on his lap. With his left hand he rubbed moisture off the side glass. Taillights burned crimson through the fog; the automatic garage door began to glide up, revealing the lighted interior in slow segments. He could hear the throaty idle of the car — a silver BMW, less than a year old, hallmark of the bugger’s success. He watched it roll inside, the driver’s door swing open as the overhead door started to come down. He had a brief glimpse of Rakubian in a dark overcoat, then the door was all the way down and he was looking at darkness again.

He sat waiting, staring at the house. He felt... okay. A little queasy, the crawling sensation more pronounced and close under the skin, but otherwise calm. His hands? Steady enough, the palms still dry.

Light bloomed behind one of the shaded front windows.

All right. No point in waiting any longer.

Get out, walk over there.

Ring the bell.

Raise the gun, and when Rakubian opens the door, shoot him. Don’t hesitate, don’t think, just shoot him.

Rid the world of a monster.

For Angela. Kenny. Cassie. Eric. Himself.

He sat there.

Do it. What’s the matter with you? Do it!

He sat there. He couldn’t move.

Could not will himself to move.

Buck fever, after you already lost your cherry. I’m ashamed of you, boy.

Now the sweat came. And the shakes, and a shortness of breath, and an awareness that he was dribbling droplets of piss like a scared old man. He cursed himself, bitterly and savagely; and when the reaction ended after a minute, two minutes, it left him feeling weak and ill. He knew he could move then. He might even be able to make it across the street and up to Rakubian’s door. But beyond that... no.

Couldn’t go through with it after all.

Not tonight. Not this way.

But it wasn’t finished; he wasn’t finished. Something had to be done about Rakubian and it was still up to him to do it. All that had changed was the time, the place, perhaps the method. Whatever steps he eventually took to protect his family, they would not be as simple or as cowardly as ringing a doorbell and squeezing a trigger.

2

Early Thursday Morning

As late as it was when he got back to Los Alegres, most of the lights in the big two-story house were on. The instant he saw that, he knew something was wrong.

He went tight on the outside, hollow on the inside. He jerked the Lexus into the driveway and left it there instead of putting it away in the garage. The Doberman, Fritz, began barking inside as soon as he ran up the stairs to the front porch. The door opened before he reached it and Cassie stood there. The wrongness was in her face, her eyes, the fact that she was still dressed, her voice when she said, “My God, where have you been? I’ve been frantic. I called your cell phone half a dozen times and kept getting an out-of-service message—”

He’d turned it off, like a damn fool. “Never mind that now. What happened? Why are all the lights on?”

“Come inside.”

“Angela? Kenny?”

“They’re all right.” She tugged at his arm. “We can’t talk out here.”

He went past her, into the empty living room. Liquor on her breath, a half-full glass of Irish whiskey on the table beside her chair — she almost never drank anything alcoholic this late. The dog was still making a racket; she must have locked it in the kitchen or on the back porch. He turned to face her again.

“Tell me what happened.”

“He was here again. Rakubian.”

“Here? At the house?”

“No, in town, McLear Park. Angela took Kenny down there before supper for a few minutes. I tried to talk her out of it, but she thought it’d be all right with Fritz along. He showed up there. He must have been lurking somewhere in the neighborhood and seen her leave the house.”

“Goddamn it! What happened to the neighborhood watch?”

“I don’t know. People not home yet, not paying attention...”

“He didn’t try to force them into his car again?”

“No. Kept his distance because of the dog. She said he was calm this time, didn’t raise his voice.”

“What’d he say to her?”

“He came right out with it, Jack. Said he’d kill her if she didn’t go back to him. Her, Kenny, anybody who tried to stop him, and then himself.”

Hollis ground his teeth, hard enough to bring a flash of pain along his jaw. “You or she call the police?”

“No. I wanted to — it’s a clear violation of the restraining order, we could’ve had him arrested again. But she said it would only provoke him, make him worse.”

“She’s probably right.”

“How could he get any worse?” Cassie said. “He’s totally irrational. He wouldn’t be openly violating the TRO and making outright threats if he wasn’t.”

“I know that. I know.”

“God, I feel so helpless.”

“So do I,” he lied. He crossed to the wet bar, poured a double shot of Bushmills, and drank it in one long swallow. It went down like fire, but it might have been water for all the effect it had on him.

Cassie came over beside him. “There’s more,” she said. “He followed them back here, parked down the street for almost an hour. Then he drove away and we thought he was gone, but a while later he was back. He drove by the house a few times, parked, left and came back again — twice more.”

Down there in the city waiting for him, and all the while he was up here playing his sick games. I should’ve known this is where he was, should’ve called to find out. Stupid. Stupid!

“Jack?”

“... Yes. What else?”

“He kept calling up,” Cassie said. “Six or seven times. I know we decided not to talk to him anymore after last night, but I was so upset the first time I lost it and picked up and screamed at him. I don’t even remember what I said. He told me to calm down. Can you believe that?”

“What else did he say?”

“The same garbage. All the threats thinly veiled again, to me and in the other calls I let go on the machine.”

“He knows we’re taping his calls. At least he’s still rational enough not to want a record of his death threats.”

“That’s no consolation.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. Where’s Angela?”

“She was pretty upset after the park incident. I made her lie down in her room with Kenny. Last time I looked in, they were both asleep.”

“Good.”

“She’s not strong enough to stand up to this kind of madness indefinitely. None of us are. What’re we going to do?”

Round and round, round and round. He shook his head. “I can’t think right now. That dog... quiet him down, will you, before he wakes up half the neighborhood.”

Cassie nodded and went away. She was much better with the Doberman than he was; Fritz was well trained but trusted her more than anybody else. Her veterinary training. Animals responded to her instinctively. He swung around to pour another drink; felt his stomach quiver and changed his mind. At the back of the house, the barking stopped. Pretty soon Cassie returned.

Her first words then “Where were you tonight?”

“A business meeting, I told you that.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“What makes you think I’m lying?”

“Your cell phone. Why was it switched off?”

“I didn’t know it was. Must’ve pushed the button by accident.”

“Dammit,” she said, “you’re up to something.”

“No.”

“Something drastic. I can feel it.”

“No.”

“You’d better tell me. I have a right to know.”

“Cass, for God’s sake.”

“Whatever we do, any of us, it has to be legal. It has to make sense.”

“Make sense,” he said bitterly. “Get a restraining order, buy a guard dog, take a self-defense class, alert the neighborhood watch, keep a log of drive-bys, save all correspondence, record all phone calls, keep your cell phone handy at all times, join a support group. Has any of that made sense? It hasn’t stopped him and it won’t stop him.”

“Angela is talking again about going away,” Cassie said. “Changing her name, starting a new life. She’s serious this time.”

“Does that make sense? He’ll hunt her down wherever she goes if it takes him the rest of his miserable life—”

“It’s the only choice I have left, Daddy.”

Angela had come downstairs and into the living room so quietly they hadn’t realized she was there until she spoke. Robe, slippers, her short hair lank and uncombed, her face scrubbed and colorless. Movements slow, listless. Twenty-five years old, pretty, she’d always been so pretty, the slender, wheat-blond image of Cassie at that age. Now she looked haggard, less youthful than her mother at forty-six — sharper lines around the mouth and eyes, the eyes themselves, once so full of life, faded and glassy from the constant strain. Rakubian’s marks, deeper and more permanent than the cuts and bruises she’d worn like a badge of shame when she first came home.

Angela. His little girl. The ideal daughter — he’d said that to people while she was growing up, with pride and in all seriousness. Such a happy child, always laughing, full of questions, interested in everything. Never rebellious or troublesome, as Eric had been as a teenager. Never any problems until the summer after her high school graduation, when she’d taken up with Ryan Pierce and lost her head and her virginity and ended up pregnant with Kenny. And even that hadn’t been so bad; the kid had married her voluntarily, and if he’d been too immature to hold down a steady job and care for a family, then been a deadbeat father for more than a year after the divorce, at least he was neither abusive nor crazy. She’d have been all right if she’d gone on to college after the split with Pierce, let Cassie and him raise her son until she got her degree and found a teaching position. But no. Trying so hard to be independent, insisting on paying her own way, working days and going to school nights... that damn secretarial job in San Francisco, Rakubian and his superficial charm and lavish attention, the quick and impulsive rebound marriage. One huge mistake that had put her life, Kenny’s life in jeopardy...

“Daddy, don’t look at me that way.”

He realized he’d been staring. He went to her, hugged her, stroked her hair. “Dog wake you, baby?”

“No. I wasn’t asleep. I heard you drive in.” She stepped out of his embrace, gave him a wan smile. “You look like you’ve had a pretty rough night too.”

“Never mind about me. Think about yourself.”

“That’s all I have been thinking about. Kenny and myself. This isn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision. I pretty much made up my mind yesterday. We can’t go on living like this, terrified all the time, never knowing what David will do next. I have to do what’s best for both of us.”

“Running away isn’t the answer.”

“It might be. It’s a hope, anyway. If we stay here... David meant what he said tonight. He’ll kill us, and nobody can stop him.”

I can stop him, Hollis thought. I will stop him.

Cassie said, “He’ll find you, no matter where you go.”

“Not with help from NOVA and Stalking Victims Sanctuary. They can arrange a new identity for us, a place to live, and a job for me. He won’t find us. I have to believe that.”

“But you can’t ever be sure he won’t. You know he’d never give up, and he has plenty of money, resources...”

“At least we’ll have a halfway normal life again.”

“You say that now,” Hollis said, “but it won’t be normal or anything like normal. Looking over your shoulder every time you go out on the street, jumping every time the phone or doorbell rings or you hear a strange noise. You’d never be free of fear.”

“This kind of fear is worse. I can’t breathe, I feel like I’m suffocating right now.”

She moved to the couch, slumped down on it with her knees together, her hands palms up in her lap. So young, sitting there like that. And so old. He felt as though he were choking, too. On love and rage as well as anxiety.

“We’d never see you again,” Cassie said. “Either of you. I couldn’t stand that.”

“You will see us. We’ll find a way to keep in touch, get together when we’re sure it’s safe.”

“It’ll never be safe enough. And you wouldn’t dare phone or write—”

“You’re forgetting e-mail. The support organizations have access to secure sites for message forwarding. Please don’t keep trying to change my mind, it’s only going to make things more difficult for all of us.”

Cassie glanced at Hollis, then went to sit beside her. “Where would you go? You can’t just pack up your car and start driving without a destination in mind.”

“I have a destination in mind.”

“Aunt Celia’s?”

“Mom, we’ve been over and over that. Aunt Celia and I don’t get along, you know she doesn’t approve of me. I don’t care if she is your sister, she can be a bitch sometimes, and Uncle Frank lets her walk all over him. Besides, David knows about them, knows they live in Cedar Rapids. It’s the first place he’d look.”

“Just for a few days...”

“Only as a last resort.”

“Where, then? What destination?”

“Well... Boston.”

“For heaven’s sake, why Boston?”

Angela hesitated before she said, “It’s about as far from Los Alegres as you can get. And a big city, a place to get lost in until I can make arrangements for someplace even more secure.”

Hollis said, “You’re hiding something.”

She started to deny it, hesitated again, and then sighed and said, “It was Eric’s idea.”

“Eric?”

“He knows somebody at Cal Poly, another student whose folks have an apartment they don’t use very often near downtown Boston. He’s trying to set it up so Kenny and I can stay there two or three weeks.”

“I thought we agreed to keep your brother out of this as much as possible.”

“I couldn’t help it, Daddy. I didn’t go to him. He called yesterday, while I was here alone. I tried to downplay how bad things are, but he kept probing. I couldn’t lie to him even if I wanted to. He knows me too well.”

“And he offered up this Boston idea.”

“Yes.”

“How upset was he?”

“He wasn’t, not the way you mean. He really isn’t as hot-headed as he was before he went away to college.”

Hollis wished he could be certain of that. Eric had inherited his grandfather’s brooding temper, and he had a penchant for using poor judgment. Bright kid, IQ higher than anyone in the family, plenty of good qualities, but difficult to understand sometimes. They’d never been as close as Hollis wanted them to be, no matter how hard he tried to establish a tighter bond. That rebellious streak had gotten Eric in trouble a few times — suspended from high school twice for fighting, busted for smoking marijuana in a public place. And he’d disregarded family rules too many times to count. Yet he’d managed to keep up his grades, maintained a high enough GPA and scored well enough on his SAT to get into Cal Poly, Hollis’s alma mater; and now in his junior year, majoring in engineering, he was in the top 10 percent of his class. Good kid at heart, who would someday be a good man — Hollis was sure of that. But that dark streak still worried him.

“When is he supposed to let you know about this apartment?”

“He thought he’d know today, but I haven’t heard from him. If he doesn’t call by noon tomorrow, I’ll get in touch with him—”

“No, let me do it. I want to talk to him.”

“Dad, you won’t try to—”

“No, don’t worry.” His facial muscles felt bunched and tight. A tic seemed to want to start under his right eye; he made an effort to keep it still, his expression neutral. “I won’t argue with him or lecture him.”

“Please don’t.”

Cassie asked, “If it works out, this Boston apartment... when will you go?”

“As soon as possible. This weekend.”

“That soon? All right, don’t say anything, I’m not going to try to talk you out of it. But suppose the apartment doesn’t work out?”

“I don’t know yet. There’s one other possible arrangement I can make. No matter what, though, we’re leaving by the first of next week, before it’s too late.”

There were more words between the two, but Hollis was no longer listening. He moved to the couch, bent to kiss the top of his daughter’s head. “I’m going up to check on Kenny,” he said.

Much of Angela’s old room had been preserved as it was when she was growing up — the stuffed animals on their shelves, the movie- and rock-star posters decorating the walls, her collection of Nancy Drew and Judy Bolton books neatly displayed. Sentiment on Cassie’s part as well as on Angela’s. Kenny was asleep in the daybed next to her old twin, sprawled on his back, one hand fisted against his cheek, the other arm outflung, most of the bedclothes kicked off as usual. The night-light and the pale glow from the hall made his small face seem radiant. Sweet face, like his mother’s. He resembled Angela, though he’d inherited Pierce’s dark hair and complexion.

Hollis tiptoed in, lifted part of the tangled sheet, and covered the boy to his waist. He touched his lips gently to the smooth forehead, straightened, and stood looking down at his grandson in the shadow-edged light.

Nothing is going to happen to you or your mom, he promised silently. I swear it. I swear it on my own life.

In the darkness of their bedroom, no sleep again for either of them, they lay side by side without touching. Cassie had asked him to hold her, and for a time he had, but he was afraid she’d try to stir up more in the way of comfort; he knew he couldn’t oblige. Sexual dysfunction, the inability to sustain an erection — that was another symptom of escalating prostate cancer. He’d pretended his recent impotence was stress-related because he did not want her to know the truth yet. The early diagnosis, the hope that the cancer was slow-growing enough to maintain a lengthy wait-and-see monitoring... meaningless now. It was escalating, all right. The symptoms and the last battery of tests made that plain enough. Stan Otaki was going to insist, the next time he saw him, that they begin aggressive treatment — surgery, radiation therapy. Which was why he’d canceled two appointments in a row. The way things were now with Angela and Rakubian, he could not put up with strength-sapping doses of radiation, or pressure from Cassie to allow himself to be cut open. When Rakubian was no longer a threat, then he’d see the doctor, then he’d tell her, then he’d give his full attention to fighting the cancer.

“... you were tonight.”

“What?”

“I said, you still haven’t told me where you were tonight.”

“Leave it alone, Cass.”

“I can’t. I won’t. Where were you?”

The wind made noises in the Japanese elm outside the window. He listened, concentrating on the sounds. He had to pee again and he didn’t want to get up and go to the bathroom so soon after the last time.

“Answer me, Jack.”

“I drove down to the city,” he said.

“I knew it. You went after Rakubian.”

“You’re jumping to conclusions.”

“Am I? What did you intend to do?”

“He wasn’t home, he was up here terrorizing Angela.”

“That’s not an answer. What did you intend to do?”

He shifted position to ease the hurt in his bladder.

“Talk to me,” she said.

He couldn’t go there with her. Could not make her understand, and above all would not make her an accessory. “Talk to him again, that’s all. Plead with him. I knew it wouldn’t do any good, but I felt I had to try one more time.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, if that’s all it was?”

“Pride, I guess. And I didn’t want you to worry.”

A little silence. “That isn’t all,” she said. “You had something else in mind.”

“Like what? What’re you thinking?”

“I was scared to death all day you’d do something crazy.”

“I’m not crazy,” he said.

“We’re all a little crazy right now. But we’re not desperate enough to resort to murder.”

The word seemed to hang in the heavy blackness. He could almost hear it like an echo above the skirling of the wind.

“It’s what’s in your head, isn’t it?” Cassie said. “I don’t care about Rakubian, I despise him as much as you do — it’s you I’m concerned about. I couldn’t stand to lose you too.”

“You’re not going to lose me.”

“What else would you call sacrificing yourself for Angela?”

“Come on, now—”

“No, you come on. That’s exactly what it would be, a sacrifice. Even if you got away with it, it would destroy you.”

“Not if it made her and Kenny safe.”

“No matter what. You couldn’t live with a thing like that on your conscience. I know you, Jack Hollis.”

“Nobody knows another person that well.” But she was right, and no use in denying it. His conscience would tear him up. Not that he was about to let that stop him.

Something banged outside, far off but still loud enough to carry. Ordinary sound, bump in the night, but they both lay quiet for a time, listening.

Cassie said, “The one hope I have is that you’re not able to go through with it. Take a human life, even a life like David Rakubian’s.”

Sitting in the cold car with the .22 on his lap, frozen in place, crippled. Not able to go through with it.

“Don’t try to find out,” she said. “I’m begging you. Don’t do it.”

The darkness had begun to feel thick and oppressive, wool-like, as if it were contracting around him. “I won’t let that son of a bitch hurt the kids. Or you. Or me. That’s the bottom line.”

“It isn’t up to you. The problem is Angela’s, and whether we like it or not the decision of what to do about it is hers too. That’s the bottom line.”

“Run away, live in fear somewhere else. Some solution.”

“If she can stand it, so can we. I hate the idea as much as you do, but we’ve got to stand by her.”

“What about Rakubian?”

“There must be some other way...”

“To keep him from hunting her down? He’s relentless. He’s not going to give up, vanish from her life or ours.”

“Lord, how I wish he would.”

Suppose he did? Hollis thought.

Suppose he does?

“Promise me you’ll be rational about this,” Cassie said. “That you won’t do anything we’ll all regret.”

“Rational. Yes.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

It was not another lie. Rational was exactly what he would be from now on. He needed a plan, one that eliminated the threat of potential witnesses, the necessity for a bogus alibi. One in which there was no body and no evidence linking him to any crime. A rational, detailed plan, drawn with the same care as he drew one of his building designs. Could he go through with it then?

Yes, because he had to.

“You’re right,” he said, “we have to let Angela do what she believes is best. Give her as much support as we can.”

“You mean that?”

“I mean it. But this Boston idea... I don’t care for it at all. It’s one thing to have people in support groups helping her; they know what they’re doing. But trusting complete strangers three thousand miles away? Even if Eric can arrange it, I think it’s a mistake.”

“So do I. I’ll talk to her again, try to persuade her not to rush into anything. If she won’t listen, we’ll just have to let her go. But at least get some information from Eric about his friend’s family when you talk to him.”

“I will.”

“The only other thing we can do is pray,” she said. “Trust in God to keep them safe.”

God, he thought, God created David Rakubian, didn’t He? God isn’t the answer.

The answer is me.

3

Thursday Morning

Angela and Kenny were still in bed when he left the house. Cassie usually got up when he did, even though she wasn’t due at Animal Care until ten, but not today; she was inwardly focused, uninterested in both coffee and conversation. He understood her reticence and was grateful for it. His head ached from tension and lack of sleep; he had no more patience than she did for a replowing of last night’s hard and bitter ground. They’d talk later, after he spoke to Eric and she had another go-round with Angela.

On the way downtown he tried calling Eric’s private number at his Cal Poly dorm. Busy signal. And another at the number of his roommate, Larry Sherwood. Dorm life was a lot different now than when he’d gone to college; there were private phone lines in each room, to accommodate computers as well as telephones. Constant computer use made getting through difficult sometimes. He’d just have to keep trying.

The building Mannix & Hollis, Architects, shared with two other small businesses was a converted and refurbished Victorian, once someone’s elegant home, on the bank of the Los Alegres River near the boat basin. An attractive location, with a view of part of the historic downtown district across the waterway. And a barometer of how well he and Gabe were doing, how far they’d come since pooling their talents and starting the firm in the old, cramped quarters on North Main fourteen years ago.

He parked in the adjacent lot, next to Gloria’s noisy — “farty,” she called it — little Nissan. Gloria Rodriguez, the firm’s occasionally irascible, often foulmouthed (in both English and Spanish) and indispensable jack-of-all-trades: computer draftsperson, bookkeeper and accountant, receptionist, secretary. Most mornings she was in and working before he arrived; Gabe, a habitual slow starter, seldom showed up until after nine-thirty. Gloria’s computer workstation was a neat island in the office’s chaotic sea of angled drafting tables and flat-topped tables cluttered with designs, specs, U.S. and California code books, supply catalogs that hadn’t been shelved with the others covering one wall. She swiveled away from her Mac as he entered, hoisted her plump body out of her chair, and scowled at him. He knew that scowl. Knew even before she pushed three business-size envelopes at him that David Rakubian was its source.

“These were shoved under the door when I got here,” she said. “Looks like that verga has taken to hand-delivering his crap now.”

Hollis took the envelopes. Same as the others, plain white, except that the only computer-generated typing on these was his full name, Jackson M. Hollis. Gloria wasn’t reticent about opening anyone’s mail; the fact that the envelopes were still sealed meant that she didn’t care to view the contents any more than he did. She knew all about Rakubian. He could not have kept the situation from her and Gabe if he’d wanted to, not after the phone calls and mailings began coming here as well as to the house.

“I’ll bet he showed up at your place last night too,” Gloria said. “He didn’t go after Angela and Kenny again?”

“No. Phone calls and drive-bys, mostly.”

“Jesus, Jack, how much more of this can she take?”

“Not much more. She’s made up her mind to go into hiding with the boy.”

“Oh, shit. When?”

“Soon. I doubt we’ll be able to talk her out of it this time.”

Gloria scowled and heaved a sigh. “I hate to say it, but maybe it’s the best way. I mean, guys like Rakubian, stalkers, psychos...” She crossed herself and added, “I don’t understand how God can let people like him walk this earth.”

Hollis didn’t respond to that. He said, “I’ll be in my office,” and crossed to enter his private cubicle at the rear.

He threw the envelopes on his desk, cocked a hip against the edge, and tried again to call Eric. Still busy, both lines. He resisted an urge to bang the receiver down, went to open the blinds.

The early fog was beginning to burn off; pale sunlight sparkled on the muddy brown water below. For a time he stood looking downriver, watching a small launch glide beneath the D Street drawbridge. Pleasure craft and dredgers were all you saw on the river these days. Not so long ago, when Los Alegres had been an agricultural center mostly undiscovered by day-trippers, San Francisco commuters, Silicon Valley dot-commers, and voracious suburban developers, there had been barges loaded with feed and grain from the old mills that had once flourished here; and until the mid-sixties, barges and small cargo ships had carried chickens, eggs, produce, and other goods to and from the San Francisco Bay markets.

Everything changes, he thought. For good reason, bad reason, no reason at all. Blink your eyes and familiar things, things you’ve taken for granted all or most of your life, are suddenly different. Blink your eyes and everything you’ve built, the whole perfectly designed, rock-solid structure of your existence, is so unstable it might collapse at any time.

He turned from the window, sat at his desk. The thick file with Rakubian’s name on it was in the locked bottom drawer; he took it out, set it beside the three envelopes. Looked at them, looked away at the framed blueprints of two of his AIA award-winning home designs on the wall. Out front he could hear Gloria running the big copy machine. He was aware of the faint, not unpleasant ammonia smell of blueprints that seems always to linger in architects’ offices, that was overpowering for a time after the blueprint service made delivery of a new batch. Familiar, comfortable. One more part of his life on the brink of irrevocable change because of a tiny malfunctioning gland and one man’s psychotic obsession.

Three or four minutes passed before he finally stirred and picked up one of the envelopes, tore it open. Single sheet of white bond paper, black computer printing in its exact middle. Two words in oversize capital letters.

He laid the sheet aside, ripped open a second envelope. Several lines on this one’s single sheet, also neatly centered.

Hollis tasted bile in the back of his throat. Poe again. Rakubian and Poe, one madman fascinated by another. “Annabel Lee.” He knew that was the source of the stanza because Rakubian had sent others to Angela, each of them, like this one, with her name — Angela B. for Angela Beth — substituted for Annabel Lee.

The third envelope. And still another stanza from the same poem, the intent behind this one as clear as it was sickening.

Tight-lipped, he opened the file, lifted the thick sheaf of papers inside and slipped the three new sheets onto the bottom. Keep all correspondence in chronological order... as if that would do any good in stopping a homicidal stalker. He let the file remain open in front of him, picked up the phone again.

This time Eric’s line was free, but it was Larry Sherwood who answered. “You just missed him, Mr. Hollis. He left about five minutes ago for his ten o’clock.”

“Can you try to catch up? Or get word to him in class? It’s important we talk as soon as possible.”

“Something wrong? I mean—”

“No, it’s not serious. But there is some urgency.”

“I’ll let him know. Where should he call you?”

“My office.”

Hollis put the phone down, looked again at the file. The top papers were a dossier on David Rakubian that he’d compiled from conversations with Angela and a San Francisco attorney who knew him, and some research on his own. It was fairly complete: Know your enemy. He read through the facts and figures once more — looking, this time, for something he might be able to use in the new plan he was forming.

David Thomas Rakubian. Born in Fresno thirty-five years ago, only child of second-generation Armenian parents. Father a raisin grower, mother a librarian, both now deceased. Loner as a child, no interest in sports or other activities, preferred the company of books. Didn’t date much as a teenager or as an adult — told Angela he’d been a virgin until he was twenty-four and seemed proud of the fact. High IQ, high enough to qualify for membership in MENSA, and an intense student — straight A’s, valedictorian of his high school graduating class. Studied law at UCLA, high marks there, too; LLB degree and immediate placement after graduation with a respected L.A. firm. Moved to San Francisco after passing the state bar exam, to accept a better-paying position with an old-line Montgomery Street firm. After three years, decided corporate work was too limiting and opened his own practice specializing in aggressively handled, high-yield personal-injury cases. Successful from the first, won two big settlements in two years, the second allowing him to buy St. Francis Wood real estate before his thirtieth birthday. Refused to expand his operation since, because taking in partners meant relinquishing some control. Still maintained a small suite of offices with only two employees — a paralegal, Valerie Burke, who’d been with him for five years, and Janet Yee, the latest in a string of secretaries.

Political conservative. Strong antiabortion beliefs and an advocate of family values, but without any right-wing religious bias. Claimed to believe in God but seemed to consider organized religion beneath him. Staunch supporter of the Second Amendment, but no ties to the NRA or any other pro-gun group. Didn’t own a weapon of any kind as far as Angela knew. Which meant nothing, of course. If he wanted one, he wouldn’t have any trouble getting it.

Outwardly charming, cold and inflexible on the inside. Tenacious, often ruthless in his legal methods. Uncompromising. Unforgiving.

Massive ego — center-of-the-universe type. Angela: “He’s close to being a solipsist. You know, a person who believes he’s the only reality and everything and everybody else are self-creations.”

Control freak. His way or no way. Never admits to being wrong, to any fault or deficiency. Fearless. Believes he’s smarter than anyone else and therefore indestructible.

Violent tendencies. No record of arrest for any crime before the attempted kidnapping, or of abuse against women before Angela. Had one other serious relationship, he’d told her, but wouldn’t say when or identify the woman. No one else knew or would say who she was, so there was no way of finding out if he’d abused her, too.

Living relatives: none. Friends: none. During the eleven months Angela lived with him, they never once entertained at home (except for the handful of times Hollis and Cassie were allowed in the house) and saw no one socially except an occasional business acquaintance.

Hobbies and interests: books on the law, and gloomy prose and poetry by Poe, Hawthorne, Henry James, Blake. Poe in particular: collected rare editions of his work and books about it and his life. Collected artwork of the same Gothic sort; his house was strewn with nineteenth-century paintings, statuettes of brooding ravens and gargoyles, a life-size bust of Poe. Referred to himself as a “neo antiquary.” Liked the symphony and heavy Russian classical music. Didn’t like opera, plays, modern music, or films of any kind. Refused to own a TV set. Wouldn’t permit Angela to use her personal computer at home. Nor allow her to continue working, spend time with her friends and family, talk to another man in his presence, do much of anything at all that interfered with his concept of the subservient, dutiful wife.

Rakubian in odious and bitter sum.

The rest of the papers in the file were evidence, clear if not legally conclusive, that he was a ticking time bomb. Letters, notes, one-line messages to Angela, to Hollis, to Cassie, professing his love, his imagined ownership, his rage and frustration, his demands and implied threats. Quotations about love and death from Poe and others. Listings of all his phone calls, drop-bys, drive-bys, and confrontations. Uncashed checks made out to Angela, one for $500 and another for $750. Records of deliveries of expensive clothing, exotic perfume, bouquets of flowers — and the other items, disguised as presents in beribboned and fancy-papered boxes, such as lace underthings scissored into strips and the portrait of Angela with the top of her head cut off. Snapshots of the two of them before and shortly after their marriage, smiling at each other, embracing, laughing, each accompanied by a cryptic handwritten note. And the other photos, sometimes mixed with the snapshots, sometimes sent separately, of funerals and dead women in coffins and bloody aborted fetuses.

Enough, Hollis thought. No more. He closed the file, relocked it in the desk drawer. No more letters, phone calls, drop-bys, drive-bys, confrontations, presents, photos, bullshit, lunacy, fear, uncertainty, desperation. No more!

He switched on his computer, pulled up the Chesterton file. Nice little plum for Mannix & Hollis, and mostly his baby: a 4,500-square-foot house and outbuildings in the Paloma Mountains east of town. Money no object, full creative control. Shelby Chesterton owned a Silicon Valley computer software company, had tired of living in the South Bay rat race, liked the slower pace of the North Bay, and was preparing to relocate both his company and his family to Los Alegres. He’d bought a large chunk of real estate on the mountainside, complete with a private lake, and interviewed a dozen architectural design outfits in the county before handing the job to Mannix & Hollis. Hollis had gotten along well with him from the first — they saw eye-to-eye on other subjects besides modern architecture — and he’d been given carte blanche. The result was an environmentally friendly, innovative, regionally styled home that employed elements of Maybeck’s vision with his own unique method of detailing. The Chestertons had been ecstatic. Mannix & Hollis had already gotten one other job as a result of their enthusiastic recommendation to friends. There might well be more if and when the finished house was featured in one of the trade magazines.

Construction had begun three months ago. He hadn’t been to the site in nearly a month because of Angela and Rakubian; he checked the most recent progress report from PAD Construction. Some of the foundation slabs had been poured, but the report didn’t say which ones; the rest were scheduled for this week and next. He’d have to go up there, see for himself—

Knock on the door. He swiveled his head as it opened and Gabe Mannix poked his bushy head inside. “Busy, Bernard? Or can I come in?”

Bernard this morning. Other mornings it was Paul. Gag born twenty-plus years ago, when they’d worked together in the city, that Mannix refused to let die of worn-out old age. The two early-twentieth-century California architects who had most influenced Hollis’s own style, one a white Paris-trained bohemian, the other a black, mostly self-taught traditionalist, were Bernard Maybeck and Paul Williams.

“Come ahead. You’re practically in already.” He clicked off the Chesterton file, shut down, and swung his chair around as Mannix flopped into the cubicle’s one other chair.

“So the asshole showed up here last night.”

“Yeah.”

“Your place, too, Gloria says.”

“McLear Park before that. Angela was there with Kenny. He threatened her outright this time.”

“In front of witnesses?”

“Not unless you count Fritz.”

“What’d he say exactly?”

“That he’d kill them both if she doesn’t go back to him.”

“Miserable fuck! So that’s why she’s ready to run and hide.”

“That’s why.”

“You’re not going to let her go?”

“I can’t stop her, Gabe.”

“If you don’t, you might never see her or Kenny again. Even if Rakubian doesn’t find her, she’ll go to ground so deep she won’t dare surface.”

“It’s her decision.”

“Is it? You know what I’d do if I were in your place. Buy a gun and use it.”

He kept a poker face. He’d heard this before; Mannix hadn’t made any secret of how he felt. Of all the people who knew about the situation, Gabe was the one he’d come closest to confiding in. But he hadn’t been able to do it. Not before last night and not now, either.

“Don’t you think I’ve considered it?”

“Seriously considered it?”

“Damn seriously.

“And?”

He shook his head, made a helpless gesture.

“Yeah, I know,” Mannix said. “Suppose I do it for you?”

“... You’re kidding.”

“You think so? You know how I feel about you and Cassie and Angela. I wouldn’t have any qualms about it, moral or otherwise. Same as shooting a rabid dog.”

Hollis studied him for a time, trying to decide if he really did mean it. Gabe Mannix was not an easy man to read. They’d known each other twenty-two years, worked side by side at Simmons Glenn Associates for eight before going into partnership on their own, but there was still an ambiguous closed-off part of the man he couldn’t quite figure out. Big, shaggy, easygoing, with an endless repository of anecdotes and bawdy stories... but he could also be moody, cynical, and unpredictable in his personal life. A brilliant if conventionally minded architect, with a degree from the Pratt Institute in New York, yet he preferred to handle the more mundane jobs that came their way — office buildings, shopping malls, apartment complexes — and to let Hollis have the more challenging individual designs like the Chesterton home. Twice married, twice divorced, now a confirmed bachelor and “connoisseur of one-night stands,” yet he seemed to envy Hollis’s stable relationship with Cassie. And the way he looked at Angela the past few years — wistfully, tenderly, with a sad little light in his eyes — indicated that he wished he was twenty years younger and she was somebody else’s attractive daughter.

“I’d do it,” he said. “No lie and no bull.”

“It’s not your fight, Gabe.”

“The hell it’s not.”

“I wouldn’t ask you. Not a thing like that.”

“Meaning you don’t condone the idea?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Guys like Rakubian don’t deserve to live,” Mannix said. “Do the world a favor, take him right out of the gene pool.”

“You sound like a vigilante.”

“Maybe I am. Maybe you’d better start thinking like one yourself.”

If you only knew, buddy.

“Can we drop this now? It’s not doing either of us any good.”

“Drop it if that’s what you want, but one of us better pick it up again. Before it’s too late.”

“Gabe, look—”

Mannix shoved onto his feet. “Off to the salt mines. Emerson’s bitching again about the changes in that mall design.”

“Some work to do myself. I’ll be out pretty soon.”

“Take your time. You’ve got more important things to worry about than pencils and slide rules.”

When he was alone Hollis pulled up the Chesterton file again and rechecked the progress report and the site plan. All right. If the hillside work hadn’t progressed far enough or they’d poured the wine cellar slab ahead of schedule? Cross that bridge if and when.

The rest of the plan now. Nothing specific he could use in the dossier on Rakubian, but there was enough in the nonspecifics. Massive ego. Never admits to being wrong, to any fault or deficiency. Fearless — believes he’s smarter than anyone else, indestructible. Pull all of that together and you had a literal-minded man vulnerable to the right kind of approach.

Fitting. The son of a bitch’s own massive ego was going to help bury him.

4

He still hadn’t heard from Eric when Cassie called from Animal Care at ten-thirty. She’d had her talk with Angela. Mixed results. Angela was willing to stay through the weekend whether or not the Boston arrangements were confirmed, but she refused to go to Cedar Rapids under any circumstances. A woman in the local support group had relatives in Utah who might be talked into taking her and Kenny in temporarily; she’d try to go there if Boston fell through. “Utah is a lot closer than Massachusetts or Iowa,” Cassie said, “even if it means living with strangers.” Hollis couldn’t disagree, though he wished there were some way to keep her from going anywhere at all, even for a short time.

It was almost noon when Eric finally called. By then Hollis was fidgety and not working well. He took the call in his cubicle, and started things off wrong, in spite of himself, by saying too sharply, “What took you so long to get back to me?”

“Hey, don’t bite my head off.”

“Didn’t Larry give you my message right away?”

“He gave it to me. Urgent but not serious. Angie told you about Boston, right?”

Angie. Eric was the only one in the family who called her that. “Yes. You haven’t talked to her today?”

“I tried the house just now. No answer.”

“She’s at a support group meeting. About this Boston business. I know you’re trying to help, but—”

“It didn’t work out,” Eric said.

“No?”

“I thought I had the apartment all set for her, but Jeff went stupid on me and told his folks the reason. They don’t want a woman who’s being stalked staying in their apartment, they don’t want any trouble, the usual crap.”

Relieved, Hollis said, “It’s just as well.”

“Uh-huh. And I suppose you want me to stay out of it from now on?”

“I wish you would.”

“I’d set something else up if I could.”

“Eric—” He bit that off. “She may have another place to go,” he said, and explained about Utah.

“Sounds okay for the time being,” Eric admitted. “So you and Mom aren’t trying to talk her out of leaving?”

“We’re not standing in her way, no.”

“But you don’t much care for the idea.”

“Of course not. Running away isn’t going to save her from Rakubian.”

“Neither is staying home where he can get to her any time he feels like it.”

Hollis was silent. Same old pointless argument.

The line hummed and crackled emptily. Then Eric said in a cold, flat voice, “I hate that crazy son of a bitch. I’d like to smash his fucking head in.”

“Knock off that kind of talk,” Hollis said sharply. “You know better than that.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t feel the same way.”

“Violence isn’t the answer.” You goddamn hypocrite, he thought.

“Then what is? I can’t help thinking...”

“What? What’re you thinking?”

“Nothing. Never mind.”

“Listen to me, son. Don’t go getting any wild ideas.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do.”

“I won’t lose it, don’t worry.”

“I do worry.”

Long pause. “I’m coming home for a couple of days,” Eric said then, “and don’t tell me not to, okay?”

“Why?”

“The obvious reason. To see Angie before she leaves.”

Hollis gave this a few seconds of thought before he said, “All right, no objection. When are you driving up?”

“After my last class tomorrow. Friday traffic’ll probably be a bitch, so don’t expect me until after dinner.”

“Call when you get close to San Francisco. We’ll wait dinner if it’s not too late.”

After he put the phone down, Hollis sat slumped in his chair. He hadn’t seen his son in six weeks; it would be good to have him home again for a while. Make Cassie happy, too. But could he trust Eric to stay away from Rakubian? Better impress it on him again, in person, as soon as he could get him alone. If all the pieces of the new plan came together... Saturday was the target day. There was a lot to do before then, and any number of potential complications to screw up the timing and logistics. He couldn’t afford to let his hotheaded son become another one.

Thursday Afternoon

The Paloma Mountains, like the Los Alegres River, was a misnomer. In fact they were a spine of tallish foothills spotted with oak and madrone, green in the winter but already beginning to brown off now in late spring, that separated this valley from the lush Paloma Valley to the east. Along the lower slopes were scattered ranches, rolling cattle graze, private homes on large parcels. Farther up, where the terrain steepened, boulder-size rocks littered the hillside, the folds between rounded hummocks cut deep to form shadowed hollows choked with trees and brush, and the number of working ranches and private dwellings dropped to a widely spaced handful. Stretches of woods ran near and along the ridgeline, hiding three small lakes and miles of deer trails on the privately owned sections, hiking and horseback trails on several thousand acres that belonged to the city.

The Chesterton parcel was better than two-thirds of the way up, one of the highest and choicest homesite locations. His seventy-two acres had cost him a couple of million; the home, outbuildings, and extensive landscaping he had planned would run about the same. Four million to Shelby Chesterton was like four thousand to Jack Hollis: He was no Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, but the pile he’d made in the technology market was massive and still growing. More power to him. He wasn’t your typical high-rolling Type A corporate egomaniac; on the contrary, he was down-to-earth, surprisingly easygoing, a nice guy. Working with him had been a pleasure.

For that reason, because he liked and respected the man, Hollis felt bad about this part of the plan. It amounted to a betrayal, and the fact that Chesterton would never know it was cold comfort. A matter of expediency, yes — the only safe and certain means open to him on short notice. But that did not make the reality taste any less bitter. Another little piece of his integrity torn away and lost because of David Rakubian.

The road ran more or less straight at the lower elevations, turned crooked and then narrow and twisty as he climbed through stands of dusty-looking trees, rocky fields where dairy cattle grazed in the sun. He had the window rolled down and the afternoon breeze was warm, heavy with the smells of madrone, dry grass, manure. Behind him he could see the valley spread out below, the town with its east side suburban sprawl, the river, and Highway 101. From up at the Chesterton site, the view was spectacular. On a clear day you could see Mt. Tarn, San Pablo Bay, parts of San Francisco Bay, and the city’s skyline forty miles distant.

The pitch of the road grew even sharper; on the south side the terrain began to fall away, gradually in some places, more steeply in others. He made a corkscrew turn through a cutbank, driving at a crawl now because of the blind curves and the fact that the strip of rough asphalt was so narrow here two cars could not pass abreast. This road and most of the others in the Paloma Mountains had been built in the twenties to accommodate the ranchers, and they were little used by anyone except residents and kids looking for a private place to drink beer and get laid. He and Cassie had come here more than once, nearly thirty years ago... high school sweethearts, high school heat. It was where she’d given him her virginity, in fact.

Was it also where Angela had given hers to Ryan Pierce? The thought bothered him more than it should have and he wasn’t sure why.

At nearly five miles by his odometer, the road split in two: the right fork dead-ending at the gate of one of the cattle ranchers, the left fork following a brushy ravine uphill. That one had brand-new gates standing wide open; the road surface there was gravel and would eventually be paved. Hollis turned in on it, raising clouds of dust that hung and shifted in the clear air like slow coils of smoke.

The house site was another half-mile along, on a wide, deep shelf extending out from a pair of oak-studded folds. Four leveled and graded acres that in another six months, if the weather cooperated, would contain the main house — two-storied, redwood and fieldstone with a cross-gabled roof and an interior of sharp-angled walls and huge rough-sawn boxed beams; five outbuildings in the same general style but with subtle alterations to make each one unique; and an eighty-foot-square stone terrace and swimming pool, tennis courts, and two formal gardens. Right now the acreage was a jumble of earthmoving equipment, dump trucks, pickups, office trailer and toolsheds, portable toilets, stacks of lumber, piles of rock and gravel and dirt, Pete Dulac’s twelve-man crew, and all the other components of a medium-size construction site.

Hollis found a place to park near the trailer and attached, steel-reinforced sheds. The noise level was high: grinding gears, pounding engines, backup beepers, men shouting. It must have been a bitch getting some of the trucks and equipment up here, Hollis thought as he went looking for Pete Dulac. The teamsters, especially those who’d hauled the cats and scoops and trailer up East Valley Road, were really earning their pay on this job.

Dulac found him before he was halfway to where the main house was staked out and partly slabbed. PAD Construction’s owner was a burly, jowly man in his late fifties, the 49ers cap he habitually wore tilted back on his head, a tool belt slung around his waist. He’d worked for the old man once, long ago, but that wasn’t the reason Hollis favored him whenever he could. Dulac was the best and most reliable general contractor in the county. He seldom finished a job late or overbudget; drove his crews hard, but no harder than he drove himself.

“Saw you pull in,” he said. “How they hangin’, Jack?”

Damn sour joke now, but Hollis went along with it. “A little lower every day.”

“Wait till you get to my age. Come up for a reason?”

“Just a look-around to keep Chesterton happy.”

“Well, we’re still pretty much on schedule.”

“Never any doubt of that.”

“I’ll be in the trailer for a few minutes,” Dulac said. “Give a holler if you want me.”

Hollis roamed the site, stopping once to talk to a workman, another time to feign an inspection of a foundation slab, a third time to enter one of the portable toilets. What urine he could produce caused a burning and flowed in thin interrupted spurts, as if his bladder were on some kind of timer switch. Frustration made him slam his hand against the inner wall, and when he came out a man working nearby gave him an odd look. He pretended not to notice.

From there he wandered back to the excavation for the big wine cellar. Forty by sixty feet, cut deep into the shale rock of the hillside; all the digging finished, the walls and ceiling shored and framed with plywood. The floor slab hadn’t been poured yet, he saw with relief. The hard-packed dirt was overlaid with loose plywood sheets.

Inside, he bent to lift one of the center sheets and then squatted with his back to the opening. He knew that they hadn’t hit bedrock anywhere on the site, but he had to be sure the earth wasn’t too rocky here for easy digging. He burrowed two fingers into the pack, sifted dirt between his fingers. It would take a pick and shovel easily enough, but there was no way of telling for certain how far down he’d be able to go. Just have to take it on faith that it would be far enough without too much effort.

He replaced the plywood, went back outside. The nearest mound of earth and rock was fifty yards distant; he noted its location and the fact that there was a wheelbarrow near the pile. Then he went to the trailer to talk to Dulac again.

“Everything looks good, Pete. Pouring the rest of the slabs next week, right?”

“Right,” Dulac said. “Should have ’em all done by a week from tomorrow.”

“One in the wine cellar looks like it might be a little tricky.”

“Shouldn’t be. We’ll have that one down Monday or Tuesday.”

“Fine,” Hollis said. “Oh, one more thing. Pretty good chance Chesterton and his wife will be driving up on the weekend. If they do, they’ll want to check progress for themselves. So I’d better have your spare key to the padlock on the gates.”

“Sure, no problem.” Dulac got it for him. “You coming up with them?”

“Probably not.”

“Well, better remind Chesterton to lock up again when they leave. Remote site like this, we don’t want anybody getting in here that don’t belong.”

“No,” Hollis said, “that’s the last thing we want. Somebody here who doesn’t belong.”

5

When he came down out of the hills he drove straight home. Three-thirty already; not much time left in the workday, even if he’d been inclined to return to the office. What he needed right now was to talk to Angela, break the news that Boston was no longer an option and reinforce the argument that she wait awhile before leaving home.

Only she hadn’t returned from Santa Rosa yet; there was no sign of her little Chevy Geo. Cassie wasn’t home, either. But parked in front was an unfamiliar Dodge pickup, old and a little battered, and as Hollis started his swing into the driveway a rough-dressed man appeared on the porch, stepping out from behind the screen of bougainvillea. Recognition thinned and tightened Hollis’s mouth.

Angela’s first big mistake.

Now what the hell?

He stood waiting as Ryan Pierce came down the steps and approached him. Tall kid, on the gangly side. And on the scruffy side now: beard stubble, brown hair curling well below his collar, stained cowboy boots and Levi’s and a western-style shirt. Not much to recommend him, today or any day, except a pair of soft brown eyes and an ingratiating smile. Little gumption, no real focus or ambition. Hollis had never understood what Angela saw in him. Cassie thought it was gentleness, hidden depths that she’d been able to tap into. Maybe. His own best guess was that Pierce appealed to the strong maternal side of her; that she’d believed she could make something of him, teach him how to be a husband, father, man. Well, she’d been wrong. He had kept right on being immature, directionless through four struggling years of marriage and most if not all of the time since — no damn good to anyone, including himself.

“Hello, Mr. Hollis. Long time.”

Not long enough. “What’re you doing here?”

“Looking for Angela. You knew I was coming, right?”

“Wrong. If I had I’d’ve told you to stay in Wyoming.”

“Montana. I told her in my last e-mail I was getting ready to drive down. She didn’t tell you?”

“No.” And he’d ask her why she hadn’t, although he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

“I heard she left the guy she married in San Francisco, about all the trouble she’s been having with him. Not from her, from my sister Rhona. It sounded messy and I couldn’t get her to talk about it and I’ve been worried about her and Kenny. I quit my ranching job even though we were in the middle of—”

“Worried. Sure you were. How long has it been since you saw your son? Eighteen months? How many phone calls in that time? How many cards or letters?”

“Look, Mr. Hollis, I know I’ve been a lousy father—”

“Damn right you have.”

“—but I’m not the same person I was before Angela and I broke up and I moved away. I’ve learned some things since I’ve been out on my own. Done a lot of growing up.”

“Is that a fact.”

“Yes, sir. I know you don’t believe it, and I can’t blame you, but I care about her and my son. I never stopped caring. Now... I’m ready to start being a father to Kenny. I mean that. Angela must’ve told you about the money I’ve been sending the past few months for his support.”

“Is that what you think being a father is? Sending a check for a couple of hundred dollars every month?”

“No, sir,” Pierce said. “That’s why I’m here. I want to he part of his life from now on.”

“Just like that. And on your say-so we’re supposed to welcome you with open arms.”

“I don’t expect that. All I’m asking is that everybody give me a chance to prove how much I’ve changed.”

“Your timing is lousy, Pierce. You say your sister told you about David Rakubian. Well, you don’t know half of how bad the situation is. Angela’s trying to cope with the biggest crisis of her life, and you showing up, trying to wiggle back into her good graces, is only going to make matters worse.”

“I wouldn’t do anything to cause more problems for her. That’s the last thing I want.”

“What you want doesn’t matter. What’s best for her and the boy does.”

“Why’re you so sure that couldn’t be me?”

“Your track record, that’s why.”

“I told you, I’ve changed. I really have.”

“Start proving it when this Rakubian business is finished. Until then, leave her and Kenny alone.”

“Kenny’s my son.”

“And my grandson. I didn’t walk out of his life eighteen months ago; you did. I’m the one who’s been here for him.”

“I don’t want to fight with you, Mr. Hollis.”

“Then stay away from my family.”

“I can’t do that,” Pierce said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t — not anymore. They’re my family too.”

“Listen to me—”

“No, sir. Just tell Angela I was here and that I’m staying with Rhona and her family. Will you do that?”

“No.”

“I’m going to see them, both of them. Whether you like it or not.”

Hollis’s anger began to spill over. He moved forward, trying to crowd Pierce without actually touching him. The kid surprised him by standing his ground. “If you bother her, upset her in any way, I’ll make you regret it. Now get off my property before I throw you off.”

Pierce met his eyes for a ten count before he turned and walked slowly to the pickup.

Damn him! Hollis thought. After eighteen months and at the worst possible time. Maybe Pierce had changed, grown up some and learned a sense of responsibility; those brown eyes hadn’t been as soft as they once were. But he was still a sorry-ass loser. Incredible how a sweet-natured, levelheaded girl like Angela could have such rotten taste in men.

He left the car where it was, went up onto the porch. And what he found next to the door pushed Ryan Pierce out of his mind. More flowers. A big flashy arrangement, yellow and red roses, half a dozen other varieties, including orchids, all done up in an open vase that must have weighed four or five pounds — a hundred dollars’ worth, at least. And that wasn’t all. A white rectangular box was propped there, too, with the same local florist’s name printed on it.

He plucked an envelope bearing Angela’s name off a long plastic fork stuck into the arrangement. Almost didn’t open it, thinking that what he would do was take all this sweet-smelling crap into the garage before Angela or Cassie got home, bag it, and hide it in the garbage can where it belonged. He could predict what the message said anyway. But then, on impulse to see if he was right, he yanked the card out of the envelope. With greater love hath no man. Not the exact wording he’d had in mind, but close enough.

Crumpling the card, he bent to lift the white box. Might as well open that, too. It was in his hands before he realized that the address label on it did not carry Angela’s name. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson Hollis.

He tore the lid off. And stood staring, his rage burning high, at what lay within — at the silk-ribboned funeral wreath and the card that read in small, neat script: With deepest condolences on the loss of your loved ones.

He was sitting in the living room, slumped down in his big leather armchair, when Angela and Kenny came home. He had been there for some time, unmoving and so inwardly focused that he was no longer aware of his surroundings. Lost and alone inside his own head, wandering in and out of the shadows. No, not quite alone. Rakubian was there, and Pierce, and the old man with his censorious eyes and critical mouth and the disappointment leaking out of him like a rancid oil. And Ma — the one recurring image of her that he could never drive away, that was as sharply detailed after thirty-six years as if it had happened yesterday.

He’d been ten that summer, inside a hospital for the first time, the medicine smells, sick smells, death smells making his head swim — peering down at Ma in her white bed in the white room and thinking: She looks so small lying there. She looks like they put her in a pot and boiled her up and shrunk her. Her voice had been shrunken, too, a weak pygmy voice saying, “Don’t you worry now, honey, I’m going to be fine. Good as new in a few weeks, you’ll see.” And him so scared, seeing her that way, that he blurted out, “Do they have to cut you open, Ma?” And the old man looming there big as a house, blinking his censorious eyes and saying with his critical mouth, “It’s the only way they can get the cancer out. Quit that sniveling now, boy. Nothing’s gonna happen to your mother except she won’t be sick anymore when it’s over.”

She died on the operating table.

They killed her on the operating table.

They wheeled her into a scrubbed white room full of lights and tubes and gleaming instruments and they cut her open and she hemorrhaged, she had some kind of virulent reaction to the anesthetic, and she died and he never saw her again because he wouldn’t look at her at the funeral, he closed his eyes when he walked past the coffin — he could not bear to see her dead, it was bad enough remembering her boiled up and shrunken in that other white room with the smells of medicine and sickness and death.

It was not going to happen to him like that. He was not going to die on a goddamn operating table with his body sliced open, or in a hospital at all if he could help it. Surgery was not an option for him. There’d be no prostatectomy; no brachytherapy, the implantation of radioactive seeds; no transurethral resection, that swell-sounding little procedure where they shoved a tool with a tiny wire loop through your pecker and down into your prostate to scrape up the cancerous cells. External beam radiation... yes, all right, he could stand that even though it might eventually make his impotence permanent. Hormone therapy was okay, too. But he would not permit Stan Otaki or any other doctor to cut into the center of him. There were no guarantees with surgery anyway. Even if he survived an operation, the cancer could still spread and kill him sooner or later...

He didn’t hear the Geo pull into the drive, didn’t realize they were home until they came in through the front door. Kenny bounded in first, saw him, shouted “Granpa!” and came running. He launched himself from a couple of feet away, and if Hollis hadn’t caught him, hunching and turning his body as he did, he’d have taken a knee where it would have done his prostate the least good. Six weeks ago, after being under Rakubian’s thumb for so long, the boy had been quiet, skittish, clingy to his mother; now he was the child he’d been before the marriage, a bundle of energy, a nonstop chatterbox. Amazing how quickly kids his age could recover from a bad experience, if they were gotten out of it before there was any permanent scarring.

“Hey, tiger. What’s got you so excited?”

“Me and Jimmy Eilers played video games all day on his iMac,” Kenny said. “He’s got a brand-new iMac, well, his mom does. Tangerine, yuck, I like blueberry. Blueberry’s cool.”

“Is that so. Who’s Jimmy Eilers?”

“Joyce Eilers’s son,” Angela said from the doorway. “She’s in the group.”

“The one with the relatives in Utah?”

“Oh, Mom told you about that. No, that’s April Sayers.”

“I won him every game,” Kenny said. “I mean I beat him every game. Well, most games. Hey, neat. Cool. ’Way, man. Dag! Far out, dude.”

“Where’d all that come from?” Hollis asked. “Jimmy?”

“His sister taught him. She’s ten and wears glasses and she’s got a big butt.”

Angela said, “Kenny, that’s not a nice thing to say about Tina.”

“Well, she does. Humongous, man. Awesome buns.”

Hollis set him on his feet. “Go get yourself a Coke. You look like you can use one.”

“Nah, I’m not thirsty. I had six Cokes with Jimmy.”

“Upstairs and play, then. I want to talk to your mom.”

“Grown-up stuff?”

“Grown-up stuff.”

“Okay. Mom, why don’t we have an iMac?”

“We can’t afford one right now. Someday.”

“Can I go boot up our crappy old computer?”

“Boot up.” Angela rolled her eyes. “Yes, go ahead. And it’s not crappy, it’s a perfectly good—”

Kenny wasn’t listening; he was already running for the hall. He let out a whoop and went racing up the stairs. The way he did it reminded Hollis of Teddy, the addled brother in Arsenic and Old Lace, and his “Charge!” up “San Juan Hill.”

Angela sat in Cassie’s chair, tucked her feet under her. “What is it, Dad?” Warily.

“I talked to Eric this morning. The Boston apartment fell through.”

“Oh, damn!”

“Don’t look at me like that — I didn’t have anything to do with it. His friend’s folks changed their minds when they found out why you wanted to stay there.”

She sighed, pressed thumbs against the edges of her eyes. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It sounded too good to work out.”

“Utah might be better. It’s a lot closer than Boston.”

“Utah may not work out either.”

“No?”

“April’s relatives have a limited amount of space. They live in a mobile home park.”

“So they wouldn’t be willing to put you up for a while?”

“They might be. April isn’t sure.”

“When will you know?”

“As soon as she talks to them. If the answer is no...”

“You can still stay right here.”

“Daddy...”

“Okay, forget I said that. Where in Utah?”

“I’d rather not say. Even if I go there, it’s better if you and Mom don’t know exactly where we are.”

He needed to go to the toilet again; he stayed where he was, crossing his legs. “Your brother’s driving up for the weekend,” he said. “To see you, mainly.”

That put a smile on her mouth. Such a radiant smile she had, like her mother’s; when the two of them were happy and laughing, they lit up a room. “When’s he coming?”

“He’ll be here tomorrow around dinnertime.”

“It’s been a long time since we’ve all been together. I just wish... well...”

“I know,” he said. Then he said, “You may as well know that Eric’s not the only one who wants to see you. I found your first ex hanging around when I got home this afternoon.”

“Ryan? Oh God, he’s here?”

“Why didn’t you tell us he was coming?”

“I didn’t expect him this soon... I thought we’d be gone before he showed up. You didn’t say that I’m taking Kenny away?”

“No. It’s none of his business, as far as I’m concerned.”

“I wanted to tell him, but I was afraid to.”

“Why? He wouldn’t try to stop you?”

“I don’t know, he might. He wants to be a father to Kenny again, be part of his life.”

“So he kept telling me. That, and how much he’s changed. I don’t believe it.”

“I think he has, Dad. I hope he has. It’s not good for Kenny to grow up without a father, his real father.”

“You don’t have to see him or let him see the boy before you leave.”

“But I should, now that he’s here. He has a right to.”

“Does he? After all this time? Kenny barely remembers him.”

Angela gnawed her lower lip. “Where’s he staying, did he say? With Rhona?”

“... Yes.”

“Is he going to call or stop by again?”

“One or the other, I suppose.”

“You weren’t... nasty to him, were you? I mean—”

“We had words. What did you expect?”

“I’d better go call April,” she said. She got up and left the room so quickly he wondered, frowning, if it were Pierce she was hurrying to call instead.

Thursday Evening

Alone with Cassie, Hollis said, “You see the look on Angela’s face after she talked to Pierce? If I didn’t know better, I’d think she still has feelings for him.”

“You don’t know better. She’s still in love with Ryan.”

“Are you serious? After all this time and the way he behaved?”

“Nobody’s rational where love is concerned, you know that. Angela least of all.”

“For Christ’s sake. How long have you known about this?”

“All along.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“I didn’t see any reason to. He left town and then she married Rakubian on the rebound.”

“You don’t suppose she’d...”

“What? Start up with Ryan again?”

“He hurt her once. He’d do it again.”

“He’s not a kid anymore, and neither is she.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“If Rakubian stops being a threat,” Cassie said, “she might turn to Ryan, yes. Depending on whether he really has changed as much as he claims, and if she were sure enough of him and his feelings for her and Kenny. She’d say it was for the boy’s sake, but it’d be just as much for her own.”

As though he didn’t have enough to worry about as it was...

6

Friday Morning

Rakubian’s law offices were on Harrison Street in South Beach, a warehouse district off the Embarcadero when San Francisco was still a viable port city, now a gentrified mix of upscale restaurants and clubs, small businesses, professional offices, expensive condos and lofts. The old three-story structure had been born as a ship chandlery, spent decades of service as a storage warehouse, and in the early eighties been converted and face-lifted into an office building. The architects hadn’t done much of a job on the design; conventional was the kindest word for its facade. The same was true of many of the other buildings in the area, in Hollis’s professional opinion.

His watch read eight minutes past nine when he turned onto Harrison. Commute traffic had been heavier than usual this morning, in the city as well as on the way down; the hopes he’d had of getting here before Rakubian, approaching him on the street instead of having to do his talking inside, were long gone. The bugger was obsessively punctual; he would already be at his desk, unless he had an early court appearance scheduled.

At this hour there was still street parking in the vicinity. Hollis jockeyed the Lexus into a space, sat there for a time after he shut off the engine. He’d gone over what he would say to Rakubian a dozen times last night and this morning; he went over it yet again. Ticklish part of the plan. If he didn’t handle this just right, the rest of it was worthless.

He wished there was a safer way to brace Rakubian. On the street would have been best; he cursed himself for not leaving home earlier than he had. Walking into those offices again, after his half-out-of-control tirade weeks ago, was a calculated risk. It might work in his favor if he made the right impression on the secretary and paralegal this time, but it would still call attention to himself.

No other way now. Phoning him here or at home was a fool’s gambit; for all he knew Rakubian recorded every one of his incoming calls — it would be right in character — and he couldn’t afford to chance having anything he said preserved on tape. If he went to St. Francis Wood tonight, he had no guarantee Rakubian would be home; and he did not want to risk being seen in the neighborhood again if he could avoid it.

Quit stalling, he told himself. There’s risk in everything you do from now on.

Out of the car, dodge through traffic, enter the building. Elevator to the top floor. A couple of deep breaths at the door marked David Rakubian, Attorney-at-Law, then walk in with his shoulders a little rounded, his face carefully arranged to project both reluctance and restraint.

The suite was small — anteroom, two offices, supply and copy room — and designed to reflect businesslike competence. Muted colors, minimum of furnishings and decoration, no frills of any kind. The anteroom was empty except for the attractive young secretary, Janet Yee, seated at her desk. The door to Rakubian’s office was closed; the other office door stood partway open, giving Hollis a glimpse of hawk-faced Valerie Burke at her desk as he came forward.

The Chinese woman’s professional smile froze when she recognized him, then melted into an uneasy frown. “Oh,” she said. “Mr., um, Hollis.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to make another scene. I need to see Mr. Rakubian if he’s in.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, his calendar is full this morning—”

“If he’s in, please tell him I’m here and that it’s important I talk to him. Very important.”

“More accusations and threats, Mr. Hollis?”

He turned his head. The paralegal was standing now in the doorway to her office — a thin, homely brunette in a mannish suit, her arms folded across her chest, her eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses radiating disapproval.

“On the contrary,” he said. “What I have to say this time is something he’ll want to hear.”

“And that is?”

“Between him and me.” He looked at the secretary again. “Ms. Yee?”

She glanced at Valerie Burke, as if for confirmation, and picked up her phone and punched a button. “Mr. Jack Hollis to see you, sir. He says it’s very important.” Pause. “No, sir, Mrs. Rakubian isn’t with him.”

Mrs. Rakubian. Just the sound of it grated on Hollis.

“No, sir, he’s not.” Pause. “Yes, sir.” Ms. Yee put down the phone and said stiffly to Hollis, “Mr. Rakubian will see you. Go right in, please.”

The two women watched him cross the room; he could feel their eyes on his back. He didn’t blame them for their mistrust, after the fit he’d pitched on his last visit. If Rakubian had told them anything about the situation, it had been distorted to make himself out to be the injured party, Hollis the obstacle in the path of a reconciliation.

He opened the door marked Private without knocking, went in, and closed it behind him.

Rakubian’s office was almost as large as the anteroom, just as functional but with his dark stamp on it. One wall covered with law books, bank of windows providing an oblique view of the Ferry Building and the bay in the distance, a replica of one of Goya’s “black” paintings on another wall. And on a pedestal, squatting atop the helmeted head of the Greek goddess Pallas Athena, a foot-high black raven. It was a wonder he hadn’t hung a sign around the raven’s neck reading “Nevermore!”

Rakubian stood behind his dark mahogany desk, stiff and straight, no discernible expression on his olive-toned face. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he gave the impression of height, of looking down on everyone and everything out of eyes as black as charred wood. His hair and brows were also black, as thick and wiry as animal fur. Square chin, aquiline nose, white smile when he felt like turning it on. Women found him handsome, but if you worked at penetrating the surface you could see what lay beneath, squirming and crawling like maggots. One long look at him standing there and Hollis felt the hate rise; he could taste it in the back of his throat, hot and metallic.

“Why are you here, Hollis?” No preamble, no pretense. The deep voice was neutral except for the undercurrent of contempt that was always there, that had been there from the first moment they’d met. Homo superior talking down to homo inferior. “We have nothing more to say to each other.”

“I wish that was true, but it’s not. I came here to tell you you’re going to get what you want.”

“Yes?”

“Angela’s given in. You wore her down to the point where she feels she has no other choice.”

Nothing changed in Rakubian’s expression or demeanor. He was not surprised or pleased or relieved because he’d expected nothing less, sooner or later. He said, “Then why didn’t she come with you? Or alone or with Kenneth?”

“She’s not ready yet.”

“Meaning you’re not ready to permit it?”

“She makes her own decisions,” Hollis said. “I think it’s a big mistake. I tried to talk her out of it, but she won’t listen to me anymore. But there are conditions before she’ll reconcile with you. Her conditions, not mine.”

“And they are?”

“A meeting with you first — not alone, with me present. To settle some things to her satisfaction. The main one is that you agree never to lay a hand on her again for any reason. Put it in writing, signed and witnessed.”

“A document like that is not legally binding.”

“She knows that and so do I. Are you willing to sign one anyway?”

“I’ve never mistreated Angela,” Rakubian said. “Discipline is not mistreatment.”

Hollis held his hands flat against his thighs to keep them from fisting. “Either you agree to no more physical discipline, in writing, or she won’t give you another chance. I won’t let her give you another chance. If your answer is no, say so right now and I’ll walk out of here.

“You’ve made your point, Hollis.”

“You’ll sign the agreement? Live up to it?”

Rakubian shrugged. As if he found the notion ridiculous and of no particular import one way or the other. “I love Angela. I would do anything for her.”

“As long as she does exactly what you want.”

“I don’t understand your meaning.”

“The park the other night. Remember what you said to her?”

“Not offhand, no.”

“You threatened her. And my grandson. You said you’d kill them both rather than give her up.”

“A man says things in the heat of passion he doesn’t always mean.”

“What about doing things in the heat of passion?”

“I would never harm my wife or her son.”

“Under any circumstances?”

“Angela is my life, I love Kenneth as if he were my own. What do you think I am, Hollis?”

A fucking monster.

“She wants your promise, also in writing, never to threaten her or Kenny or anyone else in our family again.”

A sigh this time. “Is that all?”

“Yes, except that if you violate the agreement in any way, she’ll leave you immediately and you’ll never see her again. Guaranteed.”

Rakubian came out from behind his desk, went to stand at one of the windows looking out. He had a feline way of moving, sinuous and gliding, like a predator on the stalk for prey. Watching him, Hollis tasted his hate again.

Close to a minute passed before Rakubian swung around to face him. As if there had been no gap in the conversation he said, “In return I demand a signed document from you that you will leave Angela and me alone from now on. No interference of any sort in our relationship.”

Hollis pretended to think this over. “All right, if that’s what it takes to get you to treat my daughter like a human being instead of a possession.”

“A gross exaggeration, whether you believe it or not. I have never thought of Angela as a possession. I respect her feelings and her intelligence.”

Bullshit. The only intelligence you respect is your own; the only feelings you care about are the ones you have for yourself.

“Settled, then? You’ll meet with us?”

“Yes, but I want to speak to Angela first. Privately.”

“Why?”

“To hear her tell me herself she has come to her senses. She can call me here or at home tonight—”

“No,” Hollis said.

“No?”

“She won’t talk to you on the phone. In person only.”

“Her terms or yours?”

“Hers. She’ll confirm it when we meet.”

No response. Those black eyes were as cold as death.

“Well?”

“Where and what time?”

“Our cottage on Tomales Bay. Two P.M. tomorrow.”

“Why not here? Or my home, or yours?”

“The cottage is a neutral site. It also happens to be where she’s been since yesterday morning.”

“Is that so? Alone?”

“Not alone. And not with Kenny. So don’t go getting any ideas about driving out there before two o’clock tomorrow.”

Rakubian turned back to the window. Thinking it over. Come on, damn you, it sounds good, it sounds like you’re getting exactly what you think you deserve, say yes—

“I’d prefer to meet here,” Rakubian said.

Shit! “Why?”

“The agreements can be more easily drawn up here.”

“They’re not legally binding, isn’t that what you said? What difference does it make where they’re written or what they’re written on? Bring along some of your stationery if you like. For Christ’s sake, Rakubian, we’re not preparing a brief or taking depositions. We’re trying to put your marriage back together.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

“The cottage, then. Two o’clock. It’s what she wants, can’t you bend a little for once to get what you want?”

Faint smile. Smug, condescending. Hollis could almost read his mind: I always get what I want.

“Very well,” the son of a bitch said. “Two o’clock at Tomales Bay. How do I get to this cottage of yours?”

In the car, on his way across the city to the Golden Gate Bridge, Hollis used his cell phone to call North Bay Transit in Santa Rosa. The woman who answered said yes, there was regular bus service on Sundays, San Francisco to Los Alegres. Leaving from the Transbay Terminal, Mission and First Streets, every half hour from noon until 7 P.M.

Okay. One more arrangement to make, and he’d have the problem of what to do about Rakubian’s car solved.

He took care of that arrangement as soon as he reached Mannix & Hollis. Gabe was out at a meeting, which made it easy to brace Gloria. Easy to weave another little web of lies around someone he cared about.

“I hate to ask this,” he said, “but are you free for a couple of hours Sunday morning?”

“What’s up on Sunday?”

“I need a ride to Tomales Bay. Our cottage out there. The foundation’s shaky, needs shoring up, and I’m scheduled to meet a local contractor at noon. And now my car’s acting up.”

“If it rains, it pours,” Gloria said sympathetically.

“He’s got something going on in the morning, the contractor, I mean, so he can’t come in and pick me up. Cassie and Angela are both tied up, too. I suppose I could cancel out...”

“Hey, no problem. I’ll be glad to do it. We’re always home from church by ten-thirty and no plans after that. How long do you think it’ll take?”

“No need for you to wait. Just drop me off. Contractor’ll drive me home when we’re done.”

“You sure? I don’t mind waiting...”

“Running me out there is enough of an imposition.”

“Imposition, my fat ass. Pick you up at your house at eleven?”

Better if it was someplace other than the house, but he couldn’t think of a place or an excuse. “Eleven’s fine. Thanks, Gloria.”

“De nada. What are friends for?”

Late Friday Afternoon

When he got home Cassie was already there, sitting in the living room with Fritz alert at her feet, one of their big spiral-bound photo albums open on her lap. Angela and Kenny were upstairs. The reason she was home early, Cassie told him, was that she’d agreed to work until two at the clinic tomorrow so one of the other vets could visit an ailing relative. He took the opportunity to mention that he’d be working tomorrow afternoon himself, some last-minute design changes at their Larkfield site. Her only comment was that it was too bad they wouldn’t be able to spend the entire day with the kids.

He gestured at the photo album. “How come?”

“No particular reason. Feeling nostalgic, I guess.”

“Which one is it?”

“Come sit and look. Yosemite,” he said, sitting beside her.

“And Mono Lake and Virginia City. One of our best trips.”

“I remember. Must’ve been... what, nearly twenty years ago?”

“Eighteen. Angela was seven, Eric four.”

“Time,” he said, and shook his head.

They flipped pages, pointing out individual snapshots that triggered memories: El Capitan, the Ahwanee Hotel, Tuolumne Meadows, the tufa towers at Mono, the Bucket of Blood saloon in the old mining town. By the time she closed the album Hollis felt almost calm. A rush of tenderness filled him; he tilted her chin toward him and kissed her, deeply.

“Hey,” she said, smiling, “what was that for?”

“Twenty-six years of putting up with me.”

“And counting.”

“Yes, and counting. I love you, Cass.”

“I love you, too.”

“Why? I mean, what did you ever see in me?”

“You can’t imagine the number of times I’ve asked myself that question.”

“Seriously.”

“Well, for one thing you’re terrific in the sack.”

“Seriously, Cass.”

“All right. You’re gentle, sensitive, caring. A good man in all the ways that count. You’re also pigheaded, moody, and inclined to jump to conclusions, but hey, nobody’s perfect.”

“You come pretty close.”

“Uh-huh. My list of faults is longer than yours and you know it.”

“I can’t imagine my life without you. Without the kids.”

“Devoted family man. That’s another of your good points.”

“I mean it,” he said.

“I know you do. Don’t you think I feel the same way?”

“Yes. I just wanted to say it.”

“We’re a team, buddy,” she said. “And we’re going to keep on being a team for a lot more years.”

“A lot more,” he agreed, and wondered if she believed it any more than he did.

Friday Night

Eric called from Colma, south of San Francisco, a little before six-thirty. He’d made better time through the San Jose commuter bottleneck than expected and he thought he’d be home before eight. They agreed to wait dinner. Cassie and Angela were both in upbeat moods — because Eric was coming and Rakubian had left them alone for the day, and on Angela’s part because her friend’s Utah relatives had agreed to act as short-term landlords and because she’d met with Pierce today and the meeting had gone well. At least Pierce was being understanding and supportive, a positive force in her life for a change.

Eric arrived at ten of eight. On close inspection Hollis liked what he saw. His son was lean and fit and sun-browned: tennis, jogging, hiking. He seemed more self-confident, too, with a ripening sense of humor — both signs of maturity. He hadn’t completely lost the sudden broody lapses into silence, or the vaguely defensive, combative attitude when he was alone with Hollis, but these traits were less pronounced every time he came home. If the father-son closeness still wasn’t what it should be, the distance between them had narrowed so that they were within touching distance. Being out on his own had been good for Eric. At eighteen he’d been a difficult boy; at twenty-one he was developing into a man to be proud of.

Dinner. All of them trying a little too hard to be cheerful, Eric teasing Kenny and making him the giggling, chattering center of attention. But the strain was there, a faint but tangible presence at the table even though they avoided mentioning Rakubian or Angela’s moving away. Still, it was good to see his kids laughing again, even if some of the laughter was forced. A foretaste of the way things would be once the David Rakubian threat had been neutralized.

Hang on to that thought, Hollis. Hold it close tomorrow and there won’t be any buck fever this time, you won’t have any trouble doing what needs to be done.

But he slept little that night. And when he did drop off, his dreams were horrorscapes sprinkled with blood.

7

Saturday Afternoon

The Tomales Bay cottage had been part of his inheritance after Pop’s death. It was also where the old man died, of a sudden heart attack at the end of a day of fishing near Hog Island — keeled over on the dock float after tying up his dinghy, fifty-eight years old and nobody around to see it happen but the sea gulls. The cottage had been his getaway spot, his pride and joy, built with his own hands in the fifties on the wooded stretch of land south of Nick’s Cove. Hollis’s memories of the place when the old man was alive were mixed. He’d never much cared for fishing or boating, hadn’t enjoyed being dragged along for long weekends alone out here with Pop. On the other hand, there had been some good times; he remembered huge plates of both raw and barbecued oysters, long walks on the headlands and along the shore, curling up with a book in front of a blazing fire, the three-room box smoky and warm, on nights when fog blanketed the water and pressed in close against the windows.

He and Cassie had had some good times here, too, after they were first married and while the kids were still young. But few enough the past ten years or so. Neither Eric nor Angela cared for the place as they grew older — too remote, the weather too often cold and misty — and Cassie had taken on more of a workload at the clinic, developed other interests. The cottage was mostly his now, and still little used. Yet he’d never been able to bring himself to sell it. He wasn’t sure why. The good memories, partly, he supposed. And because it had been Pop’s place. And because every now and then, when he felt peopled out, it became his male retreat.

Now it would serve another purpose.

Now, today, another man would die here.

No close neighbors, trees screening most of the property from Highway 1, a separate garage without windows. Oh, it was the perfect place, all right, to commit murder... no, to commit an act of self-defense. He wondered if he would feel the same about it after today, if he would ever be able to come here again. Probably not. The smart thing to do would be to put it on the market and be done with it. Another piece of himself lost. Another sacrifice.

What would Pop say if he knew? Hell, Hollis thought, he’d be all for it. Would’ve done the same thing himself, in this kind of situation — just bulled right ahead instead of planning it out, the way I almost did Wednesday night. Man of action, take the bull by the horns, kick ass and never look back... that was Bud Hollis, a monument built of clichés. He’d be proud of me, by God. More proud of me for killing a man, eliminating a threat to the family, than he ever was for anything I accomplished while he was alive or since.

Hollis slowed, made the turn off the highway onto the rutted access lane. The trees, mostly pine and cypress, were old and bent from the constant buffeting of the coastal winds; passing through them, he had a sense of retreating backward in time. The cottage added to it: redwood boards, sagging roofline, creaky pilings sunk deep into the bayshore mud and supporting both the rear deck and the crookedly attached dock, everything weathered gray and unchanged — except for the new roof — since his boyhood. As he approached, he would not have been surprised to see the old man appear in the doorway, straight-spined and unsmiling, a fishing rod in one gnarled hand and a can of Bud in the other.

He pulled up in front of the ramshackle garage, sat looking through the gap between it and the shack at the white-capped bay. The wind was strong today; he could hear it rattling and soughing in the trees, smell the briny odor of the bay even with the windows rolled up. After a time he opened the glove compartment, removed the chamois-wrapped Colt Woodsman. Sat a few seconds longer, taking stock of himself.

The sense of fragmentation was there again, and an edginess, and a hollow feeling beneath his breastbone. Emotional push-pull: resolve and repugnance, necessity and uncertainty. He’d taken a good long look into the center of himself the past few days and he had little doubt that he was a man capable, in extremis, of taking a human life. But that didn’t mean he could or would when the time came. He might freeze up again; he might shoot Rakubian dead without a moment’s hesitation. There was just no way to be sure. He would not know the full sum of Jack Hollis for another sixty minutes or so. Two o’clock, the hour of reckoning.

He went first to unlock the garage. Not much in there except the two items he’d remembered — a short-pronged pick and a rusty shovel. He’d hide Rakubian’s BMW in the garage so Gloria wouldn’t see it when she brought him out tomorrow. Then he’d drive it to San Francisco and leave it in one of the parking garages downtown — Union Square or Sutter-Stockton — and take a North Bay Transit bus back to Los Alegres. Simple. No one would notice or remember him; parking garages and buses were places that harbored anonymity.

He hefted the pick, swung it once to make sure the wood hadn’t rotted where the head was attached. He would have no trouble using it or the shovel; the summers Pop had made him do scut labor on his construction sites, to “toughen him up,” would finally serve a useful purpose. He carried the tools to the car, put them in the trunk with the other items he’d stowed in there at home this morning. Now he had everything he needed — perhaps more than he needed. The more prepared he was, the more likely he would be able to follow through.

A strong mingling of dust, must, salt damp, and dry rot assaulted his sinuses when he let himself into the cottage. It had been months since his last visit. He set the .22 on the table in the kitchen alcove, opened the folding blinds and then the sliding glass door to the balcony to let in light and fresh air. Nostalgia stirred in him as he surveyed the cramped living room and kitchen areas. Everything the same as it had been before the old man died, some of the original furnishings unchanged and unmoved. Forties Sears & Roebuck, fifties kitsch. Yellow-and-brown linoleum on the floor, worn through in places. Yellow Formica-topped dining table and matching chairs, ancient coil-topped refrigerator, two-burner propane stove. The horsehair sofa and Pop’s overstuffed Morris chair, the fabrics on both torn and showing their insides here and there. Claw-foot smoking stand, ugly lamps, faded and poorly done seascapes, the stuffed and mounted trophy fish over the blackened stone fireplace. That fireplace... it smoked no matter how clean the chimney was. On windy days it let drafts down the warped old flue that made freakish whistling, howling noises and blew ash all over the floor. “He could hear the noises now; they made him feel cold. I can’t do it in here, he thought. Outside. The sound of the shot won’t carry, not with this wind.

He stepped onto the spongy boards of the deck, rested his hands on the railing without leaning on it. A handful of sailboats whitened the bay, one close by Hog Island, the others near the anchorage at Inverness and up near the state park on the opposite shore. The tide was out; the mud stakes marking the oyster beds far to the south were visible a hundred yards offshore. Quiet here except for the wind, the chatter of gulls, the distant hiss and rumble of cars on the highway. Peaceful.

He glanced at his watch — twenty minutes to the hour — and then went back inside, leaving the sliding door open. He unwrapped the Woodsman and checked the loads, the way the old man had taught him. Set the gun on the mantelpiece, where he wouldn’t have to look at it when he was sitting down. Drink? Better not. But he went to the alcove anyway, found the half-full bottle of Bushmills in the cupboard, poured a double shot and took it to the Morris chair, and set the glass on the smoking stand without drinking from it. Later, maybe. If he needed a little last-minute Dutch courage.

The musty, closed-up smell evaporated as he sat there. Funny, though... he could have sworn that every now and then he had a faint whiff of the old man’s latakia pipe tobacco. After seventeen years? Ghost scent. Or maybe not; Pop had smoked that stubby briar of his incessantly, no doubt a major contributing factor in his fatal coronary, and old fabric like the chair’s absorbed and retained odors. Now that he thought about it, he remembered other times when he’d sat here and caught the same ephemeral tobacco scent.

Pop. Tough love — what passed for love in him anyway — but always tempered with those censorious eyes, that critical mouth, the ooze of disappointment. Tried so hard to please him, never seemed to measure up to his expectations. Like with the hunting, the fishing. You haven’t got the guts for a man’s sport. Like with his career choice. Pop had wanted him to be a builder, join him in his construction business. Hollis & Son, General Contractors. Pop’s view: building things was man’s work; designing them, “fiddling with blueprints and slide rules,” had a faintly effeminate taint. He’d wanted half a dozen strapping, brawling, sports-minded, beer-swilling chips off the same rough-hewn block; instead all Mom had given him was one medium-sized, independent, unathletic, bookish son with tendencies that in his eyes smacked of latent homosexuality. What are you, boy? A goddamn fag? In his heart of hearts he’d never forgiven his only son for being what he was instead of what he was supposed to be.

“Hey, Pop,” Hollis said aloud, “how’s this for a real blood sport? If I go through with it, will I finally measure up? Be a chip off the old block after all?”

He sat humped forward in the chair, listening for the sound of Rakubian’s car.

Two o’clock.

And Rakubian didn’t show.

2:05.

2:10.

He took the Woodsman off the mantel, went outside with it hanging down along his leg, and stood peering up through the trees toward the highway. Cars passed, little blips of color and movement, but none slowed or turned in.

2:15.

2:20.

Something had gone wrong. Rakubian wouldn’t be this late if he was coming. Anal-retentive control freak, always punctual... he should’ve been here before two, smug and gloating because he thought he was getting his prize possession back.

All of Hollis’s screwed-up courage was gone now; his nerves were raw and jumping. Frustration, anger, bewilderment — and underneath those emotions, another that he couldn’t deny. Relief. The kind a condemned man must feel when he’s given a temporary last-minute reprieve.

Some kind of traffic problem, maybe that was it. No, Rakubian would have left the city early, to ensure getting here on or ahead of schedule. Accident? Blowout or engine failure of some kind? Or... he wasn’t fooled yesterday after all, guessed it was a trap? What would he do in that case?

Figure Angela was still home and go after her there?

Fear crowded away the other feelings. He sat heavily on the front step, laid the .22 down beside him, and dragged the cell phone out of the case attached to his belt. He’d decided it was best to leave it on this time. No calls from home — that was a good sign, wasn’t it?

It rang in his hand.

He said, “Shit!” and had to jab twice before he connected with the answer button. “Hollis.”

“Jack, it’s me.” Cassie, sounding upset. “I’m not sure I should be bothering you, but—”

“What is it, what’s wrong?”

“Maybe nothing, I could be overreacting—”

“Cass, for God’s sake. Angela and the boy, are they all right?”

“Yes, yes, that’s not it.”

“Rakubian?”

“No, it’s Eric. He found that damn evidence box in the garage, read some of Rakubian’s letters, and listened to a few of the tapes. Angela said he was pretty upset.”

“What did he say to her?”

“That’s just it, he didn’t say anything. It was the look on his face... you know the look he gets when he’s brooding. It was so intense it scared her.”

“Let me talk to him.”

“He’s not here. He left when she did — she took Kenny to see his father again. Eric wouldn’t tell her where he was going.”

“When was this? What time?”

“More than two hours ago. She got home five minutes ago, just after I did.”

“Eleven-thirty, twelve, twelve-thirty?”

“Before noon,” Cassie said. “She doesn’t think Eric will do anything crazy — that’s why she didn’t call one of us. But I’m not so sure. He hates Rakubian and I keep thinking about that temper of his...”

A temper that could be explosive; Eric was as capable of violence as his father and grandfather. And no sign of Rakubian here or in Los Alegres. Before noon... and it was less than an hour’s drive from Los Alegres to St. Francis Wood. Eric could have gotten there by twelve-thirty, even a little earlier. Before Rakubian was ready to leave...

Hollis switched the phone to his left hand; his right was slick with perspiration. The blood-pound in his ears made Cassie’s voice sound far away.

“Jack,” she said, “am I overreacting or not?”

“Probably. I hope you are.”

“What should we do?”

Try not to panic, he thought. He said, “You call Eric’s friends, his old haunts, anyplace you can think of he might be. I’ll see if I can get hold of Rakubian.”

“What’ll you say to him?”

“Let me worry about that.”

He could not remember Rakubian’s home number, finally got it from San Francisco information. The line hummed and buzzed and clicked — a dozen rings, no answer, and his answering machine wasn’t on. That really scared him, the machine being off. Rakubian always kept it on when he was away from home; compulsive about it, according to Angela. Hollis called information again, this time for Rakubian’s office number, and tried that. The answering machine there was on; he hung up immediately.

Two-forty now. Rakubian wasn’t coming, no longer any doubt of it. Eric... no, he wouldn’t let himself think the worst. Whatever the reason for the no-show, it was pointless to wait here, pointless to speculate. Go down to the city, find Rakubian, camp on his doorstep if he had to. Relieve his mind about Eric, and then figure out another way to do what had to be done.

He drove too fast over the back roads from Marshall to Nicasio, from Nicasio across the hills and down to Highway 101. Telling himself to slow down, there was no real urgency; half-skidding the Lexus through the curves anyway, as if his body were acting independently of his mind.

Cassie called again just before he reached San Rafael. “I can’t find him anywhere,” she said. “Nobody’s seen him all day. Did you talk to Rakubian?”

“No answer at his house or office.”

“Oh, God, I don’t like this.”

“It doesn’t have to mean anything. He could be anywhere... as long as he’s not in Los Alegres harassing you and Angela.”

“There hasn’t been any sign of him here. No calls or anything, either.”

“That’s a relief.”

“It sounds like you’re in the car. Are you coming home?”

He hesitated. Tell her the truth? It would only increase her anxiety, and he did not want her to know he was anywhere near Rakubian or Rakubian’s house today. “No. On my way to Paloma for a meeting with one of the Larkfield people. Nick Jackson.”

“Can’t you get out of it?”

“I can if there’s any real need. I don’t think there is, Cass. Eric’s impulsive, but he knows better than to start any kind of trouble with Rakubian.”

“I’m not so sure...”

“I am,” he lied. “Stop worrying, everything’s going to be all right.”

Fog crawled over the city, turning the sky west of Twin Peaks the color of dirty silver. He turned up Sloat, then up St. Francis to Monterey, slowing to a near crawl as he approached Rakubian’s property. Cars were parked at the curbs along there, but none was Eric’s bright red Miata. He’d have been even more alarmed if he had spotted it; it was after four now.

He crept past the Spanish stucco. Nothing to see in the jungly front yard or on the visible part of the porch; driveway empty, garage door shut. He drove another block, made a U-turn, and parked on the downhill curve just out of sight of the house. He was on his way out of the car before he remembered the Woodsman. Not thinking clearly; the sense of fragmentation was acute, as if he were starting to come apart inside. His carefully engineered plan had already come apart but he could still put it back together and himself back together with it. If Rakubian was home...

He unwrapped the .22, slipped it into his jacket pocket. Out then and downhill through the blowing fog. No cars moving, nobody in the neighboring yards or in the nearby park. He crossed the street, forcing himself to take a casual pace, and went up Rakubian’s walk and rang the doorbell. Chimes, and another sound audible to him: heavy, atonal music playing somewhere inside. He strained to hear footsteps, his right hand on the gun in his pocket.

All he heard was the faint percussive music.

He rang the bell again, waited, rang it a third time. The chimes, the music, the wind. Now what? First thing: check the garage, see if Rakubian’s car was there. He left the porch, followed the path around to the driveway. No windows on either side of the garage; he went to the door on the near side, tried it. Unlocked. He put his head inside.

The silver BMW was a gleaming hulk in the shadows.

Oh, God, he thought.

He tried the side door to the house, found it locked. Went back to the front, half running. At the door he did what he hadn’t done before — depressed the old-fashioned latch. And it clicked and the door creaked inward.

His heart hammering, he stepped into the darkened foyer and shut the door behind him.

The music was loud enough here to be identifiable: classical, atonal, oppressive. Mussorgsky. Boris Godunov. Rakubian’s favorite, played it over and over, wouldn’t shut the damn piece off any of the times Hollis and Cassie had visited Angela. Coming from the combination library and office that opened off the central hall.

“Rakubian?” Shouting it above the pound of the music.

No response.

He moved ahead, his footsteps making little clicks on the terra-cotta floor. A light burned in the library; he saw the pale glow as he neared the archway. “Rakubian?” Through the arch, one pace into the library. And his stomach heaved, his legs jellied; blindly he clutched and hung on to the jamb to steady himself.

Rakubian was there. On the dark-patterned Sarouk carpet in front of his desk, sprawled on his back with arms outflung and one leg bent under him, and his head—

Blood, brain matter. Streaked and spattered over his white shirt and blue tie, his face, his shattered skull, the carpet, a black raven statuette on the floor close by. A real-life horrorscape sprinkled with blood.

I hate that crazy son of a bitch. I’d like to smash his fucking head in.

Eric, Eric, what have you done!

8

Early Saturday Evening

For a minute, two minutes, Hollis was incapable of movement. His mind worked now, but in a stuttery, off-center way: piecemeal thoughts, disoriented perceptions. Everything in the room — Rakubian lying there dead, all the gore, the pale light and shadows, the oppressive symphony, the dark furnishings and dark-spined books and ugly statuary and bleak wall hangings — seemed to lose reality in his eyes and ears, to blur and distort. It was as if he had suddenly become trapped in one of Rakubian’s paintings — a Goya “black” of screaming souls in torment, a surrealist interpretation of a scene from Dante’s Inferno.

Paralysis and disorientation ended at the same time, in an abrupt convulsive tremor that tore him loose from the archway and carried him two steps into the library. He saw clearly again: the room, the body, all of it just as it was. His thoughts were clear but fast-running, like a ticker tape unwinding at accelerated speed across a screen. The music beat at him in thudding waves; he detoured around the dead man to the old-fashioned record player, found the reject switch and the off button. The sudden silence seemed to carry dissonant echoes in a long diminuendo.

Up close, then, to where Rakubian lay, careful to avoid the blood spatters. He’d thought that when he stood looking down into that dead face he would feel relief, vindication, even a kind of terrible elation. He felt nothing except revulsion. No, another emotion, too. Fear. The enemy was dead, Angela and Kenny were safe... but now Eric was in jeopardy. Crazy, bitter irony: his son had switched places with him and with his daughter, become both avenger and victim. Even dead, David Rakubian was a threat to them all.

He squatted, forced himself to touch and then lift one wrist, using his thumb and forefinger. Cool flesh. Stiffening. Dead at least three hours, lying here all that time with Boris Godunov playing over and over like a funeral dirge. With rigor mortis setting in, it would be difficult to move him before long. Hollis felt his gorge rising; he tightened the muscles in his jaw and throat, released the dead wrist, stood again, and hurried back through the archway into the hall.

The guest bathroom, he remembered, was at the end of the hall on the left. He made it there just in time to drop to one knee in front of the toilet. Dry heaves, mostly; all that came up was a thin stream of the whiskey he’d drunk at the cottage. When the spasms ended he flushed the toilet, pulled himself upright over the sink. He splashed his face with cold water, made a cup of laced fingers and rinsed the sick taste from his mouth. An inadvertent glance at the mirror showed him an old man’s face: hollowed cheeks, grayish skin, eyes with too much white glistening like curdled milk.

He found his way to the utility porch at the rear. Rakubian had been as much of a control freak in his home as anywhere else: a place for everything and everything in its proper place. That made it easy to locate the items he would need. Heavy-duty trash bags, the big 33-gallon kind. A spool of strong twine. A roll of paper towels. All of these he carried back into the library.

Except for one leg, Rakubian’s body was full on the Sarouk rug. Six feet by four feet, that rug, the nap thick and tightly woven; much of the residue from the shattered skull had soaked into a portion of the design that was the color of burgundy wine, so that there did not seem to be much of it until you looked closely. Seeped through to the tiles? He prodded the one leg onto the carpet, bent to pick up the lower end, and then dragged rug and body a few feet toward the arch. None of the blood had leaked through; the tiles where Rakubian’s head had lain looked dry and were dry to the touch.

Hollis shook two of the garbage bags open. He could not stand to look any longer at that broken, red-streaked face. As much as he’d hated the man in life, there was something almost pathetic about him in violent death. Shrunken, a crude and empty shell, with all the obsessive craziness reduced to coagulating red and gray fluids. How could you hate a broken shell, a clotted stain on a fine old carpet? Even if he’d done this himself, he would not have been able to go on hating what the husk had contained.

Lifting the heavy shoulders, getting the trash bag over the head and upper body was stomach-churning work. Sticky blood on his hands when he finished, sweat matting his clothing to his skin. Stuffing legs and lower torso into the second bag wasn’t as bad, but his hands shook so much by then that he had trouble looping twine around the corpse, tying the bags together in the middle and at both ends. Done, finally. He groped his way to the black leather sofa, sat there with his stained hands clasped between his knees until the shaking stopped.

The sweat continued to seep out of him. Too warm in there... Rakubian kept the heat turned up, no matter what the weather. Thrived on it like a frigging spider. Hollis remembered Angela telling him how sometimes at night she would wake up unable to breathe and beg Rakubian to turn the heat down or at least to let her open a window. Of course, he’d refused and berated her for being childish. Everything for himself, always.

Not anymore.

Hollis stood, went past the body without looking at it. In the bathroom he washed his hands, washed them a second time, then scrubbed out the sink and soap dish to make certain there were no traces of blood left. He dried off on one of the guest towels, used the towel to wipe the toilet bowl, vanity counter, sink and the faucet handles, then folded and replaced it on the rack. For the first time he grew aware of an insistent pressure in his bladder; he nudged the seat up with a knuckle and urinated... tried to urinate. Interrupted flow, burning. He flushed the evidence away.

On the utility porch again, he unlocked the outside door and tested the knob to satisfy himself that it was open. Back to the library. The .22 had become a heavy dragging weight in his pocket; he shrugged out of the jacket, laid it on the couch. Then he opened the third garbage bag, used a piece of paper towel to prod the raven statuette inside. Nevermore!

He knelt with the towel roll, scrubbed at the drops and spatters on the tiles. The stains were mostly dry; they wouldn’t clean up fully without water. To the bathroom once more to wet a few of the paper towels. More scrubbing, and dry sheets to dry the floor afterward. Used towels into the garbage bag. Crawl around on hands and knees, looking for any stains he might have missed. Blip of himself doing it: grisly image with the bagged corpse there beside him, like a scene from a horror movie.

When he was satisfied he stood and scanned the room. No signs of violence remained. The only false note was that the floor in front of the desk seemed unnaturally bare with the carpet moved away. Do something about that later. He bent to grasp the fringed edge of the Sarouk, began to drag it and its burden into the hallway.

His cell phone went off.

In the too warm silence, the eruption of sound was startling enough to jerk his fingers loose from the rug. His heart skipped, banged, skipped; it took a few seconds to pull his breathing under control. Ring. Ring. All right, get a grip, it’s probably Cassie. And for God’s sake don’t let her hear anything in your voice. He blew out a breath, yanked the phone from his belt and clicked on.

“Hollis.”

“Jack, Eric’s home. He came in five minutes ago.”

Careful, now. Careful. “Where was he?”

“He went for a long drive, he said — the Russian River, out to the coast. To cool off.”

“You believe him?”

“I want to.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“Yes, but still... you know how he gets. Closemouthed, withdrawn. He still seems to be on edge, wrought up.”

On edge, wrought up. He crushed a man’s skull this afternoon.

“I’ll talk to him later,” Hollis said. “Main thing is, he’s home safe and nothing happened.”

“This time,” she said.

“Everything else okay? You know what I mean.”

“So far. When will you be home?”

“I... don’t know yet. I may be late.”

“Why, for heaven’s sake?”

“Nick Jackson wants me to have dinner with him.”

“Beg off, can’t you?”

“It’s more business than social, so I’d better not. There’s no good reason for me to, is there?”

“I suppose not, but—”

“I’ll be home as soon as I can,” he said, and disconnected. Before he replaced the unit he switched it all the way off. No more calls until he was finished with Rakubian. No more little shocks, no more big lies.

He caught hold of the carpet again, dragged it down the hall and through the kitchen onto the porch. Left it near the outside door, then retraced his route to make sure there were no telltale marks on the floor. Some ridges and speckles of dust was all; these he erased with more dampened paper towels.

At the front there was a formal living room, seldom used, as darkly furnished as the library. Two Oriental rugs in there, the largest of them, three by five feet, spread out before the fireplace. He moved a couple of tables, rolled the rug, rearranged the tables and two chairs so that the empty floor space didn’t seem conspicuous. Shouldn’t matter anyhow. Rakubian had permitted only a handful of visitors in the first few months of his marriage, and none at all in the last four or five. A loner — no close friends, few acquaintances. His home was his castle, the kind with a moat around it. Who’d notice anything out of place in here? Or in the library, but Hollis knew he’d never feel secure unless another carpet covered the space where Rakubian had died.

He wiped the tiles in front of the fireplace, took all the soiled paper towels to the porch, and stuffed them into the open trash bag. Carried the rolled carpet into the library and laid it down. Better, much better. It didn’t seem too small for the space, and its pattern resembled the blood-soaked one’s.

Finished. This part of it.

The rest... Don’t think about the rest yet.

He put his jacket on, zippered it to the throat. In the foyer he cracked the front door and peered out at the street. Nobody in sight. He stepped through quickly, shutting the door behind him. When he came out to the sidewalk he saw someone in the park, an overcoated man walking a dog on a leash, but the man wasn’t looking his way. Still he felt exposed, vulnerable as he turned up the street.

Eyes front, same measured pace as before: a man who belonged in this neighborhood as much as the dog-walker. The cold wind beat at him, moaning in his ears, freezing his sweat. By the time he reached the Lexus he was chilled.

Inside, he locked the .22 in the glove compartment. Panicked moment then: he couldn’t find his keys. They weren’t in either jacket pocket, what if they’d fallen out in the library? Right pants pocket, no, left pants pocket... why had he put them there, he never put his keys there. He fumbled the ignition key into the slot.

A car came down Monterey behind him; he heard it, then saw it in the rearview mirror. Passenger car, nondescript, two people inside. He turned his head as it passed, as if he were hunting for something on the seat. It continued on without slowing. He waited until it was two blocks away before he started the engine.

Downhill past Rakubian’s driveway, stop, reverse — telling himself to do this casually, not too fast or too slow, he had every right to be here. He cut the wheel too sharp on the first try, almost ran into the bushes bordering the drive. Come on, come on! Second pass was better, in more or less straight; adjust, back up slow and straight. The street in front of him remained empty. Stop a few feet from the garage... there.

He stood for a few seconds after he stepped out, checking his surroundings. Tall shrubs and trees hid the near neighbor’s property; only the roofline of the house there was visible. More trees at the rear, beyond an expanse of lawn, created a thick screen. It was as if he were standing in a pocket, with the street the only open end. Okay. But he still felt conspicuous as he went around to unlock the trunk and raise the lid.

One thing about a Lexus, it had a wide, deep trunk. He moved the tools and other items, pushing them all against the inner wall. Then he shook out and spread his Cal Poly blanket over the cleared space.

To the porch door, inside to what was left of Rakubian trussed up in the black body bags — not a man anymore, just so much trash to be taken away and disposed of. He bent to work his hands under the bundle, dipped his knees, lifted. Not as heavy as he’d expected: Rakubian hadn’t been a big man except in his own eyes. The slick feel of the bags, the deadweight, brought his gorge up again; he swallowed it down. Check the street. Clear. When he stepped outside he did it too quickly and stumbled, nearly dropped his burden. Careful! But then, in his haste and revulsion, he lowered the body too soon when he reached the open trunk; it struck the edge with a loose thumping sound and flopped in crooked, one end caught on the locking mechanism. The head... the head was still hanging out. He shoved and tugged and finally got all of the bundle inside, curled and bent like an inverted S.

Jesus!

He backed off, sweating in the cold, and turned again to the porch door. And froze. Car on the street, gliding by in the thickening fog. The driver didn’t glance his way — or did he? He couldn’t be sure.

Only a few more things to do. Get the bag containing the waste towels and statuette, pitch it into the trunk. Roll up the bloodstained rug, tie it with a piece of twine, wedge it in on top of the corpse. Close the lid, test the lock. Into the house for one last walk-through to reassure himself that he hadn’t overlooked anything and to test the dead-bolt lock on the front door. Back to the porch, use his handkerchief to wipe the inside doorknob and push-button lock. Set the lock, wipe the outer knob, pull the door shut, test it.

Into the car, start the engine.

Drive.

Don’t think, just drive.

9

Saturday Evening

The ride across the city to the Golden Gate Bridge: splintered, freakish, as if he were making it dead drunk. Little flashes of awareness — somebody honking at him because he was going too slow on Nineteenth Avenue, another car cutting him off inside the park, the murkiness of the tunnel under the Presidio, the lighted line of tollbooths and the wall of fog obscuring the bridge towers. Followed by blank periods, lost time during which he functioned in an unconscious state. It was not until he was halfway across the bridge, poking along in the slow lane, that he came jolting back to himself to stay. The gaps in his recent memory frightened him. What if he’d hit a pedestrian, had some other kind of accident? Concentrate, Hollis. Get off the road if you can’t drive without blanking out.

He was all right after that. Too aware, if anything: the white lane markings, the noisy traffic, the big shopping malls and strip malls and housing tracts flanking the freeway, the fogbanks giving way to cloudy blue once he reached the foot of Waldo Grade — all of it too sharply detailed, too bright, too loud, as though his sense perceptions had been cranked up to the maximum.

Despite the urgency in him, he could not make himself drive past fifty. Every time the speedometer edged above that mark, his foot eased up on the accelerator. Slow, slow... lines of cars whizzing by. None of the other drivers paid any attention to him, but he still felt nakedly exposed. As if the car bore external signs of the trunk’s contents.

The trip seemed interminable. Corte Madera, San Rafael, Terra Linda, the Napa-Vallejo cutoff, Novato... each creeping by. Maximum fifty all the way. The sun slid down behind the hills west of Novato, light began to fade out of the sky. It would be near dusk by the time he reached Los Alegres; full dark when he finished the long climb through the hills to the Chesterton site. Burial by flashlight. Bad enough in the daytime, but in the dark... ghoul’s work.

I must be crazy, he thought. Cassie was right — I must’ve been crazy all along.

Paloma County line. And finally, finally, Los Alegres. He took the first exit, Main Street, get off the damn freeway. Long loop along the river and beneath the highway overpass into town. Right on D Street, across the drawbridge, out Lakeville past the industrial parks and housing tracts and onto Crater Road. Headlights on now, boring into the gathering darkness. Oncoming beams reflecting off the windshield, jabbing his eyes with bright splinters. Stop and go, stop and go, and the Paloma Mountains did not seem to be getting any closer, seemed instead to be moving farther away. Optical illusion: stress, the light, the dark.

What am I going to say to Eric? Letting himself think about it now, for the first time. Come right out and tell him I know? Hint around, prod him into confessing what happened? Or pretend that nothing happened? A thing like this... there’s no right way to handle it. Father and son, conspirators no matter what either of us says or does. No, wait, suppose his conscience gets the best of him and he decides to turn himself in? Taught him the difference between right and wrong, my own damn moral code turned upside-down. Can’t let that happen—

Sudden flickering light in the car.

Red and white pulsing light.

His gaze jerked upward to the mirror. Frosty prickles on his neck and back, body going rigid, hands in a death grip on the wheel. Behind him, close... rooftop pulsars throwing out red and white, red and white.

Police!

A wildness surged through him. He came close, very close, to jamming his foot down on the accelerator, turning himself into a fugitive in the single twitch of a muscle. Don’t panic! Like a shriek in his mind.

He jerked his foot off the gas pedal, onto the brake. Easy, tap it, that’s right. Tap it again, ease over to the side of the road. The police car did the same. He shoved the shift lever into Park, his breath rasping in his throat. Slide the window down — inhale, exhale, slow and deep. Don’t say or do anything to give himself away. The old man: Cops are like dogs, let ’em see fear and they’ll jump all over you.

Footfalls, flashlight beam slanting past; shape outside the window moving closer, swinging the light, bending down. In the reflected glare the cop’s face was young, not much more than twenty-five, his expression neither friendly nor hostile. Neutral voice to match: “Evening.”

“Good—” The word caught in Hollis’s throat; he coughed and got the answer out on the second try. “Good evening, Officer.” His voice sounded all right, the strain an undercurrent too faint to be discernible. “Did I do something wrong?”

“That stop sign back there. You ran it.”

Stupid! “I didn’t see it. I guess... I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention.”

“License and registration, please.”

He removed the license from his wallet, handed it over. No choice then but to open the glove box. He leaned over, trying desperately to remember if he’d wrapped the Woodsman in the chamois cloth earlier. The flash ray followed his movements. Even if he had wrapped it, and the light picked up the shape and made the cop wonder—

Open. The bulb light inside showed him that the gun was wrapped and that he’d shoved it back deep; the flash beam didn’t reach it, because the cop didn’t say anything. He let out the breath he’d been holding, fumbled up the registration, quickly shut and locked the compartment again.

The cop studied his license, then the registration. “Mr. Hollis. Jackson Hollis.”

“Yes.” His voice shook, but the cop didn’t seem to notice. “Yes, that’s correct.”

“Keokuk Street address current?”

“Yes.”

“West side. Not on your way home, then?”

“Out for a drive. Truth is, Officer, I had a fight with my wife. A real screamer. If you’re married, you know how it can be sometimes.”

“I’m married.” Empathy in his tone? Maybe a little. “Alcohol involved? Before, during, or since?”

“No. Nothing all day.”

“Mind stepping out of your car?”

“Not at all. If you’d like me to take a Breathalyzer test...”

“Just step out, sir.”

He obeyed, unbending in slow segments, standing ruler-backed with his arms at his sides. The cop held the light on him for a few seconds, then told him to wait there and returned to his cruiser. Hollis squinted against the glare of the headlights. He couldn’t see what the cop was doing inside, but he thought he knew: checking to see if there were any outstanding warrants against him.

Another car crept by, the driver’s face framed briefly in the side window, gawking. Felon by the roadside, caught. He shook the thought away, tried to will himself into a kind of sleep mode the way a computer is programmed to do. No good; his mind kept churning. Was there anything to make the cop suspicious? No, not even an unpaid parking ticket on his driving record. He had nothing to worry about if he just cooperated, kept his head, masked his emotions.

It seemed a long time before the cop emerged again. He didn’t approach Hollis; instead he stood just off the Lexus’s rear bumper, in the headlight wash, and began writing in a slender book. Ticket... writing out a ticket. He took his time doing it, glancing up a couple of times. One of the glances seemed to hold on the trunk. No, not the trunk, the license plate. Hollis could feel sweat trickling on him, in spite of the cold night air. Less than five feet between the cop and what lay inside the trunk... what if a sixth sense told him something was wrong? What if he came up and said, “Mind opening your trunk, Mr. Hollis?” All over then. Nowhere to run, nothing more to cover up except Eric’s involvement. He’d say that he killed Rakubian, he’d say he went to the city to talk to him and they argued and Rakubian attacked him and he’d acted in self-defense...

The cop finished writing and moved toward him. Hollis stood rigid.

And the cop said, “Okay,” and extended the ticket. He took it automatically; a little gust of wind tried to tear it from his fingers and he tightened his grip. “Sorry to have to write you up, but running a stop sign the way you did can cause a serious accident.”

“Yes.

“Better be more careful from now on.”

“Yes.”

“Might want to go on home instead of doing any more driving around. Patch things up with your wife.”

“Yes.” As if his brain had slipped into a one-word loop.

“Good luck,” the cop said, and made a little gesture with his forefinger that was half warning and half salute, and turned away.

Hollis shut himself inside the Lexus. Good luck. Jesus, good luck! It took him two tries to turn the ignition, a few seconds more to steady himself before he eased out onto the road.

The cop followed him. He’d expected that; he drove well within the legal limit, straight down Crater Road to the intersection with East Valley Road. Full stop at the sign there, flick the turn signal for a left onto East Valley. He made the turn, and again the cop followed, hanging back by a hundred yards or so and matching his speed as he accelerated.

Hollis’s eyes kept skipping between the road and the rearview mirror. What if he follows me all the way home? I can’t go home with Rakubian in the car, I can’t do that. Have to stop somewhere, 7-Eleven, service station... shake him somehow and pray I don’t run into him again. If he spots me driving back this way he’ll wonder what I’m up to, maybe pull me over again, demand to look inside the trunk...

The trailing lights abruptly cut away: the cop had turned off onto the road paralleling Crater, heading back toward town.

He was alone again, safe again, with Rakubian’s corpse.

The corkscrew climb into the hills seemed to go on and on endlessly. He felt exposed up here, too, like a bug crawling across a piece of glass; headlights on these mountain roads could be seen for miles, all across the valley and the town. But not tonight — he kept reminding himself of that, for all the good it did. Tonight there was haze in the valley and along the spine of the hills, a thin river of fog flowing down from the north that blurred the distant lights. Another thing in his favor, another reminder: nobody paid any attention to headlights in the Paloma Mountains, took them for granted. If he came upon another car, even a county sheriff’s patrol, the occupants would assume he lived here or was visiting someone who did. The only thing he had to worry about now was driving slow and careful on the sharper turns.

He was still afraid.

The encounter with the cop had solidified his fear, jammed it down tight inside him. It would not break loose until he was finished with Rakubian, maybe not even then. He wondered if it would stay with him long after tonight, for as long as he lived, a different kind of cancer inexorably eating away at him.

He needed to pee again. His bladder felt huge, an overinflated sac with needles attached to the outside... bloated and stabbing pains both. Partway up the winding road, in a little copse of trees, he stopped the car and got out and unzipped. The burning, this time, was acute enough to make him grit his teeth. But he was done quickly for a change, and the pains were gone by the time he started driving again.

He reached the gate to the Chesterton property without seeing another set of headlights. Unlock the gate, drive through, relock it behind him. Tires crunching gravel as he crawled along the newly built road. The construction site loomed ahead, dead-still and full of broken shadow shapes. Thin curls of mist drifting through the headlamp beams made it seem an even eerier place — like a cemetery in the dead of night. Some of the shapes appeared and disappeared as he swung in among them, and his mind turned them into graveyard images: foundation slabs and staked sections became burial plots, portable toilets became headstones, Dulac’s trailer and the heavy equipment became chimerical crypts.

His mouth was dry, his face hot, as if he might be running a fever. His consciousness began to shrivel again. Defense mechanism, and he didn’t fight it this time. The only way he would be able to get through what lay ahead was to do it mechanically — an android drone functioning on programmed circuitry.

He braked long enough to orient himself, crawled ahead at an angle toward the wine cellar excavation. The beams picked it out; it might have been a mine shaft cut into the hillside, or an unfinished mausoleum. Tiered rock and dirt gleamed a short distance to the right. He drove as close as he could to the hillside, turning the wheel to bring the rear end around and his lights full on the earth dump. When he shut them off, the darkness pressed down so thickly it was as though he’d gone blind. The illusion brought a brief twist of panic; he opened the door to put the dome light on, kept it open for several seconds after he swung out. Then he stood blinking, scanning left and right, until his eyes adjusted.

Cold up here, but not as cold as it had been in San Francisco. Not as much wind, either, the fog moving in slow, sinuous patterns. Cricket sound rose and fell; the wind carried the faint rattle of disturbed branches, the odors of pine, madrone, damp earth. The lights of Los Alegres were smeary pinpricks in the ragged veil of fog.

Top of the world, Ma.

He shivered, swung around to open the trunk. He didn’t touch the body, not yet. Pick, shovel, disassembled push broom from the garage at home. Utility lantern. Pair of bib overalls, pair of heavy work gloves, pair of old galoshes to protect his shoes, a worn khaki shirt. When he had all of these on the ground, he shed his jacket and pullover and tossed them onto the front seat; donned the shirt, overalls, galoshes, and gloves. Then he lighted the lantern, followed its beam to the earth dump.

The wheelbarrow wasn’t where he’d seen it on Thursday. Took him a couple of minutes to track it down, over on the far side. He ran it back to the car, the lantern riding inside so that its long ray jumped and wobbled and threw crazy shadows against the fog. He loaded the tools, humped the barrow over bare ground, over a pair of poured slabs and inside the excavation.

In there he positioned the lantern so the beam held steady on the center section of the floor. Lifted one of the plywood sheets, propped it against the wall out of the way; did the same with a second sheet. The cleared space... long enough and wide enough? Yes. He flexed the muscles in his arms and back. Not thinking now, all but shut down inside.

He hefted the pick and began to dig.

10

Saturday Night

Pick. Shovel. Loose dirt piled on the plywood to one side. Clods and chunks of rock into the wheelbarrow. Pick. Shovel. Loose dirt. Clods, chunks. Full barrow out to the dump and back again empty. Pick. Shovel...

He lost all sense of time. His perceptions narrowed to light and dark, cold and sweat-heat, aching strain in arms and shoulders and lower back, chink of metal on stone, thud of metal biting into earth. One barrow full, two barrows full, three barrows full. And the hole growing wider, deeper — standing in it, climbing out, dropping back in until one loose, sloping side touched him at mid-thigh. Deep enough. His strength was flagging by then; the pick had grown as heavy as a ten-pound sledge.

He tossed it out, sent the shovel after it and himself after the shovel. His body begged for rest. Instead he lifted the barrow’s handles, grunting, and slogged it out and across to the earth pile; emptied it, then wheeled it around to the rear of the Lexus. His eyes stung with sweat and grit. He wiped them clear on his shirtsleeve as he opened the trunk.

Getting the body out of there and into the wheelbarrow was a grim struggle. It had stiffened in full rigor and he couldn’t unbend it from the S curve. Wielding the pick and shovel had weakened his arms and back, so that he was unable to lift the deadweight as easily as he had at Rakubian’s house. He jerked, pulled, finally got it over the lip, but when he tried to lower it, it slipped down and upended the barrow with an echoing clang. Blank period after that. He had no memory of righting the carrier, hoisting Rakubian into it; he was halfway to the excavation, wheeling his heavy load, before he came back to himself.

The hole was too narrow. He realized that as soon as he pushed the wheelbarrow alongside. A sound like a hurt animal’s whimper came out of him. More digging, another foot or so of width before the bent and bag-wrapped remains would fit into the hole.

Upturn the barrow, body thumping on plywood. Pick. Shovel. Loose dirt onto the side pile. Clods, chunks of rock into the carrier. Pick. Shovel. Dirt, clods, chunks. Wide enough now? Almost. Pick, shovel, dirt, clods, chunks. Pick shovel dirt clods chunks. Climb out and take up the handles and wheel the barrow out of the way.

Roll the dead thing into its grave.

Prod and pull until it was wedged on its side.

It fit in there, just barely. Tight squeeze. The Sarouk carpet still had to go in, but that shouldn’t be a problem because the hole was deep enough and overlong by a couple of feet. Plenty of room to spread it and tuck it around the corpse.

He went and got the rug, stumbling a little on enervated legs. Untied and unrolled it and covered the body, working to find room along the sides, wadding its fringed ends into the two-foot open space. He was panting when he finished; he couldn’t seem to take in enough air. He looked at the shovel, said “No” aloud, and crawled over to the side wall and sat motionless with his legs extended, trying to breathe.

Sat there.

And sat there.

Outside somewhere, a night bird made a low screeching sound. It roused him from an exhausted near-doze. His chest ached but he had his wind back. He heaved upright and picked up the shovel, a lead weight in his hands. He plunged the blade into the pile of loose earth, began to fill in the grave.

He had no idea, afterward, how long it took. The pile shrank, Rakubian and the Sarouk and the sides of the hole gradually disappeared. And the cellar floor was once more pounded flat and even. He leaned on the shovel, staring down. Gone. Dead and buried and soon to be gone forever. Not to be forgotten, though, not until Jack Hollis was ready for his own fine and private place.

He felt like puking again.

Still work to be done. Screw the push broom handle into the base, sweep the section of earth so it looked as though it had never been disturbed. Replace the two plywood sections. Sweep out the remaining loose dirt. Carry the tools outside, then shine the lantern around to be sure there was nothing to make Pete Dulac or anyone in his crew suspicious. It seemed all right, but how could he really be certain? So tired, used up — he had no judgment left. Have to take it on faith. They had no reason to suspect anything wrong, did they?

Take the barrow out to the dump, empty it, leave it where he’d found it. Disassemble the broom, load it and the pick and shovel into the trunk. Gloves off, galoshes off, overalls off and into the trunk. Take out the blanket, get his pullover and jacket from the front seat, find his away across to the trailer. Water hookup there, fed by the well that had been dug on the property. He stripped to the waist and splashed icy water on his face and upper body, gasping and shivering, to rid his flesh of the stink and residue of his grave digging.

He dried off quickly with the blanket, yanked on the pullover and jacket. Back at the car, he started the engine, put the heater on high. Sat hugging himself as warm air began to flood the interior. Kept on sitting there because he did not trust himself to drive yet.

What time was it? He held his watch up to peer at the dial. After ten. Three hours up here. That was how long it took to bury the dead — three hours.

He sat. The chill in him was bone deep; the heater did no more than warm his skin, make him drowsy. His arms and legs, his torso, tingled with fatigue. He shut off the engine — low on gas and he couldn’t chance running out on the way home. But his eyelids stayed heavy, his mind dull with torpor. Don’t go to sleep, for God’s sake.

He slept.

Jerked awake, slept a little more, woke up and stayed awake. Reaction, regeneration: still exhausted but with the edge off, no longer sleepy or muddle-headed. Good because now he was ready for the drive home; bad because his thoughts were focused again.

I did it. I did this. How could I have done a thing like this?

The fear still lived in him. Revulsion, too. And now something close to self-hatred.

He shrank from the thought of facing Eric, Cassie, Angela. If he had to do it tonight... His watch told him he’d slept for ninety minutes; it was 11:45. Four and a half hours up here. It would be 12:30 by the time he got home. The kids would likely be in bed, but Cassie? Worried that he was out so late, that he hadn’t called, she might wait up for him. Could he hide the truth from her? Not a question of could — he had to. Bad enough what he’d done tonight, but what Eric had done... keep that from her at all cost.

He’d be all right in the morning, clearheaded and able to deal with the situation. Just get through the rest of tonight the best way he could. The worst was already over... almost over.

Wasn’t it?

Except for the porch light, the house was completely dark. So Cassie had gone to bed, too. Even if she was still awake, it would be easy enough to plead exhaustion and go right to sleep.

Dark house, uneventful drive home... he should be feeling better now, safer. Instead he felt... strange. So drained he’d had to open the window, turn the heater off and the radio on to keep himself alert, but inside he was still wired tight. The tingling that had been in his limbs earlier seemed to have passed by some weird osmosis through skin and flesh, become an internal sensation like a steady, low-voltage electrical pulse. He could feel it in his throat, his chest, down low in his belly.

He let himself into the house. No light in the hall; that meant Cassie was angry as well as anxious. The ticking of the grandfather clock seemed overloud to him; the odors of cooked meat, furniture polish, air freshener, Cassie’s perfume were strong in his nostrils. As if his senses had become heightened somehow. He took the stairs in an old man’s climb, one riser at a time. Paused in front of Angela’s door, resisted the urge to look in on her and Kenny, and moved ahead to the open door to his bedroom.

Cassie was a motionless blob of shadow on her side of the bed. He could hear her breathing and knew from the cadence that she was awake. Not ready to talk to him yet, though; she lay silent as he crossed to the bathroom.

He shut the door, turned on the light. The strange feeling had grown even more pronounced; the inner tingling was urgent, as if any second now his hands, his body would start to twitch and jerk. He imagined himself in a kind of uncontrollable fit, beginning to foam at the mouth; the image, gone in two or three seconds, left him cold all over. He stripped naked, threw his clothes into the hamper, turned on the hot water in the shower. The thought came to him then, standing there next to the toilet, that he hadn’t had to urinate since he’d stopped on the road into the Paloma Mountains after the incident with the cop. Nearly five hours up there, the drive home, even now standing here... no pressure at all.

In the shower, under a stream as hot as he could stand it, he scrubbed himself with a thick lather. Hands, face, arms, underarms, upper body. The soapy washcloth took away the last of the sweat-stink, but he didn’t feel clean. And now his skin seemed too tight, sensitive to the touch, prickly on the surface again — sensations that had nothing to do with the steamy water.

He kept scrubbing with the cloth, working downward across his abdomen. The instant it touched his privates, the inner tingling became something else — a carnal heat that flared the way a torch ignites. His erection seemed to leap up all at once, sprong! Like Dan Quayle’s anatomically correct doll in Doonesbury. He stood staring down at himself in disbelief. Weeks of virtual impotence, and tonight, after all that had happened, all the nightmarish things he’d done this day... a massive hard-on, sudden and unbidden. As though the acts had temporarily, perversely repaired him: bladder, prostate, sexual apparatus.

It disgusted him and at the same time he was more excited than he’d been since his first sexual experience in high school. A great, screaming urgency that was need and fear and self-loathing and a clutch of other emotions all mixed up together, his phallus so high-jutting and engorged it was like something that had attached itself to his body, a parasitic entity, rather than an extension of himself.

No! he thought. He shut off the water, stepped out, and dried off savagely, punishing his body with the towel. The erection would not diminish, the urgency remained like a consuming fire. It shut down his thoughts, engulfed his will to resist, left him with nothing but the clamant heat.

He shut off the light, padded out into the dark bedroom. Cassie stirred as he approached, started to sit up, and he heard himself say, “No, don’t put on the light.” His tone more than the words caused her to lie still. He drew the bedclothes back and slid in beside her, whispered her name, moved to fit his body against hers. Heard her suck in her breath when she felt him like iron against her thigh.

“Jack, what...?”

“I need you,” he said in somebody else’s voice, “please, baby, I can’t... I need... it’s been so long...”

She lay stiffly while his fingers fumbled with buttons, groped inside her pajama top to encircle her breast. “What is it, what’s happened?”

“Nothing’s happened.”

“Why’re you so late? Why are you like this?”

“I just need you... please Cass please...”

She yielded to him, not gradually but all at once, turning her body against his, her nipple hardening under his palm, her hand stroking down between their bodies to grip and guide him. She gasped as he filled her, clutched him tight with her hands, arms, legs, began to move with him in all the practiced rhythm of twenty-six years of lovemaking. But it was nothing at all like it had ever been before — not slow and tender, no murmured endearments. It was fierce, fast, insistent, an almost desperate coupling punctuated by pants and groans, Cassie’s as well as his, fast fast until he came with a crying moan that she managed to half stifle with her mouth, a climax as intense as a backdraft in a burning building, as if he were ejaculating jets of fire. When it ended it left him burned out inside, an empty hulk that collapsed against her. She neither moved nor let go of him, clinging just as fervently until his pulse rate began to slow down. The embrace was all hers; he no longer had the strength to return it.

He knew she was waiting for him to speak first and he groped for words. The only ones he found were “I love you. I love you so much,” in a frog’s croak.

“I know you do.”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it, I—”

“Don’t be sorry for that. I needed you too.”

Gently she disengaged herself and sat up. He sensed she was going to switch on her bedside lamp and he lay with his eyes shut. He could almost feel the sudden radiance against his lids, her gaze probing his face. But there was nothing there for her to see, nothing left inside him to show through.

“Talk to me,” she said. “If something did happen—”

“Nothing happened.”

“Then why are you so late? Jack... did you really go to Paloma to see Nick Jackson?”

“I told you I did.”

“Not the city... Rakubian...”

“No. Of course not.”

“I was so worried. I thought—”

“You thought what?” Hollis opened his eyes and sat up weakly, blinking, to face her. “I didn’t confront or harm that psycho, if that’s what’s bothering you. Do you want me to swear it? All right, I swear it on Angela’s life, Kenny’s life.”

She believed him because she wanted to believe. She said, “Do you blame me for worrying, thinking the worst? First Eric disappeared, all upset, and then you do the same thing...”

“No,” he said, “I don’t blame you.”

“Where have you been? Why didn’t you call?”

“Dinner lasted longer than I expected. Afterward... I just felt depressed. Angela leaving, that business with Eric today, Rakubian. I needed to be alone. I went to a movie, drove around for a while afterward... avoided coming home, as lousy as that sounds.”

The lies rolled out glibly; oh, he was becoming a fine goddamn liar. Cassie believed them, too. She said, “I understand, but you still should have called.”

“I know it. I’m sorry.”

“Didn’t you think about Rakubian? That he might show up here again, do God knows what?”

“He didn’t, did he? Show up or call or anything?”

“No. But he could have.”

“I’m not myself these days, Cass, not thinking straight. One minute I function more or less normally, the next I’m half crazy, the next I’m like a teenager in heat. Schizoid. That’s not an excuse, just an explanation, such as it is.”

Cassie sighed and said, “I feel the same way.” Then she touched his face, tenderly. “You look so tired.”

“Exhausted.”

“Sleep now, both of us.” She flicked off the lamp.

In the darkness, on the edge of sleep, holding her and hating himself, he thought: Keeping them safe, that’s all that really counts. No matter what it costs me, no matter what it takes...

11

Sunday Morning

On the patio after breakfast, last night’s mist already burned off and balmy spring smells in the crisp air, Cassie and Angela inside out of earshot.

“Is there anything you want to tell me, Eric?”

“Like what?”

“About yesterday.”

Pause. “You mean Rakubian?”

“Yes. Rakubian.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Eric said. Looking him straight in the eye. “All that stuff stored in the garage... I admit it really freaked me. I felt like driving straight to the city and beating the shit out of him.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I didn’t. Kept my cool and went for a long ride in the opposite direction. I suppose you were afraid I might’ve done something stupid?”

“I’d stand behind you if you did, you know that.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry. I’m not a kid anymore.”

“No, you’re not.” You’re an adult liar and pretender, just like your old man.

Eric was silent for a time, that brown-study silence that always made Hollis a little uncomfortable. “Poor Angie,” he said at length. “Every time I look at her, see how afraid she is...” He shook his head, as if shaking off a painful mental image. “What’s the use talking about it? We’ve talked it to death.”

Hollis sat back, watching his son brood. Outwardly, Eric seemed all right. His eyes were clear, as though he’d slept well enough; hands steady, body language more or less normal. But inside? Frightened, worried... yes. Heartsick? Probably. Remorseful? Maybe. The same emotions Hollis himself was feeling — and concealing. The two of them sitting here as if this were any Sunday morning at home, one not a murderer, the other not an accomplice after the fact, yesterday any Saturday rather than a turning point in both their lives. Hiding the truth from each other because neither could bear to face the other with it.

His son, his flesh and blood — a killer. How do you reconcile a thing like that? Answer: In an evil time, evil things happen — good people are driven by both external and internal forces to do things they would never do in ordinary circumstances. Maybe that was a rationalization, not really an answer at all, but there was no other way to look at it that would allow him to hold himself together. He was a sadder, more bitter, somewhat diminished man today, and he suspected Eric saw himself in the same way.

Rakubian’s death made no real difference in how he felt about his son. Still loved him as much as ever, would do anything to protect him. Twinges of disappointment and shame, no denying that, but none greater than his own. He could live with what Eric had done. But could Eric?

Conscience and anger management, those were the keys. The anger was something they could talk about, but at another time — not this close to all that had happened yesterday. For now, they’d each keep their secrets and go on telling the lies they’d have to tell...

“Dad? You okay?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Funny look on your face. Like you’re in pain.”

“Just thinking about Angela and Kenny.

“Yeah. Me, too.”

Hollis asked, “You planning to drive back to San Luis today?”

“No, I thought I’d leave in the morning when they do. Make sure they get on the road okay. I only have two Monday classes and I can blow them off.” Pause. “Your prostate giving you trouble?”

He frowned at the abrupt change of subject. “What makes you ask that?”

“The way you walk, sit, the look you get sometimes — like just now.”

One secret he didn’t have to keep any longer, at least from Eric; one lie he didn’t have to go on telling. “Yes, it’s giving me trouble.”

“Same symptoms?”

“Mostly.”

“What does Dr. Otaki say?”

“I haven’t been to see him recently.”

“Christ, why not?”

“Too many other things on my mind. But I’m going to make an appointment this week. You haven’t said anything to your mother about this?”

“Uh-uh. I guess you haven’t, either.”

“I didn’t want to worry her. I’ll tell her after I see Otaki, have a new batch of tests run.” But it occurred to him that if the signs had been obvious enough for Eric to pick up on them in just a couple of days, they surely must have been obvious to Cassie all along. Then why hadn’t she said anything?

“Will you let me know the test results?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“No reason. Making sure, that’s all.”

They had nothing more to say to each other after that. Just sat there sipping coffee and not making eye contact — conspirators alone with their secrets in the spring sunshine.

When he was sure Gloria had had enough time to get home from church, he shut himself inside the garage and called her on his cell phone. Trip to Tomales Bay canceled: he wanted to spend the day with Angela and Kenny, he said, since she’d decided to leave tomorrow. Gloria was sympathetic. She said to give them her love, she’d pray for them every day. Pray for Eric and me, too, Hollis thought. We’re the ones who need it now.

He made quick work of emptying the Lexus’s trunk. Pick and shovel into a corner of the garage behind some other tools; Colt Woodsman into the locked storage cabinet; overalls and galoshes and gloves and soiled khaki shirt and Cal Poly blanket into a trash bag. He stuffed the bag into the bottom of one of the trash barrels.

Nothing left to do now but wait.

Sunday Afternoon

Two visitors, to say good-bye to Angela and Kenny.

One was expected. During breakfast she had said tentatively, “Ryan is going to drop by this afternoon. He asked and I said I thought it’d be all right. Please don’t be angry with me, Daddy.”

“I’m not angry.”

“He won’t stay long. Just to see Kenny again before we go.”

Hollis promised he’d be civil to Pierce and he meant it. Little enough in the way of a favor, if it would help ease her through the next twenty-four hours. She seemed raw-nerved today — not because of the long drive to Utah or the prospect of living with strangers, he thought, but because she was apprehensive that Rakubian might show up at the last minute, do something crazy before she could escape. He longed to take her in his arms, tell her she never had to be afraid of David Rakubian again, tell her escape was no longer necessary. Keeping up the pretense was almost as painful as what Rakubian alive had put them through.

The other visitor, the first to arrive, came unannounced. Gabe Mannix. Hollis was in his study with Kenny playing Pokémon on the computer. The boy was much less animated than usual; resigned to the move — Angela had had a long talk with him — but not really understanding or liking the idea.

“I don’t want to leave you, Granpa,” he’d said, his thin arms tight around Hollis’s neck. “I wish I could stay here with you and Granma.”

“I wish you could, too. But it’s only for a little while.”

“Will you come and visit us?”

“Maybe we won’t have to. Maybe you and your mom will be back home before it’s time for a visit.”

“Really?”

“Cross my heart.”

“How soon? Two weeks?”

“Not that soon.”

“Before the Fourth of July fireworks?”

“We’ll see. If you promise to be good and take care of your mom.”

“I will. I promise, Granpa.”

More longing, more painful pretense.

When Hollis heard the doorbell he thought it was Pierce and stayed where he was. Then Cassie appeared and told him it was Gabe. He left Kenny to his video game and went out to the living room.

Mannix was seated on the couch beside Angela, holding her hand and talking earnestly. Whatever he was saying had spawned a wan smile. She’d always been fond of him; said more than once that he was like an uncle to her. The expression on Mannix’s craggy face was anything but avuncular. If any other middle-aged man had looked at his daughter with that kind of wistful yearning, Hollis would have resented it. Not so with Gabe. They’d been friends too long — and his feelings for her were not only unspoken but close to worshipful besides. He was a lusty bugger with every woman except Angela. And Cassie, too, of course.

He gave Hollis a crooked grin, still holding her hand. “I was in the neighborhood,” he said.

“Sure you were.

“Well, I couldn’t let them leave without saying good-bye, could I?”

“No, and I’m glad you didn’t. If I’d been thinking straight, I’d’ve invited you. Cup of coffee?”

“You don’t mind, I’d rather have a little hair of the dog.”

“Big night?”

“Big night with small people. Scotch, single malt.”

Hollis poured three fingers of Glenlivet for Gabe, resisting the urge to do the same for himself. In his fragile and volatile state, alcohol was a dangerous additive. The four of them sat talking desultorily, each avoiding the subjects of Rakubian and the temporary relocation. After a time Eric came downstairs to join them.

Then Pierce showed up.

At least he wasn’t as scruffy-looking as last week. Hair trimmed, clean-shaven, an old corduroy sport jacket and slacks in place of the western outfit. Ill at ease, though, and seeing both Gabe and Eric didn’t help him any. Eric had nothing to say to him; ignored his tentative greeting and went back upstairs. Mannix’s reaction was a surprised double-take and then a fixed scowl. Pierce seemed to sense that offering to shake hands was inviting rebuff. He didn’t try it with Hollis, either.

He perched on a chair nearest Angela, who moved away from Gabe and closer to him. Cassie, the social arbiter, went to fetch Kenny, but the boy’s presence did little to ease the strain in the room. He seemed no more pleased to see Pierce than the rest of them.

Pierce ruffled his hair, something he didn’t like adults to do, and asked, “How’s it going, sport?”

“Okay,” Kenny said. Then he said, “Are you really my dad?”

Pierce’s smile sagged; his answer sounded defensive. “Sure I am. You know that.”

“Then why don’t you live with us? Why’d you stay away so long? Why aren’t you going away with us?”

Cassie fielded that, saying, “Kenny, how about showing your father how good you are at Pokémon. Your mom’ll go along, too.”

Angela took the hint and the three of them went out, Pierce rubbing shoulders with her and holding the boy’s hand — as if for him the past eighteen months had been wiped off the slate and they were a family again. Watching them, Hollis wished he’d poured Scotch for himself after all. Mannix didn’t like it, either. He drained his glass and got to his feet.

Cassie said, “You’re not leaving already, Gabe?”

“Things to do. No rest for the wicked.”

“Go in and say good-bye to Angela before you go.”

“I already said my good-byes.”

He pecked Cassie on the cheek, glanced at Hollis as he turned. The look said he wanted to talk. Hollis followed him to the door, out onto the porch.

As soon as they were alone: “What’s that little prick doing here, Jack? When did he come crawling back?”

“A few days ago.”

“You should’ve warned me.”

“I know. Just not tracking like I should.”

“Well, what the hell is he sucking around for?”

Hollis gave a terse explanation.

“Changed?” Gabe said. “Him? Bullshit.”

“Angela seems to be buying it.”

“Yeah, I noticed. Looks to me like he’s trying to worm his way back with her. You don’t think she’s naive enough to let it happen?”

“She isn’t naive. She’s scared.”

“Meaning she might?”

“Meaning I don’t know. Cassie thinks she’s still in love with him.”

“Christ! After all this time?”

“I don’t want to believe it, either.”

“You can’t let her get involved with him again.”

“What do you want me to do, spank it out of her? It’s her life, Gabe. Her choices.”

“Damn poor choices when it comes to men,” Mannix said. “First Pierce, then Rakubian, now Pierce again. Did she tell him where she’s going?”

“She’s not telling anyone the exact location, including Cassie and me.”

“Suppose he follows her?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“He showed up here, didn’t he.”

“She’ll take precautions. She won’t allow anything to jeopardize the relocation.”

“I hope you’re right. Little pissant. The way he treated her and the boy...”

“Get off Pierce, will you?” Hollis said. “He’s not the main problem here.”

Mannix ran a hand over his face, worked his mouth as if he were tasting something sour. “Yeah, Rakubian. What’re you going to do about him?”

Hollis said carefully, “If I had the answer to that I’d’ve done it long ago.”

“You’ve got the answer. You just won’t face up to it.”

“Get off that, too, all right?”

Mannix looked at him for several seconds, his expression unreadable. Then he shrugged and said, “All right. I’ll be around if you want to talk some more. Right now I need another hair of the dog. Hell, the way I feel I may try to swallow the whole frigging pelt.”

Monday

He kissed his daughter and grandson good-bye a little before seven-thirty. She was anxious to get on the road early, drive as far as Winnemucca today so she could get to Salt Lake City tomorrow night. Dark smudges under her eyes, twitchy movements, her gaze darting to the street the entire time he and Eric were helping load her car as though she half expected Rakubian to come roaring up in his BMW. Eric wasn’t in much better shape today. Withdrawn, mostly silent. Conscience working on him, too, Hollis thought.

The good-byes were brief and awkward. Quick kisses that were little more than pecks, even Kenny’s. Eric’s hand dry in his, and the contact broken in an instant. Thin smiles, hurried promises, halfhearted reassurances. Angela and Eric left together, a two-car procession with her in the lead; he would follow her all the way to Highway 80, to make certain she had no pursuit. It twisted Hollis again to know that there was no need for any of this and yet he was powerless to stop it.

He stood with Cassie in the driveway, her arm tight around his waist, watching both cars pass from sight, and for some time after they were gone. When he felt her looking at him he made eye contact.

She said, “I feel a little lost right now. You know what I mean?”

He knew, all right. He felt that way himself.

All that morning, working at his drafting board, he was on tenterhooks. Had he overlooked anything at the Chesterton site to make Pete Dulac’s crew suspicious? He was unable to conjure up a clear image of the way the excavation looked when he’d finished cleaning up. Saturday had begun to recede in his memory, the details to blur, as if he’d been an observer rather than a participant — like with a movie he’d seen, or one of those queer omniscient dreams in which you stand apart and watch yourself doing things that make little or no sense.

Every time the phone rang he paused to listen to Gloria’s end of the conversation, imaginary dialogue running on a loop inside his head: “Oh, yes, Pete, he’s right here” and “Jack, Jesus, we found a body up here, somebody got in over the weekend and buried a dead guy in Chesterton’s wine cellar.” It didn’t happen. None of the calls were from Dulac or anyone else connected with PAD Construction.

His tension was obvious to Gloria, but she took it to be a reaction to the kids’ departure; she left him alone and took care of most of the callers herself. Mannix wandered in at ten-thirty, looking even more hungover than yesterday. He had little to say, worked less than an hour, and wandered out again before noon.

Hollis insisted on staying in between twelve and one. To give Gloria a chance for a restaurant meal instead of her usual brown-bag lunch, he said, but the real reason was that he could not have choked down a bite of food without gagging. The phone didn’t ring at all during that hour. He should have begun to relax by then; perversely, the waiting and the uncertainty increased the strain. By the time Gloria returned, he’d had as much as he could stand. He went into his cubicle and called Pete Dulac’s cell phone number.

“Jack Hollis, Pete. How’s it going?”

“Same as last Thursday,” Dulac said shortly. “On schedule.”

“Well, I just wanted to tell you Chesterton was pleased. Nothing but good things to say about you and your crew.”

“I’d be damn surprised if he’d had any complaints.”

“He particularly liked the way the wine cellar looked.”

“Yeah, well, rich people and their priorities. Listen, Jack, I’m glad about Chesterton, but I’m busy as hell here. They’re pouring the slab right now.”

“You mean in the wine cellar?”

“That’s what I mean. Anything else you wanted?”

“No,” Hollis said. “No, nothing else.”

He sat slumped in his chair. The release of tension made him feel light-headed, as if he were melting inside. Pouring the slab right now: sealing Rakubian in his grave. The murder weapon, the bloody carpet, the body with its shattered skull... all hidden where no one could ever find them, under two feet of solid concrete. Eric was safe. Angela, Kenny, Eric — all safe.

Not himself, though, not yet. Still wriggling on the hook. He wondered how long it would be before Rakubian was reported missing and the San Francisco police got around to him.

12

Tuesday Evening

April Sayers, the woman from the Santa Rosa support group, called before dinner with a brief message: Safe arrival. No incidents, no difficulties. They’d be receiving an e-mail shortly.

Now, at least for the time being, he could quit worrying about Angela and Kenny.

Wednesday Afternoon

Stan Otaki was a well-regarded urologist and usually too busy to make short-notice, nonemergency appointments. But Hollis had known him for thirty years — they’d been classmates at Los Alegres High — and when he apologized for canceling his last two appointments and indicated he was ready to begin treatment, Otaki squeezed him at one o’clock.

He disliked doctors’ offices almost as much as hospitals — the medicinal odors, the gleaming equipment, the admixture of sterility and implied suffering. He sat uncomfortably in Otaki’s private office, offering another round of weak excuses and answering probing questions about urination, erectile dysfunction, levels of pain and discomfort. Then he submitted to a teeth-gritting rectal exam, a check of his blood pressure and vital signs. Otaki was not much for his words in the examining room; he waited until they were back in his office.

“Of course, I can’t tell you how far the cancer has progressed until we do a blood workup,” he said, “but my guess is that it hasn’t reached an advanced stage. If that’s the case, and your health is otherwise good, we should be able to control it with aggressive treatment.”

Advanced stage. Number III on the chart: cancer cells have spread outside the prostate capsule to tissues around the prostate, possibly into the glands that produce semen. It was probably too soon to worry about Stage IV — cancer cells have metastasized to the lymph nodes or to organs and tissues far away from the prostate such as bone, liver, or lungs — but then, you never knew with cancer; it could spread like wildfire. Number III was bad enough. Number IV was the next thing to a death sentence.

“I won’t make a definite recommendation until I see the test results,” Otaki said. “If they show no radical change, however, your best option is still going to be a prostatectomy. And the sooner the better.”

“No.”

“Look, Jack, you’ve made it plain how you feel about surgery, but—”

“No,” he said. “I’m not going to let you or anybody else cut me open, no matter how far the cancer has progressed. There’s radiation therapy, isn’t there?”

“Yes. Five days a week, six to seven consecutive weeks. Are you willing to undergo that kind of rigid schedule, endure the probable side effects?”

“If necessary.”

“Well, the decision is yours,” Otaki said. He ran a knuckle over his neat salt-and-pepper mustache, a gesture Hollis took to be disapproving. “Your body, your health.”

“Are you telling me radiation probably won’t work?”

“Of course not. It may well do the job.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Ruling out surgery under any circumstances radically increases the risk factor. That’s a fact — that’s what I’m trying to make you understand. If you doubt me, get a second or third opinion—”

“I don’t need any other opinions. I don’t doubt you.”

“Will you at least give it some more thought? Talk to Cassie about it?”

“Yes, all right.”

But he knew he wouldn’t.

Thursday Morning

There, at last, on page 3 of the Chronicle:

It was the second item in the Bay Area Report section devoted to minor news stories. Less than three column inches — another good sign. He read the paragraphs avidly.

David J. Rakubian, 35, personal injury attorney known for his tenacious courtroom tactics... last seen late Friday afternoon at his South Beach offices... reported missing by his paralegal, Valerie Burke, on Monday afternoon... mandatory waiting period before police could take official action... Rakubian’s car found in the garage of his St. Francis Wood home... no evidence of foul play... recently divorced from his wife of nine months... arrested in Los Alegres three weeks ago for public battery on his ex-wife...

No evidence of foul play. That was the key phrase. The police hadn’t found anything suspicious in the house; it would take a thorough forensic examination to bring out blood traces, and it wasn’t likely there’d be one without something concrete to support it.

The paralegal would be the source of information about the marriage breakup, coloring it to favor Rakubian; the part about public battery probably had been dug up by the reporter. The police had Hollis’s name from Valerie Burke, too, and a full account of his angry outburst in Rakubian’s office, plus the fact of his second visit last week. It would not be long before he was contacted — today, tomorrow at the latest. Unless he took the initiative first.

He glanced across the breakfast table. Cassie was sipping coffee, reading the Datebook section. He drew a breath, then rattled the newsprint and said explosively, “My God!”

Her head jerked up. “What?”

“Look at this,” he said. He passed her his section, tapping the article with his forefinger.

She looked. And then she looked at him, looked past him — a bleak, distant stare. After a few seconds she said, “What does this mean?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Coincidence, Jack?”

“Coincidences happen. One could’ve happened to him.”

“Such as what? A convenient accident?”

“That, or something else. A shyster like him must have plenty of enemies. He paused. “There’s another possibility, too.”

“Yes?”

“It was voluntary,” he said. “What if he found out somehow about Angela going away?”

It was like a slap; she winced, stiffened. “You mean he might’ve gone looking for her, hunting her?”

“I hope to God that’s not it.” The lies were like fecal matter in his mouth, hurting him as much as they were hurting her. He went on with it, hating himself again. “But I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

“How could he have found out?”

“How does anybody find out anything?”

“But he couldn’t know where she went.”

“No. There’s no way he could’ve followed her, with Eric right there. We’ll e-mail her, tell her what’s happened, warn her to be extra careful. Alert April Sayers, too.”

Cassie nodded. But then she said, “I don’t know. I don’t know, Jack.”

“Don’t know what?”

“His car... the paper says it’s in his garage. If he’s gone looking for Angela, why didn’t he take his car?”

“Decided it was too conspicuous, maybe. Or he went somewhere by air.”

“That doesn’t sound like Rakubian. To just drop out of sight that way — no calls to his office staff, leaving everything behind.”

She was thinking too much. Too smart for her own good. “He’s psychotic, Cass. You can’t predict what a psycho will do.”

“He’s been consistent all along, hasn’t he? Disappearing when he can’t possibly have any idea where Angela went... it just doesn’t sound right.”

He couldn’t push it any more; it would only arouse her suspicions. He said, “If something did happen to him, accident or otherwise, it’s good news — the best news we could ask for. A kind of miracle.”

“Is it?”

“If he turns up dead, or doesn’t turn up at all, it means Angela and Kenny can come home. It means we can all stop being afraid.”

“I don’t know,” she said again. “I don’t like this.”

“What don’t you like? You can’t want Rakubian to still be alive somewhere.”

“I’ve wished him dead a hundred times.”

“Well?”

“If he’s dead... why? What happened to him?”

“The details aren’t important—”

“They are if he was murdered.”

“By a stranger? What does it matter who?”

“Suppose it was Eric?” she said.

His first call was to April Sayers. She’d already seen the piece in the Chronicle, had just gotten off the phone with her Utah relatives. Angela and Kenny were fine. Extra precautions were being taken, just in case. And all for nothing, Hollis thought as he rang off. He could imagine how upset his daughter must be over this. Consoling himself that it was only temporary, that the end result justified the additional anxiety, was cold and bitter comfort.

Second call: Eric. It was early enough so that he was still in his room and his line was free. Hollis would have preferred to talk to him alone, but Cassie insisted on picking up the extension. Her fear that Eric was responsible had rocked him. He should have seen it coming, but he hadn’t. He’d managed to allay the fear somewhat, enough to keep her from saying anything to Eric; she let him do most of the talking. Eric’s reaction may have reassured her, but it bothered Hollis. No hint of surprise that Rakubian had been reported missing, not found murdered in his home. Concern about his sister and nephew, cautious optimism — the same outward pose as Hollis’s. But was he handling it too well? Not feeling as much guilt and remorse as he should, perhaps thinking that what he’d done was wholly justified?

The third and last call was to the Hall of Justice in San Francisco, Missing Persons division. The inspector in charge of the Rakubian case, he was told, was Napoleon Macatee, but he wasn’t at his desk. Hollis left a message, supplying both home and office numbers. Now he was on record as having made first contact.

Inspector Macatee called him at Mannix & Hollis shortly before noon. Polite, soft-spoken, voice inflections that indicated he was African American. No, Hollis said, he had no information about David Rakubian’s disappearance. He’d seen the news story, he was concerned because of the potential danger to his daughter.

“You know he assaulted her in public a few weeks ago,” he said, “and we had to get a restraining order against him. He’s been getting more and more irrational, calling at all hours, showing up here, making threats.”

“His office staff paint a different picture of the man,” Macatee said.

“Sure they do. They only saw his public face. We have tapes of all his calls, his letters, everything. If you’d like to go through the...”

“Pretty sure I’ll want to do that. Mr. Hollis, I understand you went to the man’s offices last Thursday morning. Mind telling me why?”

“The obvious reason. One last futile attempt to get him to stop harassing my family. It was a waste of time, like talking to a piece of stone. As far as he’s concerned, he isn’t guilty of anything except trying to get his wife back. He’s obsessed with her. He’s not only a control freak and an abuser, he’s a dangerous psychotic.”

“Psychotic’s a pretty strong word.”

“Not for Rakubian. The last time he showed up in Los Alegres, he caught my daughter alone and threatened to kill her and my grandson both if she didn’t go back to him.”

Macatee digested that before he asked, “Anyone else there at the time?”

“Just Kenny, my grandson. But my daughter wouldn’t make up a story like that. She doesn’t lie and she doesn’t exaggerate. She said he meant it, and I believe her.”

“Did you know about this threat when you went to talk to him on Thursday?”

“I knew and I called him on it. He denied it, of course.”

“You make any threats against him in return?”

“No. I lost my head the first time I went there — I guess you know about that — and I was determined not to let it happen again. But I came close to losing it, I’ll admit that.”

“Angry, frustrated... that how you felt when you left?”

“Wouldn’t you be if it was your family, Inspector? I should have known better than to try to reason with a man like him. But no matter how I felt and still feel, I didn’t have anything to do with his disappearance.”

“See him again anytime since Thursday?”

“No.”

“Talk to him?”

“No.”

“Your daughter have any contact with him?”

“No. She was home with us all weekend.”

“She at home now?”

“Not since Monday morning,” Hollis said, and went on to explain about Angela’s decision to relocate, the arrangements she’d made. “I can’t tell you exactly where she is. My wife and I don’t know ourselves.”

“But you can get in touch with her.”

“Yes. She already knows that Rakubian is missing. What worries my wife and me is that he found out she was relocating and dropped out of sight to hunt for her.”

“How would he’ve found out?”

“I can’t answer that. I sure as hell didn’t say anything to tip him off. But he’s a shrewd bugger and he has plenty of contacts. For all we know he hired somebody to watch her. I doubt anyone could’ve followed her when she left on Monday, but how can we be absolutely sure?”

“I’ll want to talk to your daughter,” Macatee said. “Appreciate it if you’d get word to her, have her contact me as soon as possible.”

“You won’t try to force her to tell you her whereabouts? Or to come back here?”

“Not without good cause.”

“All right. I’ll e-mail your name and number to her.”

Macatee asked a few more questions, none of them, as far as Hollis could tell, motivated by anything other than routine. He said he and Angela would both be in touch and rang off.

End of round one. A draw, he thought — the best he could have hoped for.

Friday Afternoon

Stan Otaki called with the results of his PSA blood test. “The good news,” he said, “is that the cancer hasn’t spread outside your prostate.”

He clung to that for a few seconds. Then he asked, “What’s the bad news?”

“The growth rate is definitely accelerating. My advice, like it or not, is a ‘first cut’ to remove and test the lymph nodes surrounding the gland.”

“Surgery. I won’t do it, Stan.”

Otaki made a breathy, rumbling noise. “So be it. Then I suggest we begin radiation therapy right away.”

“No argument there.”

“I’ll make the arrangements.”

“And meanwhile,” Hollis said, “what should I do? Start putting my affairs in order, just in case?”

“Don’t make light of this, Jack.”

“I’m not. Just trying to keep a smiley face.”

“A positive attitude is important. We’ve discussed that.”

“I haven’t forgotten. My attitude’s positive,” he said, and he meant it. “I’m going to beat this thing, one way or another.”

“That’s the spirit.”

After all, he thought, this malignancy can’t be any worse than the one I buried on Saturday night.

Friday Evening

Cassie sat quiet when he finished telling her, no show of emotion of any kind. He thought her eyes were moist, but he couldn’t be sure in the lamplit living room.

After a time he said, “You knew, didn’t you.”

“That it’s been getting worse? Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You’ve had enough on your mind without me nagging you about the cancer. I knew you’d see Stan eventually — talk to me when you were ready. You’re stubborn and foolish sometimes, but you’ve always been a fighter. You’d never give in to a life-threatening disease.”

“No way.”

“So it’s radiation, then.”

He nodded. “You won’t try to talk me into having surgery?”

“Would it do any good?”

“You know how I feel. I couldn’t stand to go through an operation. I break out in a cold sweat just thinking about it.”

“Then I won’t say a word. But I want you to do one thing for me in return.”

“If I can.”

“Don’t lie to me anymore. Don’t evade the truth, or stretch it, or hide behind it. We’re a team, remember? Don’t fight me anymore.”

“I won’t,” he said. And he wouldn’t, where the cancer was concerned. Eric and Rakubian were another matter. Hiding that truth was a necessity — an act of mercy, an act of love.

Monday Afternoon

Napoleon Macatee drove up from the city to examine the evidence of Rakubian’s stalking. Hollis and Cassie met him at the house at two o’clock. He was a black man in his fifties, stocky and solid as a barrel, with eyes like brown wounds. Those eyes had seen a great deal and would never be surprised or shocked by anything again. At once the eyes of a cynic and a martyr.

He seemed forthcoming enough when Hollis asked if there were any new developments. The short answer, he said, was no. He’d spoken to Angela twice (as they had; she’d called after her first talk with Macatee, again a few days later). He’d spoken to Eric, a fact he mentioned briefly and without a hint of suspicion. He’d spoken to dozens of Rakubian’s neighbors, business associates, and individuals who might have cause to do him harm. No leads so far. Nothing to indicate accident, voluntary disappearance, or foul play.

Cassie said, “It doesn’t seem possible he could have vanished without any trace.”

“Happens more often than you might think,” Macatee said. “Fifty thousand disappearances in this country every year. Men, women, children. Across the board when it comes to social and financial status, race, religion, age. Known reasons, too. David Rakubian’s case isn’t so unusual.”

“How likely is it he’ll be found?”

“Depends. If it was voluntary and he covered his tracks well enough, odds are he’ll stay lost unless he decides to resurface on his own. If he was a victim of violence, evidence of it may turn up sooner or later. It’s not as easy to dispose of a dead body as people think.”

Not unless you’re very, very lucky.

They showed Macatee the evidence box, the dossier Hollis had brought home from the office. He sifted through the letters, cards, poems, time logs; listened to two tapes at random. Hollis watched him closely the entire time. Macatee’s expression remained neutral, but there seemed to be compassion in the brown-wound eyes when he looked at Cassie. He asked if he could take the dossier and several other items along with him, wrote out a receipt, thanked them for their cooperation, and left them alone. The interview had lasted little more than an hour.

Hollis was convinced that if Macatee had any suspicions, they were without any real basis. Fishing in the dark. Perhaps even doing no more than going through the motions. The dossier, the tapes and letters, confirmed what a sick bastard Rakubian had been. Could a cop who’d seen all sorts of human misery honestly care what happened to a wife abuser and stalker, as long as he stayed missing? Hollis didn’t see how. The inspector had struck him as a good man; if anything, he had to be on their side.

Monday Night

He had the dream for the first time that night. There had been others in the past nine days, disturbing but vague and jumbled, and he recalled little of them afterward. This one was vivid, murky in background but sharp in every detail, as if it were a terror-laced memory or precognition.

He was walking in a formless place of shapes and shadows. Wary but not frightened. Ahead he saw a wall, and as he neared it an opening appeared. He walked through the opening and found himself in a cave with wooden walls and a concrete floor. He stood looking down at the floor’s smooth black surface. And as he looked, cracks began to form there, to lengthen and widen, and the fear came in a rush as the concrete crumbled. A hand reached up through one of the cracks, fingers clawing toward him, then the entire arm, a shoulder, a head — Rakubian’s shattered head, Rakubian’s face grinning in a savage rictus. Then, like a bloody monolith, dripping dirt and fragments of rotting skin, all of the dead man rose up out of the broken floor and started toward him, whispering his name. He tried to run, stood rooted, and the clawed fingers closed bonily around his throat—

He jerked awake damp and shaking, his breathing clogged. Only a dream, a nightmare, but it remained hot and clear in his mind. He could still see Rakubian’s face, the death’s-head grin, the bulging eyes; still feel the pressure of those skeletal fingers. His throat ached as if the strangulation had been real.

There was no sleep for him after that; he lay staring blindly into the darkness. And the feeling that crept over him was as strong and irrefutable as any he’d ever experienced. A product of the dream, of guilt filtered through his subconscious... but he could not make himself believe it. The feeling was too visceral, too intense to be easily dismissed.

He and Eric weren’t safe. None of them were.

Somehow, someway, Rakubian was still a threat to them all.