One Was a Soldier

– Psalm 34, The Book of Common Prayer

MONDAY, OCTOBER 17

Sarah was looking at the black cats and flying witches pinned to the walls of the community center’s meeting room. Lots of black and purple and green crayon, with one defiantly pink-and-yellow standout, as if Glinda the Good Witch had taken to her broomstick. Some little girl was not lowering her princess standards, even for Halloween.

“Hey, y’all, look who I brought.”

Sarah turned at the sound of the Virginia drawl. Clare Fergusson rolled Will Ellis through the doors. He smiled and waved, and if she hadn’t known better, she would never have guessed the boy had narrowly escaped death by his own hand.

“Welcome back, marine.” Eric McCrea got up from his folding seat and shook Will’s hand. “You’re looking a lot better than you did last week.”

He was, too. His hair had been shaved away to a sandy brown fuzz, and he had some color in his face. He was still far too thin for such a big kid-after seeing his father and brother in the ICU, Sarah realized Will must have stood over six feet before the amputations-but he had lost that ghastly drawn expression he’d had in the hospital.

Will ducked his head. “Feeling better.” He paused, taking in the smaller than usual circle of chairs. “Where’s Dr. Stillman?” His voice had an edge of panic.

“He’s fine.” Sarah took the seat opposite Will. “He was on call this evening and had to go in to the Glens Falls Hospital. He told me he probably wouldn’t make it tonight.”

Fergusson put the brake on his chair and set off for the coffee table. “How are things now that you’re home?” Sarah asked.

“Better. More honest.” He rubbed his thighs. “We started family therapy while I was an in-patient, and we’re going to keep it up for a while.” He smiled briefly. “Never saw myself as the kind of guy who’d be seeing two therapists a week.”

“If you had diabetes and, say, an ulcer, you’d see a specialist for each condition. It’s no different for mental health. Eric? How are you doing? You’re still on suspension?”

“Yeah.” He bent forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, his face toward the floor. “It’s been… tough. My wife…” He looked up at her. His face changed. “She just doesn’t get that I need a little time! I was gone for a fucking year, and she won’t even give me a few months to readjust to being back.”

“Have you thought about entering marriage counseling? Or family therapy, like the Ellises?”

“Oh, Christ, don’t you start, too. That’s what she said.”

“So?” Fergusson dropped into her seat with her customary cup. “What’s holding you back?”

“I’m a cop. Do you know what that means? I have the most fundamental job in the world. Because nothing else matters if people and property aren’t safe and if the law isn’t enforced.” He smacked himself on the chest. “ We’re the line between civilization and the jungle. The only line. You trust me to do that job, you gotta trust me to have my head on straight.”

Sarah waited a beat. “So… what does your suspension mean?”

Eric turned away. “I made a bad call. I’ll take my punishment and that’ll be the end of it.”

Sarah waited, but he didn’t seem inclined to continue. “Clare? How about you?”

“I think he ought to accede to his wife’s request. Even if he doesn’t think he needs it, it would strengthen their relationship.”

Sarah pursed her lips. The caretaker strikes again. “I was asking how you are this week.”

“Oh.” Fergusson rubbed the end of her nose. “Good. Busy. Stressed.” She paused, and Sarah opened her mouth to ask about drinking, but Fergusson went on. “There’ve been a lot of developments in the police investigation around Tally’s death. They may break open part of the case soon.”

That snapped McCrea out of his sulk. “What’s going on? I called Lyle MacAuley yesterday, and all he’d tell me is that they were bringing in somebody from the army for a possible arrest on the theft.”

“There really was money stolen?” Will sounded bemused. “I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined that conversation or not.”

“The MKPD found it Saturday,” Fergusson said. “Something like six hundred thousand dollars. It was hidden at the Algonquin Waters.” Fergusson was quite effectively derailing any inquiries into her own emotional life. Sarah wasn’t sure if the priest was aware of it or not.

“So what was MacAuley talking about?” McCrea said. “Why didn’t they just tag it and ship it back to the army? Or hand it over to the Feds?”

“Russ-the chief-thinks Lieutenant Colonel Seelye may have been after the money for herself when she showed up here asking questions.”

Sarah didn’t want to get sucked into Fergusson’s self-protective behavior, but she had to ask. “Was that the other officer we saw at Tally’s funeral?”

“Uh-huh.” Fergusson drank some coffee. “The MKPD and Russ’s JAG contact-the Judge Advocate General’s Corps-are trying to get her to incriminate herself.”

“How?” Will asked.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen Russ since last Friday. Most of this I got from a phone message he left me.”

McCrea’s glance sharpened. “Does the chief think this lieutenant colonel had something to do with Tally’s death?”

Fergusson’s face, which had been rosy and animated during her conversation, fell into disapproving lines. “He still insists she killed herself. He won’t listen to any-” Her mouth worked, as if she were trying to find the right word.

“Other evidence?” Will offered.

“Sensible arguments.” Fergusson frowned into her coffee.

“The ME’s conclusion was pretty well grounded,” McCrea said.

Fergusson gave him a look. “Don’t you start, too.”

Time to steer this into a therapeutic mode. Sarah looked around the tiny circle, gathering each of them in. “If Tally McNabb did, in fact, kill herself, we have some hard work to do. How do we accept an unacceptable death? How do we find meaning in an act that denies meaning?”

“I got the chance to talk with my other therapist about her while I was in the hospital,” Will said. “It sounds weird, but looking at her situation helped give me a different view of my own stuff.” He glanced at Sarah, as if for permission to continue. She nodded encouragement. “See, I can look at Tally and think, she could have returned the money, she could have gotten a different job, she could have kicked her husband to the curb. Things were hard for her, real hard, but she had options. She could’ve taken them.” He rubbed his thighs. “It kind of made me see that even when I don’t feel like it, I have options, too.”

Fergusson put her coffee down and leaned toward Will. “Yes, you do. And you have your family and friends and a great cloud of witnesses all around you. Wherever you look, there’s someone who loves you looking back.”

“Oh, I know that. I knew it when I… when I did it. The problem was, they loved me too much. Too much to stand seeing me hurt and mad all the time. Too much to let me touch bottom.” Will glanced across the room to where the Crayola witches flew between construction-paper cats. “And I had to touch bottom.” He twisted in his chair, as if settling himself into the present. “Anyway, we’re talking about it in family therapy. They’re trying to see me the way I really am now. As much as they can.”

“See? That’s the hard part,” McCrea said. “Getting the people in your life to admit that you’ve changed. Been changed.”

Fergusson smiled crookedly. “Some days I fantasize about starting fresh in a new town. Nobody to have to put up a front for.” She looked at Sarah. “Of course, in my business, you always have to put up a front. No one wants to see their priest spit and swear and fall apart.”

“I dunno,” Will said. “I’m getting kind of used to it.” Fergusson laughed.

“So even you can find people to accept you as you are,” Sarah said.

“Yeah,” Will said. “Remember how you said I should get in touch with some of my old friends from school?” He smiled a little. “I did.”

“Oh.” Fergusson hid her pleased expression behind the rim of her coffee cup. “I don’t suppose any of these friends happen to be girls?”

“Yeah.” His cheeks pinked up, and the combat veteran disappeared, replaced by a teenaged boy. “I’ve been talking with Olivia Bain.”

“Is she still here in town?”

“Naw. She left for SUNY Geneseo this fall. Got a full scholarship.”

“That’s a tough school to get into.” McCrea nodded. “She must be a smart girl.”

“A lot brainier than me. I can talk to her about anything, though. She knows what it’s like to have something really bad happen to you. Her mom died in a car crash this summer.”

“That’s hard,” Sarah said. Still, it made her a good choice for Will’s confidant.

“This summer?” McCrea said. “Here? In Millers Kill?”

“Yeah.”

“What was her name?”

“Um…” Will frowned in thought. “Eleanor? Ellen? Something like that.”

“Ellen Bain.” McCrea’s mouth twisted.

“You know her?” Fergusson asked.

“I cleaned up after her. She went barreling down the resort road with no seat belt on after taking part in Happy Hour. I didn’t have to follow up with the survivors, thank God. I didn’t know she’d left a kid behind.”

“Yeah, and it was just Olivia and her mom. Her dad took off when she was little.” Will made a face, clearly unable to imagine a father like that. “Her mom did okay with her bookkeeping job, she said, but she would’ve had a hard time with college if she hadn’t gotten-”

McCrea cut the boy off. “What did you say she did?”

“Who?”

“Ellen Bain. You said she was…?”

Will looked at him, confused. “A bookkeeper. At the new resort.”

Fergusson sat up straight.

McCrea extended his hand and tapped his palm. “Ellen Bain, who died in an auto accident at the end of July, was a bookkeeper at the Algonquin Waters. Tally McNabb, who committed suicide in October, was a bookkeeper at the Algonquin Waters.”

“Yeah, but…” Will’s forehead crinkled. “It’s got to be a coincidence. Tons of people work for the resort.”

“Chief Van Alstyne always says he doesn’t believe in coincidence.” Fergusson put her cup down. “Did Tally and Ms. Bain know each other? Did they have the same job responsibilities?”

Will shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“We’ve got to find out,” Fergusson said.

“No, we’ve got to tell the chief,” McCrea countered.

“Eventually.” At his look, she spread her hands. “I’m just saying we should come up with something more solid if we want him to reopen Tally’s case. I’m overdue for a visit with her mother. I can ask her how Tally got her job, and what she might know about Ellen Bain.”

“Stop.” Avoiding issues in group was one thing. Acting out that avoidance in real life was a whole other ball game. Sarah pointed to Fergusson. “You are not Daphne from Scooby-Doo . We are not going to get into a purple van and ride around town looking for a spooky old house.”

“All I’m proposing we do is ask a few questions.”

McCrea studied the priest. “Are you sure you’re not all hopped up on this idea because you’d like to show up the chief?”

“No!” Fergusson paused. “Well. Maybe a little.”

“Okay. I’m in.”

“Me, too,” Will said. “What should I do?”

Fergusson gave McCrea a go-ahead gesture. “Get back in touch with Olivia,” McCrea said. “Ask her if her mother was behaving oddly at any time before her death. Ask her if she ever mentioned Tally or Wyler McNabb.”

Will nodded. “I’ll IM her when I get home tonight.”

“See if she can get us a look at her mom’s bank balances and investment reports.”

“Investment reports?” Sarah was losing control of the session. Again.

“It’s clear Tally stole a million dollars, and it’s a pretty sure bet her husband was in on it with her.” McCrea had an expression Sarah had never seen before. It was, she realized, his cop face. “If the money’s been found at the resort”-Fergusson nodded-“it’s a good bet that they had an accomplice to help hide it. Accomplices usually get paid off.”

“Unless,” Fergusson said, “somebody decided to cut her out of the picture.”

“Yeah.” His mouth compressed. “I’ll go talk to the HR people at the Algonquin Waters.”

“But you’re still suspended,” Sarah said. “Isn’t that-I don’t know, illegal?”

“I’m not going to arrest anybody.” He grinned suddenly. “Like Reverend Clare said, I’m just going to ask some questions.”

Will looked at her slyly. “What are you going to do, Sarah?”

She shook her head. “I guess I’m going to put on an orange turtleneck and drive the van.”

It was one of the easiest stings Russ had ever set up, even given the tight time frame. Nichols contacted Seelye on Saturday morning and told her he’d found the money after a search of Tally’s house tipped him off. Lyle had soothed Ms. LeBlanc’s fears and assured her that no one would even know an arrest was occurring in her resort’s basement-they would use the employee exit to get in and out. Even persuading Tony Usher to fly up to Albany and run the operation with him had been a cinch. Bringing down a lieutenant colonel could be tricky, politically, but the prospect of bringing home six hundred grand-they had counted the remaining bricks and scanned their FDIC routing labels before replacing them on the pallet-was enough to paper over his concerns. Within twenty-four hours, Tony had found an ambitious CID investigator to be another witness, and right now, at ten o’clock on Monday evening, the man was hidden behind a screen of empty boxes not five feet from the money. It was his small camera stashed in the piping above, recording everything that happened.

Russ and Tony were in another blind, this one with a partial view of the employees’ exit. They could see Quentan Nichols shifting from foot to foot in front of the door. He was dressed in a cleaning-service uniform. They had gotten three of them; Kevin, mopping close to the hotel-side employees’ entrance, had one, as did Lyle, who was playacting sleep in the darkened break room. At least Russ hoped he was acting.

“He’s going to walk a trough in that cement if he doesn’t stop pacing.” Tony kept his voice down. They’d set up a blower farther down Broadway’s corridor to mask any ambient sounds, but no one wanted to take any chances.

“He’s got a right to be nervous.” Russ shifted on his box. The combination of cold and inactivity was making his hip ache. “He’s betting everything on this.”

“Nichols isn’t the first soldier to go stupid and start thinking with the wrong head.” Tony sighed. “And Seelye, sad to say, isn’t going to be the first officer to be tempted by all the money they’ve got floating around over there. The stories I could tell you-” He broke off as Nichols grabbed the handle and opened the employees’ entrance.

Lieutenant Colonel Arlene Seelye stepped in. She was dressed as anonymously as Nichols-dark jeans, dark shirt, dark windbreaker. Nichols said, “Colonel,” but she held up her hand. She glanced around her, then strode past him into the corridor. She walked up toward the hotel-side entrance and back down, past Russ and Tony, past the CID captain, past the loot itself, scanning left and right. She poked her head into the darkened break room but didn’t turn on the lights. Evidently satisfied, she returned to Nichols’s side. “Quentan Nichols.” She looked him up and down. “I’m still not convinced you’re not yanking my chain. What’s really going on here?”

Nichols took two dancing steps into the corridor, like a nervous junkie about to make a deal. Now they were both under one of the dangling fluorescent lights. In perfect focus for the camera. “I told you. I waited until Tally McNabb’s old man was gone and then I searched that house from basement to attic. I found a reference that made me think it might be here, and it is.”

She shook her head. “I think you knew all along. I think she made you a partner when you agreed to help her steal that money from Balad Air Base. So why do you need my help now?”

“I didn’t know where it was! I didn’t even know what it was she was moving!”

Russ tensed. Keep cool, Quentan. Don’t jerk the line. Just reel her in.

Nichols breathed in. “It’s too much for me to shift. And it’s too much for me to deal with. I’m offering you a fifty-fifty split. I show you where it’s stored, you launder the money. If you don’t want in, the door’s that way.” He pointed.

Seelye paused. “Okay. I’m in. Show me what you’ve got.”

Beside him, Russ felt Tony Usher’s muscles bunch as he clenched his fist in triumph.

Nichols and Seelye passed them. Russ could hear the soft scrape of the cardboard tower moving over concrete, and then the rumble of the dolly being rolled into the corridor. “Help me with this,” Seelye said. “I want to see what we’ve got.” There was a faint grunt and then the sound of plastic slapping onto the floor. There was a long pause. Russ looked at Tony. The JAG officer shook his head. Russ nodded. They wanted her to take the money into possession.

“FDIC tags and all,” Seelye said. “I’d have to match it up to make sure, but it looks like the shipment that was stolen from Balad.”

Tony frowned.

“Excellent work, Chief Nichols.”

The employees’ entrance slammed open. Russ leaped from his seat, his Glock already in his hand. He broke from the blind, empty cardboard boxes tumbling into the boots and black-clad legs of the men pounding up the corridor, and he shouted, “Stop! Police!” hearing his voice huge, reverberating off the walls, many voices, all screaming, “Stop! Police!”

A helmeted and armor-clad man skidded, faced him, M-9 semiautomatic braced and ready, bellowing, “Police! Put your weapon down! Put your hands in the air!”

From the other side of the hall, Russ heard Lyle roaring the exact same words. They were everywhere: shouted commands and weapons and body armor and bright yellow letters screaming MILITARY POLICE.

Russ reversed his Glock and raised his hands. The MP opposite him tore the sidearm from his grasp and shoved him around. “Lyle, give up your gun,” Russ yelled.

The guy behind him pushed him hard enough to make him stumble. “Shut up!”

“MKPD, put up your weapons!” They could sort out this disaster, but if someone got shot-

“I said shut up and get on the floor!” His MP’s voice was on the edge of wild. He shoved Russ with the bore of his M-9 this time. Russ shut up. He got down, one knee and then the other, but he was too slow for the kid behind him. The MP slammed him forward, jolting the breath out of his body. Russ lay panting on the cold concrete, craning his head to see while the MP cuffed him. He spotted Nichols cuffed and on the floor, saw the CID captain down on both knees, hands in the air and his mouth going a mile a minute, saw Seelye, dark shirt yanked aside, unstrapping the wire taped to her T-shirt. She was talking to an officer in BDUs whose body armor and MILITARY POLICE vest looked at odds with his fleshy body and fifty-something face.

She glanced down. Blinked. Blinked again. “Chief Van Alstyne? What the hell are you doing here?”

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18

This time, the fight started because Eric was putting on a uniform.

“What are you doing?” Jennifer’s voice caught him up short, laying out his BDUs after his shower. “It’s Tuesday. You don’t have anything Guard-related.”

He had figured no one at the resort would answer his questions if he was in civvies, unless he wanted to misrepresent himself as a plainclothes detective. On the other hand, he was pretty sure no one would call his reserve unit to ask why one of their MPs was at the hotel, interviewing the human resources director. Not that that made it any less of a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He was edgy, already having second thoughts, and that was why he snapped at her instead of just blowing it off.

“What are you, my personal calendar?”

“You haven’t done anything except mope around the house and go to those useless veterans group meetings since you got suspended. Now all of a sudden you’re getting ready to report? What’s going on?” She paled. “Oh, Jesus. You’re not converting your enlistment to regular army, are you?”

“No.” He tugged on his pants.

“Then what?”

He spun around. “I’m trying to help out a friend by asking a few questions. That’s all. For chrissake, get off my back.”

“Asking a few questions? You mean, like pretending you’re working as an MP? You can’t do that, Eric. If you get caught you could face charges. You could lose your job!” She moved in close, forcing herself into his line of sight. “For God’s sake, what are we supposed to do if you get bounced off the force? You’re in a precarious enough position as it-”

“Why can’t you for one frigging time just support me?” He sat heavily on the edge of the bed and began yanking his socks on. “Why is it always criticizing and fault-finding and looking at me like I’m a goddamn monster because of what I have to do?”

“What are you talking about?” She stepped back.

“I am trying, Jen. I am trying all the time, and you never notice, and you never appreciate it. You have no idea what I’ve been through!”

“Then tell me! For the love of God, I’m here! I’m listening!”

He picked up one boot. “You don’t want to hear it.”

She made a strangled noise and spun around in a circle, something she did when she got too frustrated to stand still. “No, you just don’t want to face your feelings. Because it’s easier to get angry than it is to let yourself feel scared, or sad, or helpless.” She jammed a finger toward him. “You’re too cowardly to-”

“Mom?” Jake was standing in the doorway, staring, his eyes huge and afraid, his hands clenched in fists as if he were ready to wade into-

– to protect his mother-

– and the feeling roared over Eric, swamping him, and he rose, screaming, “Get out of here!” and hurled the boot, snapped it, hard, and it smashed Jake in the chest and sent the boy stumbling back into the hall.

Then the tide washed out again and he was standing there, dumbfounded, his hand empty, his son sobbing. His son, to whom he had never raised a hand in his life.

“Jake?” Eric’s voice came out cracked and raw. “Oh, God, son, I’m sorry-” He moved toward the door, but Jennifer was there, blocking him.

“Jake.” Her voice was calm. She never took her eyes off Eric. “Honey, I want you to get the big black duffel bag in your room, and your backpack, and get into my car. Can you do that, lovey?” Jake sniffled an assent and staggered off down the hallway.

“I need you to sit back down on the bed, Eric.”

He backed up blindly and collapsed onto the bed. Jen crossed to her closet, still keeping her eyes on him. She bent down, reaching behind her, and pulled out her overnight bag.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

“Right now, Jake and I are going to my sister’s. I’m going to contact you in a few days and let you know what I’ve decided to do.”

She didn’t put anything in the bag. He realized she had already packed. She had prepared for this. She was leaving him.

He lunged off the bed and grabbed her by the arm. “Jen. For God’s sake!”

She looked at his hand, wrapped around her forearm. Then she looked at him. “You can hurt me, Eric, but you can’t hurt me enough to make me leave my son in danger.”

He snatched his hand away, and a terrible sound broke out of his tight chest and aching throat. Jennifer backed away, one step, then another, and then she was gone; down the hall, down the stairs, out the door, out of his life.

He stood in the bedroom for a long time afterward. Then he wandered through the house, touching tabletops and pictures, stacking the books Jake had left behind. Finally, he went into the basement and unlocked the gun cabinet. He looked at his rifle and his.44 and the youth Remington he’d gotten Jake the Christmas before he deployed. He took out his Heckler & Koch 9 mm, his favorite for target practice, and he sat in the rocking chair by the television and rocked and rocked, holding the gun in his hands. He’d have to go back upstairs and unlock the ammo if he wanted to use it, of course. That was the right way to store guns. Not like the McNabbs, who had kept their firearms loaded. He thought about Tally McNabb, maybe feeling as bad as he was right now. All she had to do was take it out and pull the trigger. Permanent headache relief. He indulged in a little wouldn’t-they-be-sorry fantasy, but it kept breaking into the reality of Jake or Jennifer having to see him with his brains blown off. “Jesus, Eric,” he said to himself. “Teen drama, much?”

He was a grown-up. He was a grown-up who had screwed up unbelievably bad in almost every way there was, and he wasn’t going to get out of it with some grand fuck-you-world gesture. He locked the 9 mm back in the cabinet and trudged upstairs. Put on the rest of his uniform. One thing at a time. He had questions about Ellen Bain to figure out. Then, if he played his cards right, he’d have his job. Then he’d fix things with Jake. Then he’d get his wife back.

Get one thing right. Doesn’t matter if you have no idea how the rest of it will fall into place, or even if it will fall into place. It was just like his tour of duty. You take it one day at a time, one hour, sometimes one minute at a time, and that’s how you get through it.

He set his beret on his head and went off to do one thing right.

Eric parked as close to the hotel entrance as he could. He sat there for a while, hearing Jennifer saying, If you get caught you could face charges. You could lose your job . Hearing Will Ellis saying, Nobody gets left behind.

He got out of the car. Took the curving steps up to the wide cobblestone entryway, jammed with rich-looking retirees getting into Beemers or handing off the keys to the Mercedes to the valets. The parking guys were too busy to pay him any heed, but several guests stared at him. Curious, at first, because the resort was out of the pay grade of anybody lower than a full bird colonel. Then they got the look he had seen before. It was all sorts of warm and approving, like they had slapped a WE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS magnet on their faces. God, he hated that look.

It was less annoying on the face of the perky blond desk clerk. Hotel receptionists always looked like they were grateful for your service. “May I help you?” the girl said.

“Yes, you can.” He tried to smile, but it felt off. “I’d like to speak to your human resources manager.”

Her expression grew guarded. “I’m afraid we’re not hiring at this time, but I can get you an application to fill out if you’d like.”

Eric flipped his reserve ID badge at her, fast enough to register, not so fast she could make out the details. “I’m with the military police. I need to ask a few questions about Tally McNabb.”

“Oh. Okay. Wait here, please.” She disappeared through the door behind reception. Popped out again not two minutes later. “Ms. Kirkwood will be right with you.”

Elaine Kirkwood, the Algonquin Wates HR director, had the softened skin of somebody’s mother and the assessing eyes of a card shark. She led Eric around the edge of the resort’s sprawling lobby, past the dark, leafy bar, into a side corridor punctuated by unmarked doors. She opened one and ushered him into a typical corporate space-copier, cubicles, and computers. Hermetically sealed windows displayed untouchable views of trees, mountains, sky. Several women’s heads popped up like woodchucks out of holes. Eric thought, not for the first time, that he’d rather take a bullet than have to work in an office.

Kirkwood continued on to an inner door. “This way.” She shut the door behind them, then sat at a desk that was almost as cluttered as the chief’s. He took one of the two chairs facing her. There was a large box of tissues within reach. For employees getting the ax, he supposed. “I don’t know if you’ve checked with them, Sergeant, but we’ve already given a statement to the local police.”

“I’m not here about her suicide.” He slid his pen and notebook out of his breast pocket.

“You’re not? What, then?”

“How long had she been working for BWI Opperman?”

Kirkwood raised her eyebrows as if to acknowledge his sidestepping her question. “Almost three months. She started on August first.”

“Can you tell me what, exactly, her job entailed?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Was she responsible for the accounting for the entire company?”

“Oh, no. We have an outside firm for that. Tally’s job was to keep the books for the special construction projects.”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me.” He gave her a look that said, I’m slow.

“Oh, well, let’s see. Let me give you some history.” She held up three fingers. “There are three divisions of BWI Opperman.”

Not that slow, he wanted to say.

“The original division is the resort construction company. For its first twenty years, the company specialized in fulfillment. Building for others,” she said in response to his questioning expression. “About fifteen years ago, the company went vertical. Designing, building, and operating its own resorts. In the past few years, BWI Opperman has spun its expertise off into special projects that require single-team, clearing-to-cap construction.”

“Can you give me an example of that?”

“Well, the only contracts we’ve taken so far have been with the coalition forces in Iraq.”

Eric blinked. “There aren’t any resorts in Iraq. At least, not any that weren’t blown up.”

She smiled. “BWI Opperman was hired because of that vertical integration. We have earth movers and carpenters and electricians and roofers and anyone else you might require to turn a completely undeveloped piece of land into a school. Or a clinic. Or a mess hall. Anything that might be necessary. We’re one-stop shopping for the Provisional Authority’s building needs. All the American contractors are, as I understand it.”

“So she did all the accounting for that. From here?”

“Yes. Well.” Kirkwood paused and looked uncomfortable for a moment. “She had been reassigned. It was felt that having the specials’ accountant in Iraq would be more useful. Lead to less cost overruns. Of course, she never actually went over.” Her voice thinned.

“You had another bookkeeper here before Tally was hired. Ellen Bain.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“What was her job?”

Kirkwood lifted her brows. “Special construction projects. Tally was hired to replace her.”

“Three days after she died in an accident?”

The HR director’s face fell into smooth, untroubled lines. “It was too important a position to leave unfilled.”

“How did Tally come to your attention?”

“I’m afraid our hiring process is confidential.” Kirkwood placed her hands on her desk and rose. “If that’s all, Sergeant, I have a busy day ahead of me.”

Eric stood as well. “Who replaced her?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Who replaced Tally? In the special construction position?”

Kirkwood blinked, hiding her shark’s eyes for a moment. “We haven’t found anyone suitable yet.”

“It doesn’t make any goddamn sense.” Russ paced from the squad room table to one of the windows to the whiteboard to the huge three-county map hanging near the door.

“Will you quit that? You’re gonna give me motion sickness.” Lyle handed Tony Usher a mug of coffee. “Don’t worry. Harlene made it. It’s safe to drink.”

“You made a wrong call, Chief. It happens.” Tony sounded pretty damn philosophical for a man who’d had to admit to a CID investigator and another JAG that he’d been running his own not entirely authorized investigation.

“Christ, Tony, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”

“No harm, no foul. They think I was following the same case, just half a step behind them. I can stand looking a little slow. It’s not going to hurt my career.”

Tony was generous. Two light birds-the JAG had been a lieutenant colonel, too-now thought Usher was some sort of cowboy. Not the performance any major wanted on his record.

“I just don’t get it.” Russ picked his own mug off the table, wincing at the spasm of pain in his shoulder where the overeager MP had rifle-butted him. “She let her prime informant fly off to Iraq. She didn’t search McNabb’s house or her bank accounts. Hell, as far as we can tell, she never even questioned Tally’s friends. That’s not an investigation. That’s dereliction of duty.”

“Maybe she got your number when she was here,” Lyle said. “She figured you’d never be able to stand not knowing what happened and you’d find the money for her.”

“Do you think Opperman’s in on it? He could have paid her off. Made McNabb disappear.”

Lyle stared at him. “You think the CEO of a fifty-million-dollar-a-year company is going to hook up with one of his construction bosses and his wife in order to split a million in cash? Jesum, Russ, the man’s vacation house in the Caribbean is worth more’n that.”

“Maybe she stuck with Nichols,” Tony said. “Let him lead her to the money.”

“Poor Nichols. Christ.” Russ wiped his hand across his face. His jaw stung where he had scraped it raw against the concrete floor. “The guy put it on the line to help us, and he winds up under arrest.” His last sight of Nichols had been the man’s despairing face as he disappeared into one of three personnel carriers Seelye’s SWAT team had brought.

“Chief.” Tony dropped his hand on Russ’s shoulder for a second. “He knew the risk. It’s not like he was Ivory Soap clean.”

“I know, I know.” Russ’s frustration goaded him forward, window to whiteboard to map.

“The money’s back where it belongs.” Lyle raised his mug. “I count that as a win.”

Russ turned on his second in command. “Does this feel right to you?”

Lyle pursed his lips together. “No,” he finally said. “It doesn’t. But I’ve seen enough incompetent kiss-asses rise to the top of the heap off of other men’s hard work not to recognize it when it happens. She blew the investigation, then lucked out when Nichols called her. She gets the gold mine and he gets the shaft.”

Russ took Tony down to Albany to catch his morning flight. It was the least he could do. “You sure you don’t want to stay for the wedding?” he asked, pulling into the departures lane.

Tony grinned. “The opportunity to see you doing the Chicken Dance is tempting, I must admit, but I better get home and start covering my ass.”

Russ threw the truck into park. “I’m sorry about all this.”

“Stop apologizing.” Tony dug his travel voucher out of his coat pocket. “You’re the one who taught me it’s better to have backup and not need it than the other way around.”

They both got out of the cab. Tony hoisted his bag from the truck bed. “If anything else like this comes up, anything involving the army, I want you to give me a call, okay? Even if it’s just to bounce ideas off my thick skull.”

Russ balanced on the edge of the curb, stretching his legs. “Forget it. My normal caseload consists of drunken fights and shoplifting from the Stewart’s, not military justice violations. The nearest base to us is Fort Drum, and that’s three and a half hours away.”

Tony shook his head. “Your little burg’s not a military town, that’s true, but it’s the kind of town where the military comes from. Small, rural, not much opportunity. Right? How many of your young people join up to get away?”

Russ thought of Wayne and Mindy’s boy, Ethan. Of himself, all those years ago. “A few.”

“Uh-huh. And how many of your officers and EMTs and firefighters got their training in the Guard?” He lifted his bag from the walk. “There are a lot of Millers Kills all over this country. It’s where people like you and me come from, and sometimes it’s where we go back to. As long as that’s true, you’re going to keep crossing paths with the Big Green.” He held out his hand, and Russ shook it, hard. “You take care, Chief. Have fun being the preacher’s husband. Send me and Latice the baby announcement when it’s time.”

Russ laughed. “Sorry, no kids. How ’bout you send me and Clare an invitation to Kanisha’s graduation?”

“Invitation, hell. We’re selling tickets at fifty bucks a pop. You’ve got to think creatively when it comes to funding college.”

Evonne Walters’s greeting that morning was so enthusiastic Clare felt guilty for not visiting sooner. She brought out a loaf of pumpkin bread warm from the oven, and they settled on a sofa in a room Grandmother Fergusson would have called “the good parlor.” Photo albums and boxes of tissues suggested that this had become the place to meet and mourn and reminisce.

Clare placed her mug on the coffee table and picked up an album.

“That’s Mary in high school,” Evonne said.

Clare flipped the cover open. A long-haired, makeup-wearing Tally McNabb smiled up at her. There were pages of friends and teammates, slumber parties and snow forts and the beach at Lake George. Tally in her prom dress, escorted by a boy in an ill-fitting tuxedo. “Is that Wyler?”

“Oh, yes. They dated all through high school and got married right after.” Evonne flipped to a picture of Tally and Wyler leaning against the hood of a muscle car. “I don’t mind admitting I was against it at the time. Wyler didn’t even have a diploma, and I didn’t want Mary to have as hard a life as I had. But she was crazy in love with him.” She turned another page. Tally, in a white dress and veil. “They had their ups and downs. When she enlisted he was right ticked. Wouldn’t leave Millers Kill, though it wun’t like he had a regular job to keep him.” Evonne sighed. “He took his own sweet time growing up. Then he got hired by BWI Opperman, and they got the house and all, and I figured he just needed some extra baking time.”

“Were you worried when she signed up?”

“I always figured, what harm could come to a girl pushing a pencil?” Evonne made a quavery attempt at a smile. “Who knew the trouble would come after she got home?”

“Sometimes…” Clare searched for the right words. “Sometimes the hard part is coming home. When you’re in, you know exactly what’s expected of you. After… you’re on your own.”

“But she had me, and Wyler, and her friends. She had that group of yours. She had the job with BWI Opperman, and money to burn. She could’ve done anything.” Evonne blinked hard. “Somehow she just got smaller and smaller inside herself. Like she was hiding.”

“From what?”

“If I knew that, I mighta been able to help her.” The older woman sliced the pumpkin bread and held it out toward Clare. Take, eat, she thought. This is my body, given for you. They ate the bread together. It was warm and sweet on Clare’s tongue.

“You were a chaplain,” Evonne said.

“No. I flew helicopters. I was regular army for ten years before I became a priest.”

“Then you must have seen action. Is that the right word? Fighting, I mean.”

The pillar of smoke, before her, beneath her, around her. Blood on concrete. The screaming. The smell. “Yes,” she said.

“Well, you came through fine.” Clare almost laughed, but Evonne went on. “That’s the part I don’t understand. She was an accountant. The worst thing that should’ve happened to her was a paper cut. How did she get hurt so bad inside the only thing could cure it was a bullet?” Her voice broke. Clare held out her hands, and the older woman took them, squeezing tightly.

“I don’t know. All I can tell you is that being over there changes you. War makes you different, and you can’t go back to who you were before.”

“I feel so…” Evonne shook her head, as if trying to rattle the words free. “Angry. At her. At Wyler. At the counselor. At the army.”

“Not at BWI Opperman? They were going to send her back to Iraq with the crew.”

“You know, she never did tell me that. I didn’t find out until Wyler spoke to me.” Evonne released Clare’s hands and reached for a tissue. “I can’t believe that was what made her… she could’ve just quit. She already had a couple good offers when BWI Opperman came after her.”

“Came after her? She hadn’t already applied?”

“Nope. The owner himself asked her, is what she said. Wyler greased it, I figure.” She flipped back to the page where Tally and her new husband stood in their finery, eternally young, eternally happy. “He had his faults, but he was good to her. He always said he wouldn’t have his job with BWI Opperman if not for her.”

Clare’s phone rang as she was rattling down Route 137 on her way back to town. A number she didn’t recognize. Maybe Eric had uncovered something good already? “Clare here,” she answered.

“Clare Fergusson? This is Dr. Stillman’s office. We’ve scheduled your tests at the Washington County Hospital Outpatient Clinic. Are you available at one this afternoon?”

Oh, God. Her brain whited out. How many pills had she had this morning? Did she drink last night? No, she’d come home from group and fallen asleep.

“Ma’am?”

Clare snapped to. “What?”

“Are you available?”

“Yes. Of course.” Her voice sounded scratchy in her ears. “Where is that, exactly?”

The receptionist gave her directions to the outpatient clinic. She thanked the woman automatically and let her phone drop unnoticed onto the passenger seat. She stared sightlessly through the windshield at the still-green pastures ahead, bordered with lichen-stained stone walls or sagging barbwire fences. She was over the dosage on the Dexedrine, she knew she was. She had been going to call Trip, let him know what she and Will and Eric had talked about at last night’s meeting. Now… She bit her lip. She’d have to think of what to say. Maybe she could get him to postpone the test for twenty-four hours. Which completely obviated the purpose of the test, so she’d have to have a damn good reason. Which would be what, exactly?

The phone ringing again cut off her downward-spiraling thoughts. She opened it without checking the number. “Clare Fergusson here.”

“Hey, Reverend Clare, it’s Will.”

Clare chucked her own issues into the backseat and focused on Will. “Hey. What’s up?”

“I talked to Olivia last night. After our meeting. I told her it looked like her mom might have been involved with Tally McNabb and her husband.”

Clare slowed for a truck lumbering toward her across the narrow span of Veterans Bridge. “How did she feel about that?”

“She was kind of upset. I mean, I tried to soft-pedal it and all, but there’s no nice way to say your mom could have been on the take. Anyway, she gave me permission to look in her house for anything that might tell us more.” He paused. “I mean, for you and Eric to look in the house.” His voice faded. “I don’t think the place is handicapped-accessible for me.”

“How do we get in if she’s away at college? Spare key?”

“She said you could call Roxanne Lunt, the Realtor. She’ll let you in.”

“The house is up for sale?” Her heart sank. Lord knows what had been tossed out to prepare the place to be shown.

“What’s she going to do with a house? Even if her mom had lived, Olivia probably wasn’t going to be living there anymore except for a few weeks in the summer.”

“No, I understand. It’s just…” She shook the explanation away. “I know Roxanne. I’ll call her.” If her mom had lived. “Will, it would have been an awkward question to ask, but were you able to get a sense of how well-off her mother left her? Was there an unexpected amount?”

“I thought of that,” Will said. “There wasn’t much. Some retirement stuff and the house. If she hadn’t gotten the scholarship, she’d be carrying a ton of student loans right now.”

“Mmm. Of course, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t payoff money. Just that it’s somewhere Olivia and the estate executor couldn’t find it.”

“Or maybe it’s like you and Eric said. Maybe she was set up to have an accident so nobody would have to pay her anything.”

Ellen and Olivia Bain’s house was one of a string of 1920s workingmen’s cottages along Meersham Street, small, pretty, with deep yards and spreading, now leafless, trees. Roxanne Lunt waved to Clare from a front porch decorated with corn shocks and pumpkins. Clare had offered to pick up the key from the Realtor’s office, but Roxanne turned her down. Clare sensed a sales pitch in the making. Roxanne had been showing properties on and off to Russ since he had gotten rid of his house- the house he shared with Linda, her brain helpfully supplied. Clare and Russ were planning on living in the rectory for the time being, but he had to invest the money from the sale of his last home soon or pay taxes on it. A fact the Realtor was well aware of.

Roxanne held out her arms as Clare mounted the porch steps. “There you are! Only four more days to go, am I right?”

“Till what?”

Roxanne stared at her. “Until the wedding?”

“Oh. Yeah,” Clare said. “Don’t remind me. I’ve got-” An MKPD squad car turning onto Meersham caught her eye. It swooped down the street, scattering dry leaves in its wake, and tucked in behind her Jeep. She knew, before he got out of the cruiser, that Russ was the driver. He always parked in a way that suggested the vehicle in front of him was about to get ticketed.

“And here comes the groom,” Roxanne caroled as Russ crossed the corner of the lawn and climbed the porch steps.

“What are you doing here?” Clare realized she could have sounded more gracious.

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Good question. Roxanne called me. She said you wanted to look at a house?” The crunch of more tires against the curb made them all turn. Clare watched with a sinking heart as Eric McCrea got out of his SUV dressed in his Guard uniform for some reason. He stopped halfway around the hood of his truck, looking at the assembly on the porch.

“With… Eric? Gee, Clare, is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Clare began.

Roxanne smiled brightly. “I’ll just open up and turn the lights on, shall I?” She unlocked the front door and whisked out of sight.

Russ glanced up at the flawless blue sky. “Yeah, we’d better have the lights on.”

“I’m sorry she called you,” Clare said. “You can go on patrolling or whatever.” She flapped her hand toward his squad car. “This has nothing to do with you.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “Why do I have the feeling that’s not entirely true?”

Eric had squared his shoulders and walked up the driveway. He climbed the porch steps like a man climbing to the guillotine. “Chief.” He cut his eyes toward Clare. “Will called. Said I should join you.”

“Will?” Russ said.

“Will Ellis.” Clare crossed her arms.

Russ frowned. “Will Ellis.” He looked at her. Then at Eric. Then back at her. His face changed. “Oh, for God’s sake. This isn’t some sort of-this isn’t about Tally McNabb, is it?”

“What if it is?” Clare knew she sounded like a five-year-old, but she couldn’t help it.

“Whose house is this?”

“It belonged to Ellen Bain,” Eric said to the floorboards.

Russ frowned. “Who?”

“Ellen Bain.” Eric lifted his head. “She was the fatal auto accident back in July. Out at the juncture of Sacandaga and the resort road?”

“I remember. What’s the connection?”

“She and Tally had the same job,” Clare said. “Keeping books for the construction crews that went overseas.”

“Tally was hired three days after Ellen Bain died,” Eric said. “Because the job was so critical, the human resources director said.”

Clare interrupted. “Her mother said she got the offer directly from the CEO.”

“However, two weeks after Tally died, they still haven’t replaced her. Despite the position being so important they were going to send her back to Iraq.”

Russ held up a hand. “It didn’t occur to you that they might have difficulty filling a position that involved living and working in a war zone?”

“Chief, you found the missing money at the resort, right? Doesn’t that argue for another person on the inside? Wyler McNabb couldn’t have been popping in and out of the Algonquin Waters all the time. He was part of the construction division.”

“A bookkeeper,” Clare said. “Somebody in a position to retrieve the cash and launder it.”

Russ shook his head. “That was Tally McNabb’s job.”

“ After the last bookkeeper conveniently died at the end of July,” Eric said. “That money was stolen at least five months before then.”

“I’m guessing you’re the one who came up with some theory tying the two women together,” Russ said to Clare. “What is it?”

“Ellen Bain was the third partner. She helped hide the money, and she greased the way for Tally to replace her.”

“Why?” Russ said before she could continue.

“A big payoff,” she said.

“Another job,” Eric said. “She was long divorced, and her only kid was leaving for college. Nothing to keep her from moving somewhere bigger, with more opportunities.”

“Do you know the Bain woman suggested Tally McNabb for her job?” Russ sounded skeptical.

Eric rubbed the back of his neck. “No.”

“Did the HR director indicate Bain had anything to do with Tally McNabb getting the job? I mean, as opposed to her husband, who was a foreman on their overseas construction unit?”

Eric shook his head.

Clare jumped in. “Tally’s mother says Wyler credited his wife with getting him his job.”

“Uh-huh. And that fits in with your theory how?”

She opened her mouth. Shut it again. “I haven’t had time to integrate all my facts yet.”

“Did she rope you into this?” Russ asked Eric.

Two cars driving past the house slowed nearly to a crawl, their drivers rubbernecking at the Bains’ porch. Clare realized they must look like the beginning of a shaggy dog story. A cop, a soldier, and a priest walk into a bar… Russ must have had the same thought, because he gestured toward the door. “Inside.”

Roxanne, true to her word, had turned on every lamp and overhead in sight. The wide, wooden-floored living room and parlor were sparsely furnished, making the place look bigger than it must have when it housed mother and daughter.

The tap-tap-tap of heels announced Roxanne’s descent from the second floor. “Well! Everything all straightened out?” Her smile wobbled a bit when she saw Eric was still with them, but she rallied. “What would you like to see first?”

“Personal papers,” Eric said. “Checkbooks, tax records, bank and investment statements.”

The Realtor’s professionally groomed eyebrows went up. “I beg your pardon?”

“We have permission from Olivia Bain to look at any financial records her mother might have left behind,” Clare explained.

Roxanne turned to Russ as if seeking a translation. “Don’t look at me,” he said. “I’m just a cop.” He frowned and turned to the other officer in the room. “Do you want to explain why you’re wearing your Guard uniform, Eric?”

Eric opened his mouth. He paused. Shook his head. “No.”

Russ glanced up at the ceiling as if seeking divine patience. He took a deep breath. “Listen. Colonel Seelye has taken custody of the money on behalf of the army.”

“You let her walk away with it?” Clare said.

“She was backed up by a platoon of MPs and a light bird from the judge advocate’s office. I didn’t have much say in the matter.”

Eric sounded outraged. “But Lyle said you thought she was-”

Russ cut Eric off. “I thought wrong.” He looked sidelong toward Clare. “I want you to note, I can admit when I’m wrong about something. Quentan Nichols was placed under arrest-”

“Oh, no!”

“-and I suspect Wyler McNabb will be in custody as soon as they can coordinate with the appropriate coalition authorities.” Russ hooked his thumbs in his gun belt, a gesture that never failed to get Clare’s back up. “The case, which was never ours to begin with, is closed. It’s all up to the lawyers’ wrangling now.”

“Well!” Roxanne’s voice was professionally upbeat. “If that’s all settled, I’d love to show you the kitchen.”

“Chief, you still have two women, both working in the same job, both dead within three months of each other.” Eric’s voice was heavy and low. “If Ellen Bain’s death wasn’t the accident we thought it was, that will be our case.”

Russ looked at Eric steadily. “I’m going to overlook the fact that you’re on suspension and have no business being here. For the moment. You were the investigating officer for the Bain death. Did you uncover anything that indicated her car wreck wasn’t an accident?”

“No, but-”

“She tested positive for alcohol in her autopsy, and she wasn’t wearing her seat belt.”

“She was under the limit. Barely, but under.” Eric sounded defensive. “And she was well known for not buckling up.”

Russ’s eyes unfocused slightly. “We never had the car checked for mechanical failure.”

“There wasn’t any need. The accident reconstruction backed up the witnesses’ statements.”

Russ frowned. Clare held her breath. She knew him. If there was one question to a story, one thread left dangling, he couldn’t resist. He’d go after it.

Then why didn’t you accept it when he said Tally’s death was a suicide?

“Okay. Yeah.” He rubbed his forehead. “It couldn’t hurt to dig a little deeper.”

“Wonderful!” Clare turned toward the Realtor. “Roxanne-”

He held up one hand. “For the paid professionals to dig a little deeper. Roxanne, do you know where Ms. Bain’s financial records and personal papers might be?”

“Not here.” She sounded as if she had finally accepted this wasn’t going to be an open house for the future Mr. and Mrs. Van Alstyne. “We cleared the place out after her daughter went off to school. After the owner dies is the best time to show a property,” she confided. “You don’t have to find a spot for all the stuff people live with.”

“Where did it go?” Russ asked.

“The furniture that wasn’t sold is being stored in her mother-in-law’s barn. Violet Bain. All the papers and the computer went to Ms. Bain’s brother. He was the executor.”

Russ nodded. “Does he live around here?” Do I know him?

“Oh, yes he does. He set that leg you broke so spectacularly a few winters back. He’s Dr. George Stillman, the orthopedic surgeon.”

Will was stretched out on the weight bench in his bedroom, pumping iron, when he heard the doorbell’s muffled chime. He ignored it, concentrating on his balance, his form, controlling the shaking of his too-weak muscles. Lifting without feet to brace against the floor was a challenge. Taking his body back after doing his damnedest to poison it was a challenge. Everything in his life was a frigging challenge.

He heard his father’s footsteps in the hall. He quickly reset the bar into its cradle and used it to chin himself into a seated position. Dad would give him hell if he saw Will had been bench pressing without a spotter. His father knocked and entered. “Willem? You’ve got a visitor.”

Will swabbed his face with the bottom of his T-shirt. “Reverend Clare?”

“Nope. Olivia Bain.”

Will nearly fell off the bench. “What?” It was a six-hour drive from Geneseo. She must have set out before daybreak to be in Millers Kill now. “What’s she doing here?”

“She wants to see you, evidently.” Dad tossed him a towel. “Better mop off. You know what they say. Never let ’em see you sweat.” He cocked his head. “Do you need any help?”

“Uh.” Will’s mind raced. “Toss me a clean tee and pants, will you?”

“You got it.” His father pulled the clothes off the shelves and draped them over the weight bar. “I’ll keep her company until you get out there.”

Will lay back on the bench and wiggled his shorts off. He tugged on his baggy pants, curling his hips up, focusing on keeping his balance. He’d never gotten changed on the bench before, and he was damned if he was going to fall to the floor, to be rescued by his father.

His abs were aching by the time he snapped and zipped. He reversed his curl, sat up, and stripped off his sweaty shirt. He humped himself into the chair, grabbed the fresh tee, and was headed out the door before he had finished pulling it over his head. He rolled down the hallway, his flat pants legs flapping, and he had a moment to wish he had taken the time to fold and pin them, and then he was through the archway and there was Olivia, sitting across from his father, a backpack at her feet, looking-oh, man-even better than she had this past summer.

“Will!” She jumped up. “I’m sorry I-I wanted to-”

Dad stood. “You guys want something to eat? Maybe a soda?” Olivia shook her head.

“No, Dad, we’re fine. Thanks.” Will waited until his dad had strolled out of the living room before rolling closer to Olivia. “What are you doing here?”

“I had to see you. After we talked last night…” Her gaze went to his chest, his shoulders, his arms. “Wow.”

“Wow?”

Her cheeks colored. “I mean, you’re looking a lot better than I expected. After nearly killing yourself.”

He loved the way Olivia just came out with what everybody else thought but wouldn’t say. “Yeah, well. I figured as long as I was going to hang around in this body, I might as well keep it in shape. Aren’t you missing classes?”

She sat cross-legged on the sofa. “I couldn’t sleep after we talked last night. I kept thinking about my mom maybe being mixed up with this theft, and then I realized what you hadn’t said.” She looked him square in the face. “My mom’s death might not have been an accident.”

“We don’t know that. It’s a big jump-”

“You said you thought your friend’s death was suspicious.”

“Yeah…”

“Then my mom’s death was suspicious, too.” She picked up the backpack and rummaged inside. “I have a copy of the police report on her accident.” She handed him several sheets of paper, stapled together.

“You kept a copy at school?”

“Yes.” She paused. “You don’t think that’s weird, do you?” She shook her head, and her hair slid over her shoulders in interesting patterns. “Never mind. The point is, they never did an autopsy on her car.”

“Her car ? An autopsy?”

“Whatever you’d call it. I’m not good with mechanical stuff like that.” She gave him that same direct look again. “But you are.”

“Yeah, but-”

“It’s at the MacVane brothers’ junkyard. It’s still there. I called them. You and I are going over there, and you’re going to take a look at it.”

“Me? Olivia, get real.” He slapped his thighs. “I can’t go waltzing through some junkyard, and I sure as hell can’t tear into an engine while I’m sitting in this damn chair.”

“So you get up on the edge of the hood. You’re not a paraplegic. You told me everything still works.” She blushed again, deeper than before, which made him color with embarrassment… and something else. She didn’t see him as a cripple. When she said he looked good, she wasn’t talking about his health, like everyone else was. She was talking about… him.

He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “Okay.”

“Really?” Her smile beamed like a laser. “You’ll help me out?”

You’ll help me out? He felt something twist in his chest, painful and pleasurable. Ever since he had woken up on a flight to Landstuhl, he had heard Can I help you? Now, for the first time in almost a year, he got to say it back. “Yeah.” He smiled a little. “I’ll help you.”

If he had been given free rein in the MacVane Brothers Garage and Junkyard as a kid, Will thought, he might never have signed up for the marines. He’d have been hard-pressed to find anything more appealing than working between the piles of stripped and rusting auto bodies, the brilliant morning sun picking out a Ford Gran Torino, over there, or a cherry-except for the blown-out rear-’72 Dodge Charger. The beautiful girl with him only buffed up the fantasy.

The fact she was pushing his wheelchair did not.

“You’re in luck.” Buddy MacVane strode too quickly through the yard. “We sort out the wrecks into what we’re gonna take care of first and what second, and so on.”

“Triage,” Will said. Was that an old T-Bird? Damn, it was. The chilly late October breeze carried the scent of steel and oil and mildewing leather.

“Triage, right. So like I was saying, you two are in luck. ’Cause the last ones we get to are the ones the county sends us that’ve been in a fatal accident. Used to do ’em the other way around, ’cause if it was bad enough to off somebody, they’re usually no good for nothing but scrap.”

Behind Will, Olivia made a noise. The big man slapped his head. “Aw, Gawd. I’m sorry, honey. I forgot.”

“Why’d you change your policy?” Will asked.

“A couple years back we melted down something we got sent by the state police and then it turns out somebody’d been killed in the thing. You know, before the accident. Boy, didn’t they scream blue murder. So now we just let ’em pile up in the back.”

They rounded a squat industrial shed. “There’s Sonny. My brother. He’s working on your car. We pulled it first thing this morning, soon as you called.” The crumpled Mini Cooper was on its back, beneath a heavy-duty crane. The man digging in the undercarriage looked up at them. He was Buddy’s double, right down to the greasy flannel-lined jacket and the oil-stained, drooping jeans.

“Hey, Sonny.” Buddy thumbed toward Will and Olivia. “These here are the kids who called. You got anything for them?”

“Maybe.” Sonny wiped his hands on a rag. He stared at Will. “C’mere and take a look.”

Olivia raised her hands. “I don’t… I don’t know anything about cars.” Her voice shook.

Will squeezed her hand before rolling himself forward. “I do, but I can’t get to a good angle to see inside.”

“Hell you can’t.” Sonny slapped the portable lift next to the crumpled car. “Right here.”

Will’s face burned. “Look, I don’t know if you didn’t notice-”

“Sure did. What happened to you, kid?”

Will wanted to tell the old fart it was none of his damn business, but they’d come here looking for a favor. “IED. In Fallujah.”

Sonny looked at his brother. “What service were you in, kid?” Buddy asked.

“Marine Corps.”

Buddy grinned. He shucked off his stained jacket and rolled his thermal shirt all the way up his arm. An impressively large bulldog snarled from his bicep.

“You used to be a marine?” Olivia said.

“No used to be about it, honey. Once a marine-”

“Always a marine,” Sonny finished. He dragged his oil-spattered shirt up to reveal an eagle-and-trident on his chest.

“Please tell me you don’t have one of those,” Olivia whispered.

“So drag your ass over here, marine, and tell me what you can figure out.”

Cursing under his breath, Will maneuvered the chair next to the lift. There was no way to get on it except flopping forward and then wiggling around like a worm until he could wedge himself into a seated position. With Olivia seeing every glorious second. God.

“You know, this’d all be a lot easier if you was wearing your prosthetics,” Sonny said.

Will braced his hands on the undercarriage and peered into the Mini Cooper’s guts. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but what the hell would you know about it?”

A clang caught his attention. Sonny banged the crumpled sheet metal with a crutch. Two crutches. Forearm crutches-like Will had. They must have been leaning against the side of the car. Sonny grinned widely at Will, revealing less than perfect teeth, and shuffled back a few steps. He bent over and lifted the hems of his baggy jeans, looking like a shy girl inching her skirt up.

Will stared at the two black carbon prosthetics.

When the world reassembled itself inside his head, Will asked, “What happened?” He looked at Sonny, trying to guess where he might have seen combat. “Vietnam?”

Sonny shook his head. “Motorcycle accident.”

“You wouldn’t guess it, seeing as we’re respectable business owners these days, but Sonny and me used to be a wild pair.” Buddy hooted with laughter. Sonny joined him. Will tried to imagine how old he’d have to be, how many years he’d have to let go, before he could laugh like that at losing his legs.

“Did you have this business to fall back on, Mr. MacVane? After you got out of the service?” Olivia’s clear voice startled Will. He had forgotten she was there.

“Naw, honey, we started this up after I lost m’legs. Nobody cares how pretty you look if’n you can fix up their cars.”

“That’s true,” Buddy added. “We done real good. In fact, we got more work than we can handle. We been talking about bringing in a new guy to help out.” He grinned at Will.

Will stared. His head was buzzing. “Are you-are you offering me a job?” He looked back at Sonny. “You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know if I know jack shit about cars.”

“You tell me. On your honor as a marine. Do ya?”

Will started to laugh. He couldn’t help it-it was like falling down the rabbit hole and getting interviewed by Tweedledum and Tweedledee. “I do, actually. I rebuilt a Charger and a Camaro. I’ve done work on my friends’ cars. Including my priest’s old kit-version Shelby.”

“Sounds good to me,” Buddy said. “Can you start next week?”

For some reason, Will looked at Olivia. She bounced up and down, nodding. “Yeah,” he said. “I can.”

“Good.” Sonny pointed into the Mini Cooper. “Now tell me what’s wrong here.”

It took Will a minute to orient himself, seeing everything upside down. He felt like he might float off the lift if he didn’t keep a tight grip on the edge of the car. He scanned the ball joints, the axle, the rotary-there it was. “One of the brake caliper pins is snapped off.”

“Right.”

“That can happen in an accident.” Will lowered his voice. “Especially where the car was going downhill out of control.”

“That’s right, too. Metal stress. Or it was rusted out.”

“Nobody washes their damn cars in the winter no more,” Buddy put in. “Get their carriages eaten up with salt. Takes three, four years off the life of your car.”

“My mother went to the car wash every Saturday, year-round.” Olivia looked at the Mini Cooper with loathing. “She loved that thing.”

“So what caused this caliper to break?” Will asked.

“Dunno,” Sonny said. “Coulda been a stress fracture. Coulda been somebody who didn’t like your girl’s mama made a stress fracture.”

“Takes five minutes with a metal saw,” Buddy said.

“No way to tell,” Sonny agreed.

Will sprawled across the car’s undercarriage, careless of his dignity and clothes now. “You got a light?” Sonny put a flashlight in his hand.

“So you’re saying the police report was right,” Olivia said. “It was an accident.”

This time, Will spotted the brake calipers easily. It helped that the pin was snapped clean off. Just like the brake on the other side.

“No.” He pushed himself upright. “Two sheared-off brakes are no accident.”

“Ellen Bain’s brother is Trip Stillman?” Russ stared at Roxanne Lunt for a moment before swinging toward Clare. “Isn’t he in your group? Why the hell didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

“I didn’t know! He never said anything about his sister dying.” Clare waved at the half-bare bookcases in Bain’s living room. “It’s not like there are pictures of him sitting around here.”

“He did say there’d been a death in the family. Remember?” Eric was trying to be helpful. Russ wanted to tell him not to bother.

“Good Lord,” Clare said. “I swear, this is the-” Her phone ringing cut her off. She snatched it out of her pocket. “Clare Fergusson here.” She paused. “What? Oh, Will, that’s wonderful! Your parents will be thrilled! Hang on.” She clapped her hand over her phone. “The MacVane brothers offered Will a job at their garage.”

“Why is he-” Russ began, but she was back on the phone. “Isn’t MacVane’s the junkyard the town uses?”

Eric nodded. “Yeah.”

“What’s Will Ellis doing over there?” He answered his own question. “Looking at the Bain woman’s wrecked car.” He pinched the bridge of his nose again. “Jesus, Eric, do you really think the kid’s going to find something you didn’t?”

Clare snapped her phone shut. “He did.” Her voice surged with triumph. “Both brake calipers on Ellen Bain’s car were sheared clean off. Sabotaged.”

They cleared out for Trip’s office so fast poor Roxanne didn’t have a chance to give away the house brochure. Clare sprinted for her Jeep, conveniently not hearing Russ’s shouted suggestion that she go back to the rectory. God. In the driveway, Russ stopped Eric before he could get into his SUV.

“Ride with me. I’ll bring you back here when we’re done.” Russ waited until they were both buckled up in his squad car before he said, “Your suspension’s up on Friday.”

“Yeah.”

“What are you doing, running around like this?”

Eric shifted in his seat. “I haven’t misrepresented myself, Chief. I’m unarmed, and I haven’t done anything but ask a few questions. I haven’t been collecting evidence.”

“That you know of.” Russ flicked on his turn signal and pulled away from the curb. “If Will Ellis and the MacVanes are right about that car, it changes everything.” Russ bit back the sour taste in his mouth. They should have found this out back in August. They should have looked deeper. He should have pressed harder. Nothing could have saved Ellen Bain, but maybe-just maybe-they could have made a difference to Tally McNabb.

“I know. I swear, Chief, if it’d been just me and Clare at the house when she got that call, I would’ve let you know right away.”

“Hmm.” Russ slowed and stopped at the intersection. “Here’s what I want to know now: Are you doing this because you got roped into it by Clare? Or have you decided you can’t work within the limits of the police department anymore?”

Eric let out a noise. “No!”

“No what?”

“No. God. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t be a cop anymore.”

“You didn’t file with your union representative. I’ve been waiting to hear from somebody.”

“I didn’t want to make a thing of it.”

“You broke a man’s cheekbone and fractured his skull, Eric. It’s already a thing.”

Eric stared at him. “I can’t lose my job, Chief. You can’t take it away from me.”

God, Russ hated this. He accelerated down North Elm, fallen leaves scattering to either side of his tires. “Don’t you think it’s time to come clean about what happened in that kitchen?”

“You know what happened.”

Russ sighed. “Here’s my problem, Eric. You’ve never been anything except an asset to this department. You’re the best investigator we have, excepting maybe Lyle. I want you on the streets. I need you on the streets. But I don’t know if you’re safe.”

“It was just once!”

“Was it?” Russ looked away from the road for a second and pinned Eric with his gaze. “Was it just one incident?”

Eric dropped his head and hunched his shoulders.

“Listen to me, Eric. If you had come back from your deployment with your foot blown off, we’d make accommodations for you. If you had popped an eardrum or lost an eye, we’d make accommodations for you. It’s no different if you’ve brought back something in your head. This department is ready to stand behind you and see that you get what you need to keep being the cop I know you can be, but you have got to come straight with me.”

Eric stared out the window as they drove past a three-storied Victorian framed by tatter-leaved horse chestnuts. He mumbled something.

“What?”

“I lost it.” Eric’s voice was barely audible. “He swung at me and I lost it. I hit him. I hit him with my gun. When Knox tried to drag me off of him, I hit her, too.”

Russ pressed his lips together tightly.

“I didn’t mean to.” Eric was louder now. “I swear, I didn’t mean to. I feel like shit about it. It’s like… it’s like…” He raised his head. “Like this feeling, this mad, gets so big it squeezes everything else out. I can’t think, I can’t wait, I can’t feel anything except…” He looked at his hands flexing, releasing. “I don’t want to hurt anybody. I don’t want to lose my family. I don’t know what to do. All I’ve ever wanted to be is a husband and a dad and a good cop. What’ll I do if I can’t do that anymore? What’ll I do?”

Russ slowed as he approached the curving loop of Church Street. The sight of St. Alban’s settled him, so that his voice was even when he said, “Nobody’s talking about you not being a cop anymore, but the first thing you need to do is get some professional help.”

“I’m in counseling!”

“In addition to the veterans group. You need somebody who deals with anger management issues and who can prescribe, if necessary. Our heath plan covers-”

“Drugs? For God’s sake. I can’t be doped up on the job.”

“Lyle has high blood pressure and high cholesterol. He takes drugs for both of ’em.”

“That’s different!”

“No, Eric, it’s not.” Russ stopped at the red light on Main. “He’s getting medical treatment that enables him to show up for work every day without stroking out. You need to do the same thing. You can go through VA, or you can go through our HMO, but you’re going to do it.”

“It’ll be on my record!”

“So is inappropriate use of force. I can guarantee you if I or your Guard commander had to choose, we’d go for the Zoloft over assault and battery.”

“Oh, God.” Eric stared out the window. The downtown merchants association’s Halloween window decorations-painted ghosts and cutout black cats-almost hid the fact that two of the stores on this corner had gone out of business at the end of the summer.

“Second, you’re going out with a partner for the immediate future. I’d prefer to team you up with Knox, but obviously, that isn’t going to work, so I’ll put you with Kevin on day shift and Paul if you have to work nights.”

“Not Paul. Jesus, all the guy does is eat junk food and talk about his porn collection.”

“So you can show him what good policing looks like. Which brings me back to Knox. I’m going to have a talk with her. If she wants to press charges against you, I’m going to do it.”

Eric didn’t object to this one. He simply nodded.

“If she decides not to-and believe me, I’m going to leave it entirely up to her-then you have got to make things right with her.” Russ turned onto Morningside Drive. “Have you spoken with her since the-since you hit her?”

Eric flushed a dull red. “No. I’ve been too… I couldn’t. I couldn’t face her.”

“It’s got to be done. We’re a small force. We have to trust one another, without second-guessing, without hesitation. Something like this, between two people, starts to poison the atmosphere for all of us. Believe me, I know.” He had carried a grudge against his deputy chief for months and months a couple years back, tending his bitterness and hurt like a hothouse plant. It had taken two.357 slugs in his chest and a near-death experience to snap him out of it.

Eric breathed out. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Russ eased the cruiser over the speed bump at the entrance of the Washington County Medical Offices. He spotted Clare’s Jeep. “Bring me the name of an anger management specialist and the date for your first appointment when you come in Friday.”

“You got it. I will.”

Russ found a space close to Clare. He threw the gear into park and turned toward Eric. “Lyle’s throwing me a bachelor party Friday evening at the Full Moon in Glen Lake.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I couldn’t talk him out of it. Anyway, everybody except the night shift guys will be there. You come, too.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’ll be a good chance for you to reconnect. It might not be a bad time to talk to Knox. Less formal than at the station, and I’m sure she’ll feel safer with a bar full of people around.”

Eric dropped his head. “Okay,” he said quietly.

“In the meantime, you can help me go though Ellen Bain’s papers. It’ll take some of the stress off the others-we’re way overscheduled as it is right now. If the case is still open three days from now, you’ll take lead.”

Eric stared for a moment, as if trying to gauge Russ’s sincerity. Finally, he said, “Thanks.”

“Don’t make me regret giving you a second chance.” They got out of the squad car. Russ was halfway across the lot, headed for the squat cement building, when he realized he was alone.

“Eric?”

His sergeant held up a hand and half turned away. “Can you spare me for a minute, Chief?” His voice was clotted. “I gotta call my wife.”

Russ found Clare at the Orthopedic Associates door. “Eric’s having a moment,” he said.

She bit her lip. “Is he all right? You didn’t jump down his throat because of this, did you?”

“Yes, he is, and no, I didn’t.” He opened the door and let her precede him into the check-in area. The receptionist glanced up as they approached her. Her professional smile fell away and her eyes went wide. “Oh, my God.” She clutched at her chest. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing’s happened.” Russ realized they must look like some sort of death notification team: the cop and the minister. “I need to ask Dr. Stillman a few questions. Is he available?”

The receptionist pointed at Clare. “Then what’s she doing here?”

“Good question,” Russ said. The woman who had been sitting behind the SCHEDULING sign a few desks down wandered over to see what all the fuss was about.

Clare shot him a glare before giving the woman her most reassuring smile. “I’m Clare Fergusson. I know Dr. Stillman socially.”

Socially? Clare’s reverence for confidentiality was reaching new heights.

The scheduling secretary perked up. “Clare Fergusson? You’re in the wrong building. Dr. Stillman’s scheduled your blood test at the outpatient clinic at the hospital. You don’t need a referral slip from us.”

“Blood test?” Russ frowned. “Why is Trip Stillman sending you for a blood test?”

“I’m sorry,” the scheduling secretary said. “Are you two together?”

“Ah,” Clare said. “Um.” She blinked several times. “We’re engaged.”

“You don’t need a blood test to get married in New York,” Russ snapped. “I know you don’t like doctors and hospitals, Clare, but if something’s wrong, you’ve got to tell me-” He faltered. He knew one reason she might need a blood test. His stomach sank. “You’re pregnant.”

“What? No! For God’s sake, I’m not pregnant.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw interested faces turning toward them in the nearby waiting room.

“We don’t do any pregnancy testing here.” The receptionist sounded worried, as if this were a failing for an orthopedist. “If you think you might be pregnant, and you’re due for X-rays, you should get confirmation first.”

“I don’t need a pregnancy test,” Clare hissed.

“Would you please page Dr. Stillman for me?” Russ said. If he could just get these women out of his and Clare’s faces for five seconds-

The scheduling clerk leaned against the counter. “Sir, engaged or no, you still don’t have the right to patient information from one of our doctors.”

“I’m here on police business,” Russ said, at the same time Clare said, “I’m not a patient. Trip is just doing me a favor.”

The receptionist put down her receiver. “He’s on his way.”

Russ wrapped a hand around Clare’s arm and dragged her to the middle of the lobby entrance, as far from the waiting patients and the staring staff members as possible. “Okay. You’re not pregnant. What’s going on?” Every other reason he could think of for a blood test was worse than pregnancy. “Are you getting screened for cancer?”

“What? Why would you think that?”

“Because your sister died of colorectal cancer.” Fear made his voice harsher than he intended. “That increases your risk of breast and ovarian cancer. And you hate seeing doctors. It would be just like you to hit up a friend for a favor if you were worried, instead of getting it checked out properly.”

“No. Oh, love, no. Honestly.”

“What is it, then?”

“Look.” She bit her lip. “I don’t want to get into it right now, but I promise you, I’m not going to die, I’m not pregnant, and I’m not-” She paused.

“Not what?”

She jerked her head. Trip Stillman was crossing the waiting room toward them. “Chief Van Alstyne.” The doctor shook his hand. “Good to see you again. My receptionist said you have some questions for me?”

Russ gave Clare a look that said, We’re not done with this . “Yeah. I’m afraid we’re reopening the investigation into your sister’s death. New evidence has come to light-” He broke off at the sight of Trip Stillman’s face.

“My sister?”

Russ frowned. “Ellen Bain. I was told she was your sister.” Oh, hell. If Roxanne Lunt was wrong, he was going to look a complete fool. “If there’s been some mistake-”

“Yes. Yes. Ellen.” Stillman took several shaky breaths. His skin looked waxy.

“Trip? Are you all right?” Clare glanced toward the reception desk. “Do you need help?”

“No.” He cut her off with a sharp wave. “No. My sister is dead. She died this summer in a car accident.”

“That’s what we originally thought.” But we screwed up. Russ gritted his teeth and went on. “Evidence has been uncovered that strongly suggests her death wasn’t accidental, and there seems to be a tenuous connection to Tally McNabb’s theft of army property.”

“Wait-what?” Stillman lost his Madame Tussaud’s look. “Tally McNabb? From my therapy group?”

“That’s right.” Russ glanced around. They were out of earshot, but well within everyone’s line of vision. “Are you sure you don’t want to move this to your office?”

Stillman made an impatient gesture. “Tell me what the connection is.”

“Your sister’s car was sabotaged,” Clare said. “Both brake calipers were cut, which meant once she started down the mountain, she had no way to stop other than crashing her car.”

Russ nodded. If the MacVanes were right, it must have been done by somebody at the resort. Somebody good with engines. He pictured Lyle complaining about Wyler McNabb. Spent the afternoon working on his ATV. Kevin said he was trying to boost the performance so’s he could drive it faster.

Clare went on. “Three days after your sister died, Tally stepped into her job, giving her the ability to move or launder the large amounts of cash she and her husband stole in Iraq.”

Stillman blinked several times but didn’t comment.

“It’s possible-in theory-that the McNabbs may have gotten your sister to help them before she died,” Russ said. “Did Ms. Bain ever mention them?”

“I don’t”-Stillman swallowed-“remember.”

“Did she have any unaccounted-for funds when you settled her estate?”

Stillman spread his hands. “I don’t remember.”

Russ tried to tamp down his impatience. “I understand you’re holding her paperwork and records. I’d like your permission to take a look at them.”

“At Ellen’s paperwork.”

Russ glanced at Clare. “Yeah. Stuff Ellen Bain left behind that’s stored at your house.”

“All right. Let’s go.” Stillman dug into his pants pocket and came up with a business card and pen. He jotted down his address and handed it to Russ. “My address. I’ll meet you at my house.” Stillman pivoted and strode away without further farewell.

Russ pocketed the card. “Was that just me, or was he acting weird?”

“It’s not just you,” Clare said. She took her phone out of her skirt pocket and opened it.

“What are you doing?”

“Letting Will and Olivia know they should meet us at Trip’s house.”

“No. No, no, no. I’m grateful for their help, but this is police business now.”

She gave him a look.

“I mean it, Clare. This isn’t you and your buddies carrying Tally McNabb off the field anymore. We’re talking homicide.”

“I’ve been talking homicide the whole time. You’ve just started listening.” She held the phone up to her ear. “Hey, Will. It’s Reverend Clare.”

God. For the rest of his life. What was he setting himself up for?

She walked to the office door, listening to something the kid was telling her, and pushed it open. Looked back at him. Clamped her hand over the phone. “Well? Are you coming with me?”

He sighed. “All the way, darlin’. All the way.”

The Stillmans’ house was typical suburbiana, the sort of large and graceful home that fit in everywhere and was native to nowhere. The slim, leafless trees-some sort of ornamental fruit-were hung with tiny witches and black cats, and the entryway was festooned with cobwebs and orange lights. Two skeletons guarded the front door. Each of them had a large cast on one leg.

Clare parked behind a little green four-door with a SUNY GENESEO sticker in the rear window. As she was getting out of her Jeep, Russ’s squad car rolled into the drive, followed a minute later by Eric McCrea’s SUV.

“Do you need help?” she asked Will as he slid himself from the green car’s passenger seat. The curvaceous auburn-haired girl bracing his wheelchair looked up. “We’ve got it, thanks.”

“You must be Olivia.” Clare walked up and shook the girl’s hand. “I’m Clare Fergusson.”

Russ and Eric joined them, and Will, panting, but in his chair, introduced everyone.

“I want to thank you two for what you’ve uncovered.” Russ straightened, as if he were standing at attention. “And Miss Bain, I’d like to personally apologize, for myself and on behalf of my department, for not thoroughly investigating your mother’s car earlier.”

Behind them, a BMW nosed into the last available inch of the driveway. Trip Stillman got out, squinting in the sunlight.

“Sergeant McCrea and I can take it from here,” Russ continued. “An officer is headed over to the junkyard right now to document the condition of the car and to take the MacVanes’ statements. I’ll be sure to let you know what we find after examining your mother’s records.”

“Sorry I’m late,” Stillman said. “Olivia, what are you doing here?” He picked up his niece in a toe-dangling hug.

“Will and I want to look at Mom’s papers along with the rest of you.” She darted a glance toward Russ. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is, sweetheart.” The doctor frowned at Russ.

“This isn’t a matter for civilians anymore. Sergeant McCrea and I will call in assistance from the department if we need any help in the investigation.”

Clare could tell Russ was trying to keep his temper. She shouldn’t feel so gleeful about that. “Russ?” She was a bad Christian. “Do you have a warrant to search Ellen Bain’s documents?” A bad Christian, and a bad fiancée.

“I don’t need one when I’ve got the permission of…” He trailed off. His eyes narrowed.

“Trip, Olivia, will you allow all of us to go through the papers?”

They nodded.

“Then let’s all go in, shall we?” She shivered. “I’m getting chilled out here.”

The detritus of Ellen Stillman Bain’s life was in the Stillmans’ finished basement, packed in a wall’s worth of 18″ by 22″ moving boxes. Clare read the marker-scrawl on the ends and sides: LP’S, WINTER COATS, WOODEN ITEMS, VANITY. She spotted some that would be of interest right away: PRIOR TAX RETURNS and BILLS and HEALTH/SS/INVESTMENT.

Russ bent over the boxes. “Are these in any order?”

Trip indicated the cardboard wall. “This is it. It’s all labeled. What is it, exactly, that you’re looking for?”

“A lead. Some sign of financial hanky-panky. Evidence of conspiracy.”

Stillman looked offended. “My sister was the epitome of financial rectitude. Her living depended on her honesty and reliability. There’s no way she would have been involved in any sort of hanky-panky .”

Eric patted Trip’s back. “Sorry, Doc, but the prospect of free money has a way of bending people’s, uh, rectitude. Just look at what it did to Tally McNabb.”

Clare figured now would be a good time to step in. “Trip, is there anyplace upstairs where we can look at the contents? That way, Will can help, too.”

Russ made a noise that sounded like a suppressed groan and picked up a box.

“The dining room table, upstairs.” Stillman bent to pick up another box. “Plenty of room, and we won’t have to stoop over.”

The dining room had the elegant, unused air of a historic house exhibit kept pristine behind a velvet rope. Clare moved a porcelain bowl from the table to a sideboard for safekeeping. Russ was clearly reluctant to set his box on the snowy tablecloth until Trip thumped his down without ceremony. He hit a rheostat and the chandelier sprang to life. “You get started,” he said. “We’ll get the rest of it. But I can tell you already, you’re not going to find anything.”

“He may be right.” Russ hauled one of the chairs out of the way to accommodate Will’s wheelchair. “We’re only guessing at the motive behind sabotaging her brakes. It could have been a jealous lover, or her ex-husband come back, or somebody she pissed off at work. Hell, it could be a family member, looking to inherit. Maybe the daughter.”

“It was not!” Will’s voice was vehement.

Russ looked at him. “No. You’re right. I think we can take that one off the board.”

They opened up the cartons on the table and got to work. They sorted the contents into two piles: the obviously irrelevant and documents that needed a closer look. Trip and Olivia and Eric brought up everything that might possibly be of interest, then stayed to open and sort. The piles grew higher and higher, then divided, then divided again. Eventually, they had the contents of eight boxes spread across the room, covering the table, piled in chairs, heaped on the sideboard.

“It looks like your office,” Clare said.

“God. I hate paper trails.” Russ polished his glasses on his shirtfront. “Give me ballistics and blood splatters any day.”

There was a soft ringtone from the other end of the house. A door opening. “Hello?” They could hear a wary British voice from the kitchen. “Trip? Why is there a police car in the drive?”

“We’re in here, darling.” Stillman straightened from where he’d been hunched over a stack of old checkbooks.

Mrs. Stillman’s eyes widened when she appeared in the dining room door. “Good Lord. What’s going on? It looks like an office exploded in here.” She spotted her niece. “Olivia, darling, why aren’t you at University?” She looked at Russ. “Has there been some sort of trouble?”

“No trouble.” Russ held his hand out to her. “I’m Russ Van Alstyne. Chief of police.”

“Flora Stillman.” She shook automatically, her face turning toward Clare. “You’re the Episcopal priest, aren’t you? At St. Alban’s.”

“Clare Fergusson.” Clare waved from the other side of the table.

“We go sometimes. Well. Christmas and Easter, really. I’ve been meaning to try to attend more often, but you know how busy Sundays can get.” Flora Stillman bit her lower lip. “Oh dear. I suppose you do.”

Clare smiled. “You’re welcome anytime. Come for Choral Evensong. It’s less hectic.”

Flora looked around her, as if trying to put a priest together with a soldier and a young man in a wheelchair. “What are you all doing here?”

“We have reason to believe your sister-in-law’s death wasn’t accidental,” Russ said. “We think she may have been connected in some way with several people who stole a lot of money from the government.” He indicated the papers stacked everywhere. “We’re looking for a lead. Something to tell us why someone tampered with her brakes.”

“Her brakes?”

Will spoke up for the first time. “They’d been engineered to snap the first time the calipers were engaged. It’s not that hard, if you know what you’re doing.”

“That’s… good Lord. I thought that only happened in old television shows.”

Russ shifted his weight. “Did Ellen ever mention the name Wyler McNabb to you?”

“No.” Flora looked at her husband.

“Never heard of him,” Trip said. “Who is he?”

Clare and Eric and Will stared at him. Finally, Eric said, “He’s Tally McNabb’s husband. She talked about him in group. Several times.”

“Ah.” Trip got that waxy, stuffed look again, the same one he had had in his waiting room.

“How about finances? Did she ever say anything about coming into some money?”

“No, but she would have talked to Trip about that, not me.” She turned toward her husband. “What about when we had her and Olivia for dinner? Just a few days before she died?”

“I remember,” Olivia said. “Iola and I went swimming, and Uncle George made shish kebab.”

“That’s right.” Flora looked at Russ. “Ellen must have spent an hour that evening closeted with Trip in his office.”

“Huh.” Russ frowned. “How about it, Dr. Stillman? Is there anything your sister said that in retrospect throws up a red flag?”

Trip looked blank. “I don’t know.”

“What did you talk about?”

Trip stood there, still, pale, his mouth slightly open. Only his eyes moved, darting from side to side as if trying to find an escape from his head.

“Dr. Stillman?”

Clare could hear the man’s breath rasping in and out.

Flora Stillman’s face pinched in worry. “Darling, you must remember. It was the last time we saw her alive.” She glanced up at Russ. “I assumed they were talking about their mother. She’s been getting a bit difficult, and he tries hard not to drag me into it.”

“Was that what you were talking about, Dr. Stillman?” Russ’s voice had sharpened, like a knife that was about to cut through to the truth. It could be a family member, looking to inherit. “Your mother?”

Silence. Clare heard a rattle in Trip’s throat, like the harbinger of death. “I can’t remember.”

Flora faced Russ. “He’s been under a lot of stress lately.”

“I don’t need word-for-word. The general gist is fine.”

“I can’t remember,” Trip said.

Russ stepped toward him. “You can’t remember what went on between you and your sister the last time you saw her alive? Even though you were alone together for an hour?” He dropped his voice. “Maybe that wasn’t the last time you saw her. Maybe you were up at the resort the night of July twenty-ninth. Maybe you were watching as she drove away.”

“For God’s sake!” Flora threw her arms around her husband, as if to prevent Russ from dragging him away.

“I can’t remember.” Trip’s face fell in on itself. “I can’t remember anything.” He disengaged from his wife. “I’m sorry, Flo. I’m so sorry. I’ve been lying to you. To you, to the partners, to everybody.”

Clare had the stomach-dropping sensation of seeing her own life reenacted as a morality play.

“I’m not-I don’t have PTSD. I’m not stressed, or getting older, or preoccupied. I have a traumatic brain injury to my frontal lobe. The effects include migraines, impaired judgment, and a pervasive loss of short-term memory.”

Flora pressed her hand over her mouth. “Oh, dear Lord.”

“I diagnosed myself back in…” He wiped his hand over his eyes. “I don’t know. Back in the summer, I think. Not long after I got home.”

Flora squeezed her eyes shut. “I knew something was wrong. I knew it. I thought maybe you were drinking or taking drugs or-” She hiccupped and started to cry. “I don’t know what I thought.”

Stillman folded his arms around his wife. “Oh, Flora. I’m so sorry.”

“I should have said something,” she sobbed. “I should have made you go to a neurologist instead of trying to ignore it and hoping you’d get better.”

Trip shook his head. “No, sweetheart, no. I wouldn’t have listened to you. I’ve been in carry-on mode since I figured it out.” He bent down so he could peer up into her face. “You know. Stiff upper lip. Onward, the six hundred.”

Flora gasped, a cross between a laugh and a sob.

“Your PalmPilot,” Clare said, coming around the table toward him.

Trip pulled the PDA from his pocket and set it on the table. “I take notes.” He smiled weakly. “I’ve always taken good notes. It’s important for a clinician. I can keep things in my head for a day. Or two.” Something blank and frightening drifted through his eyes. Clare involuntarily stepped back. “It’s… disorienting, sometimes. Like going forward on a moving walkway. People and pictures flash by and then they’re gone.”

Flora yanked a chair from the table and collapsed into it. “Dear Lord. Dear, dear Lord.” Olivia sat next to her aunt and held out her hand. Flora took it, squeezing hard enough so that Clare could see her knuckles whitening. When she finally spoke, her voice was calmer. “Trip. You cannot practice medicine while you’re suffering from this.”

“I thought so, too, at first! But really, Flo, I can. I haven’t forgotten any of my training.” He pointed toward Russ. “Russell Van Alstyne. Fifty. Married. O positive, no drug allergies. Compound dissociative fracture of the right tibia. Two pins in a Stinowski conformation. No postoperative complications.”

“That’s good,” Russ said, “except I’m fifty-two and widowed.”

Trip’s face went blank again.

“Trip,” Clare said, “your sister could have told you everything that night. For all you know, she might have named her killer. Didn’t you take any notes?”

The doctor looked at the PDA. “No,” he finally said. “I reread her file after I spoke with you at the office. I don’t have anything.” He ran his hand over the top of his close-cropped gray hair. “You have to understand, I was still hoping then… I wasn’t taking notes consistently.”

Flora rocked forward in her chair. “Dear Lord.”

Russ crossed his arms. “Mrs. Stillman, do you recall anything from that night?”

She took a deep breath. “Olivia spent the day here with Iola, swimming and biking. Ellen came over from work. She must have arrived around five thirty. No.” Her brows knit together. “She was later than we expected. Six thirty.”

“Go on,” Russ said.

“We had drinks while Trip grilled. We ate. The girls were tired out and wanted to watch a movie. I joined them.” She paused again. “We made sundaes right before that. I remember warning the girls not to drip on the sofa. It was then that Ellen asked Trip if they could talk. She went out to her car to get something, and right after she came back in they disappeared into his study. The girls and I were already in the family room.”

“Did you see what she went to get from the car?”

Flora shook her head.

“Olivia?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Did either of you see her carry anything back to the car when she left?”

“Just her purse,” Olivia said, “but that was small.”

Clare looked at Russ. “What do you think it was?”

His face was grim. “The question is, where is it?”

“If she left anything, it’s in Trip’s study.” Flora stood up. “Our cleaning service only dusts and vacuums in there, and the girls and I hardly ever go in.”

Russ opened his hand in a you-first gesture. They trooped-or in Will’s case rolled-down the hallway and through the foyer and squeezed into a small room at the front of the house. It was a true office; desk and file cabinets and bookcases and a whole shelf of tiny papier-mâché skeletons playing instruments, golfing, and otherwise enjoying the afterlife. Russ touched a skeletal police officer with a fingertip. “ Calacas. From El Día de los Muertos. ”

“The Feast of All Souls,” Clare said. “Coming right up.”

“We’ve been collecting them for years,” Flora said. “Ever since we honeymooned in Mexico.” She bit her lip again as she looked at her husband. “Do you remember?”

He took her hand. “Every minute. It’s just the present I’m having trouble with.”

Russ pushed to the center of the small room, scanning the contents. “Can you tell if anything here is out of the ordinary?”

Both the Stillmans shook their heads.

“It might have been papers,” Russ went on. “If she was getting a payoff to look the other way-” He held up one hand at Trip’s sound of protest. “ If that’s what happened, she might have documentation of a separate account. Something unconnected to her usual bank.”

“You’d put any paperwork in the file cabinets, wouldn’t you, darling?”

“Let’s take a look,” Russ said.

Trip retrieved a ring of small keys from his desk, squinted at their labels, and began unlocking the first file cabinet. Each drawer had its own key.

“That’s a good system you’ve got.” Eric rolled the top drawer open. “Most folks’ file cabinets you can get into with a bent paper clip.”

“They’re fireproof as well. I’ve got patient information in here, and it’s important to keep it safe.”

“I noticed a keypad by your front door,” Russ said. “Do you have a security system?”

“Yes.” Flora stepped forward and took the handle of the bottommost drawer. “You can remove these entirely and put them on his desk if you don’t want to work bent over.”

Clare hadn’t noticed any keypad, but she could tell what Russ was thinking. Tamper-resistant file cabinets in a wired and alarmed house must have been as close to a safety deposit box as Ellen Bain could come without actually going to a bank and leaving a paper trail.

As Trip unlocked his way through the cabinets, Eric and Clare pulled out the lowest drawers and set them side by side on the desk. They ran out of room well before Trip ran out of files. “I’ll get the card table,” Flora said.

Clare tugged on the next-to-last drawer. Something shifted inside, thudding against the metal front.

“Look at all this.” Eric kept his voice low. “Do you think he’d have put it under her name? Or stuck it in anywhere?”

Clare drew the cabinet drawer out slowly. It didn’t look any different than the others. Lots of manila folders, color tabbed, hanging on rails.

“Mom kept everything.” Olivia looked up from where she was going through the top left drawer. “That’s the reason there were so many boxes. Everything and copies of everything.”

Clare unlatched the metal tab holding it in place and lifted it from the cabinet. She tilted the drawer one way, then another. Thunk. Thunk. “There’s something in here.”

Russ took the drawer from her. “See if you can get it out.”

Clare shoved the folders back. A hefty envelope file had been wedged into the bottom of the drawer. She grabbed it and wiggled it free. It was more than an inch thick, its flap held in place by two thick rubber bands. She showed it to Trip.

“I’ve never seen it before.” His mouth twisted. “That I can remember.”

“What is it?” Will asked.

Russ let the drawer thunk onto the carpet. “Let’s see.” He removed the rubber bands and opened the flap. The folder was stuffed with papers.

“Here.” Flora toted a card table through the door and kicked its legs into place. “You can put it here.”

Russ dumped the documents onto the surface. Clare picked one up: three sheets stapled together. The first two pages were an accounting, directed to the financial administration of the coalition, for thirty metric tons of steel rebar. It was detailed enough to make her eyes swim-cost of transport inter- and intracountry, cost of labor, percentage cost of insurance, interim and final disposition. The sheet stapled to it was much simpler: an invoice from Birmingham Steel to BWI Opperman for five metric tons of rebar. She flipped back to the second page. There was a string of signatures: one from the Secretary of Finance (Coalition), one from the Quartermaster General’s Office, one from the Field Director of Operations (BWI Opperman), and one from the CID Compliance Officer attached to 10th Financial Support. That signature was neat, firm, and recognizable. Lt. Col. Arlene Seelye.

“Russ.” Clare held the document out for him to see.

“I know.” He read the signature. He showed her the papers in his own hand. “This one’s for insulation. Five thousand square feet billed to the coalition, with an invoice for seven hundred and fifty square feet from a distributor in Kentucky.”

“Are they all bills?” Eric asked.

“This isn’t. This is a copy of a legal document.” Will had parked his chair at the edge of the card table and was flipping through a hole-punched collation of thirty or more pages. “I think it’s a contract for services between BWI Opperman and the coalition government.”

Olivia looked over his shoulder, her forehead creased. “My mom didn’t have anything to do with the legal department.”

Clare picked up another paper. Rubberized tiles. She read another. Ductwork. And another. Sewage piping. All of them billing for five or six or seven times the attached invoices to BWI. All of them signed Lt. Col. Arlene Seelye.

“I just noticed this.” Eric pointed to the bottom corner of one of the elaborate coalition accounting forms. There was a small slash, followed by MM.

“Mary McNabb.” Clare handed the form to Russ. “That was Tally’s real first name.”

“She prepared these,” Russ said, “and Arlene Seelye signed off on them. Every one.”

Clare leaned against the paper-strewn card table. “There must be fifty of these paired-off invoices.”

“More, I think,” Will said.

Trip ran his fingers over one. “These are all copies, not originals. Ellen must have spotted the discrepancies early on and started keeping track.”

“I don’t understand,” Flora said. “ Was Ellen involved in some sort of criminal activity?”

“No. It looks like she was documenting someone else’s fraud.” Russ pointed to the legal document in Will’s hand. “Can I see that?” Will handed it over. Russ scanned the first page. Flipped through a few more pages. Stopped and folded the sheet over. He held it out to Trip. “Double-check me. What’s this contract worth?”

Trip pulled a pair of reading glasses on and examined the page. “Sixty million dollars.”

Clare breathed in.

“BWI Opperman signed a contract in which it was paid sixty million for construction in occupied Iraq,” Russ said. “Your sister was the accounts-payable bookkeeper for that part of the business. It was her job to keep track of and pay the bills BWI Opperman’s special projects department generated.”

Trip nodded.

“Somehow, she got hold of the invoices on the accounts-receivable side.” Russ held up one of the coalition forms. “I doubt she was ever meant to see these. She put the two side by side and saw BWI Opperman was buying and shipping about a sixth of what they were billing the government for.”

“You mean they were pocketing the difference?” Will said.

Eric took the copy of the contract from Stillman. “Holy shit. That’s fifty million dollars.” The sum seemed to hang in the air for a moment.

“Fifty million dollars,” Will said, “and they just disappeared it into a bunch of papers.”

“The company wouldn’t even have needed to suborn the folks who hand out the contracts,” Clare said. “All they needed to buy was the army clerk who created the invoices and the finance investigator who was there to prevent fraud.”

“It sure explains Seelye’s actions, doesn’t it?” Russ’s voice was dry. “No wonder she wasn’t interested in splitting the million with Nichols. She was already on the BWI Opperman payroll.”

“They must have promised to pay Tally off, too.” Eric turned toward Russ. “Do you think they screwed her over after she did her part? Is that why she stole the cash?”

“No. She got paid. With Wyler McNabb’s job.” Clare looked at Eric. “Tally’s mother said Wyler always felt he owed his job to Tally. That was her payoff. He went from being a high school dropout to having an income that bought them luxury SUVs and casino vacations.”

Russ nodded. “He knew about the contract fraud. He didn’t know Seelye, but he knew about the fraud. That’s probably why he got named manager. One less person outside the fold. When she deployed a second time, her husband went over with the crew.”

“Huh.” Eric picked up the contract again. “And then he sees the money the DOD’s flying in and starts thinking, Why shouldn’t I get mine? If his wife can cover up the theft of fifty million, it’s a cinch she can hide a single pallet of cash.”

Russ chewed the inside of his cheek. “I’ll bet you a million of my own Opperman and Seelye had no idea that money had been stolen. They must have been shitting bricks when Nichols started investigating.” He tilted his head toward Flora and Olivia. “Excuse my French.”

“Wait.” Clare dropped the paper she had been holding. “Opperman?”

“ Mr. Opperman?” Olivia’s eyes were wide.

“Who do you think was behind this? The man is the CEO and controlling shareholder. He owns the company. The real theft here isn’t shrink-wrapped cash. It’s fifty million dollars, and it wasn’t stolen by someone seducing an MP or sweating a pallet onto a cargo plane. It was stolen by people wearing suits and signing agreements in air-conditioned offices. It was stolen by someone who believes people can be bought and sold with gifts and jobs and, and”-he looked at Olivia-“four-year scholarships to SUNY Geneseo.”

“No.” The girl went pale. “Oh, no.” Her aunt put an arm around her shoulder.

Russ leaned forward and braced himself on the rickety table, his large hands spread protectively over the documents there. “But Ellen Bain wouldn’t be bought. She assembled this evidence, and she brought it to the one soldier she knew she could trust. Her brother.”

Clare could picture it. Ellen Bain, picking her brother’s brain for information on the military police and the financial affairs divisions, entrusting the package to him, swearing him to secrecy. Not knowing that within a day or two, he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone even if he wanted to.

“Why didn’t I warn her?” Trip’s voice cracked. “If we talked about all this, why didn’t I call the police and keep her here until the law took over?”

Clare ached for the self-accusation in his voice. She knew what it was like to ask Why didn’t I? after it was all too late. “You couldn’t have known, Trip. She probably thought she was risking her job and her benefits, not her life.”

Russ nodded. “Opperman may not have known she smuggled this stuff out, anyway. He probably thought killing her and purging the original files would be enough to protect him.”

“Wait a minute. Are you saying John Opperman killed Ellen?” Trip sounded torn between disbelief and fury.

“No.” Russ shook his head. “I’m quite sure he was somewhere else surrounded by unimpeachable witnesses when your sister’s brake calipers were cut. He delegates his dirty work. My bet’s on Wyler McNabb. He was shipped over to the construction team in Iraq as soon as we started investigating.”

“Can you get him back?” Will asked.

“Oh, yeah.” Russ grinned, baring his eyeteeth. “And when we do, he’s going to give us John Opperman on a silver platter.”

It seemed anticlimactic to Clare. They had uncovered evidence of a fifty-million-dollar scam. There ought to be screeching police cars and flashing lights and people led away in handcuffs. Instead, it was Russ, on the phone, first with his friend from the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, then with an officer at the Department of Defense. He was talking with a Treasury agent when Lyle MacAuley and Kevin Flynn arrived, toting piles of plastic evidence envelopes, a laptop, and a portable scanner. He was debriefing someone from the Government Accountability Office when the FBI team from Albany pulled in. The Feds walked into Trip Stillman’s office looking skeptical and came out with sharp, satisfied smiles.

Clare, who had been drinking cup after cup of hot, sweet coffee in the Stillmans’ kitchen, snagged Russ before he had the chance to pick up his phone again. “When are they going to arrest Opperman?”

He looked startled. “I don’t know. Another couple of weeks.”

“A couple of weeks?” She lowered her voice. Olivia Bain sat disconsolate at the kitchen table, Will holding her hand. “Why so long? My God, Russ, you said it yourself. That man is responsible for Ellen Bain’s death.”

He put his phone in his pocket. “I know. Believe me, I’d love to drive up to the resort right now and haul his ass in.” He took her hand, rubbing her knuckles with his thumb. “But this is going to be a very complicated case. I’m not even talking about all the agencies who are going to want a piece of the action. We need to have every piece of evidence lined up, every warrant signed, and every cop and agent in place, ready to drop the hammer on everyone involved. Until that moment, you”-he gestured toward the Stillmans with his head-“and they have to keep quiet about all of this.”

“Justice delayed is justice denied.”

“It won’t be. I promise you, there will be justice for Ellen Bain.”

“What about Tally? Will there be justice for her?”

“Clare.” Russ’s voice was gentle. “She knew from Nichols that an investigator was closing in. She didn’t know it was Seelye. All she knew was that she was holding the bag for massive federal fraud and grand theft and she had nowhere to turn.”

“She could have turned to Opperman.”

“His solution was to send her back to Iraq. Maybe she would have had an ‘accident’ like Ellen Bain did. Maybe that’s what she was afraid of.”

Her voice rose. “So she killed herself?”

Russ steered her into the family room. “If she were alive right now, she’d be facing thirty years in Leavenworth and the loss of everything-family, home, money, reputation.”

“If she were alive right now, none of this would ever have come to light!”

“I know.” He didn’t try to argue with her or persuade her. He just stood there, his grip warm and steady. Letting her hold the truth in her hands. Letting her raise it up and swallow it. It was cold, very cold, and no amount of sugar could sweeten its bitter taste.

“She killed herself,” she finally said.

“Some people can’t face the consequences of their crimes.”

Clare pulled away from Russ. “She wasn’t a criminal. She was a damaged soldier.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “She was wounded over there, just as much as Will and Trip were.”

“As much as you were?” Russ looked at her, looked into her, inviting her to lay down all her lies and deep-dive into the truth with him.

She couldn’t face that bottomless well. “I’m afraid,” she whispered.

“Oh, love. Of what?”

“Of what’s in my head. What’s in my heart. I’m afraid I’m not strong enough. That loving you and God won’t be enough to keep me afloat. I’m afraid-”

He wrapped his arms around her. “That if Tally McNabb could choose to end it all, you might make the same choice someday?”

“I don’t know if I’m dealing with it any better than she was,” she said into his chest. “Or Eric, losing his temper, or Trip, pretending he hasn’t lost a chunk out of his brain.”

“I don’t know how you’re dealing with it. I don’t know what you’ve been through, and I don’t know where you’ve been hurt.” He pushed her hair away from her face. “Tell me.”

She wanted to. She was so tired of hiding and lying and going it alone. She opened her mouth-

It’s the same reason Clare doesn’t want to talk about drinking. Because she’s afraid if she does, somebody will stop her from doing it. Tally had said that… and less than a week later, had killed herself.

– and shut it again. “Not now.” She nodded toward the hallway, where a banging door and the sound of raised voices indicated some new investigator had arrived. “You’re going to be here half the night. If Olivia and the Stillmans don’t need me anymore, I’m going to”- get my blood tested -“go home.”

“All right. Not now. Soon, though. I mean it, love. I’m waiting for you to tell me.”

That was what she was afraid of.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21

The Full Moon Bar and Grill was packed by the time Eric got there, but he had no trouble spotting his party. Five helium balloons imprinted with handcuffs bobbed over their table in the corner. When he got closer, he could see they were weighted down with the real thing. MacAuley was being subtle. He had figured the deputy chief would’ve gone for a ball-and-chain motif.

He raised his hand. “Hi, everybody.” A chorus of hellos greeted him. He dropped into a chair near one end, across from the chief. It was also as far away from Hadley Knox as he could get.

“Eric. Glad you could make it.” The chief slid an empty glass and a pitcher of beer toward him. “You know Emil Dvorak, our medical examiner. This is his partner, Paul Foubert, who runs the Infirmary.” The two men nodded at Eric. “And this is Wayne and Mindy Stoner. We went to high school together.” The ruddy-faced farmer-he had to be a farmer-leaned forward and shook Eric’s hand. His wife wiggled her fingers around a glass stein. “Eric’s in the Guard,” the chief said to the Stoners. “He got back from Iraq this past June.”

“Really?” Mindy Stoner put her beer down. “Our son Ethan is in Afghanistan right now. He’s with the marines.”

Eric made some remark, and the ME chimed in, and pretty soon they were all talking about the wars, and Eric couldn’t have recounted what he said two seconds after he said it. He was focused on the other end of the table, where Hadley Knox sat boxed in by Kevin and Harlene. She was smiling but quiet, following a rapid-fire back-and-forth between Harlene and the chief’s sister, not noticing Kevin topping off her beer and filling her plate before passing the platter on to Noble.

Eric’s attention was broken by Lyle dropping an identical platter on their end of the table. “Sausage hoagies and onion rings,” the deputy chief announced. “Best in the state.”

Mindy Stoner stared at the mountain of cholesterol. “He’s trying to kill you before the wedding,” she said to the chief.

MacAuley slapped the chief on the back. “Dig in. You gotta keep your strength up for tomorrow night.”

“Lyle,” the chief warned.

“Hey, where’s the stripper?” Wayne Stoner asked. His wife glared at him.

“Aw, you know Russ. He’s too much of a spoilsport to go for that.” MacAuley grinned. “We’ll play pin-the-whitetail-on-the-twelve-point-buck later on instead.”

“When I got married the first time, I had a stripper at my bachelor party,” Dr. Dvorak said. “All my friends at University chipped in and brought her down from Amsterdam.”

Mindy Stoner looked from him to his burly, bearded partner and back again. “You had a stripper.”

“Yes, indeed. Then she arrived, and she was fifty-five-years old and looked like my mother.”

“Turned him gay,” Paul Foubert said.

At the other end of the table, Hadley said something to Kevin and rose. Eric watched her disappear into the crowd, headed for the ladies’. He sipped his beer. Gave her a minute. Two. Women always took twice as long in the john as men did.

“’Scuse me.” Eric stood up. The chief looked at him over the rim of his water glass but didn’t say anything. Eric threaded his way through the tables and chairs as if he had all the time in the world. He wanted to catch her at the other end of the bar without having to lurk outside the bathrooms like some perv.

He timed it just right. She spotted him as she came out. He stopped where he was, close, but not in her way. “Can we talk?” He kept his back toward their table so she could face that way. Keeping her friends in sight. She’ll feel safer with a bar full of people around.

“Okay.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “Shoot.”

He swallowed. “I, um, want to apologize.” She looked at him with flinty eyes. “I, ah-” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I-”

Kevin Flynn walked past him, carrying a full glass of beer. “Hey.” He handed it to Hadley. “Thought you might like your drink.” He casually moved behind and to the side of her, right where he’d be most effective if Eric were to snap and attack her. Again. Eric felt a funny ache in his stomach. The kid used to look up to him. “I wanted to let you know I’ve started seeing somebody,” he found himself saying. “Down in Saratoga. A doctor. He specializes in guys like me. Who need help holding on to their tempers. I’ve got-he gave me a prescription.” He hadn’t filled it yet. He was terrified of how it would feel, being drugged up.

“That’s good,” Hadley said. “I’m glad.”

“Yeah, that’s good, man.” Kevin gave him the same smile Eric had used on six-year-old Jake when he was learning to ride a bike. You can do it, buddy!

“Hadley, I’m sorry. If there was some way I could go back and make it not have happened-”

She smiled a brittle smile. “It didn’t happen, Eric. You assaulted me.” Kevin dropped his hand on her shoulder. “You hit me and took my gun away from me, and then I had to lie to the chief about it. Which means, I guess, that I suck at being a cop but that I’m good at covering it up.”

Kevin rumbled a disagreement.

Eric wiped his hand across his face. “Yeah. You’re right. I mean, no, you don’t suck at being a cop.” He stopped before he could tangle himself further. “Oh, Christ. Look, I screwed things up. The chief knows it was all my fault. You don’t have to forgive me-hell, if the shoe was on the other foot I don’t know if I could forgive me-but I want you to know that I’m sorry, and that I’m doing everything I can to not screw up again, and that you will never, ever have to feel afraid of me.” He paused. “That’s all.” His heart felt like he’d just sprinted a mile.

“The chief knows?”

“Yeah.” His throat hurt. “If you want to lodge a complaint against me, he’ll take it. Hell, I don’t know.” He looked down at his sneakers. “If you can’t work beside me, you ought to go ahead and file. I got more experience. I can find another job easier than you can.” He turned toward the bar before he could embarrass himself.

“Eric?”

He watched a pair of young guys trying for a tall redhead at the bar. “Yeah?”

She paused. “It’ll be good to have you on the job again.” She passed him, headed for their table, her drink in one hand. She didn’t look back at him. Eric breathed in. It felt as if a strap around his chest had suddenly been loosened.

“You okay?” Kevin’s voice was low.

He rubbed his gut. “Yeah. Thanks.” He glanced to where Hadley was taking her seat. “She’s a good person.”

“Yeah. She is.”

Eric looked at Kevin. “She know how you feel about her?”

Kevin flushed but kept his eyes on Hadley. “We work together. We’re friends.”

“Listen.” Eric thought about Jennifer. He was going to have to go through all this again with her, and it was going to be harder, and take longer, and there was still no guarantee she’d ever forgive him and take him back. “A couple years ago I would’ve said good, keep it professional, but life’s too damn uncertain, man. Hard and uncertain.” He twisted his wedding ring. “You see something good, you go after it. Don’t let it get away.” At the table, MacAuley bent over Harlene and said something. The dispatcher shrieked with laughter. Noble Entwhistle looked puzzled. “’Cause in the end, that’s all we have. Each other.”

Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.

Parked outside Margy Van Alstyne’s driveway at midnight, Clare could still hear Russ’s voice. His words had dogged her as she said good-bye to the Stillmans, surrounded by investigators in their own home. They throbbed with her pulse as her arm was tied off and her blood syringed into glass tubes. They kept time with her footsteps as she visited shut-ins, ran errands, cleaned house, walked down the still, silent nave of St. Alban’s.

Tell me.

She kept promising herself later. After the communications committee meeting. After she took Morning Prayer. After her family arrived. After dinner at Margy’s house. After the rehearsal. Then Russ was kissing her, smiling as their lips parted, murmuring, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” laughing as Lyle hauled him away to some hunters’ bar.

She had run out of later. In her bedroom, she smoothed a hand over the white dress hanging from her closet door. From its velvet box, she took the ring she was supposed to give Russ tomorrow. She let it rest in her palm. Such a small thing to bind up so many promises. With all that I have, and with all that I am, I honor you, she would say. She closed her hand into a shaky fist. Some honor.

Her heart pounded. Her mouth was dry. She tried to slow her breathing down, name exactly what it was that scared her so.

If I tell him, he’ll be furious with me.

No. He’d be upset, and worried, and overprotective, but he wouldn’t be angry.

If I tell him, it will get out, and everybody will know what a failure I am as a priest.

That was closer to the bone. The thought of being exposed made her nauseous. She already had enough problems trying to live up to her position. Who wanted an addict for a priest?

Addict. She had never used that term before. She thought of all the ways she would describe herself. Priest. Pilot. Christian. Woman. Soldier. She wet her lips. “Hi, my name is Clare Fergusson and I’m a drug addict,” she whispered. The words tasted like bottle dregs and the hard plastic coating on pills.

If I tell him, I’ll have to stop.

That was the bottom of it. If she told him, she’d have to stop, and that scared her more than anything. Facing every day, every night without her chemical crutches-she didn’t know if she could do it.

Tomorrow, Julie McPartlin would say, I require and charge you both, here in the presence of God, that if either of you know any reason why you may not be united in marriage lawfully, and in accordance with God’s Word, you do now confess it.

So here she was, huddled in a dark, cold Jeep while her parents thought she was out on a pastoral emergency. She’d been waiting over an hour, expecting him back at his mother’s well before now, praying that none of the neighbors called in a suspicious vehicle to the cops. Both her fear-fueled adrenaline and her amphetamines had given out long ago, so it took a beat, then two, before she realized the headlights coming down Old Route 100 were slowing down. The turn signal winked on, and Russ’s truck bumped into his mother’s wide dirt drive.

Clare tumbled out of the Jeep, shaking herself to get the cramps out of her legs. He was crossing to the kitchen door. “Russ.” She kept her voice low, but he spun around like a gunslinger.

“What the-Clare?” He walked toward her, jamming his hands into his jacket pockets against the chill. “What are you doing here, you crazy woman?” He peered past her toward her car, tucked in beneath the dark hemlocks at the edge of his mother’s property. He shook his head. “Waiting outside in the cold.” He kissed her lightly. “It’s Saturday, you know. I’m not supposed to see you.”

“I need to talk to you.”

His face shifted. “Okay.” He glanced toward the house. An outdoor light cast a glow over the granite steps and green door. A single lamp lit one of the living room windows, but otherwise the place was dark. “Come inside. We can talk in the kitchen.”

She shook her head. “Not here.”

He looked at her closely. “My truck.” He opened the door for her and then walked around to his side. When he got in, the pickup leaned beneath his weight for a moment. His door shut with a solid thunk. He turned on the engine and adjusted the heaters so they would blow on her. The air was still warm from his ride home. He reversed out of the driveway and headed west into the mountains. They rumbled over the stony Hudson River. “Okay. What is it?”

Face-to-face, in the moment, she panicked. Her throat closed. “I don’t,” she started. She pressed her fist against the ache in her chest. “I don’t know-”

He held out one hand. “Hold on tight and tell me.”

She grasped his hand and squeezed her eyes shut. “I have a problem. I haven’t told you. I’ve been taking pills. Lots of pills. I’m addicted to amphetamines.”

He breathed out. “Hang on.” She heard the tick-tick-tick of the turn signal and then the pickup was turning, bumping along an unpaved road. Finally he stopped. The truck jerked as he hauled on the parking brake. “Love? Look at me.”

She cracked open her eyelids. They were surrounded by hemlock and pine. Russ’s face was outlined in the green-amber light of the dashboard. “Tell me,” he said.

“I started taking sleeping pills and stimulants in Iraq. I came back with a, with a problem.” Admitting it a second time wasn’t much easier. “I also had antibiotics that I used to treat myself with. And Percocet. For a while I was taking a lot of Percocet.”

Russ pressed his lips together and nodded.

“I was close to running out a couple weeks ago. I talked Trip into giving me a prescription for Ambien and Dexedrine. He told me I couldn’t drink while I was on the pills, and he said he was going to spring a surprise blood test on me to make sure I wasn’t mixing.”

Russ closed his eyes. “The blood test you were supposed to get the day we found out about Ellen Bain.”

“I told him I just needed to get through the wedding-” Russ made a noise, a kind of despairing discovery, and she grabbed his arms, digging her fingers into his jacket. “No. Not like that. It doesn’t have anything to do with you, it never had anything to do with you.”

“I pushed you.” He winced, as if he were pulling a splinter out of his hand. “I should have taken it slow and given you time, but I was so goddamn fixed on getting us married-”

“No. Listen. I told Trip I needed the pills to keep my head on through the craziness of the past couple of weeks, but I was lying.” She hadn’t known that until she said it. “I was lying. I would’ve come up with some other excuse to keep the prescriptions going after the wedding, and if he wouldn’t give them to me I’d find some other way. Oh, God.” She could feel her eyes begin to fill. “I’ve been lying to everybody.” Her voice broke. “I’ve been lying every time someone asked me how I’m doing. I said I was fine, and I’m not fine. I feel like there’s something ugly inside me all the time, and I just want it to go away.” Her tears spilled hot over her cheeks, and she covered her mouth, trying to keep the misery and shame inside where they belonged.

Russ tugged her toward him. “C’mere.”

She leaned across the console and buried her face in his shoulder, awkward and ridiculous. She hiccupped and coughed, and a big blob of mucus splattered over his jacket. “Oh, God. I’m sorry.” She pawed at her pockets, feeling for a tissue, but of course she came up empty. She started to cry again. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry. Let’s just call the wedding off. It’s not too late.”

“Whoa.” He pulled a half-acre-sized handkerchief out of his jeans and mopped her face with it. “Because you got a little snot on my shirt?”

“Weren’t you listening to me? I’m a wreck. I’m a wreck and an addict and a failure. I’ve killed people, Russ. I flew the ship and gave the orders and people died right in front of me and I don’t know where to put that so I just keep drugging myself up until I don’t feel anything anymore.” She pushed her damp hair off her overheated face. “I’m not Linda. I’m not anything like her, and I never will be.”

His mouth opened. He let out a huff that was almost a laugh. “Where did that come from?”

“You loved her. You never would have left her, and you loved her, and she died, and I can’t replace her. I just keep coming up short.”

“I don’t want you to replace Linda.”

“But you loved her.”

“Yes. And now I love you.” Russ framed her face in his hands, wiping her tears away with his thumbs. “You know, I could have resisted you if you had reminded me of Linda. I fell for you because you remind me of me. I was a wreck and an addict and a failure, Clare. I went to war, and I killed people, with these hands, and watched them die right in front of me. You and I, we’re the same, love. We’re the same.”

“I’m afraid,” she whispered.

“We’ll get you help.” He took one of her hands and interlaced his fingers through hers. “This is the thing I’m absolutely sure of: If we keep holding on to each other, if we don’t let go, we can get through anything.”

Her eyes burned. “I don’t deserve you.”

“This priest once told me we don’t get what we deserve, thank God. We get what we’re given.”

She choked out a wet laugh. “A second chance.”

“And a third, and a fourth.” He smiled a little. “She convinced me, and I don’t even believe in God.”

She wiped her nose with her jacket sleeve. “I love you. It doesn’t seem like enough, just to say it, but I do.”

He kissed her. He got out of the truck and walked around the hood and popped her door open. “C’mon out here.”

She took his hand, and let him lead her through the forest darkness to the back of the pickup. He hoisted her over the tailgate into the bed of the truck, then vaulted over the side and joined her. He unflapped a heavy cardboard box.

“Don’t tell me you’re still dragging those quilts around,” she said.

“These are good quilts.” He spread out first one, then another. “My grandmother Campbell made ’em.” He patted the patchwork. “C’mere.”

She sat on the thick fabric and tugged her sneakers off before leaning against the rear window of the cab. Russ shook out two more and sat down next to her. He untied his boots and set them against the side of the bed, then snugged the quilts around their shoulders. They were heavy and warm.

He took her in his arms. “Listen. As far as I’m concerned, we’re already married.” He pressed her hand against his chest. She could feel the steady beat of his heart. “In here, I’m your husband. You’re my wife. Nothing we do or don’t do in that circus your mother has planned will change that. So if you need more time, if you want to delay it or even call it off, we’ll do it.”

She kissed him. “That’s my fourth premarital session.”

“What is?”

She felt herself beginning to tear up again. “Marriage is a sacrament. An outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace. The only thing the church can do is recognize what we’ve already created between us.”

He kissed her neck. “I know the religious part of it’s important to you-”

“Do you want me as your wife?” she said.

Russ smiled against her skin. “I do.”

“And I want you for my husband. Will you stay with me, sharing whatever life throws at us, good or bad?”

He laughed quietly. “I will. How about you?”

“I will.” She kissed him again, slowly, and began unbuttoning his shirt. “And I promise before God to be true and faithful to you, to love you with my body and my heart and my mind.” She pushed his shirt and jacket off. “Until we are parted by death.”

“Yes.” He pulled her sweater over her head. “I promise to be true and faithful to you, to love you with my body and my heart and my mind.” His breath hitched as she wiggled out of her khakis. “Until we are parted by death.”

He kicked his jeans away and pulled her against him, warm and solid, skin to skin. “I pronounce that we are husband and wife, in the name of the Father”-she kissed him-“and of the Son”-she kissed him again-“and of the Holy Spirit.”

He framed her face in his hands. “We’re married.” His face was serious.

“Yes. All the rest of it’s just tradition and show and law codes.”

His fingers slid along her body. He cupped her breast and stroked her nipple with his thumb. She moaned. “A man and his wife become one flesh,” he said, his voice low.

“Yes,” she gasped.

“Yes.” He rolled, pulling her atop him, and they sealed their vows beneath the stars and the pines and the thick old quilts his grandmother made.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22

Hadley was almost late to the wedding. Geneva insisted on putting on last year’s Christmas outfit, which was too small, and then after Hadley had talked her into the new silk-and-chiffon dress-$1.99 from Goodwill-they had another go-round over what shoes to wear. When Hadley got downstairs, still struggling with her zipper and carrying her heels, she discovered Hudson had dribbled juice on his best pants while watching TV. Hadley tore apart his room for a replacement, finally settling on a clean pair of khakis she had set aside in the donation pile. When Hudson complained they were too short around the ankles, she gave him her best death-ray glare and herded them into the car.

St. Alban’s was packed when they arrived. It looked like half the town and all the congregation had come. At the front of the church, Betsy Young was playing the organ and the full choir sat waiting. Walking up the aisle holding Genny’s hand, she heard southern voices and saw lots of clerical collars. Rich Virginians and priests. It didn’t bode well for a fun reception.

She spotted Kevin Flynn’s red hair near the front of the church. At the same moment, he turned around and looked at her. He stood in his pew and beckoned to her.

“We saved you seats.” He stepped into the aisle to let her and the children pass, and Hadley could see Harlene and her husband holding down the other end.

“Thanks,” she said. “I didn’t think we’d ever get out of the house.” She looked him up and down. “Nice suit.” She’d never seen him dressed up before. Kind of a shame, because he had the perfect build for it, long legs, wide shoulders, slim hips.

“Well, Genny Knox, aren’t you just the prettiest girl here?” Harlene patted the pew next to her. “You slide on over and sit with me.” Hadley followed her daughter, directing Hudson to the seat between herself and Flynn. She had discovered it was better to bracket them with adults during church services. Two to one was a good ratio.

“Did we miss anything?” Hadley asked, but before anyone could answer, the door by the sacristy opened and the priest came out, followed by the chief and Lyle MacAuley. The organ music stopped. A hush settled over the congregation.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the dep looking nervous before,” Hadley whispered.

“Hmph.” The dispatcher spoke over Genny’s head. “Probably waitin’ to disappear into a puff of smoke and brimstone, being inside a church.”

Flynn grinned.

The organ sang out, something loud and complicated, with lots of notes running up and down the scale. People started to stand up. At the back of the church, two men pulled the doors open. Flynn checked his watch. “I think this is it.”

“I can’t see! Mommy, I can’t see!” Genny hopped up and down in frustration.

“Come here, Genny, stand in front of me.” Flynn stepped back and let Geneva squeeze past him. She hung off the pew ends, leaning as far into the aisle as she could. Hudson twisted back and forth around Flynn, clearly wanting a better view, clearly unwilling to admit it. Flynn took him by the shoulders and maneuvered him into the space next to his sister.

Flynn turned to grin at Hadley, and she smiled ruefully back at him, and there was a moment-it must have been the soaring music or the dizzying smell of the flowers-when her smile ghosted away and she felt like she had a lump in her throat.

Then Reverend Clare’s matron of honor walked past and Genny squealed and Hadley snapped her attention back to the aisle. “Oh, Mommy.” Genny sounded close to swooning. “Reverend Clare looks like a princess .” In truth, Reverend Clare’s Christmas and Easter vestments were a lot more elaborate than her unadorned wedding dress. Her wreath of tiny cream and gold flowers was a little crownlike, though, and she did have a train, which upped the princess quotient. As she and her father walked past, Clare grinned and winked at Geneva. The little girl quivered with ecstasy. “And so it starts,” Hadley said under her breath. She could foresee a lot of dress-up games involving tablecloth trains and half-slip veils in her future.

“Dearly beloved,” Reverend Julie McPartlin began, “we have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining together of this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony.”

Hadley thought of her own wedding. Las Vegas, during an industry convention. What a cliché. When Dylan asked her, his eyes dark and soulful and a heartbreaker smile on his lips, it had seemed reckless and romantic.

“… therefore, marriage is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately…”

She hadn’t even been sober. They had smoked two joints beforehand and giggled through the whole thing. What did it say about your approach to marriage when you treated the start of it as an ironic joke?

“Into this holy union Russell Howard Van Alstyne and Clare Peyton Fergusson now come to be joined.”

Beside her, Harlene honked into a tissue. Hadley watched as she reached out and grabbed her husband’s hand. Mr. Lendrum was sixty-something and built as if he’d been stitched out of lumpy cotton batting, but Harlene looked at him, for a moment, in exactly the same way Clare Fergusson was looking at Russ Van Alstyne.

Was there some sort of secret everybody but Hadley knew? Or was it that some women had a clear-eyed view of the good guys, while all she had ever been able to see was users and bastards?

Then came the readings and the homily and the prayers and communion and finally it was almost over, thank heavens, because the kids were getting twitchy. The priest delivered a final prayer over the kneeling couple. “Is the chief going to become Episcopalian?” Hadley whispered to Flynn.

“I think he’s going to stay Law-Enforcementarian,” he said under his breath. She snickered.

The choir stood and the organ started up, a soft, rhythmic beat that sounded almost like the beginning of a sixties tune. “Ooo! I know this,” Hudson said. “We’re doing this with the adult choir at Christmas.”

“Tomorrow will be my dancing day,” the choir sang, and Reverend Clare and the chief walked back down the aisle, both of them looking as if they’d been lit up from inside. The music and voices soared, sharp and sweet. On every side of her, people’s eyes were wet, and Harlene was honking, and Flynn turned to Hadley and smiled.

Weddings. It was like they put some sort of drug in with the flower arrangements.

“Do you think it’ll last?” Hadley said, determined to break the spell.

Flynn looked at her as if she had asked if he thought the sun would rise in the east tomorrow. “Are you kidding?” He leaned in so his breath was warm in her ear. “It’s true love.”

“There’s no such thing.”

He thumbed toward Hudson. “Tell him that.”

Her son was looking up at the choir, his hand keeping the irregular beat. “To call my true love to my dance,” he sang in his piping soprano, “Sing O! my love, O! my love, my love, my love; This I have done for my true love.”

Flynn smiled at her. “Let’s go dance.”

The reception was a blast, despite-or maybe because of-the rich Virginians and the priests. There were other kids there, nieces and nephews and the children of friends, so after they had bolted down some dinner, Hadley let Hudson and Genny join the others playing flashlight tag in the field next to the tents.

The chief and Reverend Clare kicked off the dancing to the old Beach Boys tune “God Only Knows,” and soon the floor was packed with everyone from Mrs. Marshall and Norm Madsen, sedately fox-trotting, to the youngest Ellis boy, popping and locking. Hadley danced with Nathan Andernach, the perpetual bachelor of St. Alban’s, and with Nathan Bougeron, who had left the MKPD before she arrived for a job with the state police, and with a good-looking guy from Maryland who turned out to be a priest, which kind of freaked her out. She danced with Lyle MacAuley, and with Noble Entwhistle, and with Duane Adams, one of the part-time officers.

She didn’t dance with Kevin Flynn. She had thought about it, driving over to the Stuyvesant Inn, and realized all those throat-closing, eyes-meeting moments were based on the fact that he was the only unattached guy remotely her age she saw on a regular basis. But, hey, at a wedding reception? Lots of possibilities. So she smiled at men she didn’t know and said yes to anyone who asked her, and stayed away from Flynn.

After the cake cutting, Granddad announced he was taking Hudson and Genny home. “You stay put and have a good time,” he said, when she protested she should leave, too. “’Tain’t natural for a girl pretty as you to sit home all the time.” He winked. “I’ll leave a light on for ya.”

So she stayed. She danced and chatted and laughed. She congratulated the newlyweds. “Are you Clare Van Alstyne now?” she asked the reverend.

“No, I’m Russ Fergusson,” the chief said.

Reverend Clare elbowed him. “We’re keeping our names just as they are.”

“Good idea,” Dr. Anne said, sipping a drink. “Professional identity and all that. How about you, Hadley? Is Knox your maiden name?”

Hadley shook her head. “No. It was Potts.”

Reverend Clare frowned. “Didn’t your grandfather tell me you changed your first name from Honey to Hadley?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Honey Potts,” the chief said.

“My God, that sounds like a porn star name.” Dr. Anne patted her shoulder. “You poor thing. What were your parents thinking of?”

“I suspect they were stoned when they came up with it,” Hadley said. “When do we get to do the Chicken Dance?”

“Shortly after my mother is dead and buried in the family plot,” Reverend Clare said.

Instead the guests twisted and jived and even swung to some country songs the chief had managed to sneak in past his mother-in-law. Eventually, steaming hot and out of breath, Hadley snuck out for some fresh air.

The open spaces between the inn and the tents were strung with small clear lights, giving a deceptively summerlike look to the autumn landscape. The near-freezing temperature was shocking on her bare skin, but it felt good. She tipped her head back and looked at the bright cold stars, like God’s wedding decorations. A man came out of the dance tent. Long and lean, and for a moment she couldn’t see him clearly. Then he walked toward her, and the soft light fell on his thick red hair, and she said, “Oh. Here you are.”

Here you are. As if she’d been looking for him, not avoiding him.

Flynn held out a glass. “I thought you might like something cold.”

“I’m driving, so I’m not-”

“It’s ginger ale.”

“Oh.” She took the drink. “Thanks.”

Here you are.

She was parched, she discovered. She drained the glass dry and handed it back to him.

“We haven’t danced yet.” His jacket was gone. He had loosened his tie and rolled his shirtsleeves up.

“No,” she agreed. No? Real swift. She must have left her brains inside the tent.

“I figured it was because of the work thing.” He took a step closer to her. “We’re both young, we’re both single, you don’t want people to misinterpret what’s going on.”

That sounded reasonable to her. “That’s right. Nobody ever believes you when you say you’re just friends.”

From the speaker near the tent flap, Bonnie Raitt sang, “People are talking…”

“So let’s dance out here.” He rested the empty glass against the canvas.

“Here?”

He held out his hand. “Okay. A little further away.” Some force not under her conscious control lifted her hand and placed it in his. He walked backward, away from the door, away from the lights, until they were at the edge of the field, outlined in starlight and the glow from the inn.

“Could you be falling for me?” Bonnie sang.

Flynn put his hand at the small of her back and somehow her arms went around his neck and they were swaying together in time to the whisky voice and blues guitar. Dancing with Nathan Bougeron or the cute priest hadn’t felt like this. She tried keeping younger and work and bad idea in the front of her mind, but he was so warm, and he smelled so good, and he was touching her, and all she could think of was the night they had spent together, the way his eyes had closed and he had cried out, turning his face into her shoulder.

Her body was tightening and loosening and she knew at any moment she was going to tip her face up and slide her fingers through his hair and pull him toward her-

Here you are.

– and then they were kissing, his lips soft and dry, sweet and tender, moving lightly over her cupid’s bow, the swell of her lower lip, the corners of her mouth.

“Flynn,” she gasped.

He pulled away slightly. “What?”

“Do you remember when we slept together?”

“Hadley.” He let out a huff that was almost a laugh. “I’d have to be dead to forget that.”

“Let’s do it again.”

He breathed in. He bent to her, kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her temples. “Why?”

Her eyes flew open. “Why?” She stared at him. She knew what she looked like. She wasn’t vain, she was realistic. When she invited men into her bed, they said Yes or I thought you’d never ask or Thank you Jesus. Not Why? “Because we were good together, and it’s been a long time since I’ve had sex, and here we both are.”

“Because it’s convenient, you mean?”

She could tell from his voice she had hurt his feelings. “Not just that. I like you. I’m not dating anybody else-I don’t want to date, I don’t do it anymore-” A thought stopped her. “Are you seeing someone?”

“No.” He slid his hands along her jaw and tilted her face toward him. He kissed her again, and this time there was nothing sweet about it. It was hot and hard and deep and wet. Hadley swayed against him, moaning, her knees buckling, her hands digging into his thick hair. If his arm hadn’t been braced across her back, she would have fallen open on the ground right then and there, wedding party be damned.

When he pulled away, they were both heaving for breath. “See?” she said, when she found her voice. “Good. Together.”

“I’m not seeing anyone-” He sucked in air. “Because I want to be with you.”

“You can be with me.” She deliberately misunderstood him. “Take me back to your place.” She ran her hand up his chest. His shirt was damp with sweat.

He turned her around until her back was pressed against his chest. “I want to make love to you,” he said in her ear. She shivered. “I want to go to the movies with you.” He stroked her neck, her collarbone, her shoulders. “I want to take you and your kids skiing.” He pushed her dress and strapless bra out of the way, exposing her to the cold night air. She breathed in sharply. “I want to have you over to meet my parents.” His hands were doing unbearably erotic things to her breasts. “I vant to be,” he said in an exaggerated German accent, “your boyfriend!”

She laughed, one sharp laugh that speared painfully through her. No one had ever tried to seduce her with Young Frankenstein before. Kevin Flynn was a dangerous, dangerous man. She stepped away from him, tugging her bodice back into place. She wiped beneath her eyes with her fingertips. Took a deep breath. Turned around. “I’m sorry, Flynn. This is a onetime offer.”

He was very still. Finally, he said, “We are good together, Hadley. As partners. As friends. When we’re with your children. When we’re alone.” He opened his hands. “Why won’t you give us a chance?”

“You’re too young.”

“I’m twenty-six. My dad was married with two kids when he was my age.”

“We work together.”

“So we tell the chief. Get it out in the open.”

“And when we break up? Then what happens? I have to leave the best job in town and what? Waitress? Commute an hour away from my kids every day?” The heat he had roused in her leached away. She twitched with cold.

Flynn bent down and retrieved her shawl from where it had fallen in the frost-touched grass. “Do you start every relationship with an exit plan? Or is it just me?”

She took the shawl and wrapped it around herself. “When I didn’t have an escape plan, I wound up regretting it.”

“Okay, then. If we break up, I’ll resign. I could get a job with the staties or in the Albany force, no problem.”

She laughed shortly. “You’re crazy.”

He took a step toward her. “No, I’m not. I’m just not going to assume it won’t work out between us. Hadley-” He reached out, as if he were going to take her in his arms again, then curled his hands into fists instead. “I’m sick of trying to stuff my feelings for you into an acceptable box. I like you. I respect you. I admire you. But I also love you, and it’s killing me to see you every day and not be able to be honest about that.”

“You don’t love me. You just loved the sex.”

“Oh, Jesus, Hadley. Are you even listening to yourself? If all I wanted was a roll in the hay, we’d be headed for my apartment right now.”

She felt brittle, exposed, like the fragile, half-frozen wildflowers around them. “You can’t love me, Kevin. You don’t even know me.”

“I love what I do know.” This time, he did wrap his arms around her. “Let me in, Hadley. Let me see the rest of you.” He kissed her, lightly at first, then deeper, pulling her hard against his body. Oh, God. She wanted him. He was young and strong and ardent and more innocent than she had ever been. She wanted to crawl inside him and forget herself for a while.

He eased away from her just enough to speak. “Give me a try, Hadley.”

She pictured letting him get to know her. To know her history, all the crappy things she’d done, all the terrible choices she’d made, all the shit she had dealt with. She pictured him backing away, not showing up, making excuses. She knew she wouldn’t be able to stand it when that happened. “No.” She pushed him to arm’s length. “You were a good lay, Flynn.” She marveled at how she sounded. So cool, so unemotional. “But I’m not interested in a relationship with you.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t believe you. Tell me you don’t feel anything for me. Look me in the eyes and tell me all of this”-he pressed her hand to his chest-“is just one-sided.”

God. He still thought lovers couldn’t lie to him face-to-face. She looked into his eyes. “I don’t feel anything for you. It’s all one-sided.” She thought she might throw up the ginger ale.

He dropped her hand. Stepped away. Turned his back to her. “God,” he whispered. “God.” He drew his forearm across his eyes. Finally he turned around again. “Okay. Okay.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I guess I really should’ve listened the first five or six times you slapped me down.” He laughed without humor. It was a sound so foreign to him it made her heart twist.

“Look, Flynn, we can still be-”

“Friends?” His voice cracked. “With me slicing myself open every day and you waiting and dreading the next time I break down and beg you to love me? Is that what you really want?”

“No.” Her throat was raw and tight. “I guess I don’t.”

“I didn’t think so.” He gestured toward the tent, glowing in the darkness. “Come on. I’ll walk you back.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Yes. I do.”

She didn’t argue. They walked through the field, side by side, separated by cold air and unspoken words. He left her at the entrance to the tent. “Aren’t you coming in?” she said.

He shook his head. In the light, he looked like he had at Ellen Bain’s fatal accident. Weary and sad and older than his years. “My coat’s in the inn. I’m going to go home. Good night.”

She watched him cross the plush yard. Mount the terrace. Disappear through the inn’s French doors. She was strong. She could let him go.

She couldn’t stop the voice in her head, though.

There you are.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27

When they went for Opperman, they let Russ tag along. It wasn’t his arrest-in the ten days since he had called in Ellen Bain’s evidence, the Army CID, the FBI, and the Treasury Department and the GAO had all jumped on board. He was low man on that totem pole. The army guys were respectful, and the Feds were polite, but every investigator and agent he met let him know-subtly or baldly-that this case and this collar were way out of his league. He just smiled and let his Cossayuharie accent thicken until Tony Usher, who was on the prosecution team, said, “Cut it out, goddammit. You sound like you’re auditioning for the lead in Li’l Abner .”

Waiting in an unmarked government vehicle outside the Algonquin Waters Spa and Resort, it was worth it. They could have called him a traffic crossing guard and asked him to fetch the coffee, and it would have been worth it.

“You ready?” Tony put on sunglasses against the early morning sunshine.

Russ checked his gun and reholstered it. “Oh, yeah.”

Tony looked at his watch. “The MPs should be pulling Wyler McNabb in just about now.” He glanced over the seat to the CID investigator waiting with them. “And Arlene Seelye.”

The radio crackled. “Hotel team, this is Square One.” An anonymous van held the FBI control team, which would be coordinating the raids on BWI Opperman’s Plattsburgh matériel depot as well as their offices in Baltimore. “We are good to go.”

Russ, Tony, and the CID investigator got out. Throughout the parking lot, car doors slammed as agents and accountants and lawyers and evidence techs finally made their move. Bellhops stared and guests scrambled out of the way of the entrance and then the team was inside, barked commands echoing off the paneled walls, a rumble of feet as they spread out to the offices, the computer room, the registration desk, locking down all communication, seizing every workstation, evidence-wrapping every file cabinet.

Russ caught a glimpse of the manager, her mouth open, as he led the arrest team toward the stairs. “Two flights up here, then stairs on either end the rest of the way up,” he reminded them. “One elevator for the guests, one for the employees.”

The FBI agent in charge, a short, curly-haired woman who looked way too young for her position, nodded. “You four, secure the elevators, Lofland and Born, with me.” She gestured toward the stairs. “You can wait here if you want, Chief.”

“I can manage it,” he said dryly. They ran up the stairs, one flight, two, three, until they reached the top floor and Opperman’s personal suite. They flanked the door, two on each side. Russ had just enough time to wonder who was bringing the battering ram when the teeny-bopper agent pulled out a magnetized card and sliced it through the keyslot. She swung the door open and she and her partner stormed in, shouting, “Federal agents! Stand up and place your hands on your head!” The other agent was right behind them, and then Russ. It wasn’t his collar. It didn’t matter. They would get the credit, but he got to watch John Opperman slowly rise to his feet, his face twisted in shock and fear. He got to watch Opperman’s eyes darting from side to side, looking for a way out, looking for some flunky to make it all go away. He got to watch the moment when Opperman spotted him, his eyes narrowing, the fear on his face curdling into hatred.

“Gotcha,” Russ mouthed.

They held the CEO in his four-room apartment as the GAO and Defense accountants ransacked the place, loading banker’s boxes with papers and external drives and a laptop. Downstairs, and in Plattsburgh and Baltimore, the same evidence hunt was going on.

Opperman lawyered up immediately, and the first suit arrived before they had even moved downstairs. The second and third got there while the first was still haranguing the agent in charge. Russ was impressed. BWI must have hot-and-cold running attorneys, to get them out to this remote corner of New York State so fast.

When the techs had wrung the rooms dry, the agent in charge announced they were taking Mr. Opperman to Albany to process him. The lawyers stopped their arguments and requests and comments, conferred in whispers with the CEO for half a minute, then disappeared through the suite’s door.

“Rats leaving the ship?” Russ said under his breath.

The agent snorted. “I wish. By the time we get off the Northway, there’ll be six of ’em waiting for us.” She glanced up at Russ. “Would you like to help us escort the detainee to our transport, Chief?”

Russ guessed that was his reward for not stroking out during the run upstairs. “Yes, ma’am, I would.”

All traces of Opperman’s earlier rage and terror were gone. Walking to the elevator between Russ and the agent in charge, two FBI guys looming behind him, the CEO might have been strolling with some low-mid-management employees. He made the handcuffs look like a fashion accessory.

The three FBI agents packed the rear of the elevator, leaving Russ and Opperman staring at their own hazy reflections in the bronze doors. Opperman smiled at himself. “I’ll be back here by tonight, you know.”

Russ pasted a similar pleasant expression on his face. “I don’t think so.”

Opperman’s smile thinned. “Do you seriously think you’ve taken me down, Chief Van Alstyne?”

Russ shook his head. “No. I think Ellen Bain and Tally McNabb took you down. I’m just here to witness it.”

“Two tragic deaths, which have nothing to do with me.”

“The CID’s arrested Arlene Seelye, and Wyler McNabb is in army custody right now. I don’t know about her, but he doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’s going to go down with the ship. My guess is, he’s going to talk like a little girl at a slumber party.”

“A disgruntled employee.” Opperman’s expression was bland. “I have access to the top legal talent in the country. They’re going to tie these spurious charges into so many knots, you’ll be retired to a trailer park in Gainesville before you see me inside a courtroom.” The elevator chimed and the doors opened. They stepped out into the lobby. “You’re a little man in a little town who has to go hat in hand before your aldermen to beg for the bullets in your gun and the paper in your copier. You have no idea of the power money can bring to bear, Chief Van Alstyne. None at all.”

He had to take a walk around the hotel to clear his head after depositing Opperman in the FBI’s car. When he finally went back inside, he found Tony conferring with Amy Nguyen, the Washington County ADA, and a federal prosecutor up from the capital. They fell silent as he approached. The Fed excused himself to rejoin his colleagues.

“What?” Russ glanced from face to face. Tony was grim. Amy looked apologetic. “Okay, what’s the bad news?”

“John Opperman’s lawyers have already opened negotiations,” Tony said.

“Christ. That’s a land speed record.”

Amy pursed her lips. “They want the state to drop the conspiracy to murder charge in exchange for full cooperation on the federal fraud and theft investigation.”

“What?”

“It’s a complicated case,” Tony began.

“So what? It’s theft. Murder beats theft.”

“Conspiracy to murder.” Amy massaged her temples. “Difficult to prove.”

“Meanwhile, the Feds want to round up anyone involved with the fraud and hang them up as a bad example.” Tony spread his hands. “Don’t look at me like that. Do you have any idea how much money just disappears every damn day in Iraq and Afghanistan? If we can put a few heads on pikes to scare the other carrion-eaters away, we will.”

“What’s a head on a pike, Tony? Five years in a white-collar federal pen?” Russ had to turn away for a moment to control his temper.

“Russ.” Amy Nguyen touched his sleeve. “Wyler McNabb will be punished.”

“Jesus Christ. I can’t believe this. Opperman has one woman killed and drives another one to suicide, and you guys want to take his deposition and send him to a goddamn country club.”

“It’s not what I want.” Amy folded her arms and looked away. “It’s what I can get.”

“We have to work within the system, Chief.” Tony shook his head. “You know how it is.”

Russ pictured Tally McNabb floating sightlessly in her pool. He pictured Olivia Bain, pale and stricken. “Yeah,” he said. “I know how it is.”

He knew Clare would be at St. Alban’s, and he thought he might be interrupting something, but he didn’t care. He needed to wrap his arms around her and smell her hair and remind himself that there were good things in the world. The peace of God, she said in the service. God didn’t do it for him, but Clare could.

He was surprised to find her walking out of her office, car keys and coat in hand. He grabbed her and hugged her and she worked her arms free and hugged him fiercely back.

“You heard.” Her voice was full of relief and sorrow. She pushed away to look him in the face. “Do you want to come with me?”

“Come with you where? Heard what?”

She blinked. “I thought they must have called you first. I mean, they got in touch with me because they need a minister and I’m the only one they know.” She shifted her coat to her other arm and tugged him toward the door. “That’s what the notification team suggests, you know. Before they leave. They want you to get a friend or a family member and your pastor.”

“Clare, what are you talking about? Who called you?”

“The Stoners.” Her face, above her white collar, was somber. “They’ve just received word their son Ethan was killed in Afghanistan.”