In an Evil Time

13

Thursday

Angela and Kenny came home two days after the Fourth of July holiday.

They had exchanged daily e-mails with her, and as time passed she’d grown less afraid of Rakubian’s sudden reappearance and more willing to end her voluntary exile. Finally she’d agreed to set the Fourth as her own independence day. And stood by that decision when the time came, packing Kenny into her Geo early on the morning of the fifth. The little car rattled into their driveway just before dusk on the sixth.

The six long, difficult weeks of radiation therapy had made Hollis listless and depressed. Now that they’d ended, and he was no longer quite so fatigued or prone to sudden attacks of diarrhea, he had begun to regain both stamina and optimism; he’d gone back to work for the first time just before the holiday. Angela’s and Kenny’s safe return was just what he needed to boost his spirits, energize him.

She looked good. Smiling often again, the haggard look erased, the fear reduced to a shriveled presence deep in her eyes. Not her old self yet by any stretch; it would take time for a complete healing. But she was alive again, and seeing that made it a little easier to live with what he and Eric had done that Saturday in May.

Cassie had been right about his conscience: no matter how many rationalizations he used to erect a protective wall, his guilt and his knowledge of Eric’s continued to breach it. Doubts, nightmares, sleeplessness... they all plagued him. He was a changed man, forever changed. His sins, actual and intended, would torment him to one degree or another until the day he died.

That was the way it was for him, but evidently not for Eric. There had been no indication over the past several weeks that his conscience was tearing him up. On the phone today, bemoaning the fact that he couldn’t be there to welcome Angela and Kenny in person, he’d sounded happy and secure. The summer job he’d taken with a respected engineering firm in Santa Barbara was working out well; he bragged about an active love life, too. The seemingly too easy adjustment troubled Hollis. He wished they weren’t being kept apart by the summer work and his cancer treatments. If he could see his son in person he’d be better able to judge his mental state, and to broach the anger management subject.

He’d talked to Inspector Macatee four times since his May visit, playing the role of worried parent checking for any new information. There’d been none to be concerned about. Rakubian’s law offices had been closed at the end of June, the secretary gone two weeks before that, the paralegal hanging on until there was nothing left for her to do. Angela, in her divorce suit, had waived all rights to community property in perpetuity, so Rakubian’s house would remain closed up, his possessions untouched, until the bank that held the mortgage eventually foreclosed for nonpayment. Otherwise, the status was unchanged. Macatee had lost interest — it was in his quiet cop’s voice. He had other missing persons cases to deal with, dozens of them; Rakubian’s had been back-burnered, soon enough would be relegated to an inactive file and forgotten.

So why did Hollis keep having that dream about Rakubian heaving up through the concrete floor, coming after him with hooked fingers and revenge-hungry eyes?

Why was he still afraid?

Friday

Pierce showed up before they were finished with breakfast. He’d made a couple of tentative overtures to Hollis and Cassie while Angela was away, but for the most part he’d had the good sense to keep his distance. He was still living with his sister, but he’d taken part-time work on the Gugliotta cattle ranch in Chileno Valley — back in Los Alegres permanently, it seemed. Angela must have kept in touch with him by e-mail. The only way he could have known she was coming home was if she’d told him.

He hugged her and she let him get away with hanging on to her longer than was necessary, then kissing her. The look she gave him had heat and shine in it. Hollis stood from the table and went outside so he wouldn’t have to watch them. After a couple of minutes, Cassie came out to join him.

“Another pretty morning,” she said.

“It was.”

“Still cool, though. You should put on a sweater.”

“Don’t fuss over me.” Then, “You were right, Cass.”

“About what?”

“About Angela still being in love with him. Did you see the look on her face when he started pawing her?”

“I wouldn’t call it pawing.”

“As good as.”

“He cares about her. That’s obvious.”

“Does he? Maybe he just wants to sleep with her again.”

“I don’t think so. He’s trying, he really is.”

“Trying to what? Get her to marry him again... another damn Rakubian? Or just live with him this time?”

“Make up for his mistakes, be a father and a man. Give him a chance to prove himself. Everybody deserves a second chance.”

“If he really has changed. Maybe he’s just better at hiding what he’s been all along.”

“Don’t be a curmudgeon. She’s home, Kenny’s home, Rakubian’s gone God knows where, and you’re done with the radiation and making progress. That’s a lot to be thankful for.”

“I just don’t want her to make another mistake.”

“Neither do I. But if she does... well, it’s her business.”

He had a sudden flash of the wine cellar, Rakubian’s bagged corpse wedged into the shallow grave. “Until it becomes our business,” he said.

Late morning. Gabe Mannix arrived with a bouquet of welcome-home flowers for Angela, a video game for Kenny, and some designs he’d done for a new proposal request the firm had received. If they landed the job, it would be their biggest and most lucrative in years — a planned retirement community on the edge of the Dry Creek Valley, several hundred units on a thousand acres of prime real estate. The work perfectly suited their talents, Gabe’s because of its size and Hollis’s because the initial site survey indicated the need for harmonious blending into the rolling hillside tract. There would be strong competition, so their conceptual designs and the rest of their submission had to be just right.

Mannix was excited about the proposal; his preliminary designs showed more innovation than usual, more flair. Some of his enthusiasm rubbed off on Hollis. He spent two hours poring over the schematic site plan and fee schedule, adding his own vision to the designs. The work cheered him. And didn’t tire him much at all.

Monday

Angela drove to Santa Rosa to see Joyce Eilers, another of the women in the support group, and came home full of news. Joyce worked in the bookstore at Paloma State University, had arranged an interview for her for a job opening there. If she got it, she’d be able to start immediately on a part-time basis and to work full-time once the new school year began in the fall.

“It’s the best thing that could happen,” she said to Hollis. “I can rent a place of my own, and go back to school nights — work on my teaching degree.”

“You mean move out right away? There’s no need for that. You know you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.”

“I know, but I don’t feel right about it. You and Mom have done so much for us already.”

He waved that away. “Think of the money you can save. Apartments are expensive and you’d have to put Kenny in day care until he’s ready for school...”

“I need to be on my own, Daddy. I need to start living like a normal person again. You understand, don’t you?”

He understood. And he offered no more argument, because he knew she was right.

Tuesday

Another session with Stan Otaki, to discuss his most recent blood test.

“So far so good,” Otaki said. “But we’re not out of the woods yet.”

What do you mean we, Kemosabe? “You just said so far so good. Arrested growth and no indication of spread outside the prostate.”

“It’s under control for now, but the cancer hasn’t gone into remission. It can still grow, still spread, at any time.”

“What, then? More radiation?”

“No. The body can stand only so much zapping.”

“We’re back to slice and dice, is that it?”

“Surgery is still my recommendation.”

“And my answer’s still no.”

“Then the next step is hormone therapy.”

Hormone therapy. Use of drugs such as LHRH-agonists to decrease the amount of testosterone in the body, or antiandrogens to block the activity of the testosterone. Upside: These drugs cause cancer cells to shrink. Downside: possible cardiovascular problems, hot flashes, impotence and loss of sexual desire.

“Any objections to that?” Otaki asked.

“No,” Hollis said bleakly, “no objections. When do we start?”

Wednesday

Angela landed the job in the Paloma State bookstore. She would begin work and Kenny would begin day care the first of next week.

Friday

Pierce took Angela out to dinner to celebrate her new job. Not Kenny, just her — him in a suit and tie and her all dressed up and glowing like a high-school girl on her first big date. They stayed out fairly late; Hollis and Cassie were still up when he brought her home. She didn’t have much to say to them before she went upstairs, wouldn’t quite meet their eyes. And the glow was more pronounced, almost a flush.

“I knew it,” Hollis said. “She went to bed with him.”

“Oh, now.”

“You saw that humid look on her face. She let him screw her again.”

“Well, what if she did? She’s a grown woman, with normal appetites.”

“Pierce,” he said. “For God’s sake.”

“She was married to him for four years, Jack.”

“And that makes it all right?”

“Whatever Ryan is or isn’t, he’s several steps up the ladder from David Rakubian. He can’t possibly be as bad for her, can he?”

In bed a while later, he realized that it wasn’t really his daughter’s sex life that was upsetting him, it was his own. He hadn’t had an erection since the night of Rakubian’s burial, not even a weak twitch from the old soldier. His sex drive was already gone, cancered and radiated away. But it wasn’t himself he was sorry for, it was Cassie. She had always been as highly sexed as he was; enjoyed him as often and as enthusiastically as he enjoyed her. She had to be twice as frustrated. Yet she hadn’t complained, and when he’d offered to give her release in one of the other ways she’d said no, it wouldn’t be any good for her if he couldn’t share the pleasure. Still, he felt bad for her, and guilty even though he had no control over the situation. It wasn’t fair. She deserved much better than this.

In that uncanny way she had sometimes, she seemed to intuit what he was thinking. She moved closer to him, put her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest, not touching him with her body. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “Just having you here next to me is all I need.”

Trying to make him feel better. It wasn’t enough, dammit. Not for a whole woman with half a man.

Saturday

Cassie took Angela apartment hunting, and when they returned they were all smiles. They’d looked at places in Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, and finally found one right here in Los Alegres — on Sunnyslope, not much more than a mile away. One-bedroom, ground-floor apartment with a tiny fenced rear yard. Five hundred a month, which was pretty reasonable for a furnished apartment these days. Cassie had paid the first and last months’ rent and the security deposit — a loan Angela promised to pay back at twenty or twenty-five dollars a month. She would, too. Scrupulously.

The find pleased Hollis as well. She and Kenny would still be close by; he would not have to start missing them all over again.

Sunday

He felt pretty good, so he insisted on helping with the move. Angela had little in the way of essentials; everything fit into her Geo. Some kitchenware, sheets and towels, a few other items came from Cassie’s stock. Twenty-five years old, two marriages, a son, and all she had to show for it were a few articles of clothing for her and the boy, a box of personal items, an outdated PC, and an eight-year-old car. If she took up with Pierce again, she’d never have much more. Thinking about that prospect didn’t make him angry, it just made him sad.

And of course Pierce showed up at the apartment as they were moving her in. Kenny seemed to have accepted him completely now; called him Dad and spent as much time hanging around him as he did his granpa. I’m going to lose the boy, too, Hollis thought, and then told himself he was being selfish. He wanted them to be happy, didn’t he? Even if that meant being with Pierce?

Yes, as long as he treated her right this time. If he didn’t—

If he didn’t, what, Hollis? You and Eric will kill him and bury his body under another concrete slab?

The thought was depressing. And made him be nicer to Pierce than he’d been since the kid’s return.

Tuesday Morning

He came home from his weekly visit with Stan Otaki at eleven-thirty. During his six weeks of daily radiation doses, he’d needed someone — Cassie, Gabe, Gloria, taxis on a few occasions — to transport him to and from the hospital. Now that that ordeal was over he was able to drive himself places again, as long as he didn’t overdo it with any lengthy trips. He hated being dependent on others; the one thing he needed almost as much as his family was the ability to fend for himself. Which was another reason why the thought of surgery started him trembling inside: He’d be helpless, completely at the mercy of one casual acquaintance and a team of strangers.

The mail had already been delivered; he fished it out of the box, sifted through it as he let himself into the house. Bills, junk, a charity solicitation, two mail-order catalogs. And a white, business-size envelope, with his name and address typed or computer printed, he couldn’t tell which; first-class postage, no return address. More junk, probably. He set the other mail on the hall table, tore open the envelope, and shook out the single sheet of white paper it contained.

In the upper middle of the sheet was a single line of type, in capital letters:

14

It was like a blow to the head: sudden numbing shock, a few seconds of disorientation. He stared at the words until they began to shimmer and blur, as if they were breaking up on the paper.

Somebody knows.

His mind struggled against the thought. How could anyone know, even suspect? Now, almost two months after the fact? Why would anyone send a one-line note like this, more taunting than accusing?

Unless—

The police? Macatee?

Almost immediately, he rejected that. Two months... Rakubian’s disappearance shunted into an inactive file by the volume of new missing persons cases. Strong new evidence would have to practically fall into Macatee’s lap to stir up fresh interest. And there was no way that could have happened. Dammit, no way. Two months dead, two months buried. Construction on the Chesterton site moving ahead on schedule, no clues left to find there, and nothing at Rakubian’s house to connect Eric or him to the disappearance. And the bottom line: Cops don’t send anonymous messages, for any reason. They don’t operate that way; can’t afford to, the laws and judicial system being what they are. If Macatee’s suspicions had been aroused somehow, he’d have shown up with questions, if not outright accusations.

Then who?

Why?

Hollis squinted at the postmark on the envelope. North Bay, which meant it had been mailed in Paloma County or Marin County. Somebody who lived up here? Or somebody who’d driven from elsewhere to mail the note?

He was beginning to feel light-headed. He went into the living room, sank into his chair, and stared again at the single line of type. What did you do with his body? He couldn’t imagine anyone caring enough about Rakubian to resort to a thing like this, or any reason for waiting until two months after the fact. What was the motive? Revenge? Rakubian had no friends, no relatives — he’d been an egotistical loner disliked, hated by those who knew him. Money... some kind of extortion scheme? Not without proof of guilt, and there was no proof. A sick, twisted game?

That recurring dream... like a prophecy fulfilled. His formless fear had shape now, if not yet a name. The new threat wasn’t Rakubian but Rakubian’s legacy. As if it was his evil that had risen from the grave, entered a human host, and set out to wreak vengeance on the ones who’d put him there. Fantastic notion, but it made the back of Hollis’s neck crawl just the same.

Two months. That was what made the least sense of all, the time lapse. Two months, and no conceivable way anyone could have found out the truth. Only two people knew what happened that Saturday, himself and—

Eric.

Eric?

“Nonsense,” he said aloud, but the word had a hollow ring. Convulsively he was on his feet, moving, needing to move. He paced the room in plodding steps, telling himself his son couldn’t possibly be responsible. And yet...

Suppose Eric’s apparently easy adjustment was a facade? Suppose all along his conscience, like Hollis’s, had been ripping him apart to the point where he’d begun to crack up? He must suspect who had disposed of the corpse; might be afraid Hollis hadn’t done a proper job and it would eventually be found. He was a deep kid, his mind worked in convoluted patterns that were sometimes bewildering. If he was unable to admit his guilt and his fear, it was possible he’d resort to a roundabout method to force the issue. Irrational act, done in extremis. An anonymous cry for help.

Wait... the postmark. Eric wouldn’t have flown up from Santa Barbara just to mail a letter, would he?

No, but a friend could have forwarded it as a favor.

But why go to that much trouble? If he was sick, desperate, the postmark wouldn’t matter to him. Just mail the goddamn thing in Santa Barbara.

Another explanation occurred to Hollis, brought him up short. What if Eric wasn’t the perpetrator but another victim? What if he’d received a note like this as well?

What if somebody knew or suspected that he’d murdered Rakubian?

Tuesday Afternoon

Eric sounded fine on the phone, just as he had the last time they’d talked. No hesitancy in his voice, no unease. “You caught me in the shower,” he said. “Man, what a day.”

“Everything all right?”

“I’m frazzled. They had me running back and forth between here and Ojai all day.”

“I meant with you, personally.”

“Well, I’ve got a date this weekend with a girl I met at one of the clubs. My hunch is she’s married, and I’m not sure I ought to—”

“I’m not interested in your love life, son.”

“... No, of course you’re not.”

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” Handling this badly, dammit. He never seemed able to find the right words, the right approach when he was trying to have a serious talk with Eric. “I’m just wondering if there are any problems, anything important happening in your life.”

“Well, the answer to that is no. Why?”

“Would you come to me if there were?”

“I might, if I thought you could help.”

“How would you do it? Call or what?”

“Phone, e-mail, whatever.”

“You wouldn’t write a letter?”

“Snail mail? Come on, Dad.”

“So you’re sure there’s nothing you want to talk over.”

“Not a thing.”

“Nothing out of the ordinary that might’ve happened recently?”

“Other than the prospect of getting laid by a married woman, no. What’s going on? Why all these questions?”

Hollis thought: This is crazy, both of us tiptoeing around, pretending, playing the secrets game. It’s got to stop. For a moment he considered dragging the truth out himself, forcing Eric to admit his part; but he couldn’t do it. Not on the phone, not on the basis of what might be nothing more than a crank note. The important thing was that Eric was neither responsible for the note nor had received a similar one himself.

If he was telling the truth.

If all that calm wasn’t a front, like a layer of Sheetrock to hide a crumbling wall.

He said, “I worry about you, that’s all. Just want you to know I’m here if you need me.”

Longish pause. “That goes both ways, Dad.”

“Yes. Both ways.”

Tuesday Evening

He called Angela at her new apartment, to find out if everything was all right with her. Yes, fine. High spirits. She chattered on about the university, her job, how much Kenny liked day care, how well Pierce and the boy were getting along, how glad she was to be home.

It neither reassured nor cheered him.

Wednesday

He couldn’t work, couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t sit still. He drove down to Mannix & Hollis for no good reason, came back and took Fritz for a walk, went by himself to McLear Park and spent an hour watching a middle-aged foursome play a bad set of tennis doubles.

What did you do with his body?

Like an endless echo in his mind.

Thursday

Gabe took him to lunch at a new Thai restaurant that had opened downtown. Mild pumpkin curry, steamed rice, a bottle of Singha beer. The food was tasteless — he had no appetite these days — and the beer did nothing for him. What he really wanted was a double Irish, but Stan Otaki had warned him against drinking hard liquor, even in moderation, during his cancer treatments.

They talked business for a while, the Dry Creek Valley project and a potential drainage problem the geologist’s report had pointed up with the rocky, nonabsorbent soil. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t seem to focus on the details. He kept losing the thread of the discussion, blanking out completely for a few seconds. Mannix was not the most observant or sensitive of men, but even he couldn’t help but notice.

“You seem preoccupied, Bernard. Something bothering you?”

“No. Just a little spacey today.”

“The cancer? Everything okay there?”

“Status quo.”

“Angela? Kenny?”

“They’re fine. I’m thinking of getting Kenny an iMac for his birthday.”

“He’ll love it. How’s her new job?”

“Just what she wants for now. She’s already signed up for evening classes in the fall — start working for her MA so she can teach.”

Mannix said reminiscently, as if he were picturing Angela in his mind, “She looks so much better now that that fucking psycho is out of her life. Her old self again.”

“Not quite, but she’s getting there.”

“You did the right thing.”

“... Right thing?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t, Gabe.”

Mannix shrugged. “Status quo there, too,” he said, and signaled the waiter. “I don’t know about you, but I can use another beer.”

It wasn’t until later, after he’d been dropped off at home, that he realized what Mannix had meant by “the right thing.”

Gabe thought his advice had been taken after all; he thought Hollis was the cause of Rakubian’s disappearance.

Thursday Afternoon

He was resting on a chaise longue on the patio, the Thai food heavy in his stomach and an afternoon breeze cool on his skin, when he heard the truck pull into the driveway. Loud exhaust, rumbling engine — Ryan Pierce’s old Dodge.

Now what?

Reluctantly he stood and went along the side path. Pierce was just getting out of the pickup, wearing stained Levi’s, a khaki shirt, a battered straw cowboy hat. The Dodge’s bed was stacked with bags of feed and blocks of salt.

Pierce saw him and took off the hat. The way he stood there, hat in hand, made Hollis think of a none too bright farm boy. He shook the thought away. He was trying to be fair and equable with the kid these days, wasn’t he?

“How’re you, Mr. Hollis?” Still formal and polite. You had to give him that much.

“Holding up. What brings you here?”

“Well, I had to get some supplies and I thought I’d swing by, see if you were home. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

“Yes? What about?”

“Angela. Kenny, too.”

“What about them?”

“I guess you know I’ve been seeing a lot of them since they came back. Does it bother you and Mrs. Hollis?”

“Would it matter to you if it did?”

“I’d like to know.”

“You can hardly expect us to be jumping for joy, given your track record.”

“I suppose not. But my reasons aren’t selfish. It’s because I care about them and I want to do what’s right for them.”

“And just what do you think that is?”

“Start over again, the three of us. Be the family we never were before. I owe it to Angela, to my son.”

Hollis stared at him. “What’re you saying?”

“I’m going to ask her to marry me again.”

“Christ, Pierce! Are you crazy?”

“Never more sane. I love Angela, I love Kenny, I was a sorry damn fool for ever letting them out of my life. The three of us belong together. Whether you think so or not, Mr. Hollis.”

Anger kindled in him. He smothered it. Pierce was serious, earnest, and he was capable of the willful stubbornness of a mule. A show of anger would accomplish nothing, probably lead to a public shouting match.

He said slowly, keeping his voice even, “Does Angela know about this?”

“Not yet. I haven’t said anything, at least not directly. Seemed like a good idea to tell you first.”

“Ask me for her hand?” Hollis couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his tone. “You never bothered the first time, you just went ahead and knocked her up.”

A muscle ticced on Pierce’s cheek; otherwise his face was stoic. “I made a lot of mistakes back then. I’m trying not to make any more, anyway not the same ones.”

“Trying to convince Angela to marry you again is a damn big mistake. You know what she went through with her second husband. The last thing she needs is another commitment, another go-round with you.”

“I understand how badly Rakubian hurt her,” Pierce said. “Makes me sick every time I think about it.”

“You hurt her, too, once. Remember?”

“I’m not likely to forget. It won’t happen again, I swear that to you. I want to make up for what I did and what Rakubian did.”

“And I’m telling you, this is the wrong time to pressure her into a committed relationship.”

“I won’t pressure her. I wouldn’t do that. I’ll let her set the date when she’s ready. Until then, I’ll be there for her — however she wants me, anytime she wants me.”

Hollis waited until he was sure he could speak normally before he said, “Don’t say anything about marriage to her now. Give her time. She needs time, Pierce.”

“I want her to know how I feel, same as I wanted you to know.”

“Listen to me. I’m warning you, if you upset her, make her life difficult again—”

“I won’t. I told you that, and I meant it. Take care of yourself, Mr. Hollis, okay? You can’t take care of Angela anymore, but I can. And I will.”

After he was gone, Hollis trudged back to the patio. Weary, shuffling steps. You can’t take care of Angela anymore. Damn Pierce! Damn him because he was right.

15

Friday Afternoon

The second note came in Friday’s mail.

He didn’t see it until almost four o’clock. It had been one of his better days; no queasiness or discomfort when he woke up, mental faculties in sharper focus, some of his old energy. As long as he didn’t think about it too much, he could pretend that he was just another reasonably healthy, forty-six-year-old man. He left the house when Cassie did, surprised Gloria by showing up at the office at his usual time, surprised himself by putting in better than six hours of work on the site plan and conceptual designs for the Dry Creek Valley project. It was three o’clock before fatigue and a dull headache caught up with him. He considered pushing it another hour, decided that would be foolish, and left for home at three-thirty.

The envelope was the top one in the box. Same type, no return address. He was neither surprised nor upset when he saw it; he’d expected that there would be more. There was a sense of fatalism in him, of things going and already gone irreparably wrong. Buried under sublimating layers of hope and evasion most of the time, now up and crawling close to the surface again.

One thing to be grateful for, he told himself as he took the mail into the house: he’d gotten home before Cassie. She would not have opened a piece of mail addressed only to him — respect of privacy was part of their mutual respect for each other — but she’d have wondered and probably asked him about it, and then he’d have had to lie to her again.

In the kitchen he opened a bottle of Sierra Nevada, emptied half of it in two swallows. Then he tore the envelope open.

YOU WON’T GET AWAY WITH IT. YOU’LL SUFFER FOR WHAT YOU DID.

He sat at the dinette table. Drank more ale, made a face and set the bottle down; it tasted foul now, as if by some alchemy it had been changed into dog piss. He peered at the postmark on the envelope. Smeared, as sometimes happened when the post office machines were freshly inked. It might have been North Bay again, but he couldn’t be sure.

He forced himself to think clearly, logically. Would Eric have sent a message like this one? It didn’t read like a plea for help; it seemed to be both accusation and threat. No sane reason for Eric to threaten him... no sane reason. Or maybe it wasn’t meant to be a threat. There was another way to interpret it. If Eric was too guilt-ridden to admit the truth outright, he might conceivably switch pronouns, substitute “you” for “we.” We won’t get away with it. We’ll suffer for what we did. Accusing himself as well as his father; threatening himself, if anyone, because at some visceral level he sought punishment and expiation.

And maybe, Hollis thought, that’s what I want, too. Punishment and expiation for my sin.

But not like this. Not by Eric, and not by party or parties unknown.

Bad enough if Eric was responsible, but in that case at least he understood the reasons behind it — he could find some way to help him. Worse if it were someone else, because it was like fighting blind. Even Rakubian had been a known quantity; it had been clear what needed to be done in order to protect his family and himself. How do you stop, what safeguards do you take, against a phantom?

Friday Evening

The doorbell rang a few minutes past five.

Hollis was in the living room, hiding himself and his bleak thoughts behind the Examiner; Cassie, home just fifteen minutes, had gone upstairs to shower and change clothes. He put the paper aside as the bell sounded again. It rang twice more as he crossed to the hall, an urgent summons that quickened his steps. He pulled the door open without checking through the peephole.

Angela stood there.

He blinked at her; she had a key, she didn’t need to ring the bell. Then he saw her, really saw her. White-faced, eyes slick-bright, one hand on the doorjamb as if for support, the other clutching her purse against her chest. He felt an inner twisting, a spurt of fear.

“Daddy,” she said, almost moaning it.

She was alone, he realized. “Kenny? Is he—”

“He’s all right, I haven’t picked him up yet. I drove straight here. I couldn’t... I had to...”

He looped an arm around her shoulders, felt the quivering tension in her, and drew her inside. There was a creaking and thumping on the stairs as he shut the door: Cassie had heard them and was coming down. He maneuvered Angela into the living room, sat her down on the couch. Sat beside her with his arm still around her shoulders. Before he could say anything, Cassie came hurrying in.

“What’s going on? Honey, what—”

“He’s back,” she said.

“Back? Who’s back?”

“David. He’s alive and he’s back.”

Hollis heard Cassie’s breath suck in. He didn’t, couldn’t look at her. He knew then what had happened, what was coming, and with the knowledge the feeling of fatalism returned, stronger, darker, like a black hole opening in his mind.

“My God,” Cassie said, “you mean you saw him?” She sat heavily on Angela’s other side. “He showed up at school or your apartment—”

“No, but he knows where I’m living.”

“How could he know?”

“He knows, Mom. He’s after me again.”

“Did he call you, is that it?”

Angela shook her head, fumbled at the catches on her purse and rummaged inside. The taste of ashes was in Hollis’s mouth as he watched the crumpled sheet of paper materialize in her hand.

“This was in my mailbox when I got home.”

He snatched it from her, uncrumpled it. Same paper, same typeface. Two lines, identical to the ones on the note he’d received today. You won’t get away with it. You’ll suffer for what you did.

Cassie reached for the paper. He couldn’t prevent her from reading it; he let her take it without protest. She scanned the lines, kept staring at them as though trying to digest their meaning.

“I almost believed he was gone for good,” Angela said dully. The hunted look had returned to her eyes; her face was bloodless. She’d come so far, almost all the way back, and now this. “It seemed he must be after so much time. But he’s not, he’s somewhere close by, and he wants me to suffer...”

“No,” Hollis said.

“Hurt me, hurt Kenny...”

“No! Rakubian didn’t send that note.”

The words were out before he realized what he’d said. Angela and Cassie were both looking at him, their gazes like a pressure against his face; he still could not meet either one.

“Who else could it be?” From Cassie.

“I don’t know. Somebody’s sick idea of a joke...”

“It’s not a joke,” Angela said, “it’s David, you know it is.”

“It doesn’t sound like him,” he said lamely. “Two lines, no mention of your name, no signature... it’s too impersonal. Why would he send an anonymous note instead of calling, making the same demands as before?”

“He doesn’t want me anymore. All he wants is for me to suffer.”

“Why two months of silence? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Yes it does. It’s his way of torturing me. He won’t do anything right away. There’ll be more notes, phone calls, God knows what else.” Her voice had begun to rise. “Oh God, I can’t go through all that again, I can’t!”

Cassie gathered her close, murmured to her and stroked her hair. All the while she looked at Hollis over the top of her head, a steady, unreadable look.

He sat with his hands between his knees. Limp, useless lumps of flesh — like what was left of his manhood hanging higher up. Voices muttered in his head. One said, “It’s not Eric, he loves Angela, he’d never do anything to hurt her.” Another said, “You don’t know him or what he’s capable of, you’ve never really known him.” A third, the loudest, said, “You’re not the only target now... Angela, maybe Cassie... it’s just like it was when Rakubian was alive.”

Cassie, with little help from him, calmed Angela down; tried to convince her to spend the night there, let Hollis go pick up Kenny. She wouldn’t agree to it. She kept saving, “I feel like such a little girl, always running home — I have to stop being a little girl.” Cassie finally talked her into a partial compromise: the two of them would fetch Kenny together. Hollis understood that she wanted some time alone with Angela, and that was all right with him. He needed to be by himself for a while.

When they were gone he sat in his study, staring blankly at the architectural prints on the walls while he tried to order his thoughts, shape them as he would one of his designs into a logical, substantive pattern. He hated the feeling of impotence; it was the way Pop had made him feel as a kid, weak, ineffectual, and until now he’d refused to let himself be crippled that way as an adult. He had dealt with all the other crises in his life, he’d dealt with Rakubian, or tried to, the best way he knew how. All right, he’d deal with this new crisis, too.

One thing for sure: He could no longer afford to wait for something else to happen. He had to act, and quickly. And he had to stop shouldering the entire burden himself, no matter who was responsible for those notes or why.

In the kitchen later, picking at a cold dinner neither he nor Cassie wanted:

“I wish you’d been able to talk her into staying with us tonight,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of her and Kenny alone in that apartment.”

“I don’t think they’ll be alone.”

“What do you— Oh. Pierce.”

“She said she was going to call him.”

“I suppose he spends a lot of nights over there now.”

“Some, probably.”

“Terrific.”

“He wants to marry her again,” Cassie said.

Hollis frowned. He hadn’t told her about Pierce’s visit yesterday. “She tell you that?”

“Yes.”

“So he’s already asked her.”

“Not in so many words. But he’s made it plain enough that he intends to.”

“She’s not going to say yes?”

“She says she isn’t ready for another commitment.”

“She has some sense left, then. If she means it.”

“Anyhow,” Cassie said, “it’s a good thing she’s letting him stay there, isn’t it? Now?”

“You think so? My guess is he’d run at the first sign of trouble.”

“You’re wrong. Ryan’s not like that anymore.”

“Right, the big change. Now he’s got you believing it.”

“I have eyes. You’d see it, too, if you opened yours.”

He let that pass. “It’s not just her safety that’s worrying me. It’s her mental state.”

“She’ll be okay. She was when I left her. I wanted to stay until Ryan came, but she’d had enough mothering.”

“For tonight. What about tomorrow and the days after that? Suppose there’s another note? She’s liable to take it into her head to run away again.”

“I asked her about that. She said no, it’d take a lot more than a note or two to send her back into hiding. But she’s been through so much... I doubt she can stand much more.”

I doubt any of us can.

“If she does decide to take Kenny someplace safe, I can’t honestly blame her. I don’t think you can, either.”

“Not if Rakubian really is back,” he said.

“Why do you keep saying ‘if’? I don’t see who or why anyone else would send a note like that.”

“Neither do I. I want it to be somebody else, that’s all. A crank, somebody harmless.”

“We have to be realistic,” Cassie said.

“Two months, don’t forget that. I just can’t see Rakubian staying away and keeping silent that long.”

“He’s crazy and unpredictable. After all the things he’s done already, I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

Except resurrection from the dead, he thought.

Bitterly he said, “Rakubian or whoever, if there’s any real danger, running away isn’t going to keep her and Kenny safe. Neither is Pierce, if she stays. And neither am I with this goddamn cancer.”

“Don’t start feeling sorry for yourself. You’re not Superdad, and nobody expects you to be but you. The job isn’t yours or mine or Ryan’s anyway, it’s the police’s.”

“What the hell can they do? They couldn’t find a trace of Rakubian in two months. The note isn’t conclusive proof she’s in danger from him or anybody else — it could be the work of a crank. If we go to the cops they’ll make sympathetic noises and tell us not to worry. No. That’s not the answer.”

“Neither is doing nothing. Maybe we should hire a private investigator.”

“To do what, act as a bodyguard? Camp on Angela’s doorstep, follow her around wherever she goes?”

“I didn’t mean as a bodyguard. I meant to try to track down Rakubian.”

“If the police couldn’t find him, how is a private detective going to manage it after two months? They’re not miracle workers, that’s a lot of fictional crap.”

Strained silence.

At length Cassie said, “This isn’t doing either of us any good.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“I’d give anything if he’d stayed missing, if he really was dead. In my mind I had him dead and buried somewhere for good. Didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Hollis said. “Dead and buried for good.”

Saturday Morning

Eric said, “Oh, it’s you, Dad. Jeez, you woke me up.” He sounded sleep-fogged and grumpy; he’d never been much of a morning person. “You know what time it is?”

“Seven-fifteen,” Hollis said. “I wanted to be sure to catch you home. I tried to call twice last night.”

“Date I told you about. I left straight from work, got home late. I didn’t get much sleep.” A woman’s voice rose querulously in the background, close by. “That’s why. And she’s not what I thought she might be. Ms., not missus—”

“I need to see you.”

“See me? When?”

“Right away. We have to talk.”

“About what?’

“When I see you, not on the phone.”

“Something wrong?” Eric sounded more awake.

“Yes. I want you to fly up to SFO this afternoon.”

The line hummed.

“I called United,” Hollis said. “There’s a flight out of Santa Barbara at one-twenty, gets in at two-thirty. I’ll pick you up at Arrivals. Reservation’s already made in your name and paid for. Round-trip — you can fly back tonight at five-fifty.”

Again the line hummed emptily for a few seconds. Hollis tried to imagine the expression on his son’s face, what might be going through his mind. And couldn’t.

“Okay, if it’s that urgent.” Calm acceptance, in a voice that betrayed nothing of his feelings. “You sure you want to drive all the way to the airport? I can rent a car, come up there...”

“I’ll manage. One thing: This is just between you and me.”

“Whatever you say.”

“I’ll see you at two-thirty. Don’t miss the flight.”

“I won’t,” Eric said. “Whatever this is about, you can count on me.”

We’ll see about that. We’ll find out a lot of things this afternoon.

16

Saturday Afternoon

San Francisco International, like so many things to him these days, seemed different, strange. It had been nearly two years since the last time he’d been there, and the ongoing airport construction had altered both its shape and its access; the entrance and exit ramps had been moved, the entrance lanes now ran through an underpass beneath one of the new terminal buildings. New signs pointed him to Arrivals, but the Saturday congestion made it difficult to get around to the United terminal. And when he did get there, ten minutes after the scheduled arrival time of the Santa Barbara flight, Eric was nowhere to be seen among the crush of waiting passengers. He tried to squeeze the Lexus into a parking space between a taxi and a limo; an airport security cop waved him off. He had no choice then but to loop all the way back through the maze of lanes and construction for another pass, fighting aggressive and reckless drivers like a participant in a stock car race.

He had to make four passes, better than half an hour’s wasted time, before he finally saw Eric — Cal Poly sweatshirt that clashed with his old maroon-and-white windbreaker — waving at him from the curb. He jammed on the brakes, cut in front of a stretch limo, and stayed put through a series of angry horn blasts until Eric piled into the car.

“Jeez, I’m sorry, Dad,” he said. “Plane was thirty minutes late taking off.”

“Not your fault.”

Neither of them spoke again until they had cleared Arrivals and were in one of the airport exit lanes. Then Eric asked tentatively, “Where’re we going?”

“Someplace quiet where we can talk.”

They rode in heavy silence after that. Hollis took the north ramp that led to Airport Boulevard, where there were a number of large travelers’ hotels. He swung into the parking lot of the first one he saw, slotted the car near the entrance. His shoulder muscles were tight and he had a vague headache; otherwise he felt well enough, too keyed up to be particularly tired yet. Later, after he was done with Eric and the long drive home, he knew he’d be exhausted.

In the hotel lobby he asked, “You hungry?” and Eric shook his head. They bypassed the restaurant, entered the bar lounge. Dark, quiet except for a TV tuned low to a baseball game, only half a dozen patrons lining the bar. Hollis led the way to a back-corner booth. He ordered coffee for both of them, waited until it was served before he opened the discussion.

“We’ll start with this,” he said. “Have you received any unsigned mail in the past few days? At your office or your apartment, either one.”

Eric frowned. “Snail mail?”

“Any kind of mail.”

“No, nothing.”

“Have you sent me or your sister anonymous notes?”

“Have I— Why would I do a thing like that?”

“Answer the question.”

“Of course not. What kind of anonymous notes?”

“This kind.”

He took the three sheets from his pocket, the one to Angela and the two he’d received, and laid them side by side in front of his son. Eric’s face seemed to harden as he read them, as if his flesh were solidifying from within. When he raised his head his eyes were angry.

“Rakubian,” he said.

“You know it’s not Rakubian.”

“How would I know that? Who else—?”

Hollis said nothing, watching him.

“They sound like his kind of crap,” Eric said. “But this one... ‘What did you do with his body?’ What does that mean?”

“What do you suppose it means?”

“Somebody thinks you had something to do with him disappearing, is that it?”

“Well?”

“You didn’t, did you?”

“Dammit, you know I didn’t kill him.”

“Dad... I never thought you did.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Hollis said wearily. “No more lies or evasions.”

Eric blinked at him. “Hey, wait a minute. What made you think I might’ve sent those notes? I wouldn’t care if you’d chopped Rakubian up into little pieces and fed ’em to Fritz—”

“That’s not one bit funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny. You know I’d never do anything to hurt you or Angie—”

“Not if you were thinking clearly.”

Strained silence for a clutch of seconds. Then, slowly, “You’re afraid I had something to do with whatever happened to Rakubian. That’s why you had me fly up here.”

“It’s time, son. Past time.”

“For what?”

“To get it out into the open. All of it, on both sides.”

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“Eric, I know. I’ve known all along. I was there not long after you. I found him where you left him.”

“Where I—”

“Who did you think cleaned up his house, got rid of the body? You must’ve guessed it was me.”

Eric sat without moving, his eyes round but showing nothing of what he was feeling or thinking.

“You can tell me how it happened or not,” Hollis said. “That’s up to you. The one thing I have to know is whether you went there with the intention of killing him. Did you?”

No answer. Not even an eyeblink.

“Did you, Eric?”

“When?” The word seemed to come from deep within; his lips barely moved.

“When what?”

“When was he killed? When did you find him?”

“I just told you—”

“Dad, you answer me now. When did all this happen? What day?”

The sudden sharpness in Eric’s voice, more than his words, brought the first stirrings of doubt. Hollis said, “The Saturday before Angela left for Utah.”

“The day I found the box in the garage.”

“You had every right to be furious—”

“Sure I was furious. But not enough to kill him. I couldn’t kill anybody, not even to save Angie. You never did understand who or what I am, did you?” Eric’s body seemed to loosen all at once; he leaned forward so abruptly that his elbows banged the table, rattled the coffee cups. “Listen to me, Dad. That day I did exactly what I told you and Mom I did — drove out to the coast, then up along the Russian River. I didn’t go to San Francisco. I didn’t see Rakubian.”

“You... didn’t...”

“I didn’t kill him. It wasn’t me.”

The truth.

Hollis knew it, accepted it all at once. Certain knowledge replacing the false belief, the rush to misjudgment.

Somebody else had gone to Rakubian’s home that afternoon, somebody else with a powerful reason to hate him and to want him dead. Somebody else had picked up the raven statuette and crushed his skull. Somebody else...

And the corpse, the blood, the carpet, the garbage bags, the cleanup, the nightmare drive, the cop, the gravedigging, the burial, all of it, all of it... for nothing.

He’d covered up somebody else’s murder.

He sat stunned, the truth like a hammer beating at his senses. There was relief in him... Eric was innocent... but in these first moments it had been dwarfed by the weight of his own mordant guilt.

“Eric,” he said thickly, “get me a brandy. Double shot.”

“You’re not supposed to drink...”

“Just get it. Please.”

Eric hesitated, then lifted to his feet. He seemed to be gone a long time. Then the snifter was in Hollis’s hand, the brandy inside him in two convulsive swallows. Its spreading heat let him think again.

“Dad? You believe me?”

“Yes. I believe you.”

“Why’d you wait so long to talk to me? All those questions at home the day after, on the phone the other day... why didn’t you say something either of those times?”

“I thought it’d be easier if we just pretended... if we kept our own secrets...” He pressed the heels of his hands against his temples. “You were right — I never did know you very well, did I.”

“Maybe you didn’t try hard enough. Maybe I didn’t, either.”

He nodded. I’m a goddamn fool, he thought.

After a little time Eric asked, “What happened that Saturday? Did you go to Rakubian’s place because you thought I had?”

“Yes.” He explained about Cassie’s phone call, his discovery of the body. The words came in a rush, hot and acidulous in his mouth. “His skull was crushed... and I remembered you saying that was what you wanted to do to him, crush his skull. It never occurred to me that somebody else might’ve done it. I’m sorry... I’m so sorry.”

“If I’d been in your place,” Eric said slowly, “I’d’ve thought the same thing. So then you cleaned up everything, to protect me.”

“No other reason.” Hollis told him the rest of it, everything except the exact location of the grave. Purging himself. When he was done, Eric seemed to be looking at him in a new way. But he couldn’t tell whether he’d gained or lost stature in his son’s estimation, just that he’d been reevaluated.

“It must’ve been pretty bad,” Eric said. “If that cop had looked in the trunk...”

“Might’ve been better if he had.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I screwed up. Not just that day — before and since, all the way down the line.”

“What do you mean, before that day?”

He felt the urge to confess his original plan. I was going to kill him myself, he wanted to say, shoot him down like a dog. And I might have if somebody else hadn’t done the job for me. That’s the really ironic thing here, you see? Somebody else killed him, not me, not you, a third party took care of the problem, and all I had to do when I found him was walk away or call the police and it would’ve been over then and there. We might have been suspected, you and I, but there would have been no proof because we’re innocent and eventually they’d have found out who did it... some little piece of evidence I took away or destroyed. Now it’s too late. Now we can’t call the cops, we can’t dig up Rakubian, and the person responsible not only got away with it but may be stalking us now, like Rakubian stalked us but for no comprehensible reason. All I’ve done is exchange a known threat for an unknown one.

He put none of this into words. His insane plan to take Rakubian’s life — and it was insane, he knew that now — was his own private cross. No good purpose would be served in sharing it with his son, with anyone ever.

“Before, after, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “I screwed up, that’s all. Maybe put us all right back in jeopardy again.”

“You think whoever wrote those notes is the person who killed Rakubian?”

“Has to be. No one else knows he’s dead.”

“ ‘What did you do with his body?’ Yeah. Killed him and left the body there in the house, and the next thing he knows the body’s gone and everything’s cleaned up. Must’ve been some shock when he found that out.”

“A shock, yes.”

“But how’d he know it was you? He wouldn’t’ve still been hanging around when you got there.”

“May have come back for some reason, saw my car. Or guessed it was me somehow.”

“What I don’t get is why he waited two months, why he started sending those notes. I mean, he was home free. What’s the point of hassling you and Angie?”

Hollis shook his head.

“He sent this one to her at her new apartment,” Eric said. “She’s been living there less than a week. How’d he know where to find her?”

The answer to that was plain enough. Hollis said nothing, let Eric come to it on his own. It didn’t take him long.

“Somebody we know,” he said.

“I don’t see any other explanation.”

“Who? Jeez, Dad, I can’t imagine anybody we know hating us that much.”

I can. One person.

“Who’d want Rakubian dead besides us? Or care what you did with his body? Or want you and Angie to suffer any more than you already have?”

One person, one motive that makes any sense.

He shook his head again. A headshake was neither a lie nor an evasion.

Eric said, “What’re we going to do?”

“We’re not going to do anything. You’re going back to Santa Barbara on the five-fifty flight.”

“Listen, I—”

“No argument, please. There’s nothing you can do at home.”

“I can help find out who’s doing this.”

“How? What can you do that I can’t?”

“... If you identify him, what then?”

“Cross that bridge when the time comes.”

“You can’t turn him in without implicating yourself. He knows you got rid of the body, covered up, he’d tell the police—”

“His word against mine,” Hollis said. “He can’t be absolutely certain it was me and he can’t have any idea where Rakubian is buried. He’d never be able to prove he didn’t do it himself.”

“The cops might still believe him.”

“I won’t turn him in if I can avoid it. The threat of it alone might be enough to get him off our backs.”

“Suppose it isn’t? What if he tries something... if he has a gun or a knife?”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Dad... you’re not thinking of going after him with a weapon?”

Another headshake that was neither lie nor evasion. “There are other ways to protect myself. I may have cancer, but I’m not a cripple yet.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Eric’s mouth tightened; Hollis could almost see the shutter come down behind his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Hollis said, picking his words carefully now. “I know you’re concerned, I know you want to help. But this thing could drag on for a while, turn out to be a hell of a lot less dangerous than it seems. You can’t quit your job, put your life on hold indefinitely.”

No response.

“Let me handle it. If there’s anything you can do, I’ll call you right away. I mean that — right away.”

Another dozen beats. Then, “What about Mom? Does she know?”

“About the notes, yes.”

“But not about Rakubian being dead or what you did.”

“No. It would’ve meant telling her I believed you were guilty, and I couldn’t do that to her.”

“You going to tell her now?”

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”

“I am,” Eric said. “She has a right to know the whole story. So does Angie. Tell them both, Dad. We’re all in this together.”

Eric’s gaze was intense, and Hollis understood that the need for family unity was just as important to him. He’d been able to teach him that much, at least. He understood, too, that if the closeness, the new bond that had formed between them here was to be maintained, he must neither argue nor fail to follow through. He nodded, gripped his son’s arm.

“You’re right,” he said. “We’re all in this together, we all need to know what we’re dealing with.”

Somebody we know.

Ryan Pierce.

Driving home, looking at it from different angles as objectively as he could, he came up with Pierce every time. Motive for killing Rakubian: the same as Hollis’s, as Eric’s — to eliminate the threat to Angela and Kenny. The old Pierce might not have been capable of violence, but the new Pierce was a different story. He’d changed, all right, only not in the way Angela and Cassie believed; hardened into a man with definite convictions and a twisted set of values. And the one thing he wanted more than anything else seemed to be a new life with his ex-wife and his son. Motive for sending the notes: to make Angela dependent on him, leverage to convince her to remarry him. Secondary motive: to punish Hollis for standing against him.

It had to be Pierce. He wanted it to be Pierce, because then there was no immediate danger to anyone in the family and the solution to the problem was relatively clear-cut. The only real danger was in his sticking around, manipulating Angela. Confront him, then, and threaten him — with the law, but also with telling her he was a murderer. Point out that even if he tried to shift the guilt to Hollis, it wouldn’t work because she was still Daddy’s girl — she would never take his word over her father’s. Convince him that his only choice was to pack up and move away and never come near any of them again.

But be careful, don’t just bull ahead. Think through how he was going to handle Pierce, exactly what he would say to him. The more prepared he was, the greater the leverage to pry him out of their lives once and for all.

He felt better by the time he reached the Los Alegres exit — empowered again. He had decided something else, too, by then. He was not going to tell Cassie or Angela what he’d told Eric, not just yet. He was still committed to no more lies or evasions; he would simply withhold the truth a while longer. Until he talked to Pierce. Until he had him good and tight by the short hairs.

17

Sunday Morning

Cassie went to church at ten o’clock.

Hollis went to the garage to clean, oil, and load the Colt Woodsman.

When he was done he rewrapped the .22 and put it in the Lexus’s glove compartment. Then he left a note for Cassie, saying he’d gone on an errand, and drove to Angela’s apartment.

She and Kenny were there; Pierce wasn’t. But Hollis would have known he’d spent the night even if Kenny hadn’t blurted it out three minutes after his arrival. Angela was calm today, smiling, the picture of Sunday-morning domesticity. She poured him a cup of coffee, another for herself, while Kenny climbed onto his lap and chattered about some new video game Pierce had given him. That was when the boy made his slip.

“Dad’s gonna live with us all the time,” he said.

“Oh, he is. Did he tell you that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“When?”

“Last night when he tucked me in.”

Angela was staring into her cup, two spots of color high on her cheekbones. He watched her until she raised her head, but she wouldn’t quite meet his gaze. She said to Kenny, “Honey, you can watch the Cartoon Channel if you want to.”

“Hey, cool!”

And then to Hollis, “We can sit in the garden.”

The “garden” was a twenty-foot square enclosed by a board fence draped in scraggly wisteria. Brown lawn, a couple of pyracantha shrubs, two strips of flower bed that were mostly hard-packed dirt. She deserves better than this, Hollis thought. Kenny deserves better than this.

They sat in a pair of molded plastic chairs on a tiny rectangle of cracked concrete. Angela asked tentatively, “Are you mad at me, Daddy? About Ryan?”

“No.”

“I needed somebody. Not just for protection... I mean...”

“I know what you mean.”

“You understand, don’t you?”

“When is he moving in permanently? Be pretty cramped in such a small space, won’t it?”

“It’s not like that,” she said.” At least not yet.”

“He seems to think it is, from what he told Kenny.”

“He wants it that way, the three of us together again. Very much. Last night... he asked me to marry him again.”

Even though he insisted he wouldn’t yet. “And?”

“I didn’t give him a definite answer. I’m not sure it’s what I want. I still care for him... a lot. And Kenny does, too. But marriage so soon after David... and the situation the way it is... I don’t think it’s the right time to be making that kind of decision.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Ryan says he understands. But...”

“But what? Is he pressuring you?”

“Not exactly.”

“What then, exactly?”

“He’s so sure it’s the right thing. He swears he loves us, and I know he means it. I can’t be as absolutely certain of my own feelings, that’s all.”

“Did you tell him about the note?”

She nodded. “I felt he should know.”

“What was his reaction?”

“He said he’d make sure nothing happens to us.”

“Uh-huh. Where is he now?”

“He left about nine. He had some things to do.”

“What things?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Be back when?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Just went off and left you and Kenny alone.”

“He can’t watch over us every minute...”

“I want to talk to him,” Hollis said.

“About his proposal? Please, Daddy, don’t interfere. It won’t do any of us any good.”

“That isn’t what I want to talk about. You have any idea where he went?”

“Well, Rhona’s, maybe. Most of his things are still there...”

Right, he thought. No need to move them over here just yet. A razor, a toothbrush, some clean underwear, a couple of packages of condoms — what else would he need?

He stood. “I’d better be going.”

“Can’t you stay a while longer?”

This was the last place for his showdown with Pierce; it had been a mistake to think he could manage it anywhere near Angela and Kenny. Neutral ground, someplace where he could stay focused and maintain a tight grip on his emotions.

“Things to do myself,” he said. “We’ll get together again later.”

She seemed subdued as they went back inside; she probably thought he was mad at her, even though he’d said he wasn’t. Disappointed was closer to the truth. She was so damn dependent on men, the wrong kind, like Pierce and Rakubian. If only she had a little more backbone, a little better judgment.

She said, “Should I tell Ryan you want to see him?”

“No. I’ll take care of it.”

Kenny was paying no attention to them, sitting cross-legged in front of the television, up close, cartoon images assailing his eyes and cartoon voices assaulting his eardrums. Angela pried him away, brought him over for a quick hug and kiss good-bye. “See you, Granpa,” he said, and hurried back to the TV.

“He’s a cartoon junkie,” Angela said apologetically. “Cartoons and computers, that’s all he ever thinks about. But he loves you, Dad. So do I, a lot. Really... a lot.”

More than Pierce, I hope. Enough to forgive me when all this is over.

Pierce’s sister and her family lived on the east side, in one of the endless sprawling tracts that had spread like a blight over what had once been rich agricultural land. Tract houses, tract planning, even the more upscale variety, offended his architect’s eye. Bland conventional design, corner-cutting by greedy developers that too often resulted in slipshod construction and serious problems within a few years. Starter homes, some of them; fulfilled aspirations for other suburbanites. Little slices of the downsized American dream. He couldn’t fault those who were unable to afford something better; the high cost of living in California had forced many to settle for less. But the majority nowadays had been brainwashed into believing conformity and mediocrity were something better, all that they needed or deserved.

The only way to do battle against that kind of mind-set, in his professional view, was to try to educate the people by providing better home design, better overall planning, better construction, even if it meant shaving profits. Not the people like Shelby Chesterton, the affluent minority, who could afford the very best and for whom Hollis could now and then indulge his esthetic vision to the fullest. People like the seniors who would inhabit the Dry Creek Valley development, which was why he felt it was important for Mannix & Hollis to be given the job. And they would be, he was sure. Gabe felt the same way; they had agreed that a good portion of their profit margin should be sacrificed in favor of architectural integrity. Do quality work and you’d continue to get quality jobs, and in some small way maybe you could make a difference in the long run.

He remembered the street Rhona Pierce Collins lived on, but not the number, so he stopped in one of the nearby malls (so insipidly conventional it might have been a shopping center anywhere in the country) and looked it up. When he got to the equally uniform three-bedroom tract he didn’t see Pierce’s pickup; but he stopped anyway, went up, and rang the bell.

Rhona was a female counterpart of her brother, except that she’d put on at least twenty pounds since Hollis had last seen her, the result of two children, poor diet, and not enough exercise. Yes, she said, Ryan had been there, but he’d left more than an hour ago. No, she didn’t know where he’d gone. Then, as Hollis was about to turn away, she beamed at him and said, “Well, I guess congratulations are in order, Mr. Hollis.”

“Congratulations?”

“Angela and Ryan getting back together, getting married again.” He said nothing, but his expression was enough to turn her smile upside-down. “Gee, I hope I didn’t let the cat out of the bag. You did know about it, you and your wife?”

“Yes,” he said, “thanks, Rhona,” and put his back to her before she could read the full message in his face and eyes.

Sunday Afternoon

He couldn’t find Pierce anywhere. He looked for the Dodge downtown, on another pass by Angela’s apartment, a few other places, and then drove out Western Avenue Extension to Chileno Valley Road. The Gugliotta ranch was seven miles out, a beef and dairy cattle operation on several thousand acres spread over the rocky foothills. The Dodge wasn’t there, either; and old Fred Gugliotta, whom he knew slightly, told him he hadn’t seen Pierce since Friday afternoon.

Frustration rode heavily with him on the way back to town. He ached to get this business over and done with; the longer it went on the more stressed he would be, and another of Stan Otaki’s warnings had been to avoid stressful situations. For the third time he did a drive-by at Angela’s. Still no sign of the pickup.

It was nearly one by then, and he was tired and hungry. He gave up the hunt and headed home. Later he’d call Angela, and if Pierce had returned he’d arrange to meet him somewhere. Just the two of them, alone, with the Colt Woodsman in his pocket as backup.

Cassie was home from church and a lunch date afterward; he parked beside her van in the driveway. As soon as he shut off the engine he could hear Fritz barking his fool head off inside the house. Terrific. While Angela was in Utah, Cassie had worked with the Doberman to control his high-strung nature, the worst part of which was incessant barking. Mostly, now, the dog stayed quiet when they were home or arriving home. Something must have set him off.

Fritz wasn’t confined to his usual place on the back porch; Hollis could hear him moving around and making his racket on the other side of the front door. He said loudly, “Shut up, boy, it’s me,” as he opened it. The Doberman backed off to let him enter the hallway, but then stood quivering with hackles up, a low growl in place of the barks. Hollis frowned. “What’s the matter with you? You forget who puts the Alpo in your food dish?” He spoke the words in a quiet voice, but the dog kept right on growling.

“Cass?” he called. “What’s got Fritz so stirred up?”

No answer.

The muscles in his back and neck began a slow bunching. He called her name again, louder, and again there was no response. He sidled past the Doberman, went ahead into the living room.

And stopped dead, slam-frozen with shock.

The room was a shambles.

Worse than that... it had been systematically, brutally raped.

The fabric on the couches and chairs had been slashed by some sharp object, with such viciousness that there was little left except strips like flayed flesh. Stuffing bulged through the wounds in his armchair, gouts of it like white-and black-streaked blood. End tables were overturned, Cassie’s glass-fronted curio cabinet toppled and shattered, the glass top of the coffee table smashed, bar stools savaged and tossed aside, bottles broken on the floor behind the wet bar. And over everything, the furniture and the carpet and the walls, a mad pattern of stripes and swirls of shiny black spray paint. Now that he was in here he could smell both the paint and the spilled liquor. The odors closed his throat, intensified the sudden blood-throb in his temples.

Cassie was there in the midst of the wreckage, slumped against a torn couch armrest. She stared straight ahead, not moving in any way; in profile her face had the splotchy white consistency of buttermilk. One arm was raised in front of her, the fingers extended, and he realized she was pointing.

The wall on the far side of the fireplace. A once-beige wall decorated with two watercolors by local artists, now defaced by the black paint. But the marks there were not meaningless like the rest; they formed crude letters a foot high—

18

He picked his way across the room, trying to avoid the still-sticky paint, to Cassie’s side. Except for lowering her arm, she remained immobile; did not look at him when he bent to grip her shoulders. Her eyes had a moist, glassy shine. Her body seemed to have no softness or resiliency, as if he were touching petrified wood. He tried to turn her against him, but she wouldn’t yield — not resisting, just not responding.

“Cass? You all right?”

“I haven’t been home long,” she said, as if she were answering a different question. “Fritz was barking. I went out to the porch to quiet him, but he broke away and came running in here.”

“The rest of the house...”

“I don’t know. This... I couldn’t...”

“I’ll check. You stay here.”

“It’ll never be the same again,” she said as he released her and straightened up. “No matter what we do. Never the same again.”

His gaze went again to the spray-painted wall. Rage boiled to the surface, came spilling out before he could stop it. “That son of a bitch. He’ll pay for this. I’ll make him sorry he was ever born.”

Now she was looking at him, with a kind of laser intensity. “Rakubian,” she said.

He didn’t answer. He stepped away from her, around behind the couch and along the inside wall into the hallway. Fritz was still there, no longer growling, but the muscled body still quivering. Hollis sidestepped him and went upstairs first to look into the master bedroom, then Angela’s and Eric’s old rooms. None of them had been violated. Downstairs again, he checked the dining room, TV room, his study, the kitchen. Intact, untouched. The Doberman followed him here, toenails clicking loudly on the hardwood floor.

All that barking, he thought. Scared Pierce off before he could do any more damage. Unless the living room was his only intended target. Tear it apart, leave his goddamn message, get out quick. The whole thing could have been done in less than ten minutes. Destroy an entire room... less than ten minutes.

The side kitchen window was open a few inches. Left that way after breakfast, carelessly, or left unlatched — Pierce could have gotten in through there. Or he could have come in through the front door. Hollis was sure he’d locked it when he left, but Pierce could have taken Angela’s key without her knowing it, walked right up, let himself in.

He quit the house by the patio door, went around to the front and into the Archers’ yard. There was no answer when he rang their bell. The Lippmans, their neighbors on the north, weren’t home, either. He crossed the street to the Changs’. They were in, but they had nothing to tell him; they’d been working in their backyard all morning.

Well, it didn’t really matter, did it? Pierce... who else but Pierce? And he couldn’t go to the police anyway. On the way back he had a strong impulse to get into the car, go hunting again. He fought it off. The state he was in now, it would be foolish, even dangerous, to brace Pierce.

Cassie was still in the living room, but she had gotten over the worst of her shock. She stood by the wet bar, color in her cheeks again, sparking anger in place of the glassy shine in her eyes.

She asked, “Did anybody see him?”

“No. Archers and Lippmans aren’t home.”

“He’s lucky as well as crazy. The police... maybe they can find something in this mess to prove it was him.”

“You didn’t phone them?”

“No, I was waiting for you.”

He took a breath before he said, “I’m not going to report this.”

“Why not? Rakubian—”

“Rakubian didn’t do it.”

“Of course he did.”

Another breath, and then the big plunge because he could not hide the truth any longer. “Rakubian’s dead, Cass.”

“Dead? You... dead?”

“For two months.”

“How do you know that? My God, you didn’t...”

“No, I didn’t kill him. But I have a pretty good idea who did. The same person who sent those notes, who did this.”

She was staring at him as if she had never seen him before. “Who?”

“I’d better tell you the whole story first.”

“Yes, you’d damn well better.”

“Not in here. In the kitchen.”

She led him out there, sat down at the dinette table, and waited for him to do the same before she said, “All right, Jack. The whole story.”

He told her. The truth and nothing but the truth, withholding only what he’d kept from Eric. She reacted just twice, first with a pained grimace when he explained his belief in Eric’s quilt, then with a jerky nod when he said of his cover-up, “I had to do it to protect him.” Otherwise she sat and listened and stared at him in stoic silence.

The silence went on after he was done. And when she finally did say something, it was not at all the reaction he’d expected.

“Goddamn you, Jack Hollis.” In a coldly furious voice. “You make me so fucking mad sometimes, I could scream.”

“Cass, I’m sorry, but I thought I was doing the right thing—”

“The right thing.”

“Yes.”

“By lying to me, keeping me in the dark.”

“I wanted to protect you, too—”

“There, that’s what I mean. That’s it exactly. It’s not Rakubian or what you did that’s got me so upset, it’s you. You and that Superman compulsion of yours.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Superman, Superdad, Superhusband. Protect Eric, Angela, me. Shoulder all the responsibility, make all the decisions, take all the risks. Try to be better than your father in every damn way.”

“My father? What does he have to do with this?”

“He has everything to do with it. Your whole life has been one constant struggle to prove to yourself that he was wrong about you, that you’re a better man than he was. Smarter, stronger, more capable, more compassionate, more protective, more loving, more nurturing, more everything. But you’re not the strong, silent, macho type. You’re Jack Hollis, not Bud Hollis, and you try too hard and lose judgment and perspective and make mistakes and shut people out because you can’t admit that you need help or advice, that you’re even a little bit weaker than hard-as-nails Bud Hollis.”

The accusations stung him. Denial surged hot into his throat, but he had no words to express it.

“The cancer, too, that’s another thing. You’re so full of rage and anxiety at what’s happening inside your body that it’s clouded your reason.”

“That’s not true!”

“It is true. You think I don’t know, don’t understand? You’re angry and bitter and afraid, and there’s a part of you that needs to lash out at something or somebody... Rakubian, for instance. But you can’t admit it to yourself, it’s not an acceptable attitude, so you’ve shifted it around to something that is acceptable — protecting your family at all cost, making sure we survive because you’re afraid you won’t survive yourself.”

“My God,” he said in a choked voice.

“I’m right, you know I am. Can’t you see it? Those are the real reasons you’ve been trying to deal with all this on your own... your father, the cancer. But you can’t deal with it alone, you never could, and you don’t have to. They’re my problems as well as yours. I’m your wife, your partner, your coconspirator if necessary, and whether you like it or not I’m just as angry as you are, just as tough and capable, and more clearheaded in a crisis. I don’t deserve to be treated as a weakling or an inferior, because I’m neither one. I don’t deserve to be treated the way your father treated you.”

He shook his head, more reflex than anything else, and got to his feet. Stood indecisively for a few seconds, then sank back down again. All at once he was very tired; his arms and legs had a boneless feel.

“I know all that hurt you,” Cassie said in softer tones, “but it had to be said. You’ve hurt me, too.”

“I... never meant to hurt you.”

“A sin of omission is still a sin.”

“All right. All right. Why the hell have you stayed married to me if you think I’m such a loser, if I offend you so much?”

“For God’s sake, don’t start pitying yourself. I stay with you because I love you and I need you, flaws and all. I’m not attacking you, Jack, I’m only trying to make you see things the way they are so we can move on.”

He saw, he really did see; the denial was no longer hot, not even lukewarm. She was right. Everything she’d said, right on the mark. But all he could make himself say was, “Move on to where?”

“Jack... you...” Her voice had grown hoarse; she cleared her throat. “My mouth is so dry I can’t...” He watched her get to her feet, move to the refrigerator. With the door open she said, “Do you want anything?”

“No.”

She poured a tumblerful of milk, swallowed half before she sat down again. “Better,” she said. Then she said, “You haven’t told Angela yet. About Rakubian.”

“Not yet.”

“Do you intend to?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

He shook his head.

“It’s cruel to keep it from her. You know how frightened she is. You have to tell her — we have to tell her. As soon as possible. Tonight.”

“She can’t come here. The living room...”

“We’ll go to her apartment.”

“I won’t do it in front of Pierce.”

“For heaven’s sake, why not?”

“Who do you suppose killed Rakubian? Wrote those notes, did all the damage here today?”

“You think it’s Ryan?”

“Who the hell else?”

“What possible reason—?”

He told her what possible reason.

“I don’t believe it,” she said.

“You don’t believe it. He’s a shining example of manhood in your eyes, is that it? Unlike me. The new, improved Ryan Pierce.”

“That’s the anger talking again.”

“Is it? Not if I’m right about him.”

“Do you have any proof?”

“Not yet, but I will.”

“Then what’s got you so convinced he’s guilty?”

He was silent.

“You don’t like him and you want him to be the one? You were sure it was Eric and you were wrong. Now you’re sure it was Ryan and you can be just as wrong about him.”

“Who else could it be? Tell me that.”

“I can think of somebody right off the top of my head. You won’t like it, but he’s got just as much motive as Ryan.”

“Who?”

“Gabe Mannix.”

“Gabe?” he said incredulously. “That’s ridiculous.”

“He’s in love with Angela, you know that.”

“So he’s in love with her. From a distance. My God, we’ve known the man more than twenty years. He’s my best friend. You can’t honestly believe he’s capable of all this lunacy?”

“Of course not. Any more than I believe it’s Ryan. That’s my point.”

“I still think Pierce is the one.”

A little silence. Then Cassie said, “You’re forgetting something. Angela had a date with him the Saturday Rakubian was murdered. She left the house the same time Eric did, remember?”

“She wasn’t with him all afternoon, was she? He could’ve driven to the city after he left her.”

“There wasn’t time.”

“There was time. It was two-thirty or so when you called me, and after four by the time I got to St. Francis Wood. If Pierce left town right after he left her, he had nearly two hours to get down there, kill Rakubian, and disappear before I showed up.”

“I suppose so,” she admitted. “But that’s cutting it pretty close.”

“Not if he went there planning to kill him.”

“So what do you want to do? Confront him, accuse him?”

He hesitated. “It seemed like the best way to handle it.”

“But now you’re not so sure.”

“No.” Because she had put doubts in him, not only about Pierce’s guilt but about himself, his judgment. “What do you suggest I... we do?”

“Talk to Angela before making any decisions,” Cassie said. “Right now that’s the most important thing.”

The aura of violation was strong in the house. They took plastic trash containers, brooms, dustpans, a mop, spray cleaner, and a handful of rags into the living room, and made an attempt to clean up the wreckage. It gave Hollis a sick feeling of déjà vu; he kept having memory blips of Rakubian’s library, the blood and gore he’d swabbed off the floor. Futile, wasted effort here. The living room would have to be gutted completely, repainted and recarpeted and refurnished, and even then, as Cassie had said, it would never be or feel the same — the house itself might never be the same comfort zone as before. They managed to wipe most of SUFFER! off the one wall, righted some of the chairs and tables, swept up the worst of the breakage. As they worked they talked in fits and starts, the strain still there between them. That, too, was wasted effort.

When they gave it up, finally, Cassie insisted he go upstairs and lie down. He didn’t argue; he needed to be alone as well as to rest. He lay in the semidark of their bedroom, his eyes shut, his thoughts jumping here and there until they settled on Cassie’s accusations. No, not accusations, not indictments — facts, insights. What he’d been slammed in the face with were harsh truths, and he’d never been one to run from the truth.

Anger and. fear at the betrayal of his body. Yes, he had both those feelings. The need to lash out at something or somebody. Oh yes, he had that, too — it had fueled his plot to kill Rakubian. Might be fueling his dislike of Pierce, his desire for Pierce to be guilty. Rage was a powerful motivating force. And a notorious clouder of reason, just as Cassie had said.

And then there was Pop. Tough-as-nails Bud Hollis, the last man he’d ever wanted to be, the man he’d fought so hard not to be... the man he’d turned into in spite of himself. It explained a lot of things. Why he and Eric had never been as close as they should have been, Eric’s teenage rebellion. At crucial moments he’d treated his son the way Pop had treated him, with an iron fist instead of a gentle hand, blunt censure instead of sensitivity and love, a closed mind instead of an open one; and Eric had gradually drawn away from him, as he’d drawn away from the old man. Angela’s dependence... his fault, too. Daddy’s little girl, run to Daddy every time there was a problem and he’d make it all right. Same thing with the other men in her life, weak men like the younger Pierce, dominant men like Rakubian. One or the other, the weak or the controlling, or both together like her father. And Cassie... shutting her out, pushing her away, when he should have utilized her strength and trusted her intelligence and her wisdom. I’m just as angry as you are, just as tough and capable, and more clearheaded in a crisis. If he’d confided in her from the beginning, some or all of this crisis could have been avoided.

His fault, his weakness, his mistakes. His failures. Admit it, Hollis. You’re not much better than Bud Hollis, as a father, a spouse, or a human being.

The thoughts had become too painful; he made an effort to shut them off, succeeded, and then slept fitfully. When he awoke Cassie was in the room, standing near the bed. She saw that his eyes were open, came over to sit beside him.

“I just spoke to Angela,” she said. “We’re seeing her at five. Ryan won’t be there — he’s taking Kenny to a movie.”

“Okay.

“I called Eric, too. I thought it was a good idea.”

“What’d he say?”

“He’s worried, of course. Mostly about you.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That we’re dealing with the situation. Both of us. He wants us to call him if there’s anything he can do.”

“He’s a good kid. No, hell, a good man. Better man than I am, as young as he is.”

“That’s not true and you know it.” She stroked his forehead, pushing damp strands of hair out of his eyes. “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “I’m sorry I said all those ugly things to you. It wasn’t fair — it was cruel and selfish.”

“You were right,” he said.

“Yes, but it was the wrong time, the wrong words. I was too upset. I should’ve waited.”

“Better it’s out in the open.” His mouth quirked. The whole truth and nothing but the truth, he thought.

“Still,” she said. Then, “I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like for you, finding Rakubian, all the rest of that day.”

“I don’t remember most of it,” he lied.

“It took more courage than I’ll ever have.”

He didn’t answer. What was there to say? She was only trying to make him feel better, make amends where none were needed.

She kissed him. “I don’t want you to think I’ve stopped loving you.”

“I don’t. Not for a minute.”

And he hadn’t, even when she was berating him in the kitchen. It was the one thing he’d never doubted, the one constant he had to cling to.

Sunday Evening

Telling Angela was not quite the ordeal he’d feared. She took it well enough, crying a little with relief and a measure of sorrow. She was nothing if not compassionate, his daughter; she’d cried once as a child, he remembered, over a dead mouse she’d found partially mummified in the garage. Even after all that Rakubian had done to her, there was a small part of her that was able to grieve for the man she’d once loved or tried to love.

If she blamed Hollis for covering up or withholding the truth, she didn’t express it. She seemed to understand why he’d done it, to sympathize with what he’d been through. Would she have felt the same if he’d followed through with his original plan, if it were his hands stained with Rakubian’s blood? Probably not. It would’ve been a betrayal of her trust, and what he’d be facing now was disillusionment, censure, even horror. All death diminished her; she’d told him that once. Anyone who committed murder, no matter what the motivation, was automatically diminished in her eyes.

They told her about the vandalism, too, minimizing the extent of the damage, but he said nothing of his suspicions of Pierce. They let her believe, for now, that they had no inkling of who the new stalker was, what his motives might be, or even if he was the same person who had killed Rakubian. If Pierce was responsible, they’d know it soon enough — and with any luck they’d be able to spare her the truth of that until after he was long gone.

Sunday Night

Cold and wide awake, he moved restlessly to fit his body against the curve of Cassie’s back. When her warmth seeped into him he thought he’d be able to sleep. But the gentle pressure of her buttocks, the pliant mound of her hip beneath his hand, had a different effect. To his surprise he felt a stirring in his loins, then a gradual hardening and lengthening. For the first time since that Saturday in May, and after another darkly eventful day — as if through some weird physiological reaction, his body was now able to respond sexually only in a time of great stress.

Cassie was awake; she reached a hand around between them. “Well,” she said, “what have we here.”

“I may not be able to sustain it.”

“Let’s find out.”

He managed. Better than he could have anticipated. Their coupling was a little too fast, but because it had been so long for both of them, he didn’t disappoint Cassie. After twenty-six years he knew well enough when her orgasms were genuine.

Afterward, resting with their bodies still joined, he heard himself say, “I am still a man,” without any conscious thought or intent.

“Of course you are,” she said drowsily. “Mm, yes.”

But sexual potency was only part of what the words meant. A small part, and not the most important at all.

19

Monday Morning

The weather changed overnight. Instead of blue sky and sunlight, he woke to low-hanging gray clouds and a raw wind. Gloomy Monday.

Cassie left early to take Kenny to day care; Pierce had to be at work at eight and Angela had a nine o’clock meeting. Hollis toasted two pieces of bread, soft-boiled two eggs, then found he had little appetite and left most of the food untouched. He’d planned to go to the office this morning, but he didn’t feel up to it. Things to do here today, anyhow. Call a couple of small contractors he knew, get estimates on gutting and remodeling the living room. Whatever the cost, it would have to come out of their savings: useless to file an insurance claim because the company would refuse to honor it without a police report. Contact one of the home security outfits, too. He had always resisted an alarm system, giving in to homeowners’ fear and paranoia, but now he wished he hadn’t been so stubborn on that point (and so many others). If they’d had a security alarm and it had been switched on yesterday, the vandalism would not have happened. Putting one in now would at least ensure that there would never be another break-in.

His first call was to Gloria, to tell her he wouldn’t he in but that he’d be available at home if needed. She said, “How’d the submission package look?”

“What submission package?”

“Dry Creek Valley. We worked all day Saturday to get it ready, Gabe and me. Didn’t he tell you?”

“I haven’t heard from him.”

“Ah, todo esta jodido. He said he’d give you a call. That’s why I just dropped the envelope off yesterday. I thought you’d be expecting it.”

“Where’d you put it?”

“In your mailbox. Yesterday morning, on my way home from church. I rang the bell but nobody answered. I wonder why Gabe didn’t call you?”

“He’ll have some excuse. He always does.”

“Envelope must still be in the box...”

“I’ll go over the package right away.”

“You’re gonna be pleased,” she said. “If we don’t get this job, I’ll swim naked all the way down to Black Point.”

“That I’d like to see. Tell Gabe to call me when he gets in.”

He fetched the envelope, took it into his study, and spread the contents out on his desk. Mannix and Gloria had done a fine job. The fee schedule had been pared to the bone, the schematic site plan and conceptual designs — as much Gabe’s in their final form as his — were clean and environmentally sound.

Gabe, he thought, you’re a hell of an architect when you set your mind to it. If you’d just stay focused, put a curb on the booze and the woman-chasing. Just had a little more ambition. I wish I could figure out exactly what makes you tick...

I can think of somebody right off the top of my head. You won’t like it, but he’s got just as much motive as Ryan.

For Christ’s sake, he thought. Don’t start suspecting Mannix now. Cassie wasn’t serious. Gabe, of all people.

Gabe?

The phone rang at a quarter of ten, just after he finished making an appointment with the Santa Rosa rep for Camden Home Security Systems. Mannix. Sounding lugubrious and hungover.

“I screwed up,” he said. “Other things on my mind yesterday... I just plain forgot to call.”

“A woman, I suppose.”

“Cute little piece from Paloma Valley. Her only fault is she drinks too damn much.”

“And you don’t?”

“Weak and easily led, that’s me.”

“That where you were yesterday, Paloma Valley?”

“Nope. My place.”

“All day?”

“We didn’t get out of the sack until dinnertime. Why?”

“No reason. Listen, the proposal looks fine. You nailed everything down just right.”

“We nailed it down, all three of us. So we go with it as is? Or do you want to make any changes?”

“As is. I’ll bring it down this afternoon.”

“I don’t mind swinging by to pick it up.”

“I’m not an invalid, Gabe.”

“Did I say you were? You sound the way I feel.”

“I’m a little pressured right now.”

“Reason?”

“Some work that needs to be done on the house.”

“What kind of work?”

“Repairs. Living room remodel.”

“Kind of a sudden decision, isn’t it?”

“Very sudden,” he said. “We don’t have much choice.”

“Meaning?”

“Never mind. Tell you about it later.”

He hung up feeling ashamed of himself. There’d been nothing in Mannix’s voice except polite interest — of course there hadn’t. Why couldn’t he get rid of that nagging little worm of suspicion? It was ludicrous to think of Gabe sneaking into the house, slashing the furniture with a knife, wielding a can of spray paint like some drugged-up teenage tagger. It was an act of betrayal to give the notion even a second’s serious consideration.

Buy a gun and use it. That’s what I’d do in your place.

Oh, hell. Talk, false bravado.

Suppose I do it for you.

No way.

I wouldn’t have any qualms about it, moral or otherwise. Same as shooting a rabid dog.

Rakubian wasn’t shot, was he? Bludgeoned to death.

I’d do it. No lie and no bull.

Yes, bull. Mannix crushing a man’s skull with a statuette? Another ludicrous image.

People like Rakubian don’t deserve to live. Do the world a favor, take him right out of the gene pool.

Cut it out, Hollis!

But now he was remembering last week, their lunch at the Thai restaurant. He’d taken Mannix’s comment about doing the right thing to mean that Gabe thought he’d killed Rakubian, but it could have meant something else. Could’ve been an allusion to the cleanup, the body being taken away and disposed of. Guessed he was responsible for that and was thanking him in an oblique way

No, that didn’t make any sense. Why thank him on the one hand, devil him on the other? Those notes, the vandalism... what possible reason could Mannix have for turning on Angela, Cassie, himself after committing murder to protect them?

Crazy thoughts, crazy suspicions. It’s not Gabe, it couldn’t possibly be Gabe, it’s Pierce.

Pierce, Pierce, Pierce!

Monday Afternoon

It wasn’t Pierce.

By five o’clock Hollis had that proven to him beyond any reasonable doubt.

The day had been busy, and a good thing, because the activity kept him from thinking too much. He dropped off the proposal at the office, met with the Camden Home Security rep, met with the two contractors (explaining briefly to each of them that the damage was a case of vandalism, but offering no details). He was finishing up with Tom Finchley, the contractor he was probably going to use, when Cassie called at 4:10.

“Jack,” she said, “I need you to come pick me up.”

An edge in her voice put him on alert. “Why? What’s the matter with the van?”

“We’ll talk when you get here. I’m at the clinic.”

“On my way.”

Animal Care Clinic was in the narrow part of Los Alegres east of the river that longtime residents called “the DMZ” — a section of older, lower-middle-class homes, small businesses, and light industry that lay between the long-established west side and the newer east-side tracts and malls. It was an old wood-and-brick building, once an irrigation supply company’s office and warehouse, with a customer parking lot on the near side and a tiny lot for employees tucked away behind the kennels at the rear.

When Hollis arrived he found Cassie in the employee lot, in conversation with the bearded driver of a tow truck that was drawn up behind her van. All four of the van’s tires were flat, so that it seemed to be resting on the ground itself; he couldn’t tell from a distance if anything else was wrong with it. There was no room in the lot for the Lexus; he left it outside and walked in with his body bent against the cold wind.

The tow-truck driver was saying, “It’s sugar, all right, Mrs. Hollis. No point in trying to fix the flats here, either. All I can do is tow it in.”

“Yes, thanks. Go ahead.”

She came over to where Hollis waited. He said thinly, “More vandalism.”

“Sugar in the gas tank — the empty sack was lying right there in plain sight. One tire punctured with a sharp object, the other three with the air let out and the valve caps taken away.”

“What about the interior?”

“I always lock the doors, fortunately.” She had one hand in her jacket pocket; she took it out with a sheet of paper in it. “This was under the windshield wiper.”

He did not have to look at it to know what it said. He looked anyway. SUFFER! Printed in capital letters with a black marking pen this time. Sloppy, back-slanted printing, possibly in an attempt to disguise the person’s hand. Nothing about it struck him as familiar.

“Twice in two days,” Cassie said. “It’s so damn childish, as if...”

“As if what?”

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “All I know right now is that I’m scared. Where does it go from here? And how soon?”

Hollis made no reply. He watched the bearded driver begin to work the winch on his truck.

“Nobody saw anything. I asked in the neighboring places after I phoned you. Whoever it is is careful, sly. And lucky.”

“Yeah. Whoever it is.”

“Not Ryan, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Just what I’m thinking.”

“No,” she said. “When I took Kenny to day care this morning I asked him about that Saturday in May, his lunch with Mommy and Daddy. We thought it was just the three of them, but it wasn’t. Rhona was there, too.”

“So what?”

“Ryan went home with her afterward.”

“Kenny told you that? He’s six years old, Cass. You can’t trust a six-year-old’s memory.”

“Let me finish. I called Rhona after I dropped Kenny off. She confirmed it. Ryan spent the rest of that day with her and her family. Had dinner with them, didn’t leave their house until after eight o’clock.”

“And you believed her. How do you know she wasn’t lying?”

“Would her husband lie, her kids? They were there, too. Why would Ryan ask them to lie for him? There isn’t anything to connect him to Rakubian’s death, no reason for him to prepare an alibi for himself.”

He couldn’t argue with the logic of that, and he didn’t try. But he remained unconvinced until after they got home and he talked to Fred Gugliotta on the phone. Pierce had spent the entire day on the ranch, working with Fred and two others baling hay. From 8 A.M. until 4:30 he hadn’t been out of Fred’s sight for more than a few minutes.

20

Tuesday Morning

Even with the living room closed off, the house had an oppressive feel after Cassie left with one of her co-workers for Animal Care. Yesterday, home alone, he hadn’t been so aware of the aura of violation because he’d had ways to keep his mind occupied; there weren’t enough distractions today to fill the time until his one o’clock appointment with Stan Otaki. Neither Camden Home Security nor Tom Finchley could get started until later in the week, and sitting around doing nothing, waiting for the mail, waiting for something else to happen, would have him climbing the walls. Work was what he needed. Human contact and the illusion of normalcy.

He let Fritz in from the back porch, giving the Doberman free run of the house. The dog was housebroken and well trained; there wouldn’t be any problem unless somebody tried to break in again. Hollis found himself wishing that would happen. That he’d come home later, find Fritz growling over a bloody, chewed-up, half-dead intruder in the front hallway. The image made him smile with his lips flat against his teeth. He’d buy the Doberman a steak a day for the rest of his life if that happened.

He drove to the office at nine-thirty. The morning went well enough except for a call from Pete Dulac about a minor problem with the Chestertons’ master bedroom. Every time he had contact with Dulac or Shelby Chesterton these days, he felt twinges of guilt and shame, and it was worse now that he knew how wrong he’d been about Eric; he stayed on the phone just long enough to provide a solution to the problem and to find out that PAD Construction was still on schedule for completion at the end of September.

Mannix arrived shortly after eleven. Late as usual and in one of his uncommunicative moods. With Gabe there, the illusion of normalcy faded and left Hollis tense, unable to concentrate.

Gabe wore a black sweater and black slacks; hunched over his board he seemed almost predatory, like a giant bird of prey. Ridiculous image, but once lodged in Hollis’s mind it would not go away. He kept glancing over there, watching Mannix consult spec sheets and code books, the quick jerky movements of his hands as he manipulated T-square and pencil. Big hands, strong hands. It’s not Gabe, it’s not Gabe... like song lyrics beating percussively until they lost all sense or meaning. And still, in spite of himself, his eyes kept shifting, watching, as though they were independent organisms no longer under his control.

After a while Mannix sensed it and swiveled his head, scowling. “What?” he said.

“Nothing. Sorry.”

“My fly open, piece of snot hanging out of my nose?”

Gloria was listening. She said, “Now, that’s disgusting,” and laughed appreciatively.

Hollis said, “I’m twitchy today, that’s all.”

“So am I. You’re not making it any better.”

“Another hangover?”

“King-size. I collect ’em like bottle caps, didn’t you know?”

“Sorry,” he said again.

“Don’t apologize. Just let me suffer in peace.”

Suffer. SUFFER!

Hollis stood and went into his cubicle. Developing a headache now. He opened the blinds, stared out. Downriver, the drawbridge was parted into two upslanted halves; a tall-masted sailboat with its sails furled was gliding in toward the turning basin, its hull and superstructure cream-colored against another overcast sky. Restless, that sky, the clouds being driven inland by high winds. The colors up there were varying shades of gray, with traceries of black like poisonous veins.

Poison, he thought.

An evil time bred that, too, a slow, insidious psychological contamination that changed your outlook, ate away perspective, turned you sick and withered inside. You saw people differently, as if through a dark filter. Everyone seemed to be a potential enemy, or at best a hindrance or an irritant — close friends, even members of your own family. It was happening to him, here and now. He couldn’t be in the same room with his partner and best friend without wondering if maybe, just possibly, despite all the arguments against it, the stalker was Gabe. The same thing had happened with Ryan Pierce. Hating him, condemning him without any real justification. Who would he start suspecting next? Gloria, who didn’t have a mean bone in her body? Pete Dulac? Shelby Chesterton? Eric again? Cassie, for God’s sake?

Poison, as virulent as any of the chemical variety. And only one sure antidote: the identity of Rakubian’s murderer.

Cassie, last night: “I wish we still had the dossier on Rakubian. There might have been something in it, a name from his past, some clue. The person doesn’t have to be anyone we know, does he?” But Hollis didn’t need the actual dossier; he knew it by heart, and it had contained nothing to point to anyone past or present. Besides, what possible motive could a stranger, one of Rakubian’s long list of enemies, have for stalking them?

“What if it’s two people?” she’d said. “The one who killed him a stranger, the one tormenting us someone we know.”

He couldn’t credit that at all. Too much coincidence, too little motivation. Cassie didn’t really believe it any more than he did. The same person was responsible, for whatever reason; and it had to be someone known to them, perhaps not intimately as he’d first believed, but well enough to have formed and nurtured an irrational hatred.

Not Gabe. Definitely not Gabe.

But the poisonous seed of doubt was still there.

Goddamn it, he thought, I can get rid of it. I don’t need the antidote for that. Just suck it up and spit it out.

He went back out front. Mannix was on the phone; he waited until the conversation ended and then said, “Let’s take a walk.”

“Walk? What for?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“So talk. It’s cold outside and I’ve got a lunch in fifteen minutes—”

“This won’t take long. And it’s important.”

He pulled his overcoat off the rack, slipped it on as he pushed through the door. Mannix followed him, scowling, a few seconds later. They walked across the grass strip that separated their building from the River House, down past the restaurant’s outdoor patio and along the seawall toward the turning basin. The wind was sharp enough so that they had to hunch their bodies against it.

“Freeze our asses off out here,” Mannix grumbled. “What’s so important?”

“David Rakubian.

“What about him?”

“What do you think happened to him?”

“We know what happened. He disappeared.”

“How? Why?”

“What the hell is this, Bernard?”

“Is he dead? What’s your take on that?”

“Sure he’s dead. If he wasn’t, he’d’ve shown up by now and started making everybody’s life miserable again.”

“How do you suppose he died?”

“Somebody killed him. A hero, in my book.”

“Who?”

“Listen,” Gabe began, and stopped, and then said, “Oh, for Christ’s sake, let’s quit all this pussyfooting around. What’re you trying to get me to say, that I think you bumped the son of a bitch off?”

“Is that what you think?”

“Come on, man. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference who killed him, just so long as he’s dead.”

“It makes a difference to me.”

“All right, then. Yes, I think you did the deed. I also think you deserve a medal for it. Satisfied?”

“I didn’t kill him,” Hollis said. “I planned to, I even convinced myself I had the guts to go through with it — not once but twice. Somebody beat me to it.”

“No shit?”

“You, Gabe?”

“... What?”

“Was it you?”

Mannix stopped walking, turned to gape at him. Then he threw his head back, let loose a bray of laughter that swiveled heads on the sailboat that had just tied up at one of the floats. He kept right on chuckling, his eyes wind-reddened slits in the rough plane of his face.

“What’s so funny?”

“You. Me. A couple of big clowns.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Sure I did — you weren’t listening. That’s what’s so funny, Bernard. I thought you offed Rakubian, you’ve been thinking I did it, and we both kept our suspicions to ourselves and we’re both dead wrong.”

“Are we?”

“Dead wrong.” Mannix laughed again. “You want me to swear my innocence on a Bible?”

Hollis blew out his breath; it made a gusty sound, like the wind. He didn’t say anything.

“There was a time,” Gabe said, “a week or so before he disappeared, that I considered it. I mean really considered it. I didn’t think you were capable of it, not then, and I couldn’t stand the thought of that bastard hurting Angela. I guess you know how I feel about her.”

“Well enough.”

“Pathetically obvious, right? My best friend’s daughter, and half my age to boot. But I’ve never done anything about it and I never will. You believe that?”

“I believe it.”

“Good. It’s the truth. Okay, so I had a little scenario all worked out. But when push came to shove I couldn’t go through with it. Bullshitted you that I could, bullshitted myself, but I don’t have the balls for a thing like that. I could probably blow somebody like Rakubian away in self-defense, if I had enough Dutch courage in me, but in cold blood, eye-to-eye? No way.”

“No way,” Hollis echoed.

“Like that for you, too?”

“Pretty much. I got closer than you, right up to a time and place, waiting for him with a loaded gun, but even if he’d shown up I doubt now that I’d’ve been able to go through with it. Enough nerve to reach that point but no more. Not even to save my daughter’s life.”

“Clowns and gutless wonders, a pair.”

“No. A couple of average guys incapable of crossing the line.”

“Maybe so,” Mannix admitted. “So who did have the guts to cross it? Any idea?”

“Not anymore.”

“Well, we were wrong about each other. Could be we’re wrong about him being dead.”

“He’s dead, all right.”

“That sounds definite.”

“It is. I found his body, at his house two days before Angela went away. Head smashed in. At the time I believed Eric did it, so I erased the evidence and took the body away and buried it.”

“Jesus,” Gabe said softly.

“I won’t tell you where. That’s between me and my conscience.”

“I don’t want to know. It wasn’t Eric? You’re sure of that now?”

“Positive. But that’s not all. It isn’t over yet — I didn’t get away with what I did. Things are almost as bad as they were when Rakubian was alive.”

And he told his partner, his friend the rest of it. Sucking up and spitting out the last of the poisonous seed. One long look into Mannix’s eyes when he was done, and even the bitter aftertaste disappeared.

Tuesday Afternoon

Stan Otaki said, “It’s too early to tell yet if the antiandrogens are shrinking the tumor. There’s still plenty of room for optimism.”

“But,” Hollis said.

“There’s always a ‘but’ in prostate cases. As we’ve discussed before, no two are exactly alike — it’s a predictable disease in some respects, unpredictable in others. In case the hormone treatments don’t do the job, I think you need to start considering the remaining options.”

“Surgery and what else? Or is there anything else?”

“A clinical trial of new techniques in radiation therapy. Other clinical trials.”

“Such as?”

“Hormonal ablation, for one. Chemical castration.”

Terrific. Chemical castration translated to mean radical hormone-block treatments that deprive the tumor of the testosterone it needed to grow. Reversible if the patient stops the treatment, but stopping it meant that the cancer was likely to recur... if the growth process were arrested in the first place. Catch-22. The best-case scenario was a permanently limp dick. Along with the usual splendid array of potential side effects, such as weakened bones, loss of muscle, and personality changes.

“Normally,” Otaki was saying, “that’s a radical procedure implemented after the prostate has been surgically removed and there are indications that the cancer is still metastasizing. In such cases the patient is five times more likely to survive.”

“And without surgery?”

“The jury’s still out.”

“Uh-huh. Would you recommend that option?”

“Not before a prostatectomy, no.”

“What are my chances with surgery? Survival, and the ability to function sexually?”

“At this stage, assuming the absence of complications, the survival rate is very good. The impotence factor is problematical no matter what we do.”

“How soon before we know about the hormone treatments?”

“A few weeks at the outside.”

“And if they’re not working, I’d need to go under the knife right away?”

Otaki raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean you may be changing your mind?.”

Did it? Maybe so. Funny, but the prospect of submitting his body to a surgeon’s scalpel did not seem quite so terrifying now as it had for so long. If there was a chance, even a small one, that surgery would keep him alive, make him whole again, didn’t he owe it to Cassie as well as to himself? Pigheaded, selfish, angry, closed off... he’d been all of that and more. Chained to Pop all these years. And chained to Mom, too, by the way she’d died. It didn’t have to be that way. Cassie had opened up his mind for the better. Why not let a frigging scalpel open up his body toward the same result?

“Let’s say I’ll be in a more receptive frame of mind,” he said, “if and when the time comes.”

Tuesday Evening

Cassie said, “I think we may have been looking at the stalker from the wrong perspective.”

“I don’t follow.”

“It’s been nagging at me all day. We keep assuming it must be a man. Eric, Ryan, Gabe... all men. But the more I think about it, the more it feels to me like a woman.”

“A woman smashed in Rakubian’s skull?”

“Why not? Women can be just as violent in the right, or wrong, circumstances. You know that. And the weapon... a statuette, heavy but not too heavy... it’s the sort of object a woman would grab in self-defense or the heat of anger.”

He was silent, weighing the possibility.

“Then there’s what’s been done to us so far,” Cassie said. “Written threats, poison pen notes... woman’s methods more than a man’s. The phrasing in the notes, too. ‘What did you do with his body?’ ‘You’ll suffer for what you did.’ Wouldn’t a man be more likely to say, ‘Where’d you hide the body?’ ‘You’ll pay for what you did’ or ‘I’ll fix you for what you did’?”

“Maybe,” he said slowly. “Maybe.”

“And the vandalism. Everything breakable in the living room smashed, couches and chairs slashed to ribbons, all that spray paint... it had a tantrumy look, didn’t it? Not that a man is above throwing a tantrum, God knows, but the way the room looked... it just didn’t feel like a man’s work. Neither does sugar in the van’s gas tank. It’s the first trick I’d think of if I wanted to sabotage someone’s car. One tire punctured, three tires flat — that’s another thing.”

He knew what she meant by that. “Takes strength to jab a sharp object deep enough into hard rubber to bleed the air out. Try it once, find that out, and then you start unscrewing the valve caps.”

“Exactly. None of this is conclusive, but when you take it all together... I think I’m right, Jack.”

“Who, then? I can’t think of any woman we know who’d have it in for us.”

“Someone Rakubian was seeing after Angela left him, or even before she left him.”

He shook his head. “Not as obsessed with her as he was.”

“A woman from his past, then. Didn’t he tell Angela he had one serious relationship before he met her?”

“That’s right, he did. He wouldn’t say when, or who the woman was. He kept his private life too damn private.”

“The police might’ve found out.”

“I can check with Macatee. But it still doesn’t add up, Cass. Why would a woman, anybody from Rakubian’s past, be stalking us? Angela, yes, that’s conceivable — some sort of crazy jealousy thing — but why would you and I be targets?”

“I can’t imagine. If we just knew who she is...”

“I’ll call Macatee first thing in the morning. But if he can’t point us in the right direction—”

“Then we’ll think of something else.”

21

Wednesday Morning

Macatee couldn’t help them.

“I talked to at least two dozen people acquainted with David Rakubian,” he said. “They told me pretty much anything I wanted to know about his professional practice, background, ethics or lack of ’em. But none of those people, his office staff included, had anything but a superficial knowledge of his private life. He guarded that like a miser. All we really know about it came from your daughter, Mr. Hollis, and she couldn’t give me any idea who he was involved with before he met her.”

“Wasn’t there anything in his house — old letters, photographs...”

“Not a thing,” Macatee said with weary patience. “My advice is the same as the last time we talked — quit worrying about David Rakubian. Quit wondering what happened to him or who might’ve had something to do with the disappearance. Count your blessings and let it be.”

After he put the phone down, Hollis rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Tired, logy today. Stress, not enough sleep... oh, he was in fine shape. He stood and slogged out of the study, into the kitchen to talk to Cassie. She had gone there to listen to the conversation with Macatee on the extension.

Now she was at the catchall desk in one corner, rummaging intently through the drawers. “I know I put them in here somewhere,” she said when she heard him come in.

“What’re you looking for?”

No response. Then, “There they are!” She straightened and turned, holding up what she’d found.

“Keys?”

“Angela’s. To Rakubian’s house and alarm system. The night she left him and came home, she swore she’d never go back and threw them on the floor. Remember? I put them in the desk and forgot all about them until just now.”

“What’re you thinking?”

“Well, even though she waived community property she’s still entitled to claim her personal possessions. Technically, anyway. And we’re her parents, we have a right to go there on her behalf.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious.”

“You heard what Macatee said. He searched the house, probably more than once, and didn’t find a thing.”

“It’s possible he overlooked something. Why not go down there and see?”

She had a point. He didn’t much care for the idea of prowling again through those dark, oppressive rooms, but the prospect of more passive waiting had no appeal at all. “It’s worth a try,” he said.

“We can leave right away. I’ll call the clinic, tell them I won’t be in today.”

“If that’s going to leave them shorthanded, I don’t mind going by myself.”

“Uh-uh. It’s a long drive to the city and back.”

“I feel strong enough today.”

“Don’t try to be Superman again, okay? It’s all right to lean on me a little sometimes, you know.”

“I know.”

“Besides, I want to go. And two can search more thoroughly than one.”

“Call the clinic,” he said. “I’ll get our jackets.”

It was one of those inverse-weather-pattern days, overcast in the North Bay but mostly clear in San Francisco. The sunlight hurt his eyes as they started through the park to Nineteenth Avenue; he put on dark glasses to shield them. When Cassie turned her van — she’d picked it up at the repair shop the night before — onto Sloat Boulevard and they entered St. Francis Wood, he felt a curl of tension forming. Criminal returns to scene of his crime, he thought, and then realized he’d spoken the phrase aloud.

“Don’t, Jack.”

“I’m not looking forward to this.”

“You think I am?”

Quiet summer morning in the Wood: dog walkers in the park, mailman making his deliveries, sun-hatted woman working in her garden in the block below Rakubian’s. Cassie parked directly in front of the Spanish stucco, no reason not to. The property seemed subtly different to him dappled in sunlight and shadow, less imposing, less bleak. Just another expensive home in one of the city’s best neighborhoods. Yet the tension remained as they got out, walked up onto the porch.

The alarm system was on; he shut it off with Angela’s key. Cassie was looking in the mailbox. “Empty,” she said, “but he must still be getting mail. I wonder what’s happened to it.”

“Police made arrangements for a temporary hold, probably.”

“I don’t suppose there’d be anything in it anyway.”

“Doubtful.”

When he opened the door he expected a heavy, closed-up feel and smell, but that wasn’t the case. Cold air, faintly damp, faintly musty. Cassie noticed it as well. “Feels as though the place was aired out not long ago,” she said.

He didn’t answer. His memory had begun to flare open, to disgorge images from that nightmare Saturday. Ghosts, baby phantoms. In his mind, and in the cold stillness and shadowy corners in here. But they couldn’t hurt him unless he permitted it to happen, and he would not.

He located the light switch, flicked it. The electricity was still on; a pale amber glow chased away some of the gloom in the foyer and hallway.

“That’s a relief,” Cassie said. “I thought we might have to do this by flashlight. Who do you suppose is paying the bill?”

“May have paid it himself a month or two in advance. Even if he didn’t, it hasn’t been long enough for PG&E to shut the power off.”

“Where should we start?”

“Library, I guess.”

“Is that where—?”

“Where I found him. It’s also where he kept most of his papers.”

They moved ahead, their shoes clicking on the terracotta tiles. At the library arch he hesitated, but only for an instant before he stepped through. Cassie was a pace behind him, so that when he stopped abruptly, staring at the floor in front of Rakubian’s desk, she bumped into him.

“What’s the matter?”

“The carpet,” he said. “It’s gone.”

“What carpet?”

Memory flash: The tiles so bare after he dragged the body out and wiped up the blood; didn’t look right, so he’d rolled up the smaller but similar Sarouk in the formal living room and spread it out in here. Now the tiles were bare again. He pivoted around past Cassie, hurried up the hall.

The three-by-five Sarouk had been put back in its original spot in front of the fireplace. And the furniture... all of it was placed as it had been before he’d shifted it around, back to Rakubian’s original arrangement.

“My God,” he said.

“Jack?”

He explained as they returned to the library. She said, “The police wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

“No. They’d have no way of knowing the original placement anyhow.”

“Why would somebody else...?”

His gaze roved the dark room. The wall hangings, the screaming souls in the Goya “black” seemed to stare back at him. And on the fireplace mantel—

Black statuette.

A bird, a raven — Poe’s Raven.

Dry-mouthed, he stepped over for a closer look. Replica of the murder weapon and the statuette in Rakubian’s office, except that this one was slightly larger and more ornate. It even had a Nevermore! plaque.

“It’s as if somebody is trying to erase what happened,” he told Cassie. “Not for the reason I did, to cover up... By putting everything back as it was, as though the murder never happened at all.”

“His killer?”

“Nobody else would have a reason.”

“Then it has to be a woman,” she said. “Somebody full of guilt and remorse... somebody who loved and hated him both. The hate killed him, the love drove her back here. To the scene of her crime.”

They hunted through Rakubian’s desk, the rest of the library. Paper files, computer disks — all neatly arranged. The woman again: the police would not have left everything in such pristine order. There were a few obvious gaps, items taken away by Macatee for one reason or another and still in his possession. None of the paper files revealed anything. The disks were all labeled with year and month and content — bills, business expenses, charitable donations. Any that might have contained personal references were missing, appropriated by either Macatee or the woman. There didn’t seem to be much point in going through the remainder, here or later at home.

There was nothing else to find in the living room. The guest bathroom seemed the same as he’d left it two months ago; the spare bedroom and small sitting room next to it were dusty, musty, and empty of anything revealing. They went across the hall to the master bedroom. The door was shut; Cassie pushed it open.

“Oh!” she said.

Incense. That was the first thing that struck him — the faint but still pungent odor of burnt incense. Then his eyes adjusted to the gloom in there, and he saw what Cassie, with better vision, had seen immediately.

Candles.

Dozens of them, fat and thin, tall and short, in a variety of dishes and holders. On the furniture, on the carpet ringing the bed, on every flat surface in the room.

“Lord,” Cassie murmured, “it’s like a shrine.”

He put the ceiling light on. The big double bed was made, but the counterpane lay crooked and a little wrinkled at the bottom. The doors to the walk-in closet and master bath were closed. That was all there was to see except for the candles; they dominated the room, phallic images in red, white, green, and yellow wax. Even the bowl on the dresser where the incense had been burned had a long taper jutting from its center.

“She’s been sleeping in here,” he said.

“In his bed. Yes.”

“How often, that’s the question.”

“It’s hard to tell. Not every night... I don’t think she’s living here, at least not regularly. The incense odor isn’t fresh.”

“Sick. Certifiable.”

“Unstable to begin with,” Cassie said, “and killing him pushed her over the edge. All that love and hate mixed up together.”

He crossed to the closet doors, swung them wide. Suits, shirts, ties, a few items of casual wear — all Rakubian’s, all carefully arranged on hangers and racks and shelves. Untouched since his death, probably. A small section at the rear contained women’s clothes, a rack of women’s shoes. Cassie went in to look through them.

“Angela’s,” she said. “This silk blouse — we gave it to her for Christmas two years ago.”

“All of the clothing hers?”

“I think so. Everything she left behind.”

They searched the bathroom. The shower stall and circular tub were both dry. The only item that seemed to have been used recently was a toothbrush; its bristles were dry, but it lay beside the sink rather than in the chromium holder with two others. The medicine chest held nothing that could not have belonged to Rakubian or to Angela.

In the bedroom again they opened dresser drawers, nightstand drawers. Same thing: all the contents were his, could have been Angela’s.

The incense, a smell he’d never liked, was making his sinuses ache. He left Cassie still poking around the bedroom, went to check the kitchen. The refrigerator was empty; so was the trash container under the sink. The woman was not eating her meals here, or if she was, she brought them in with her and took the remnants away when she left. Cassie joined him and they examined drawers, cupboards, cabinets there and on the rear porch. But they were only going through the motions and they both knew it.

No clue here to the woman’s identity.

At least now they had a way to find out who she was. If she came back to spend another night; if she did it soon. Hire a detective, have the house put under surveillance. It might be expensive and time-consuming, it meant more waiting, but it was all they could do. And it was something.

In the van they discussed doing the hiring immediately, trying to make arrangements in time for someone to be on watch tonight. Not feasible. He was fading, starting to feel tired and a little shaky — that was one reason. The other was that it took time to choose and hire a detective. You didn’t just pick a name out of the phone book and walk into an office unannounced and expect an experienced investigator to be available and willing to drop everything to do a job for you, the way it was done in books and films. You had to select the right person for the job, make an appointment, discuss the matter, settle financial arrangements — the same as with any other professional business dealing.

They drove straight home, to take care of the preliminaries from there.

Wednesday Afternoon

The San Francisco telephone directory contained two full pages of listings for private investigators — large and small agencies, individuals, numerous boxed ads outlining services. The first six they tried, picked at random, were wasted calls. Four said they didn’t do that sort of surveillance work; one told them he could handle it but not until next week, he was booked solid until then; the sixth was an answering service. Then Cassie pointed out that more than a few of the agencies were operated by women and suggested that a woman investigator might be better in their case. Hollis thought so, too.

The seventh call went to McCone Investigations at Pier 24½ on the Embarcadero. They spoke to the owner, Sharon McCone, who seemed both professional and amenable. If she agreed to take their case after meeting them in person and hearing all the particulars, she said, she could have one of her operatives on surveillance by tomorrow night. They set an appointment for one-thirty the next afternoon at her offices.

Wednesday Evening

An early dinner at the Mill with Angela and Kenny and Pierce. Angela’s idea; she seemed to need family closeness now more than ever, and for Cassie and him to accept Pierce as part of the unit again. “Drawing us around her like shields,” Cassie said. Hollis felt better after a nap, so how could they refuse her?

The dinner went all right, better than he’d expected. Pierce was on his best behavior, polite without being deferential; he actually seemed to be enjoying himself. If Angela had told him anything about Rakubian’s death, he didn’t let on. It was obvious that he genuinely cared for her and his son; you could see it in the way he looked at them, interacted with them. You could see, too, if you looked closely enough, the difference he’d made in both their lives already. When he and Angela were first together, and especially after Kenny was born, they hadn’t seemed quite comfortable with each other, with their roles as husband and wife, father and mother. Too young, too immature. The ease was there now, even after such a short time in this new relationship.

It had been there for a while, Hollis realized. He hadn’t seen it before tonight because he hadn’t wanted to see it — one of the many things he hadn’t seen or wanted to see until Cassie opened his eyes for him.

Thursday Morning

Tom Finchley and his helper were due at eight-thirty and arrived, unlike a lot of contractors, on time — one of the reasons he’d chosen Finchley for the renovation work. Neither he nor Cassie cared to be there while the living room was being shoveled out; they drove downtown separately, had coffee and croissants at a café on Main, and parted there afterward. They’d each work half a day, meet again at noon for the drive to the city and the appointment with Sharon McCone.

When he reached Mannix & Hollis, it was just nine-thirty. Surprise waiting: Gabe was there ahead of him. Talking to Gloria, who seemed a little flustered about something.

“What’s this?” he said. “In the office before noon? Don’t tell me you’ve found your work ethic again after all these years?”

Mannix didn’t smile. His mouth, Hollis saw then, was pinched at the corners. “Something like that. I was just about to call you.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Tell him what you just told me, Gloria.”

She said, “I feel kind of bad about this. I mean, I didn’t think you were having any more trouble...”

Hollis glanced at his partner, who shook his head. Mannix’s eyes said: I didn’t break your confidence. That’s not what this is about.

“Go ahead,” he told Gloria.

“Well, I went to the River House for lunch yesterday. You know how cold it was, right? That’s how come I noticed her, this woman. Sitting out on the patio all by herself, bundled up in a parka, drinking coffee and staring over here. Like she was watching this building, our office. There’s nothing else to see in this direction, not from where she was sitting — no other windows.”

Hollis felt himself tightening inside. “You get a good look at her?”

“Good enough to recognize her.”

“Somebody you know?”

“No, but I’ve seen her before. Twice.”

“Where?”

“Once last week, on the River House patio again. Sitting at the same table, looking over this way. I didn’t think anything about it then. Sunny that day, lots of folks having lunch outside.”

“The other time?”

“Sunday morning. At your house.”

“At my—”

“She was coming down the front steps when I drove up,” Gloria said. “About eleven-fifteen, when I dropped off the Dry Creek package. I thought maybe she was a friend of Cassie’s. She wasn’t doing anything, just walking down the steps — going away because nobody was home. That’s why I didn’t mention it before. But then there she was again yesterday, three times in less than a week, and the way she was sitting there in the cold staring... it just seemed funny, the more I thought about it. So I told Gabe when he came in and he said we’d better tell you right away.”

“What did this woman look like? Describe her.”

“Thirty-five or so. Skinny, not much in the titty department. Dark hair like mine, but cut short. Narrow face, big beak nose. Wears glasses with gold rims.”

“Christ!”

Mannix said, “You know her?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I know her.”

Rakubian’s paralegal, Valerie Burke.

22

Just like that.

You stumble around, speculate, make a glut of false assumptions, exist in a constant state of confusion and frustration — and the answer is right there all the time, obvious and yet not obvious at all until it’s dumped in your lap. Valerie Burke. Close to Rakubian, worked with him for five years, but you never considered her because he seemed always to keep his private life separate from his professional one; because she was older than he and unattractive compared to Angela. What you overlooked is that neither youth nor beauty was what attracted a man like Rakubian. It was vulnerability. He wanted a woman he could dominate, mold like warm plastic into his ideal mate. Only Valerie Burke hadn’t quite fit the bill, for whatever reason, and he dropped her in favor of Angela, and she’d never gotten over it...

Mannix was saying something to him. He blinked, focused again. “What’d you say?”

“I asked you who she is.”

“Paralegal who worked in Rakubian’s office. Valerie Burke.”

“So that’s it. The connection to Angela.”

“Yes.”

“But why would she have it in for you and Cassie?”

He thought he knew the answer to that, too, now, but he did not want to talk about it in front of Gloria. Or with Gabe, for that matter.

He wagged his head, turned to ask Gloria, “Where’re the San Francisco phone directories?”

“Same place they’ve always been, on the bottom shelf with the other directories. Jack, what’s this all about?”

“I’ll explain later. Gabe can tell you some of it.”

“But if I see that woman again, what should I do? Call the cops?”

“No. No police. Don’t do anything.” He started across to the row of wall shelves, stopped and swung around again. “You didn’t happen to see what kind of car she’s driving? On Sunday?”

“No, I didn’t pay any attention.”

“Well, if she shows up around here again, try to find out. The license number, too.”

Mannix asked, “What’re you going to do?”

“I’m not sure yet. Something.”

“You want my help?”

“Thanks, but no. We have to handle this ourselves, Cassie and me.”

He shut himself inside his cubicle, opened the San Francisco white pages to the Bs. No residence listing for Valerie Burke, but there was one for a V. Burke: 9871 Parnassus. That had to be her. Make sure, though. Call Macatee, give him an excuse, ask him to check his files.

He put through a call to the Hall of Justice, spoke to a man in Missing Persons whose name didn’t register. Macatee wasn’t in. Wouldn’t be until later in the day. He tried to talk the phone voice into giving him the information about Burke, but all it got him was a refusal and a hang-up.

Hollis put the receiver down, jerked it up again, and rang Animal Care. The first thing Cassie said when he finished relating the news was “We can’t keep this from Angela. Not now.”

“I know it. You’d better be the one to tell her. I’m too wound up. Ask her if she’s had any personal contact, any trouble with Valerie Burke. And what she knows about the woman.”

“Then what do we do?”

“Try to find Burke. There’s one listing in the S.F. phone book that may be her. I tried to get hold of Macatee to confirm, but he’s not on duty.”

“Confront her, try to frighten her off?”

“Yes.”

“If she’s as far gone as we think, it won’t do any good.”

“We have to try. We don’t have any other choice.”

“The police.”

“No, not yet. Not without some kind of proof. The cops are our last resort.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Call Angela,” he said. “I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”

Cassie was pale and tense when she got into the Lexus. He tried to find reassuring words; his mind was blank. At length he said, “Angela?”

“I talked to her. Now all three of us are shook up.”

“What did she say about Burke?”

“Not much. She hardly knows her — saw her a few times at Rakubian’s office, never socially. But she had the feeling the woman didn’t like her, resented her for some reason.”

“They have words or anything like that?”

“No.”

“Does she know anything about Burke’s personal life?”

“Nothing at all, and no idea where she lives.”

Dead air hung thick in the car until they were on 101 headed south. Traffic was moderately heavy; it became a constant struggle not to keep changing lanes, to stay within the speed limit.

When the silence grew oppressive, he broke it by voicing his earlier thoughts — that Valerie Burke was someone Rakubian felt he could dominate. Cassie had been staring straight ahead; she roused herself, shifted position so that she was facing him.

“Vulnerable and unstable,” she said. “Love can turn to hate pretty quickly in that kind of personality.”

“He was so arrogant and self-involved, he probably didn’t even notice.”

“Or care if he did. I wonder what put her over the edge that afternoon at his house. Did she go there to kill him? Plead with him to take her back? Or did it have something to do with Angela?”

Something to do with Angela. Hollis remembered his visit to Rakubian’s law offices the day before, Friday. It was possible Burke had eavesdropped, heard some or all of what was said, the lie that Angela was ready to reconcile with Rakubian. Brooded about it that night, and showed up at his home on Saturday in a desperate attempt to talk him out of keeping the appointment in Tomales Bay. He wouldn’t have liked that; he’d have berated her, scorned her, maybe threatened to force her out of his life entirely by firing her. And when she couldn’t stand any more abuse, up went the statuette and down went Rakubian.

It could have happened that way. If so, would Burke say something about Tomales Bay in front of Cassie? He’d have to lie again then, much as he’d hate doing it — pass it off as the ravings of a deranged mind. Cassie must never know how close he’d come to committing murder.

He changed the subject. “Must’ve been a terrific shock for her when she found out his body was gone.”

“Yes, but how did she guess you were responsible?”

She’d eavesdropped, all right: Knew about the appointment, guessed that Hollis must have gone to the house to find out why Rakubian didn’t keep it, and worked out his motive for the cleanup and removal of the corpse.

“Whatever the explanation,” he said, “she knows it was me and she hates me for it. First Angela took him away from her — her interpretation — and then I took away and hid what was left of him. She couldn’t bury him herself, tell him she was sorry, say good-bye.”

“She might even blame us for his murder. You know, ‘I didn’t want to hurt him, I loved him, they made me do it and it’s all their fault.’ But why did she wait so long? Two months is a long time to be plotting revenge.”

“Has to be another reason, something specific to explain the timing.”

After a pause Cassie said, “Angela.”

“What about Angela?”

“She’s the reason. She took Kenny to Utah two days after the murder. Burke didn’t know where she’d gone, had no way of finding out.”

“That must be it. She was waiting for Angela to resurface, come back home. The first note arrived less than a week after the kids returned. If she’d begun stalking us before then, we might’ve told Angela to stay where she was. Burke wanted us to think we were safe — and for all of us to be together again where she could get at us.”

“It wouldn’t have been hard for her to monitor the situation,” Cassie said. “Drive to Los Alegres once or twice a week, check our house, your workplace and mine, ask discreet questions here and there. She’d’ve known within a few days that they were home.”

She shivered as if with a sudden chill. “It gives me the creeps, thinking of her spying on us, stalking us all that time.”

“She’s gotten bolder, too. As if...”

He let the rest of it slide, but Cassie was thinking along the same lines. She said, “As if she doesn’t care anymore if we know it’s her. That really scares me. That, and what we found at Rakubian’s house yesterday. God only knows what she’ll do next if we don’t find a way to stop her.”

The Parnassus Street address was a four-story brick-and-stone- faced apartment building two blocks from the University of California Medical Center. A bank of mailboxes climbed one wall of the entranceway, each labeled with the tenants’ names. Neither Valerie Burke nor V. Burke was among them.

Hollis rang the bell on the box that bore the words “Bldg Mgr.” A young woman cradling an infant told them that yes, Valerie Burke had been a resident here, but she’d given up her apartment and moved out at the end of June. No, she hadn’t left a forwarding address or said where she was going. No, the woman had no idea where Burke worked or anything else about her; she’d kept to herself and besides, people in this building minded their own business. That last with an edge to it, as if she were making an accusation.

In the car Cassie said, “Now what?”

“I don’t know, let me think... South Beach. The converted warehouse where Rakubian had his offices. Maybe somebody there knows where we can find her.”

Another dead end.

There were half a dozen small law firms in the building on Harrison Street; they asked in all of them, and the answer in each was the same. No one knew what had happened to Valerie Burke — or to the secretary, Janet Yee, after Rakubian’s offices were vacated. The building manager there couldn’t tell them anything, either.

Frustration ate at Hollis like acid. “We could try to find Janet Yee,” he said, “but there’s not much chance she’d know Burke’s current address.”

“Is there a professional organization for paralegals? If there is and she’s a member, they might know.”

“They might, but I doubt it. The state she’s been in the past two months, the trips to Los Alegres... I don’t see her notifying a professional organization of her whereabouts or even holding down another job.”

“Then what has she been living on?”

“I don’t know — savings, a loan from somebody.”

“We’re just running around in circles,” Cassie said, “asking a lot of questions we can’t answer. We can’t do this by ourselves. Like it or not, we need help. Professional help.”

“You think we should keep the appointment at McCone Investigations?”

“It’s less than an hour from now. And we’re practically within walking distance of the pier. A private investigator has the resources to find someone much faster than amateurs like us.”

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll talk to her, see what she has to say.”

Thursday Afternoon

Pier 24½ was next door to the SFFD fireboat station, its cavernous interior renovated into office space for a variety of different businesses. Hollis wasn’t sure what to expect of a detective agency located in such surroundings, though McCone Investigations had to be reasonably successful; a prime waterfront location would not come cheap. Their suite of offices impressed him, and so did Sharon McCone. She kept them waiting less than five minutes, and when she appeared she was as crisply businesslike as she’d been on the phone. She was about forty, dark-haired, attractive in a striking way. More than that, she radiated competence and inspired confidence in return.

The private office she ushered them into had windows that extended to the pier’s sloping roofline, providing a broad view of the bay and the East Bay hills. The only negative thing about it was that it was noisy; the span of the Bay Bridge was directly overhead, the throb and hum of traffic muted but constant. When the fire sirens went off next door, he thought, it would probably make people here jump out of their seats.

They sat in comfortable chairs arranged before a functional desk. McCone asked if they minded having their conversation taped; Hollis gave permission. With a small recorder whirring, she asked a few preliminary questions and then requested that they outline their problem in detail. Hollis told most of it, as much as he felt she needed to know. They had no clear idea, he said, of why Burke was stalking them, unless it was because she blamed them somehow for Rakubian’s disappearance.

McCone didn’t interrupt, also took a few written notes. When he was finished she said, “One stalker in a lifetime is bad enough, but two within a few months is as bad as it gets. I sympathize, believe me. And I understand why you’re reluctant to involve the police. There isn’t much that can be done officially based on what’s happened so far.”

Cassie said, “It sounds as though you’ve had experience with stalking cases.”

“Oh, yes.” At least one unpleasant experience, judging from the faintly rueful quirking of McCone’s mouth. “I won’t pretend they’re not hard to handle for all concerned, because they are. There’re as many different breeds of stalker as there are people, each one predictable in some ways, unpredictable in others. On the surface it seems David Rakubian was the more dangerous of your two. What Valerie Burke has done to you so far — the anonymous notes, the vandalism — are childishly vicious acts. She may intend to continue in that vein, but she may also be planning something more overt. We don’t know enough about her yet to make an accurate assessment.”

“You’re not telling us anything we don’t already know,” Hollis said.

“I realize that, Mr. Hollis. But I believe in maximum communication with my clients, in making sure we understand each other and the situation we’re dealing with. Sometimes that requires stating the obvious, covering familiar ground.”

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’d be pretty distraught myself in your position. Another thing. Most of Valerie Burke’s actions so far have been directed at the two of you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll remain her primary targets. The note to your daughter indicates she could also be in danger.”

He nodded. “What can you do to help us?”

“The most important thing right now,” McCone said, “is to locate Burke. If she has a fixed new residence in or out of the city, we ought to be able to find it pretty quickly. If she’s living with a friend or in a hotel or motel somewhere, that’ll take longer. I’ll put David Rakubian’s home under immediate surveillance; if she shows up there, the operative will be instructed to follow her wherever she goes when she leaves. We’ll run a DMV check to determine what kind of car she’s driving and the license number — assuming she has and is using a legitimately registered vehicle. We’ll also make a thorough background check on her — build a personal, professional, and psychological profile. The more you know about any individual, a stalker in particular, the better your chances of gauging what they might do next.”

“How long will that take?”

“The background check? It depends on how much of Burke’s life is a matter of public record. We ought to have some information for you — the DMV material, at the very least — by close of business today. Additional information, possibly a useful profile, by close of business tomorrow. Of course, I can’t make any definite promises, but what I will do is to mark your case priority with my staff.”

It sounded straightforward enough to Hollis. He asked, “What do you advise we do in the meantime?”

“Be cautious and vigilant,” McCone said. “Specifically, convince your daughter to move herself and your grandson back in with you until the matter is resolved. Don’t go anywhere alone after dark if you can avoid it. Alert your friends and neighbors and ask them to contact you immediately if they see a woman answering Burke’s description. Make certain your property is as secure as possible night and day. That includes your cars — parking facilities at home, at work, in public places.”

Cassie asked, “Would you recommend putting one of your people on watch at our home?”

“No, I wouldn’t. It isn’t likely Burke will try to break in again or even turn up in your neighborhood. She knows you’ll be wary, and stalkers are nothing if not sly. Whatever she intends to do next, it probably won’t be either repetitive or obvious. There’s another reason I wouldn’t recommend home surveillance at this point. One operative couldn’t stand a twenty-four-hour watch; it would take a team of three. And a much larger team to maintain regular surveillance on your entire family, day and night. The cost would be prohibitive over a period of time, and there’s no telling how long it will be before Burke is located. Also, there’d be no guarantee my people would be able to catch her at anything overt enough to put her in jail. We may believe she’s a dangerous stalker, but there’s no proof of it, remember.”

There was more give-and-take before they moved on to financial matters. The fees McCone quoted were about what Hollis had expected — substantial, in keeping with the size and location of her operation, but a long way from exorbitant. They signed a standard contract and he wrote a check to cover the retainer fee; five minutes later they were on their way out of the pier building with McCone’s assurance that she would contact them as soon as there was anything definite to report.

Outside, Cassie said, “I feel a little better now. I think we did the right thing.”

“So do I.”

She smiled up at him; he answered with a smile of his own. Thin mouth-stretchings, both, meant to be bolstering but gone in an instant, like scraps whipped away by the chill Bay wind.

23

On the drive to Los Alegres, Cassie phoned Angela again and spent fifteen minutes trying to convince her to move back home. Angela kept saying she didn’t think it was necessary. Stubborn, prone to wearing blinders — just like her old man. She finally agreed to talk it over with Pierce. If he thought it was a good idea, she said, then maybe she’d change her mind.

Tom Finchley and his helper were just finishing up when they reached the house. The living room had been emptied completely, the one wall painted over to erase the remains of Burke’s message. It was just a room now, like any other empty room awaiting a personal stamp. Yet the aura of violation still lingered.

Hollis called the office, spoke briefly to Gloria and then to Mannix. There had been no sign of Burke at River House or anywhere else in the vicinity today.

Shortly before five, Sharon McCone called to report that the vehicle registered in Burke’s name was a 1992 Nissan Sentra, four-door, white, with the personalized license plate VALBLAW. The woman’s current residence hadn’t been found yet, but McCone had two of her staff working on that and on the background profile.

He and Cassie made the rounds of their neighbors, explaining the situation in terse terms and supplying Burke’s description and the information about her car. The response, as it had been with Rakubian, was strongly supportive.

At five-forty the phone rang again. Pierce. And what he had to say put him solidly in Hollis’s favor. He agreed that Angela and Kenny would be safer living at the Hollises and had talked her into a temporary move. He’d stay in her apartment and keep an eye on things there, he said.

“Angela’s packing right now. Soon as she’s ready, she’ll drive over with Kenny.”

“Follow her in your truck. You’re welcome to stay for dinner.”

“Thanks, Mr. Hollis. I’d like that.”

“And I’d like you to use my first name. Mr. Hollis makes me sound as old as I feel.”

Thursday Evening

Angela wore a smiley face, but her reluctance was plain — she really didn’t want to be dependent any longer, at least not on Cassie and him. Kenny was too quiet, always a sure sign that he was troubled. Hollis scooped him up, took him into the study, and installed him in front of the computer. But the boy’s interest in video games was less avid than usual tonight.

He said as Hollis started to leave, “Granpa? Is David coming back to hurt us?”

My God. “No way. What gave you that idea?”

“I heard Mama and Daddy talking. She’s scared, like she was before.”

“It’s not David Rakubian she’s scared of.”

“Then how come we’re gonna live with you and Granma again?”

“What did your mom tell you?”

“She said it’s just for a little while. She said we never have to be afraid of David again, but I didn’t believe her. Who’s she scared of if it’s not that asshole?”

“Not a nice word, kiddo.”

“Mama says it sometimes. Lots of people say it.”

“Well, they shouldn’t and neither should you.”

“Who’re we afraid of now, Granpa?”

“A bad lady. But it won’t be for long.”

“What bad lady?”

“You don’t know her. Don’t worry, she won’t hurt your mom. As long as I’m around, nobody’s going to hurt anyone in this family ever again.”

Eric called just before dinner. Hollis filled him in on the most recent developments, then turned him over to his sister.

The after-dinner conversation, with Kenny out of earshot in the study, was all about Valerie Burke. Angela said, “I had no idea she was so deeply involved with David, or that she was capable of so much hate. She always seemed... I guess the word I want is passionless. Colorless, too.”

“She kept her feelings well hidden,” Cassie said. “People like her often do.”

Pierce asked, “Did Rakubian ever mention her?”

“Once or twice, but always professionally. I still can’t imagine him with her. She isn’t very attractive, and David was handsome if nothing else... they just don’t seem to fit together.”

“Physical attraction isn’t everything.”

“No, but still. What would make him want a woman like her?”

Hollis steered her away from that by asking, “You don’t know anything at all about her? Where she was born, where she went to school, how she got into paralegal work?”

Angela shook her head. “The whole time I was with David, I barely knew she was alive. I mean, I saw her at his office two or three times but I didn’t really pay attention to her. He never seemed to, either, unless she spoke to him directly. It was as if she was... I don’t know...”

“A piece of furniture?” Cassie supplied.

“No. As if she was hardly even there.”

“Like a shadow,” Pierce said.

Like a phantom, Hollis thought.

Friday

A day like any other recently, except that he felt as though he were living it on the edge of a precipice: moving forward at a retarded pace, watching carefully where he walked, trying not to look down.

Cassie went to work at Animal Care because they were short-handed and needed her. Angela stayed home with Hollis and Kenny. Tom Finchley and his helper arrived to finish repainting the living room. The computer, the TV, and his mother kept Kenny out of mischief while Hollis tried to do a little work in his study. At eleven the Camden Home Security rep arrived with catalogs and a practiced sales pitch, and when he left forty minutes later he had a check for a thousand dollars and Hollis had a receipt for Camden’s top-of-the-line security system and a promise that it would be installed the first of next week.

The phone rang twice: Mannix wondering if there was any news, Gloria with a question about one of their jobs. The silence from McCone Investigations must mean that Burke hadn’t shown up at Rakubian’s house last night.

Twelve-thirty. He bundled his daughter and grandson into the Lexus and drove downtown to the Mill, where Cassie met them for lunch. No one had much appetite, not even Kenny. Hollis felt exposed sitting there in the crowded restaurant, as if he were a character in an action film — one of those loud, messy flicks where somebody in a ski mask suddenly bursts in and opens fire with an automatic weapon. Nothing happened, of course, but by the time he pulled into the driveway at home he had developed a tension headache.

An abortive try at a nap, design work that went badly, a couple of mindless computer games with Kenny... the afternoon crawled away. The phone rang at 3:10: somebody wanting to sell him aluminum siding. Cassie came home at 3:50; Pierce showed up at 4:20. And just as Hollis was about to put in a call to McCone Investigations, the phone rang again and it was McCone herself on the other end.

Some news, but not the news he wanted to hear. Burke still hadn’t been located. No-show at Rakubian’s house, no fixed address after the one on Parnassus, no listing with any of the paralegal services or the American Society of Paralegals, no apparent affiliation with any legal firm in the Bay Area. The background check had produced a still-sketchy but emerging profile of an unstable woman: born in Chico, raised by a single father who ruled her upbringing with an iron hand until he died suddenly of a heart attack when she was eighteen. Married and pregnant at nineteen, to another dominant male who physically abused her and caused her child to be stillborn. Divorce, a mental breakdown that put her in a sanitorium for three months. Moved to San Francisco after her discharge in an effort to turn her life around. Studied law at Heald College, graduated, became an accredited paralegal, worked for one of the larger paralegal firms and a private law firm before joining Rakubian’s operation five years ago. No significant male presence in her life after her divorce and before or since her evident relationship with Rakubian.

Not a good profile, McCone said, but not necessarily an alarming one, either. The only documented violence in her background had been directed at her, not by her toward someone else. Even as unstable as she apparently was, she might not be capable of an act of overt violence against another person. Putting the best possible spin on it for their benefit, Hollis thought bleakly.

Drinks. Dinner. Talk. Two games of Monopoly that they all played more or less by rote. Early to bed and eyes wide open in the dark as usual. Long, dull, stressful day. Good because nothing had happened, bad because it meant they would have to do it all over again tomorrow and God knew how many days after that.

Saturday Morning

The weather turned clear again, windy but warmish. Kenny was in a tantrumy mood, and the combination of that and the paint smell from the living room drove Hollis outside shortly after breakfast. He didn’t feel much like puttering in the garden. Or doing anything else, for that matter, but busy work would keep his body if not his mind occupied. The garden shed drew him. Its door had warped and needed planing and weather-stripping; he’d meant to do the repairs in the spring, hadn’t gotten around to it with all the upheaval since then. This seemed as good a time as any for the task.

He got his tools, removed the door, set about shaving the bottom. The effort tired him more quickly than he cared to admit. He kept at it at a dogged but slower pace until the door fit the frame without sticking when he rehung it. He took it down again to add the weather stripping.

Cassie came out a few minutes past ten, saw the sweat on his face — he was working in the direct sun now — and warned him against overdoing it. He grumbled a reply; he was not up to being mothered this morning.

She said, “We need some things from Safeway. Angela and Kenny are going with me.”

“All right.”

“After lunch I thought we could all drive to Santa Rosa, look at furniture and carpeting for the living room. It’ll give us something to do.”

“All right.”

He finished the door, rehung it again, and decided he’d done a decent job. He still wasn’t ready to go in and rest; he fiddled around inside the shed, rearranging things. He was done with that and on his way to the garage, to see what kind of chore he could find to do in there, when he heard the phone ring.

His first thought was that it might be Sharon McCone with news. He hurried inside, snagged the receiver on the kitchen extension on the fifth or sixth ring.

“Jack!” Cassie, her voice octaves higher than normal. Calling on her cell phone: the background was staticky. And there were other sounds, too... sobbing? “Oh, God, something terrible... Safeway, the parking lot...”

The sweat on him had turned icy; nerve endings contracted and wired him so tight his body thrummed. “What happened? Burke?”

“She was right there, but we never saw her until it was too late. She had a gun, it all happened so fast, I couldn’t... We tried to catch her, but she’s gone, I don’t know where. The police... we’re on our way there now...”

“For God’s sake, slow down, you’re not making sense. What did Burke do?”

Ragged, hissing breath.

“Kenny... she took Kenny!”

24

The police station was on North Main, not far from the Safeway where they regularly shopped. He reached it in less than ten minutes, driving as fast as he dared on city streets. The waiting room was empty; he rushed ahead to the bulletproof Plexiglas wall that bisected most of the anteroom, gripped the edge of the counter in front of the speaker opening.

“My name is Hollis, Jack Hollis,” he said to the uniformed cop on the desk. “My wife and daughter—”

“Yes, right, they’re here. Mrs. Hollis is with Lieutenant Davidson, your daughter’s resting in the women’s lounge.”

“My grandson... any word?”

“Not yet.” The cop’s tone was sympathetic. He was a few years older than Hollis, probably had grandchildren of his own. “We’ve got an APB out on the car — not just Paloma County, all of northern California. We’ll find them.”

When? How soon?

“I’d like to see my daughter.”

“Right away. She’s been asking for you.”

The cop buzzed him in, led him back to the women’s lounge. Angela was lying on a couch in there, a policewoman watching over her. She said, “Oh, Daddy!” when she saw him, and struggled to a sitting position. Tear tracks, stained black with mascara, covered her face; her eyes were enormous, too much white showing, not quite focused. The sick, impotent rage in him was close to unbearable now. She was trying to get up; he went to her, kissed her, murmured words that even to him sounded empty, and made her lie back again. When he glanced at the policewoman, she mouthed the words “Paramedics are on the way.”

“Why?” Angela said in a choked voice. “Why would she kidnap Kenny?”

“I don’t know, baby.”

“What if she hurts him? He’s so little...”

“She won’t hurt him.” Wanting to believe it so desperately, he repeated the words. “She won’t hurt him.”

“They have to bring him back safe. They have to!”

“They will.”

She made a little sobbing, hiccuping sound. “Ryan,” she said. “Does he know?”

“Not yet. I’ll call him right away.”

“Tell him to hurry. Tell him... Kenny...”

It was too painful being in there with her. He felt awkward and helpless, not worth a damn to her or to himself. He left her with the policewoman, asked the desk cop for the use of a phone, called the Gugliotta ranch, and broke the news to Pierce. The kid wasted no time with questions; he said, “I’ll be there as fast as I can,” and broke the connection.

The paramedics had arrived; he saw them go into the women’s lounge. A few seconds after that a gray-haired cop in uniform appeared. Lieutenant Max Davidson — Hollis knew him slightly from Rotary meetings. Davidson shook his hand with professional gravity, reiterated that everything possible was being done to find Hollis’s grandson, and then ushered him down a hallway to a private office where Cassie was waiting. He let Hollis go in alone, shut the door after him to give them privacy.

When he embraced her she clung to him fiercely, with such strength he felt her fingers digging deep into his flesh. Gently he stood her off at arm’s length so he could look at her. Pale, shaken, but in rigid control.

“I’m okay,” she said. “But Angela...”

“I know, I just saw her. Shock. Paramedics are here, they’ll give her something.”

“She won’t go to the hospital.”

“No. And they won’t force her to.”

Cassie pulled on her lower lip, pinching it hard enough to turn it white. “It’s our fault, Jack. We should’ve known that crazy bitch would go after Kenny.”

“How could we know?”

“We should’ve been more careful, taken better precautions.”

Hindsight, the great teacher. Nobody’s ever completely safe. You can’t live in a vacuum. Hollow clichés. He said, “Yes,” and nodded like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

“She won’t hurt him. I keep telling myself she wouldn’t go that far.”

“No.” She might. We both know she might. “Hold him for a day or two, then let him go.”

“Angela won’t be able to stand that kind of waiting.”

“She won’t have to. They’ll find him.”

“The FBI? Have they been notified yet?”

“I don’t know, I’ll ask Davidson. How much did you tell him about Burke?”

“Everything we know.”

“Give him McCone’s name?”

“Yes.”

“She may have found out by now where Burke’s been living. That has to be where she’s taking Kenny.”

“If she harms him, I swear to God I’ll kill her.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“I mean it. I’ll rip her fucking eyes out.” She pinched her lip again; her eyes were haunted. “I should have seen her there. But I didn’t, I just didn’t.”

“Seen her where?”

“Safeway lot. I looked around when we came out... so did Angela, but she had Kenny to contend with. It was my responsibility.”

“Don’t keep beating yourself up,” he said. “If you’d been able to stop her, you would have.”

“You weren’t there, you don’t know.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Cassie squeezed her eyes shut; shuddered and popped them open. “Everything seemed all right in the lot,” she said. “The van was in the end row, on the Main Street side. When we got to it I unlocked the side door... Angela was taking one of the bags out of the cart, Kenny right there beside her. All of a sudden she cried out, ‘No, don’t!’ Burke... it was as though she materialized out of nowhere. Except she’d been there all along. She had hold of Kenny’s arm, he was squirming and trying to pull free. In her other hand... a gun, a little automatic. She said something like, ‘Don’t either of you move or yell, I’ll shoot the kid if you do.’ Then she told me to put my car keys into her coat pocket. I had to do it, the gun was only a few inches from Kenny’s head. Then she dragged him to her car, shoved him inside — the door was wide open — and slid in after him and I heard the door locks click. The engine must’ve been running, as fast as she drove away, but I don’t remember hearing that. Just the door locks clicking. Kenny’s face... I’ll never forget the way he looked. Pressed to the window glass, his mouth open as if he was screaming...”

“Easy.”

“It all happened so fast. Just a few seconds. And then she was gone onto North Main. Angela was yelling, people were staring, but not one of them came over to try to help. I ran and got the spare key out of the bumper case, but I was so wild I dropped it and had trouble picking it up. By the time we were in the van and moving, there was no sign of them. I thought we might be able to catch up at one of the stoplights... my Lord, I must’ve driven like a maniac all the way to Corona Road. She must’ve turned off somewhere... I don’t know. Angela was hysterical. Screaming at me to keep going to the freeway interchange. But it was too late, we were just wasting time. She tried to grab the wheel when I turned around at Corona and I had to slap her to get her off me.”

“You said Burke was there all along in the lot. Where?”

“In the space next to the van. Not when we arrived, when we came out with the groceries. Either she followed us from home, or found out somehow Saturday morning is when I shop and was waiting there for us.”

“Cass, how could she’ve been parked next to the van and you didn’t notice? A white Nissan—”

“That’s just it. We were looking for a white Nissan, but she was driving a silver BMW.”

“A silver—”

“Rakubian’s car. Her Nissan must be in his garage.”

Saturday Noon

Pierce got there just as the paramedics were about to leave. As upset as he was, he handled the situation far better than he would have when he was younger. Took charge of Angela, and as soon as he’d been briefed, bundled her into his pickup and drove her home.

Hollis met with Lieutenant Davidson, Police Chief Reese, who’d been summoned from home, and two ranking county cops from Santa Rosa. The FBI hadn’t been called in yet and he wanted them to do it right away. Premature, they said. But the plain truth was, local law didn’t like federal law; they intimated that the feds took over, pushed everyone around, and exacerbated the jurisdictional problems that already existed between city and county law enforcement. Angrily he insisted on the family’s behalf, and because he was considered a prominent citizen and they were all scared to death of adverse publicity, they gave in. If Burke and Kenny weren’t found by one o’clock, the FBI office in San Francisco would be notified. The one issue they all agreed on was that a media lid should be kept on the kidnapping as long as possible. Reporters, TV remote crews, crowds of sensation seekers would make matters even more difficult for everybody.

When the meeting broke up, he and Cassie drove home separately. To be with Angela. To wait.

Saturday Afternoon

One o’clock.

Neither the phone nor the doorbell had rung.

At 1:10 Hollis called Chief Reese. Yes, the FBI had been informed on schedule. Agents were on their way from the city; they’d be by to talk to the family within a couple of hours if the status remained unchanged. Reese tried to sound confident; he succeeded only in sounding grim.

Time, accelerated at first, ground down until each minute was like a slow-forming, slow-falling droplet of water. The four of them waited in the house, in the backyard, in the house again. Even after the effects of the sedative began to wear off, Angela stayed more or less calm. Pierce’s presence, even more than his and Cassie’s, seemed to have a soothing effect on her; she sat clinging to his hand and staring at the phone as if willing it to ring. Hollis had called Eric shortly after their return, gotten his answering machine, left a message to call his father’s cell number; that phone, too, remained silent. They drank too much coffee, talked little because the only things left to say were too painful to express. Hollis’s prostate started to bother him; he kept going in to stand at the toilet and dribbling as slowly as the time was passing, unable to relieve much of the pressure.

Two o’clock. 2:15. 2:30. And the phone didn’t sound and no one came and the minutes continued to drip, drip, drip away.

3:05. Doorbell. They all jumped and Hollis hurried to open the door. The FBI, but not to tell them what they needed to hear. One sixtyish Jewish male, one fortyish black female: the Hoover days of young, crew-cut, blank-faced, Anglo-Saxon clones were long gone. Special Agents Feldman and Lincoln. No-bullshit types — polite, businesslike, efficient. Half an hour’s worth of detailed Q & A, all of it recorded. The only information they had to impart was that they’d been in touch with McCone Investigations; there were still no leads as to Burke’s whereabouts, but the profile that had been compiled might prove helpful. Exit Feldman and Lincoln, leaving cold comfort behind.

Four o’clock.

Four-thirty.

Five o’clock.

No word from anybody, including Eric.

Five-thirty. Cassie heated soup, set out a plate of sliced bread. None of them ate more than a few mouthfuls, Angela nothing at all.

Six o’clock.

And Pierce said abruptly, “I can’t take any more of this sitting around, it’s driving me nuts. I’ve got to do something. Drive out by Corona Road, check some of the back roads... maybe the cops missed seeing that BMW. For all we know, Burke’s holding Kenny somewhere around here.”

Hollis thought it was a good idea. “We’ll both go,” he said.

“Together or separately?”

“Two cars cover twice as much territory.”

Angela didn’t want them to leave; the cocooning was what had been getting her through this. Pierce soft-talked her into accepting it. All Cassie said was, “Don’t stay out past dark unless there’s a good reason,” and they both agreed to that.

She gave Ryan her cell phone and Hollis wrote down the number of his so they’d all be connected. Then he and Pierce divided the ground to be covered — Ryan the east side from North Main to the Paloma Mountains, Hollis the west side as far out as Two Rock Valley. They were in their cars and rolling by 6:15.

Saturday Evening

Driving aimlessly was only a little more endurable than the passive waiting. At home there’d been a few distractions; in the Lexus there were none. Drive a random route, stare around at too-familiar sights, think too much. Worry too much. Imagine and fear too much.

Back roads, side roads, motels, campgrounds, even a couple of abandoned farms. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Waiting for his cell phone to ring. Praying it would and dreading what he might hear if it did.

Time passed less slowly when you were on the move. Seven o’clock, 7:30. He came back into town to fill the gas tank, headed west again. Eight o’clock. 8:15.

8:20. He was on Roblar Road, west of the Washoe House bar and restaurant, when the phone went off.

The unit was on the seat beside him, the sudden sound like a blade slicing into a nerve. He snatched it up, flicked it on. “Cass? Is there any—”

“How does it feel, Hollis? How does it feel to really suffer?”

His heart lurched. In reflex his foot jabbed the brake and he twisted the wheel. The Lexus slid to a rocking stop at the side of the road.

“Now you know what it’s been like for me,” the voice said in his ear. Calm, steady, no hint of mania — except that the mania was there, hidden but palpable, like laughter behind the walls of an asylum. “Hurt, hurt, hurt all the time. Burning in the fires of hell.”

“Let me—” The words caught; he cleared his throat. “Let me talk to my grandson.”

“No.”

“Is he all right? You haven’t...”

“Not yet. Not yet.”

Hate and fury boiled in him. Don’t provoke her! He forced a plea through the dry cavern of his mouth. “Please don’t hurt him. He’s just a little boy.”

“I had a little boy once. He died before he was even born.”

“Do you want me to beg, Valerie?”

“Oh, so you do know who this is. Good. I want you to know.”

“All right, then I’ll beg—”

“Because it doesn’t matter anymore,” she said. “You’ll never never find me in time. No one will.”

“What’re you going to do?”

“You’ll find out.” In the brief pause between those words and the next, he heard a background noise. It was quiet on the road, quiet in the car except for the purr of the engine, and the connection was clear. So was the sound — a kind of whistling. “Soon, Hollis. Very soon.”

“I’ll do anything you want,” he said. “Trade myself for the boy. You can kill me if that’s what you—”

“No. That would be too easy.”

“Tell me what isn’t too easy. Tell me what it’ll take for you not to harm my grandson.”

“You don’t understand, do you? I already have what I want and I’m going to do the only thing that’s left to do.” Another pause, and he heard the background noise again. Louder, even more distinct: a whistling and then a shrill howling. “I told your wife and now I’m telling you. You took David away from me, you and that bitch daughter of yours. You made me kill him. You destroyed my life. Well, now I’m going to take someone you love away from you. Now I’m going to destroy all your lives.”

“Wait, listen to me

“Suffer like I’m suffering!” And the line went dead.

She means it, she’ll kill Kenny, and she won’t take long to do it. Tonight, after it gets dark... Evil needs the dark.

The phone rang in his hand.

Cassie, he thought, to report Burke’s call to her. Instead of answering he turned off the unit, threw it on the other seat. He could not talk to her now; couldn’t talk to anyone now. He put the car in gear, came down hard on the accelerator, the tires squealing as he pulled away. Driving this time with urgency and purpose. Praying he’d get there in time.

He knew where they were, Kenny and that crazy woman. The freakish whistling and howling had told him; they were sounds like no other he’d ever heard, sounds high winds made in an old, warped chimney flue.

She’d taken the boy to the one place no one had thought to look: the cottage at Tomales Bay.

25

Saturday Night

Fifteen miles.

So close, so far away. Driving too fast and not fast enough on the two-lane country roads, doing all the road-rage things — tailgating, flashing his lights and sounding his horn — that he despised in other drivers. Kenny’s image luminous in his mind: pocket-sized, defenseless, so full of laughter and innocent mischief, saying, “I love you, Granpa,” saying, “Who’re we afraid of now?” And himself looking down into that shining little face and vowing, not once but twice, with stupid, hollow arrogance, that he wouldn’t let him or anyone else in the family be hurt.

Fifteen miles.

Valerie Burke. He hated her intensely, yet it was a different kind of hatred than he’d felt — still felt — for Rakubian. Tempered with grains of pity. She was another of that bastard’s victims, an instrument of his vengeance as well as her own — as if he really were reaching out from the grave. Sick, shattered woman, but cunning. As cunning as Rakubian. She’d picked the perfect spot to take the boy. Knew about the cottage from his conversation with Rakubian... found out exactly where it was located from public records, the same way she’d gotten his cell phone number... found out it was seldom used anymore by going there, looking around. For all he knew she’d been squatting there off and on since giving up her apartment in the city.

Fifteen miles.

A small, insistent voice kept urging him to call the FBI, the county police, or to call Cassie and have her do it. He didn’t listen, could not obey. Explanations, the grinding of official wheels — he’d be out to Tomales Bay himself before deputies or Agents Feldman and Lincoln had time to respond. And the law would go in announcing their presence, with bullhorns and drawn weapons, or else take too much time to mobilize a more stealthy approach. There was so little time. And he knew the property, the whole area, far better than anyone else.

Fifteen miles.

Time, time, time...

Two Rock Valley, the Coast Guard training station, Tomales, the narrow coiling stretch of Highway 1 leading to the bay — the last few miles a fragmented blur like the drive across San Francisco with Rakubian’s body in the trunk. Almost dusk when he saw the gleam of water off to his right, gunmetal gray flecked with gold from the last rays of the sun, the trees and rocks of Hog Island bathed in the same golden glow. Fantasy, illusion: darkness waited, eating away at the light.

He was focused again, intently aware of his surroundings, when he passed Nick’s Cove. The cottage was a half-mile beyond there. He made himself slow down, take the sharp curves along this stretch without having to brake hard and fight the wheel. Time, time! The bay was dark gray now, all the gold bled away, the sky over the hills above Inverness a fading salmon pink. Full dark in fifteen or twenty minutes.

Ahead, at long last, he saw the trees that separated the highway from the cottage. He was alone here, no other cars; he slowed even more, hunching sideways to peer through the screen of pines. First glimpse of the cottage: no lights showing, no sign of the silver BMW. But that meant nothing one way or another. There was only one window on this side, and from the highway you couldn’t tell if the shutter louvers were open or not. And the BMW could be hidden inside the garage. Burke would not have had much difficulty getting into either building. The locks on both were flimsy; there had never been a break-in here and he’d seen no reason to replace them. A kid could have smashed them open with a rock or a tire iron.

He fought off the impulse to turn into the access lane. He’d be too exposed approaching the cottage from this direction; she might be at the kitchen table, the louvers open so she could look out toward the highway. When he rolled on past he had one last, partial view of the place. Still nothing to see.

He accelerated through the two short uphill turns beyond, the longer one downhill through a patch of thick woods. At the bottom was a grassy verge broken by deep grooves that led in to a closed gate. Past the gate and below the woods was a peninsula, short and humped in the middle — land that belonged to a dairy rancher and that was used for cattle graze. He stopped crosswise on the ruts, leaned over to unlock the glove compartment. He tore the chamois cloth off the Colt Woodsman and jammed the gun into his jacket pocket.

The wind was strong here, whipping in off the bay with enough force to billow his coat and bend him at the middle as he hurried to the gate. The highway was deserted; he climbed over quickly, ran along the overgrown ruts until they petered out into a single-groove cow track near the top of the hump. Prostate pain and back pain surged with every step; he blocked his mind against it, against the fatigue he felt. Functioning now on urgency and adrenaline.

On the far side, short-cropped grass and clumps of gorse sloped down to the water’s edge. Earthquake fissures showed like dark scars among the green. He followed the longest of them, still bent by the thrust of the wind, the smells of salt water and tide flats sharp in his nostrils. Halfway down he veered away at an angle to an inlet on the north side. The mudflats there had once been the property of a long-defunct oyster company; decaying bed stakes jutted out of the mud at oblique angles like rotting teeth. He skirted a strip of beach and a fan of discarded oyster shells, followed the outward curve of the shoreline.

It was almost dark now, only a faint band of light showing along the horizon, the rest of the sky a velvety purple. He had to slow down, because he could no longer see more than a few yards in front of him. The flash from the car would have helped, but he hadn’t brought it because he could not afford to risk showing light. It wasn’t far now anyway to where he’d be in sight of the cottage — just around a gorse-covered neck of land ahead.

A gull came swooping in over the tide flats as he cleared the neck; its thin shrieking made him grit his teeth. The only other sound was the beating of the wind. The cold had numbed him, raised gooseflesh on his arms. He kept his hands in his coat pockets, his fingers loose and restless around the handle of the .22.

Now he could make out the cottage, sixty yards away, dark and squatty between the pines and the faintly gleaming surface of the bay. It was directly in front of him and there were no windows in the south-side wall; even if Burke were looking out toward the bay, she wouldn’t be able to spot him in the darkness at this angle. He expected to see light glowing behind the deck doors — the drapes were old and a bad fit, leaving gaps at the edges and in the middle — but there was none. A hollow churning started under his breastbone as he slogged ahead. Wrong about the whistling and howling, and she hadn’t brought Kenny here after all? Or had she been here and gone because she’d already carried out her threat? Both possibilities were intolerable; he blocked them out as he blocked out the pain and fatigue.

The shoreline became a wide stretch of gravel and mud, and he cut inland onto firmer ground. An unseen rock caught the toe of his shoe and he stumbled, nearly fell. It was like moving in a dream, the darkness closing down, objects losing definition, shadows gathering into grotesque shapes. Sweat flowed and chilled on his body. The cottage seemed no closer, no larger, as if he were stepping in place instead of progressing forward — a delusion that lasted until he could make out the dock, the attached float where Pop had died. Then it was as if the building were too close, too large, a hulking presence in the night.

A faint petroleum smell came to him as he reached the dock. He glanced out over the water; there were no powerboats in the vicinity, no running lights anywhere. The old wood landing at the foot of the stairs creaked when he climbed onto it, but the gusty wind was loud enough to hide the sounds he made from anyone other than himself. He paused halfway up the stairs to listen. Just the wind. Even the gulls were quiet now.

When he reached the top he detoured away from the cottage, around behind the sagging garage. In the wallboards back there were gaps where they’d buckled and separated; he bent to peer through the largest of them. All he could see were layers of black. He took out his key ring, poked its mini-flashlight through the gap, and flicked it on just long enough for a quick look.

The BMW was parked inside.

Burke was here, Kenny must be here too.

But why hadn’t she put the lights on? Holed up in the cottage in the dark... he didn’t like that. Nerving herself? That must be it. She wouldn’t still be here if she’d already harmed the boy, would she?

Quickly he went back the way he’d come, approaching the cottage at a diagonal, his footfalls on the dry pine needles muffled by the wind. The shutters were closed over the kitchen window; he couldn’t see in, she couldn’t see out. He edged up to the door. His breathing came short and ragged; he sucked air in openmouthed drags as he unpocketed the Woodsman. The wind shifted, moaning, and then gusted as if it, too, were having trouble with oxygen. He caught another brief whiff of petroleum.

He could not just stand out here and wait for something to happen. Get inside fast and as quietly as he could, put a light on right away, do whatever the situation dictated. Point and shoot, Hollis — literally, if that’s what it takes. He knew he could pull the trigger this time, without hesitation or compunction.

He laid his left hand on the doorknob. If the lock was on, he’d use his key.

The lock wasn’t on.

He turned the knob, heard the latch click, eased the door inward. And the petroleum smell came rolling out at him as if released, strong and pungent, flaring his nostrils, closing his throat.

Gasoline.

A lot of it, spilled around inside.

Oh God, no!

He let the wind take the door, blow it inward until it bound up tight halfway on the uneven floor. He stepped in past it, fighting panic. The gasoline stink was everywhere in the clotted darkness, overpowering, nauseating.

There was no wall switch; the nearest light source was the pullstring to the globe over the kitchen table. Every inch of the interior was burned into his memory — the table three steps to his left, no obstructions in between. He took one step, two—

A snick, a rasp, and a small flame bloomed suddenly in the black. The yellow flare chased shadows, showed him pieces of a nightmare scene out of one of Rakubian’s Goya paintings.

Burke was sitting in Pop’s old Morris chair, turned so that she was facing toward him. Sitting there almost primly, knees together, the flame jutting from a cigarette lighter held up in front of her and steady now because her hand was steady. It threw off enough light so that he could make out the horsehair sofa nearby, distinguish the small, unmoving, blanket-covered mound on the cushions. He saw something more, too, that froze his blood and brought a stillborn cry into his throat.

In the flickery glow, everything gleamed wetly: the floor, the window drapes, the chair, the sofa, the blanketed mound, her upraised arm and high-necked blouse and composed face and white-rimmed eyes staring out of shadowed black. She’d soaked it all, soaked Kenny, soaked herself with the gasoline.

Not just murder, suicide too.

Burning in the fires of hell.

She said in a clear, calm voice, “So you found me after all. But not in time, Hollis.”

“For God’s sake, don’t—”

“Too late. Too late.”

“No!”

She said, “Suffer!” with a kind of fierce joy, and flung the lighter at the sofa.

Hollis lunged that way in the same instant, dropping the .22. The lighter struck the backrest, bounced onto the blanket covering the boy, and then, still lit, skittered to the floor. Flame spurted, surged, whooshed up and out at him. Frantically he tore the burning blanket off and hurled it aside. Kenny, Kenny! Hollis grabbed him and swung him up — his small body wasn’t wet, she’d only doused the blanket — a moment before the cushions became a nest of fire.

The woman screamed.

He spun around, crouching, cradling Kenny’s limp form against his chest, covering the child’s head and face with his free arm. The racing flames had swept back and up, consuming Pop’s chair, consuming Valerie Burke. She came out of the chair as if propelled, sheeted with fire, shrieking her torment. He twisted aside as she lurched toward him, saw her whirl the other way and carom off the fireplace bricks with her arms spread wide — demon’s dance, blazing vision from the pit.

The fire was all around him now, spreading with incredible speed. He staggered in the direction of the door, gagging on oily smoke and the stink of cooking flesh, the heat singeing his hair and eyebrows, his body hunched and both arms wrapped protectively around the child. His shoes felt as though the soles were burning; sparks stung his face, his neck above the coat collar. He couldn’t see. He bumped into something — the door! — and groped around it, tasting the cold breath of the night outside, the crackle-thrum of the flames and Burke’s banshee screams swelling in his ears. Then he was through, out, running and gasping into the night.

The wind cooled his feet, his face; he could no longer feel the fire at his back. Or hear the shrieks. He began to shiver. He slowed then, stopped, and for the first time glanced back. He’d covered more than fifty yards, uphill into the trees — a safe enough distance.

Kenny.

He lifted the boy, turning his head so he could look closely at his face in the reflected glow.

Alive... thank God!

Breathing more or less normally except for little whimpers and coughs. The fire hadn’t touched him — no burn marks, not even his hair singed. Didn’t look as though Burke had harmed him in any other way. His features had a scrunched look, eyes squeezed shut in fitful sleep. She must have given him a drug of some kind that was now beginning to wear off.

Relief had weakened Hollis’s knees. He wobbled a couple of paces to his left, hugging his grandson close, close, and leaned heavily against the bole of a pine. Through wet and stinging eyes he stared at the cottage. It was an inferno now, all roiling smoke and high-licking flames that stained the night sky ocher and blood-red. Before long there would be nothing left but blackened bones and ash. He felt no sense of loss or regret. Yours in every way, Pop, never really mine.

Yellow-red blossomed in the dry needles that had collected on the garage roof. Pretty soon wind-flung sparks would ignite the crowns of the closest pines and this whole section would burn. For that he did feel regret. Over the beat of the conflagration he was aware of sounds behind him, cars stopping on the highway, voices shouting. He stayed where he was a few moments longer. Afterimages of the horror he’d just witnessed and lived through lingered in his mind, yet he was filled with a strange kind of peace.

Survival. Everything else stemmed from it, depended on it. Love, hate, all the emotions; the lives we lead, who we are. He’d given it to Kenny tonight, to Cassie and Angela and Eric in other ways. God willing, Stan Otaki would give it to him and he’d have plenty of time to atone for all the mistakes he’d made.

He turned his back on the burning past, on the death throes of their evil time, and moved on to what lay ahead.