One Was a Soldier

– Collect for the Proper of a Saint, The Book of Common Prayer

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12

At their second meeting, Sarah saw that the preschoolers had taped up large autumn leaves to go with the apples and school buses. Each leaf had a name on it in bold block letters. KATELYNN. BRIANA. JOHN. SAMANTHA. TYLER.

She watched through the window as Clare Fergusson loaded up her coffee with sugar. The amount she’d drunk at the first meeting exceeded Sarah’s daily limit, and they met at seven o’clock at night. That sugar… Sarah wondered if Fergusson was a closet drinker. A lot of alcoholics craved sugar carbohydrates to get them through until their next fix.

From her angle, she couldn’t see Will Ellis’s face as he watched Trip Stillman and Eric McCrea unload the folding chairs from the storage rack. He worried her. He had seemed too upbeat, too-for lack of a better phrase-too well adjusted, for his condition. He was playacting, she was sure of it, but she couldn’t figure out why. He had already been medically discharged. It wasn’t as if the marines were going to take him back if he had the right mental attitude.

She couldn’t put her finger on Tally McNabb, either. Last week, the woman had limited her remarks about homecoming to her last duty station at Fort Drum. She hadn’t touched at all on returning to Millers Kill, or her family, or transitioning to work. Well, that was going to be tonight’s topic.

Sarah emerged from the office. “Hi, everyone.” She took the twelve o’clock seat again and watched the group members drag and drop into position. They sat in exactly the same configuration as last week, except Tally and Trip Stillman switched places, so that she was on Sarah’s left and he was on the right. “How did everyone’s assignment go this past week?” She had asked them to share their feelings about homecoming with one other person in their lives.

There was a general silence. Sarah looked around at each of them. Twenty seconds passed. Forty. Fergusson fiddled with her ring, twisting it back and forth, before she reached down and picked her coffee cup off the floor. “I feel fortunate,” she said. “My spiritual adviser was a marine in Korea. Fought at the Chosin Reservoir.”

Sarah was about to point out that military history was all very good, but Fergusson hadn’t said she had spoken about her experiences with-what the hell was a spiritual adviser? Sounded like somebody who read tea leaves. Then Will Ellis said, “Really? Do I know him?”

“He’s Deacon Willard Aberforth. You’ve seen him during the bishop’s visitation, but you probably don’t remember.”

“Chosin Reservoir,” Will said, a light in his eyes. “Wow.”

“I’ll introduce you, if you like.”

“I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “I don’t think we got into this last week. What is it you do?”

“I’m a priest,” Fergusson said. “An Episcopal priest. I’m the rector of St. Alban’s, here in town.”

Sarah blinked. Well, that explained all the black. Over the years, she’d counseled lots of service members and dependents who were religious, of course, but she’d never had a cleric. Intellectually, she knew they must have the same sort of mental health problems as the rest of the population, but it surprised her that one would be self-aware enough to recognize she needed help-and humble enough to get it. All the preachers she had met in her girlhood and youth had been raging egoholics, far more concerned with exhortation than with introspection. Then again, the various storefront churches her parents dragged her to didn’t feature any women in the pulpit. Maybe it was a gender thing.

“I’m glad I asked, because we’re going to talk about work this session. How the switch from your military to civilian occupations is going. Where the bumps are, and some strategies for helping the people around you adjust to the new you.”

“That sounds like a makeover article.” Tally framed air quotes. “It’s a new you for fall!”

Sarah pushed on. “Tally, what do you do, and how long have you done it?”

“I started as a bookkeeper at the new resort at the beginning of August. My husband works construction for them.”

“My sister’s at the resort. I didn’t think they still had construction going on.” Stillman sounded dubious.

“Naw. He’s an employee of BWI Opperman, the holding company. They send him out on jobs all over the place.”

Fergusson looked as if she wanted to ask a question, but she glanced over at Eric and shut her mouth.

“Trip, I know you’re a doctor,” Sarah said.

“Third-generation Dr. Stillman in Millers Kill.” Stillman looked justifiably proud. “I have an orthopedic practice with two partners.”

“Eric?”

“I’m a sergeant at the MKPD. I’ve been there nine years now. My duties split between investigation and regular patrol time. If we were a bigger department, I’d probably be a detective by now, but…” He shrugged.

Follow up on that, Sarah thought. “Will? I know you’re not working at the moment, but do you have plans for after you complete your rehab?”

“I…” Will’s sunny smile faded into a blank line. He sat without moving, like an automaton whose battery had run out. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I’ve never been real academic, like my brothers. I liked working out. Fixing up cars. Playing my guitar.” He shrugged. “Being a marine seemed like the best thing for me after I graduated.”

“But most marines aren’t career service,” she said. McCrea frowned at her and looked pointedly at the boy’s rolled-up pants legs, pinned beneath his knees. She ignored him. She wanted to push Will a little, to see if he had some sense of identity beyond that of lance corporal. Or amputee. “What did you want to do after you got out?”

There was another long pause. Then, “Coach.” He was so quiet she almost didn’t hear him.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Coach,” he said, more loudly. “I was an Empire State champion in track and field when I was in school. I helped out with the middle school track and cross-country team, too. I liked working with kids.” For a moment, he looked straight at her, as if defying her to point out the obvious. Then his gaze slid away. “I thought maybe I could get an ed degree at Plattsburgh after my enlistment was up. Coach for middle school or high school.”

No one spoke. Fergusson folded her hands and set them in her lap. Eric compressed his lips and crossed his arms over his chest. Finally, Trip Stillman leaned forward. “You know, there are double-amputee runners out there.”

Sarah watched as the cheerful mask came back up. “Yeah,” Will said, “but I’ve decided I want to be a tap dancer instead.”

Everyone laughed, the relieved laughter of those who had gotten to the brink of the abyss but had avoided falling into the bottomless pit of complete and merciless honesty.

Sarah sighed. “Work,” she said. “Let’s talk about work.”

MONDAY, JUNE 27

Trip Stillman sat across his desk from his old colleague, watching her fall apart.

“I’m just trying to get him the help he needs.” Dr. Anne Vining-Ellis’s voice was clogged with tears. “But it’s so hard! Since he came home from Walter Reed it’s been like pushing a rock uphill. On both sides! He qualifies for physical therapy, but Stratton Medical Center can only fit him in once a week. Chris hauls him down to Albany for his sessions, and the rest of the week, he just sits there. Then they suggested a therapist for his depression, but he refuses to go.”

“Depression?”

“Lethargy, sleeping dysfunction, loss of appetite-you could use him as a teaching case for interns.” Anne swiped at her eyes with a crumpled tissue and waved her hand. “Oh, he’s trying to hide it from me, with his smiles and his jokes. I think the marines indoctrinated him with a good-little-soldier attitude.” Her lip curled and cracked around the word “marines.” “But he’s lost interest in everything. He doesn’t want to go anywhere, he doesn’t want to do anything-”

“Have you prescribed anything?”

“No, of course not. Not that I haven’t been tempted.”

“And now he’s reporting pain?”

“At the amputation site. Whenever he tries to walk on his prosthetics. I don’t know if he’s really having a problem or if it’s an excuse to not do his exercises at home. I’ll take him back down to D.C. and get him refitted if it’s necessary, but what if it’s not?” She blew her nose.

Trip slid the tissue box toward her. “Let me take a look at him.”

“Oh, God. Thank you, Trip. I know you’ve done a couple of tours of duty. I’m hoping he’ll listen to another soldier where he won’t listen to me.”

He pushed back from his desk. “I don’t know if two ninety-day stints will qualify me as a fellow soldier to a marine, but I’ll do what I can.” He opened his office door, ushering Anne into the wide corridor that led to the waiting room. Trip had to admit, her tears and jitters shook him. Anne was the very definition of an emergency department jockey-cool under pressure, calm when everything around her fell apart, able to process rapid-fire information and turn it into a rational diagnosis and a measured treatment plan. He had consulted with her half a hundred times before she left the Washington County Hospital for Glens Falls. He had never seen her lose it. Never.

Will was slouching in his wheelchair as they entered the waiting room. He sat up immediately. He would have been a big kid before-all the Ellis boys took after their dad-and his five months post-trauma hadn’t entirely wasted his natural youthful muscle, although he looked way too pale and had clearly lost weight.

“Hi, Will. I’m Dr. Stillman.” They shook hands. “We’ve met before, haven’t we? You were in Catrin’s class.” Trip’s middle daughter was a sophomore at Smith. No wonder Anne was so overwrought. A nineteen-year-old ought to be in college, his worst problems hangovers and getting girls to go out with him.

Will nodded. His light brown hair was growing out of its baldy sour, giving him the appearance of a hedgehog. “Catrin and I were on the cross-country and track team together.”

Behind Will, his mother made frantic no-no-no gestures. Talking about running was off-limits? That wasn’t a good sign. “Your mom says you’ve been experiencing some difficulties with the prosthetics.” He gestured to the hall. “Why don’t you come on in and we’ll take a look?”

Anne swooped behind Will and grabbed the handles of his chair just as the boy laid hold of the wheels. “I can do it, Mom.” He sounded like a nice son trying not to be annoyed with his mother.

“Of course. Of course you can.” Anne’s voice was unnaturally perky. Trip led them down the hall, opening the door to his largest examining room. Will back-and-forthed a couple of times before getting the chair lined up with the entryway. He rolled through, Anne right behind him.

Trip made a hold-up gesture. “Will? Do you want your mother to wait while we talk?” Anne’s frown almost made him miss the boy’s expression. It clearly hadn’t occurred to either of them that Will could see a doctor without his mother tagging along.

Will looked at Trip. Looked at his mother. “No, it’s fine.” He smiled weakly at Anne. “After all, she’s the expert.”

“Okay.” Trip took his usual seat, the rolling stool tucked under the counter. He flopped open the fresh case file and clicked his pen. Ask if P. wants alone w/o mom nearby!

Anne hovered behind and to the side of the wheelchair.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s up?” Trip said.

“He’s been complaining of pain-”

He held up one hand. “Let me hear it from him, Anne. You know a history isn’t complete without the patient’s own words.”

She made a disparaging sound and clamped her lips together. Trip looked at Will. “Well?”

Will shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. It hurts some when I practice standing.”

His mother took a quick breath.

“I haven’t been working on my mobility as much as I should,” he added quickly.

“Why’s that?”

Will shrugged. “The wheelchair’s actually more convenient. With the crutches, my arms and hands are all tied up. It’s like… it’s like I’ve got four prosthetics instead of two. In the chair my upper body is completely free. And it’s hard. Walking, I mean. Just a couple steps and I’m sweating.” He spread his hands. “Why not use the wheels?”

Trip rolled toward him. “How about I take a look?” Will pulled his loose khakis up and unstrapped his prosthetics one at a time. Trip took them and examined their cups, running his fingers inside and pressing into the pads. They were very high quality work, suggesting made-to-measure. There shouldn’t be any mechanical irritation involved. Will pulled off his socks-the close-fitting coverings that went over his stumps-and Trip cradled the amputation sites in his hands.

It was a classic traumatic transtibial amputation, neatly finished off and well healed. The left leg was a little rawer than the right. “This is the one that was an attempted tarsal resection?”

“Yes,” Anne said. “They tried to save his entire tibia, but his vascular network was too compromised.”

“My foot got blown off, and then they had to chop the rest of it off up to my knee,” Will translated.

Trip rolled back to his bench and scribbled a note on the stump condition. “Are you experiencing pain at any other times?”

“Not in my… not there. I get phantom pain sometimes, especially at the end of the day, before I go to bed. Tingly, crampy sensations, like I’m getting a charley horse in my calves.” Will’s mouth screwed up. “In what used to be my calves. They told me I could expect that, once the real pain from the operations went away.”

Trip nodded. “Phantom pain may be your brain’s way of trying to create input from nerves that ought to be there, but aren’t. Practicing your walking could help that, by giving your brain real nerve information to deal with.” He pulled an X-ray request from a tray and jotted down the series he wanted. “I want to get a few X-rays while you’re here, just to make sure you aren’t developing bone spurs or stress fractures. Once we rule those out, I’d like to get you into physical therapy.” He glanced up at Will. “Have you seen anyone since you were released from Walter Reed?”

Anne frowned. “I told you. He has a once-a-week appointment at the Stratton VA Medical Center.”

Trip’s hand involuntarily went to the scar half hidden by his hair. “Sorry. Since I got back, I’ve been more scatterbrained than usual. Will, I’d like you to do another two sessions each week at our PT facility. We have an excellent therapist who has a lot of experience with diabetes-related amputees. In the meantime, if you don’t have a weight set at home, I suggest you get one.” Trip smiled at Will. “I’m betting you were used to working out hard in the Corps. Let’s get you back into that routine.” He stood. “You can head over to the waiting room until the radiology tech calls you.” He ripped the PT request off its pad and handed it to Will.

He walked them to the waiting room before heading over to radiology to drop off his request form. Parker Weyer, one of his partners, spotted him in the hall. “Trip. Can I have a quick consult with you?” It turned out to be a C4 fracture that wasn’t responding to immobilization. Trip and Parker debated fusion versus screws and eventually decided on the former, given the age of the patient. On his way back to his office, their practice manager snagged him. One of the radiology techs was pregnant and being pulled off duty. Did the partners want to make up her absence by offering the other techs overtime? Or did they want to hire a sub for the length of her maternity leave? He took the printout of cost comparisons and promised to confer with Parker and Madeline.

His stomach rumbled like a passing freight train as he passed the reception desk. He glanced at his watch. One o’clock? Where the hell had the day gone? He opened his office door, intent on retrieving his lunch from his bottom drawer, and was startled beyond words to see Anne Vining-Ellis sitting in front of his desk.

“I just wanted to speak to you privately before you get the X-rays back,” she said. “I wanted to know what you thought about counseling.”

What the hell was she talking about? Why was she here, in the middle of the day, instead of at the emergency department of the Glens Falls Hospital?

“Well,” he temporized, “what do you think?”

“I think he ought to be seeing someone, but he won’t listen to me. There’s this ridiculous prejudice against mental health treatment in the military.” She looked up at him. “But you’re in the army.”

“The Guard,” he corrected automatically. He knew that much, at least.

“Whatever. You understand the culture. Maybe he’ll listen to you.”

“Hmm.” He crossed the carpeted floor, sat at his desk. He dropped a file he hadn’t been aware he was carrying onto his blotter. His heart was pounding so hard he was amazed Anne couldn’t hear it from across the desk. “I’m hardly an expert at psychology.” He kept his voice steady.

Anne leaned forward. “I don’t mean you should counsel him. You’re going way above and beyond as it is.”

He glanced at the papers atop the file. Some sort of spreadsheet. He slid it aside and flipped open the folder. There was a copy of a PT order for Willem Ellis. Beneath it, a copy of an X-ray request. Beneath that, exam notes in his own hand. Bilateral TT amp, he read. Inadequate exercise. Depressed affect.

“Let’s see how he responds to physical therapy.” He looked up at Anne. “That can have a dramatic effect on a patient’s mood.” He let his eyes drop to the notes again. P. 19. Was X-C. Touchy issue-P? or mom? “Especially for a young, athletic guy like your son.”

The phone buzzed, thank God, thank God. He answered it. “It’s Cindy,” the voice on the other end said. “I’ve got the Ellis pictures for you, if you’re ready.”

“I’ll be right there.” He could have kissed her. Cindy. He remembered her. He could picture her brightly colored lab coat, the way she wore her hair screwed up on top of her head. Last Halloween, she baked skeleton-shaped cookies for the office.

He could remember her. Why couldn’t he recall a single thing about the file in his hands? He stood up. “The X-rays are ready. Do you want to wait-” He had no idea whether Will Ellis was still around or not. He changed the question to “Where would you like to wait?”

“Why don’t you meet us back in the exam room?”

Which one?

“That’s fine.” He let her precede him out the door and watched her walk up the hallway to the waiting room. He took the side way to radiology and ducked into the staff bathroom. Locked the door behind him. Leaned against it. Breathed in. Breathed out. He had been forgetting things since he got back from his tour of duty. His wife had said… she had said… he couldn’t remember what she had said.

He lurched forward to face the mirror. He looked pale and damp in his own eyes. “Stress,” he said to his reflection. “The symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder include mood swings, sleep disorders, inability to concentrate, and short-term memory loss.” Reciting the symptoms made him feel better. He was a doctor. If he could survive going without sleep for thirty hours at a pop during his residency, he could survive this.

His gaze shifted to the still-pink scar curling through his hair. It had been made by a chunk of cement, part of a makeshift clinic until it was blown to pieces by insurgents. The impact had rendered him profoundly unconscious, thank God. He had never had to witness what the explosions did to the kids and parents waiting to be seen by army doctors. He had done his time in his own Forward Response Station and been cleared for duty by his superior. These… memory lapses weren’t related. He was suffering from-

Traumatic brain injury.

“Stress disorder,” he said loudly.

There was a knock at the door. “Dr. Stillman?” One of the insurance clerks. “Are you okay?”

He closed his eyes. “Yeah.” Nobody can know about this. “Be out in a sec.” He turned on the faucet and flipped open the Ellis file. While the water ran and splashed, he read over the complete history. When he was done, he turned the faucet off and reflexively pulled three paper towels from the dispenser. He stared at them for a second before throwing them away, unused.

The corridor was empty when he emerged. He had to get the X-rays and meet the Ellises-meet them-his mind was blank for a bowel-dropping second. Then he pulled examining room out of the darkness. He flipped open the file and wrote it down. Notes. That would be the key.

He could deal with this. PTSD responded favorably to therapy and stress management techniques. He could prescribe himself Xanax for anxiety. He would-for a moment, his future yawned away beneath him, an endless, dark pool. He shuddered.

Parker swung around the corner, nearly bowling into him. “There you are.” He thrust an X-ray folder into Trip’s hands. “Cindy gave me these to give to you. Don’t you have the Ellises waiting in D?”

“Huh? Oh. Yes.”

“Meeting at four.” Parker continued down the hallway. “Don’t forget,” he called over his shoulder.

Trip’s hand, scrawling D and MEET AT 4 on the folder, fell still. “I won’t.”

FRIDAY, JULY 1

Clare had thought slipping in the deliveries door of the soup kitchen and tying an apron on over her jeans and sleeveless shirt would make her entrance a little less noticeable. She was wrong. As soon as she crossed from the large food storage area into the steamy kitchen, one of her congregation spotted her. “Reverend Clare!” he yelled. “It’s Reverend Clare!” A cheer went up. She resisted covering her cheeks, although she could feel them pinking up.

The volunteer crew clustered around, smiling, laughing, pelting her with questions.

“When did you get in?”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I thought we were going to have a reception!”

Clare raised her hands, laughing. “If y’all will let me get a word in edgewise-”

Velma Drassler, the head cook, wrapped her arms around Clare and squeezed her hard enough to crack ribs. “Oh, it’s so good to have our rector back.”

“I got in late last Friday and took the weekend off,” Clare said when she had her breath back. “I’ve been meeting with Father Lawrence and with the vestry.” That had been a surreal experience. They, too, had hugged her and thumped her back and escorted her to her old seat in the meeting room, and the whole time she’d been laughing and talking and answering questions, she’d been thinking What is it? Why do they look so strange? When Mrs. Marshall laid her hand on Clare’s arm, frail bones and onionskin and blue veins, she realized: They’re old . With the exception of Junior Warden Geoff Burns, every member of the vestry was over sixty. In a year and a half, Clare hadn’t clapped eyes on another American older than-well, older than Russ.

Of course, she had seen Iraqis, men and women who had been sandblasted by war and hardship and deprivation until they looked more preserved than alive. They weren’t healthy and affluent, either, like her vestry; they had been poor and angry, poor and desperate, poor and screaming for help after-

“You met with the vestry…?” Velma prompted.

Clare wrenched her head away from the narrowing bloodred place it was sliding toward. “Yes. Um. They had a very ambitious meet-and-greet planned for me, but I told them I just wanted to get back to work.” She hadn’t told them the idea of being hailed as the returning hero turned her stomach. “Instead, we agreed I’d drop in on as many of our groups and outreach programs as possible. Kind of like wading into the pool from the shallow end.” She needed to start at the shallow end. Her body’s clock was still set seven time zones away, and it was only thanks to the go and no-go pills she had brought back from Iraq that she opened her eyes in the morning and shut them at night. Plus, she had been having nightmares-

“Are you going to be at church on Sunday?”

Velma’s question brought her back to the moment. “I’ll be celebrating, yeah, but Father Lawrence will be preaching. Writing sermons is the only thing I didn’t miss while I was gone.”

They laughed again, and the rest of her dangerous thoughts retreated into the dark, turned away by her parishioners’ good humor. She went to work in the dining room, taking the chairs off the tables, carting plastic glasses and coffee cups to the drink station; laying out cheap, disposable salt and pepper shakers at every table. She pushed open narrow casement windows and switched on every standing fan to move the sticky, overheated air around.

At noon the doors, beneath their inscription I WAS HUNGRY, AND YOU GAVE ME FOOD, opened. One by two by four, the diners came in, some silent, some chatting with friends, some talking to companions only they could see and hear.

It had surprised her, when she’d first arrived in Millers Kill, that there could be any street people in such a small town, but Russ had shown her the derelict waterfront buildings where they sheltered. The untreated mentally ill, the hard-core alcoholic addicts, the people who would not or could not be reached.

Then there were the teens and early twenties, often passing through; sometimes a couple of Appalachian Trail hikers looking to save a buck, other times twitchy, defensive kids who looked as if they could never remember being cuddled on someone’s lap.

The St. Alban’s volunteers served lunch to men in mechanic’s overalls and feed store caps, and to women headed to Fort Henry for the afternoon shift behind a cash register at the Kmart or the Stewart’s. They served the slow-moving, dignified elderly, and occasionally the young, darting around their mothers or fathers.

Clare tried to speak with as many people as she could, even if it was as brief as a greeting and a “Lord, it sure is hot today, isn’t it?” Pouring drinks, swiping spills off the tables, bringing diners seconds, she could feel her vocation reassembling around her, feel herself changing from a single recipient of God’s grace into a conduit, from someone clutching with tight fingers to someone giving away with both hands. She had long thought that if Jesus were around today, he’d be feeding people at a soup kitchen instead of washing their feet.

There was a cry of distress and a flurry of motion at one of the tables farthest from the door. An older woman had knocked over her iced tea, and the two others sitting near her were trying to sop up the rapidly spreading puddle with their inadequate paper napkins. Clare strode through the dining hall, waving her large stained cloth like a martyr’s relic. “Let me. I can get the whole thing with this monster.”

One woman in polyester uniform pants and a tired expression suggesting she was between two shifts plunked back down into her seat as Clare attacked the spill. The younger woman stayed by the old lady’s side, her hand on her shoulder. “Let me get you another drink,” she said.

“Oh, thank you, Tally.” Her dining companion’s voice shook. “That would be nice.”

Clare lifted her head. Tally? Tally McNabb had vanished last week from the Dew Drop Inn and hadn’t been seen since. Russ had waited twenty-four hours, then released her husband and Warrant Officer Nichols. Nichols had left town, and when Tally failed to turn up, Russ had speculated she had gone with him. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe she had been living on the streets or bunking with friends until her husband cooled off.

How many Tallys could there be in Millers Kill?

Clare rolled the wet cloth and ice cubes into a ball and went after her. The young woman was reaching for a pebbled plastic glass. “Tally?” Clare said. “Specialist Tally McNabb?”

She spun around, staring, and Clare had an impression of brown eyes and fear and a tattoo on one arm, and then Tally hurled the iced tea straight at Clare and bolted for the door.

The plastic glass bounced off Clare’s forehead.

“Ow!” Ice cubes flew into the air and chunked down onto her head and shoulders. Sweet tea drenched her shirt and runneled down her hair. She dashed liquid out of her eyes. “What the hell?” She took off after the fleeing woman, shouts of “She attacked Reverend Clare!” and “Call nine-one-one!” rising from the kitchen behind her.

Clare dodged tables, chairs, people leaping and lurching to get out of Tally’s way. A grizzled man in an overcoat opened the door and staggered back as Tally rammed into him, caromed off his chest, and sprinted down the sidewalk.

Clare skidded to a stop, grabbing the man’s shoulders to steady him. “You okay?” Alcohol fumes rose off him like heat shimmers off the street.

He nodded and smiled, cheerily and toothlessly. “Enjoy your lunch,” Clare said and pounded after the younger woman, who now had almost a block’s lead on her. Clare concentrated on closing it, lengthening her stride, shortening her arm swing, matching her breathing to the thwap-thwap-thwap of her sneakers hitting the pavement. She’d been running six, eight, ten miles a day these past months, endless, punishing loops around the base perimeter, kicking it up, kicking it and kicking it until she outran her mind and was nothing but a body, all sensation, no thought.

She drew closer and closer to Tally, her breath sawing in her ears, her feet thudding along with her heart. She was getting into that zone where all the noise in her head went away and she just felt: anger and excitement and the heat on her skin and the stretch and flex of her muscles. When Tally pivoted into an alley between the Goodwill and a dilapidated hobby shop, Clare didn’t hesitate. She followed-right into the garbage can the girl had toppled in her path.

Clare hit the can, flipping over it, smashing shoulder-first onto the gritty asphalt. Her lungs emptied. Her eyes filled. She heard the pounding of footsteps behind her, then the thud and swish of someone leaping over her, then the footsteps receding as Tally ran back onto Mill Street.

Clare swore. Pushed herself off the pavement, her shoulder burning and cramping. Wiped her forearm across her eyes to clear her tear-and-dust-clouded vision. Took a step and collapsed at the stab of pain in her right ankle. She swore again. Limped out of the alley as fast as one and a half legs could take her. Spotted Tally one block up, bent over, hands braced on her knees, her body bowed before the limits of her heart and lungs. When she saw Clare, she started upright and staggered toward the Riverside Park.

“Wait, goddammit!”

Tally ignored her. Clare cursed again then clamped her mouth shut as she realized she had brought more than a running habit back from Iraq. Limping up the sidewalk, she tried again. “I just want to talk with you!”

Even Tally’s lurching half-jog was going to outstrip Clare’s speed with a twisted ankle. “It’s about Quentan Nichols!”

Tally paused, still not turning.

C’mon, Clare thought. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.

A cruiser flew from the end of Burgoyne Street, crossed Mill, and kept right on going, over the curb, onto the sidewalk, and the door swung open and Eric McCrea was there, gun out, pointing it at Tally, bellowing, “Police! Get down on the ground!”

What the hell? Russ’s officers didn’t respond to assault by a plastic cup with deadly force. Tally seemed locked in place, swaying; whether from fear or exhaustion, Clare couldn’t tell. She limped faster, trying to reach them, to tell McCrea that whatever he was told, there must be some mistake-when he closed on Tally and kicked across her shins, toppling her over.

“Stop!” Clare yelled, but he didn’t seem to hear her. She watched, horrified, as he stomped his boot into the downed woman’s back and yanked her arm up.

Tally screamed. Clare gritted her teeth and ran, feeling the tear and stab, almost light-headed with pain. “Sergeant McCrea,” she shouted, putting everything she had learned about command into her voice. “Release that woman now!”

He dropped Tally’s wrist. Stepped off her. Stared at Clare. “Reverend Clare.” He sounded surprised. Defiant. She knelt on the sidewalk next to the moaning woman and helped her sit up.

“What the hell were you doing? If Russ-if Chief Van Alstyne had seen this…” She was suddenly in her kitchen on a warm night in May, watching Russ open and close his fist after he had broken his own rules and, enraged, punched a man in his custody. If one of my officers had done that, I’da had him on suspension by now.

McCrea jerked his chin up. The look in his eyes reminded her of an unsocialized dog, afraid and dangerous. “We had a report you’d been assaulted at the soup kitchen. I get to the scene, this”-he waved his hand toward Tally, bent beneath Clare’s arm, still gasping-“perp is fleeing, and you look like someone’s knifed and rolled you? What was I supposed to think?”

“She threw a glass of iced tea on me. There was no need to-”

“I used appropriate force for someone I believed to be dangerous. If you want to report me to the chief, go ahead.”

She shook her head, all her anger and adrenaline beaten down to a heartsick weariness. “I’m not looking to tattle on you, Sergeant McCrea.”

Tally looked up at her, her face mottled with exertion and pain. “You’re not an MP?”

Clare sighed. “No, Tally, I’m not an MP. I’m a priest.” Her brain caught up with what the woman’s statement implied. “You saw me last week, didn’t you? At the Dew Drop.” Tally nodded. “I’m serving in the Guard. That’s why I was in uniform. And the reason I approached you in the soup kitchen is that the police want to make sure that you’re not in danger from your husband or from Chief Nichols.”

For the first time, McCrea looked at Tally as if she might be human. “That’s her? McNabb’s wife?”

“Yes.” Clare tried to keep her voice even. “This is her.”

“We’ve been trying to track her down since last Friday.” He stepped back, well away from the two women. “Mrs. McNabb, I’d like you to come with me to the station to make a statement.”

Tally got to her feet. She rubbed her shins. Tried her shoulder. “You’re joking, right?”

Clare struggled to stand up. “They need your side of the story about the fight at the Dew Drop, and if you need a restraining order, they’ll support your petition.”

“Restraining order? Against who?”

“Against whoever’s scared you enough so that you drop out of sight for a week.”

“I wasn’t scared. Exactly.” Tally wiped a bare arm across her nose. “I just needed some time away so I could think. I couldn’t deal with my husband just yet.”

Clare reached out and touched the other woman, sending electric shocks of pain through her own shoulder. “Tally. Go with Sergeant McCrea. I promise you, you’ll be unharmed and treated fairly. You can tell Chief Van Alstyne Clare Fergusson has given you her word.”

“And he’s going to care… why?”

McCrea snorted.

Clare frowned at him. “Because the chief believes in doing the right thing.”

In the end, the young woman went, sitting guarded and stiff on the other side of the cruiser from Clare, who was dropped off back at the soup kitchen. As Clare exited the police car, she saw she had left a smear of blood where her shoulder pressed against the seat. Oh, God.

She paused before shutting the door. “Sergeant McCrea…” She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t sound like a threat to run to Russ if he didn’t behave.

“Reverend.”

Finally, she sighed. “I’ll see you around.” She shut the door. Limping into the soup kitchen, she was surrounded by concerned parishioners, all of whom backed away when they saw her bloody clothing and her dirt-and-tea-spattered hair. Velma Drassler looked her up and down, shaking her head. “We’ve got our rector back,” she said, in a different tone than before.

The meal service was almost over. The other volunteers were washing and reshelving and sweeping and mopping, and Clare insisted, despite being urged to go home, on closing. She retrieved a bottle of blackberry brandy from the depths of a pantry shelf and self-medicated until she could ignore the pain in her shoulder and ankle. Then she limped to clean the bathroom.

Squirting and wiping the tile with as much energy as she could muster, trying not to look at herself in the mirror, she realized Eric McCrea had never once looked at her before she had screamed his name. She had been back far enough to have a clear view: as he drove onto the scene, as he exited the car, as he kicked and stomped Tally McNabb. You look like someone’s knifed and rolled you, he had said. What was I supposed to think?

He hadn’t seen her, though, hadn’t seen her blood or bruises or limp, not until after he had-

She closed her eyes and bent over the sink. Ammonia and pine stung her nose. What am I supposed to do now? she thought. What am I supposed to do now?

Russ caught up with her on her way home. Literally. She had locked up the soup kitchen and, with no one to witness her weakness, painfully climbed behind the wheel of her ten-year-old Jeep Cherokee. It was a high-mileage, oil-leaking beater, but she hadn’t gotten any insurance money after she’d wrecked her last car, and this was what she could afford. Garaging it for a year and a half hadn’t improved its performance any.

She was coasting down Depot Street, gritting her teeth every time she had to accelerate, when the cruiser swung in behind her. Its lights came on. She sighed, signaled, and rolled to the curb. Russ got out. She cranked the window down as he strode toward her. She looked up into his face, set in grim lines. “What seems to be the problem, Officer?”

“What the hell were you thinking?” His eyes were hot and hard. “You didn’t know who that woman was. For all you knew, she could’ve had a gun. She could’ve been mentally ill. She could’ve-” He banged his fist against the edge of her door, making her jump in her seat. “God, Clare.” He shook his head. “Lean forward.”

“Why?”

“Eric said you scraped up your back.”

“It’s not that bad.” She dropped her head against the edge of the steering wheel, too tired and achy to argue.

He sucked in a breath. “Oh, darlin’.” He glanced at his unit. “Can you drive?”

“Of course I can drive. I was driving home when you stopped me. Probably would have been there by now.” Lord, she sounded like a five-year-old who’d missed her nap.

He gave her a look. “You were straddling the centerline, going ten miles below the speed limit.”

“Oh.”

“How’s your ankle?”

“Eric gave you the whole report, did he?”

“Just tell me,” he said patiently.

“It hurts,” she admitted.

“Okay. I’m going off duty. I’m going to follow you back to the rectory. If it gets too hard to use the accelerator, pull over and I’ll drive you the rest of the way home.”

“Russ…”

“Clare…”

She threw in the towel. Agreed to his terms. Driving home, every square inch of her body either stinging, aching, or throbbing, she had a sudden image of Linda Van Alstyne. Pretty, petite, and picture-perfect. She was quite sure Russ’s late wife had never in her life rolled through garbage. The thought made her feel even worse. Or it might have been the sprain. Pulling into the rectory drive, she stumbled out of the Jeep to discover that her ankle, swollen and purpling, now resembled an overripe eggplant.

“Stay there.” Russ thunked his car door closed, crossed her drive in three steps, and scooped her up in his arms.

“I do not need to be carried into my own house.”

He huffed. “Anybody ever tell you you’re too damn independent for your own good?” He trudged up the steps to her kitchen door. “Unlocked?”

She still had her keys in her hand. She angled toward the door and unlatched it.

“I’m impressed.” He lugged her into the kitchen, kicking the door closed behind him. “Didn’t think you knew how to lock doors.” He glanced at her ancient refrigerator, wheezing in the corner. “That ankle needs ice.”

“I have a wrap in the freezer, but what I really want is a shower.” Her hair was stiff with sweet tea, and her skin was layered in sweat and alley dirt.

Russ sniffed at her. “Good idea.”

“Oh, my hero. You can just let me on down now.”

Instead, he tightened his grip and backed through the kitchen’s swinging doors into the living room.

“Russ, I mean it. You’ll give yourself a hernia.”

“You kidding? You’re skin and bones. Didn’t they feed you in Iraq?” He paused, panting, at the foot of her stairs, then carted her up to the second floor. He staggered into her bedroom and dropped her on the bed, collapsing beside her. He groaned.

“Was that your version of sweeping me off my feet?”

“Trying…” He sucked in air. “… romantic.”

“Heart attacks aren’t romantic.” She curled into a sitting position, then got up on one foot, bracing herself against her bedside table.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Going to the shower.”

He rolled over. Climbed to his feet.

“You’re not trying the Rhett Butler thing again.”

“Just put your arm around my neck, will you? Ungrateful woman.”

She followed orders and leaned against him as they crossed the hall landing. “This reminds me of when you broke your leg,” she said. “Remember how you hung on to me to make it to your truck?”

“I promise you, that little episode remains fresh in my memory. I still have two pins in my ankle.”

“Or the time I nearly froze my feet off up on Mount Tenant? You carried me into the rectory then, too.”

He flipped down the lid and set her on the toilet. “My life’s been filled with exciting incidents since I met you. I’m hoping our future together will be dull.” He leaned down and looked into her eyes. “Very dull.”

“I’ll try to be more boring.”

“Good.” He turned on the shower to get the water running hot. “Don’t slip on the tile and knock yourself unconscious while I’m downstairs.”

“Were you always this bossy, or did I forget while I was deployed?”

“You haven’t seen anything yet, darlin’.”

She made a rude noise, but the truth was, she didn’t feel up to any activity more strenuous than sitting upright. Her momentum had drained away, leaving her shaky and in pain. She watched his back disappearing down the stairs, felt her ankle throbbing, breathed in the first tendrils of steam from the shower. Her glance fell on her toiletries kit, balanced on the back of the sink. Of course. She grabbed it, unzipped it, pulled out the plastic bag of sleeping pills, the bag of antibiotics, the bag of amphetamines. Found the one she was looking for. Percocet. Prescription painkillers. She pinched one out of the plastic bag and, leaning over the sink, ran some water into the cup she kept next to her toothbrush. She tossed the pill into her throat, chased it down with the water, and, as she heard Russ’s step on the stair, stuffed all the bags back into her kit. She was zipping it up when he pushed through the half-open door.

“What have you got there?”

“I had one leftover pain pill,” she lied, wondering in the same instant why she was doing so. It wasn’t like what she had was illegal. She’d been given those medications by a flight surgeon. Everybody got them. She pictured showing them to Russ. Pictured him saying, Clare, what the hell do you need speed and downers for? Pictured herself surrendering the pills. Her hand closed over the top of her kit. She slid it back into place on the sink. “Help me into the shower?”

After she had washed the stink and the sugar off, Russ wrapped the ice pack around her ankle and bandaged her shoulder. He whistled at the damage the pavement and garbage had wrought. “This looks nasty, darlin’. Let me take you to the hospital. They can give you something to make sure you don’t get an infection.”

“No hospital.”

“Clare.” He breathed through his nose. “Seeking medical attention doesn’t mean you’ll be diagnosed with cancer.” He cupped her face in his hands. “Hmm?” Her sister, Grace, had gone to her doctor one summer day with a stomachache. Four months later she was dead. Colorectal cancer. Virulent. Fast moving.

“I’m not afraid to get treatment,” she lied. “I just don’t want to go now. I promise I’ll get it seen to if I show any signs of infection.” That would be easy. The antibiotics she had brought back with her would kill any bug up to and including flesh-eating bacteria.

He growled but helped her back into her bedroom. The pill was kicking in, and she felt more relaxed and carefree than she had at any time since she’d gotten home. Well. Any time when she wasn’t having sex. She caught Russ’s hands and fell backward onto the bed. He leaned over her, one knee on the bed, one foot on the floor. “Take off your clothes,” she said.

He laughed. “That’s mighty ambitious for someone as banged up as you are.”

“Army tough.”

He kissed her lightly. “Sorry, darlin’.” He stood up. “I just started my shift. Besides, my unit is smack-dab in the middle of your driveway. Might as well hang a sign out.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do. You’re not in the army now, you’re in Millers Kill. If someone isn’t over at the Kreemy Kakes diner right now talking about how the police chief’s squad car is parked at Reverend Fergusson’s place, I’ll eat my shorts.”

She wobbled into a seated position. “We’re two single adults over the age of consent.” She eyed him. “Well over.”

“Ha. Remember all that stuff about setting an example for your congregation? Sex should be reserved for marriage? Practicing celibacy?”

“That was a hell of a lot easier before we started doing it.”

He grinned. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” He pulled the covers back and rolled her into bed. “Get some rest. I’ll see if I can stash my truck somewhere and sneak over tonight.”

“Hypocrite,” she said into her pillow.

“It’s called discretion.” He tugged the covers over her. Smoothed her hair away from her face. “I don’t want you to get hurt, love. Not by crazy women at the soup kitchen, not by gossip.”

“Tally.” She tried to keep her thoughts from floating into the smooth cotton darkness. “What did she say?”

Russ made a noise. “Said she was fine. She didn’t feel threatened by either her husband or Chief Nichols.”

“You believe her?”

“I don’t have any reason not to, other than her going to ground for a couple days. She said she just wanted some time alone to think. I had Knox take her home, to get a feel for the situation.”

Her eyes had closed while he was speaking. She felt his lips on her forehead. “Later.”

There was something else… she heard his footsteps headed for the hall. “Eric,” she said.

“I’ll thank him for you.”

No. That’s not it. Then the narcotic took her and she was gone.

MONDAY, JULY 4

There had been times in the last two years when Hadley Knox had been overwhelmed by the differences between her old life in Los Angeles and her new one in Millers Kill. Controlling traffic for the Independence Day Parade was turning out to be one of them.

She had taken her kids to a parade once in L.A., a spectacle of Disneyland-quality floats, the Golden Bears marching band, and professional dancers twirling flaming batons. In Millers Kill, half the town was marching. DAR ladies in nineteenth-century dresses and VFW men carrying cap lock rifles. A group from St. Alban’s toting their THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH WELCOMES YOU banner. The chief’s mother rode past on the Adirondack Conservancy’s Green Future float, and her own kids pedaled by on bikes they had spent all Saturday decorating.

There was the middle school band, and the antique and modern fire trucks, and finally the MKPD cruiser marking the end of the parade. Flynn was driving, one arm hanging out the window in a very nonregulation way, grinning and waving to the children lining the road.

He so young, so ridiculously hopeful and helpful, almost like a kid himself. She flashed on the night they had spent together, his eyes dark, his voice hard, saying, Once and for all, I’m not a kid. Her saying, No. You’re not.

God. She shook her head to clear it. She cleared traffic and drove toward the park, wedging her cruiser into a tow zone on Main.

Wading into the crowd, she spotted the chief right off, his height a reliable beacon. He was walking beat along the grassy edge of the park, scanning from the street-side shops to the gazebo at the center of the green and back again. He stopped to greet someone, then caught sight of her and changed direction. “Knox. Hi. Talk to me.”

“Everything quiet. Traffic is flowing.”

He nodded. “Good.”

“Did I, uh, miss anything?”

“Our assemblyman donated a new flag.” He thumbed toward the flagpole. “Reverend Fergusson”-he looked like he was trying not to smile-“gave a nice invocation.” He thumbed toward the Gothic tower of St. Alban’s. “She’s at your church’s yard sale.”

She stood on tiptoe. Between the lush green foliage of the park’s maples and the holiday crowd, she couldn’t see a thing. “How are we doing?”

“The Presbyterians are beating you all to hell. They’ve got an Italian sausage stand.”

“How’s Reverend Clare?”

“Hurting.” The chief looked exasperated. “I told her she shouldn’t have come. She’s on crutches, for chrissakes. Borrowed from somebody in your congregation, of course, because God forbid she go see a doctor.”

Hadley spotted Anne Vining-Ellis, one of the movers and shakers of St. Alban’s, crossing the road. Her youngest son trailed behind her, all pipe-cleaner legs and bangs in his eyes.

“You should ask Dr. Anne to check her out.”

“Check who out?” The doctor had gotten close enough to hear them.

“Clare. I’m trying to get her to see someone about her ankle. Plus, the back of her shoulder looks awful, like it might be getting infected.”

“I saw the crutches and the ACE bandage, but I didn’t know she had another injury. I’ll make sure to take a look before we go home.”

“Thanks. I swear, she-” The chief stopped, took a breath, and gestured toward Hadley. “Do you know Officer Knox?”

“Of course I do.” She smiled at Hadley. “We just ran into your kids over at the yard sale with your grandfather. Their bikes look amazing.”

“Thanks. They actually did most of the decorating themselves.” Hadley nodded toward Dr. Anne’s boy. “Are you helping out at St. Alban’s?”

“Not this time.” Dr. Anne threw an arm around her son. “Colin’s won the Civic Essay Award. He’s here to get the scholarship check from the mayor.”

Colin Ellis, who had been looking at the crowd while the adults droned on, straightened and pointed. “Mom! It’s Dad and Will.” He grinned. “He decided to come after all. All right. Hey! Will!”

Dr. Anne’s face froze, and suddenly Hadley could see her age around her eyes. Hadley followed the older woman’s gaze to see Mr. Ellis pushing a young man in a wheelchair.

A legless young man in a wheelchair. Whoa. Her stomach squeezed.

“Ah,” the chief said.

The pair came to a stop in front of Dr. Anne. “You’ve met my husband, Chris.” The doctor’s voice was strange, like an imitation of herself. “And this is my son Will. Will, this is Chief Van Alstyne, Reverend Clare’s… friend.”

The chief shook the kid’s hand. “I think Clare told me you had enlisted. What branch?”

“Marines.”

“Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children. Where were you serving?”

“Anbar Province.”

The chief nodded. “I’ve heard that’s a hot zone. Heavy casualties.”

“I got out alive. I can’t complain.” Will’s face was clear and open, as if the fact that a third of his body was missing didn’t matter.

The chief smiled a little. “A marine platoon saved my life once in Vietnam. I make it a habit to thank jarheads when I meet them. Thank you.”

Will’s mouth crooked up. “What branch were you in, sir?”

“Army.”

Will smiled broadly. “Are you sure they only saved your life once?” The chief laughed.

“Well. Goodness. We’d better get over to the gazebo.” Dr. Anne’s voice was bright and cheery. “We don’t want Mayor Cameron giving the check away to somebody else.” The Ellis men chorused good-bye, walking-and rolling-away.

“God.” Hadley felt as if she had been holding her breath. “That’s tough. He’s so young.”

“They always are. They’re always too goddamn young.” The squawk on the chief’s radio was a welcome distraction. He keyed his shoulder mike. “Van Alstyne here.”

“Where’n the hell is here?” Static made Deputy Chief MacAuley’s voice crackle. “I been looking all over for you.”

“I’m at the south end of the park, looking at the Rexall.”

“I’m at the gazebo. Walk that way and I’ll meet you. MacAuley out.”

Within moments, Hadley saw the deputy chief’s grizzled buzz cut bobbing toward them. “There you are,” he said, as he came into sight. “They want you up on the stand.”

“So I can stand next to John Opperman and smile? Not a chance.”

“Opperman?” Hadley looked at the wooden pavilion, its spindled railing and octagonal roof draped in red-white-and-blue bunting. “As in BWI Opperman, the biggest employer in the county?” She could see Mayor Cameron, standing with a well-dressed middle-aged man and a woman whose twin set and glasses-on-a-chain said teacher or librarian . There were also three soldiers in camo: a young woman in a black beret, an even younger-looking man whose head was shaved bald, and an older guy twisting a bucket hat.

The young woman soldier turned, and Hadley saw it was Tally McNabb. The chief frowned. “What’s she doing up there with Dr. Stillman and the Stoners’ boy?”

“They’re all veterans, aren’t they? Jim Cameron’s probably planned some patriotic foolishness and these were the folks he could persuade to get up on the bandstand.” MacAuley gave Hadley a knowing look. “He’s running for reelection this year. Nothing says ‘vote for me’ like supporting the troops.”

“John Opperman’s no damn soldier.”

“Look.” MacAuley sighed. “Opperman’s announcing some new scholarship his company’s putting up for our high schoolers. Cameron’s got to know there’s bad blood between you two-”

“I’ve never discussed Opperman with him.”

“For chrissakes, Russ, you act like you smell dogshit whenever the man’s name comes up. Everybody who knows you knows how you feel. Cameron probably figures this is a good time to pour a little oil on those waters.”

“He’s throwing around money, so I’m supposed to forget what he’s done and play nice?”

“Russ-”

“No.”

“It’s a scholarship. For kids.” MacAuley frowned, his bushy gray eyebrows drawing together like miniature thunderclouds. “I’m not going to argue with you. You want to turn the mayor down, you have to go tell him yourself.”

The chief stalked away, muttering. Hadley frowned. “What was that all about?”

“A whole lot of old business.” MacAuley watched the chief for a few more seconds before turning toward her. “BWI Opperman came to build the new resort a couple years before you moved here. That was when they were just in the hotel trade, before they got into construction and what-all. Anyway, there were three partners in the business at that time, and before the place was completed, two of ’em were dead. The chief’s always been convinced John Opperman was behind it, but he couldn’t prove anything.”

“Huh. Okay.” She couldn’t help sounding doubtful. It didn’t seem very professional. Keeping an eye on someone you suspected, sure, but not acting like he burned down your house and shot your dog.

MacAuley gave her one of his deceptively lazy looks. “You’re thinking that’s not enough for him to be carrying on like this, right?”

She shrugged.

“Yeah. There’s more to it. Right before she died, Linda-his late wife-spent a week at Mr. Opperman’s private retreat in the Caribbean.”

Hadley’s mouth opened.

“She didn’t have a romance going with Opperman or anything. She worked for him, making all the fancy curtains and frilly bits for the hotel. It was just a getaway.” MacAuley’s denial was so firm Hadley figured Opperman and the late Mrs. Van Alstyne must have been going at it like crazed rabbits from dusk to dawn. “But it stuck hard in the chief’s craw. You know the intersection where her car wrecked?”

“Yeah. Eric pointed it out to me back when I was a rookie.”

MacAuley gave her a look that said, You’re still a rookie, girlie. “She was driving there because John Opperman dropped her off at the resort after the trip. He was one of the last people to see Linda Van Alstyne alive.” He pointed at the pavilion. “Huh. Looks like the mayor got him up there after all.” The chief was standing behind the soldiers, talking to the teen, turned away from the rest of the people on the stage. “Lotta folks around here owe their jobs to Opperman.” MacAuley tapped his nose. “Jim Cameron can smell which way the wind’s coming in.”

Small-town politics was definitely on her list of things to avoid. “Do you want me to walk the loop, Dep?” Every merchant along the street circling the park had a sidewalk display set up, an open invitation to snatch and run. “Patrol the shops?”

“Naw, I’ll take that. You stay here. Watch out for anybody who thinks it might be funny to set off a rocket during the speeches.” He turned away, then turned back. “And keep an eye on him. Just in case he forgets to smile and play nice.”

Mayor Cameron stepped up to the microphone stand. “Hi, everyone. I’m happy to say we’re welcoming back our veterans to a strong and growing economy, thanks in no small part to BWI Opperman, whose commitment to hire locally has made a big difference in our community’s life.” Tally McNabb dropped her head as if she would have rather been anywhere than in front of the crowd. Four days ago, she had been hiding from her husband and her boyfriend. Hadley wondered what had changed since then. “Now the CEO of BWI is here to make another commitment to our town, and to tell you about it, please welcome Millers Kill High School principal Suzanne Ovitt.”

There was enthusiastic applause as the woman in the twin set took the microphone. “Thank you. Mr. John Opperman has generously established a scholarship for four years’ tuition, room and board at any State University of New York campus.”

Holy shit. If Hudson could land that, she wouldn’t need that lousy ten bucks a week.

“The winning scholar must be a graduating senior with a strong academic record who serves his or her community and encourages others to do so. This year’s inaugural recipient of the BWI Opperman scholarship is Olivia Bain.”

More applause, along with some whooping from the winner’s friends. The oldest of the three soldiers cheered. A slim girl mounted the pavilion steps and shook Ms. Ovitt’s hand. Hadley got her first good look at John Opperman as he came forward, greeted the teen, and handed her an envelope. His clothing was expensively casual, and he boosted his middling height with three-hundred-dollar shoes. His darkish hair hadn’t been cut in any Millers Kill barbershop, that was for sure. If they had been in L.A., she would have pegged him as a corporate lawyer, with an office in Century City and a mistress in Bel Air.

“Thank you, Principal Ovitt, and congratulations to Miss Bain.” Opperman’s voice wasn’t warm, but she figured that was normal from someone more used to giving orders than speeches. “I’m pleased BWI Opperman can, in this small way, give back to the town which has so wholeheartedly taken us into its bosom.”

Hadley glanced at the chief, standing behind the soldiers. He looked like he wanted to spit.

“However, being up here with these fine representatives of the armed forces has made me realize that one scholarship is not enough.” The men and women around her who had been discussing the scholarship and the high school and the Bain girl fell silent. “Therefore, I have decided to establish a fund that will provide one thousand dollars to each and every graduate of Millers Kill High School who has had a parent serve in a combat arena.”

The crowd went wild. The teenaged soldier grinned and said something to Van Alstyne.

“Now. I understand Mayor Cameron has a certificate of appreciation to give to these brave soldiers behind me.” The mayor stepped toward the microphone, but Opperman pulled several note cards out of his back pocket and continued. “First, Lance Corporal Ethan Stoner. Ethan will be heading back to Afghanistan shortly for his second tour of duty with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Division.”

The kid the chief had been talking with stepped forward, shook the mayor’s hand, and accepted an envelope. He looked at Opperman, clearly uncertain if there was more to do.

The CEO brought the mic up again. “Corporal Stoner, I’d like to add my thanks by offering you and all our honorees a complimentary weekend at the Algonquin Waters Spa and Resort.” Stoner grinned and pumped Opperman’s hand until it looked as if the CEO’s gold watch might fly off.

Van Alstyne put his arms behind his back and assumed a parade rest posture. He didn’t even glance toward Opperman this time. His grudge match against the Algonquin’s owner was starting to look like a vendetta against Santa Claus.

“Dr. George Stillman is a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard and has just gotten back from his second tour of duty in Iraq.” Opperman put down the mic and clapped. Stillman seemed much more assured than the Stoner boy when he stepped up to get his certificate. Hadley thought it was weird, that a guy as old as her father could be sent off to war.

At the other end of the pavilion, Olivia, the outstanding senior, was bent over the railing, making come-on-up gestures. Hadley cut through the crowd until she spotted Will Ellis, talking back to the girl, shaking his head. Will could only be a year or two older than Olivia. Maybe they’d been in drama together, or band. Maybe prom dates. Now she was going off to college and he was stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but evidently Opperman could. He left the doctor and the mayor, who, having retaken the mic, was going on about “the ethos of service.”

Olivia straightened as Mr. Opperman approached. He asked her something. She shook her head. No. Opperman made a gesture, smoothing, dismissive. He turned away and spoke directly to Will. The wounded boy’s family closed ranks around his chair, blocking Hadley’s view.

The mayor glanced at Opperman before introducing Tally McNabb, but Hadley didn’t pay him any attention. The chief had given up his attempt to ignore Opperman and was glaring at the CEO. The other guy, Dr. Stillman, had come over and was talking with Opperman and Olivia. The crowd applauded at something the mayor said, Tally McNabb scooted behind the marine, and John Opperman took two steps toward the center of the pavilion and held up his hands.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” He used what her daughter would have called “his big voice.” “It’s come to my attention that we have another veteran here today, a young hero who was gravely wounded in combat. Naturally, he doesn’t want anyone making a fuss over him, but I think bravery in the service of our freedom ought to be rewarded. What do you say?”

All around Hadley people began cheering, whistling, yelling out, “Bring him up!” and “USA! USA!” Most of the spectators couldn’t see Will, she realized. They were thinking he had been wounded and gotten better.

Her radio crackled. “Knox?”

She looked up. The chief was talking to her from the gazebo. She pulled the mic off her shoulder and raised her hand so he could see her. “Here, Chief.”

“Get over there and help the Ellises. Don’t let anybody lay hands on that wheelchair.”

He snapped his mic into place without signing off and strode toward Opperman. Hadley caught glimpses of the action as she wedged her way through the crowd toward the Ellis family. Van Alstyne’s hand coming down on Opperman’s shoulder. Turning the CEO away from the spectators. The chief’s face, like a stone wall, saying something to Opperman. Hadley reached Dr. Anne’s side as the chief plucked the microphone out of Mayor Cameron’s hand and said, “Enough.” The chanting died away. “That’s enough. You want to thank these folks, give ’em a big round of applause and let ’em go enjoy the rest of the holiday with their families.”

The crowd cheerfully complied, clapping and hooting. “Chief Van Alstyne wanted me to assist you,” Hadley yelled in Dr. Anne’s ear.

The doctor bent toward her son. “Will, let’s go.”

“No. Dammit, Mom, I want to see Colin get his award.” The kid was pale, with bright splotches over his cheeks, but his voice was steady.

“How ’bout I stand behind you and make sure your family isn’t bothered?” Hadley offered.

“Thanks. That would be great.” Dr. Anne gave her another of those tight smiles.

Hadley stepped behind Will and his dad. Just before she turned away from the gazebo, ready to present her best do-not-mess-with-me face to the rest of the crowd, she caught a glimpse of Opperman. His genial, satisfied look was gone. Instead, he was staring at the chief. The loathing and contempt in his expression raised goose bumps on Hadley’s arms. Then his face smoothed to a bland calm. Hadley shivered.

TUESDAY, JULY 5

Russ was amazed to see Clare’s car parked in the chaplain’s spot at the Washington County Hospital that night. He had only had a few minutes with her after the dog-and-pony show at the pavilion. Her face had been tired and pinched with pain, and she had assured him she would let Dr. Anne look at her injuries and then go straight home and rest. If the Fourth of July wasn’t always so crazy busy he would have carried her to the rectory himself.

Russ got out of his cruiser and released the back door. His passenger slumped sideways. Russ wrapped a hand around the young man’s arm and dragged him across the seat. “Wha?” The kid blinked at the neon EMERGENCY sign. “Wherezzat?”

Russ got the guy on his feet, held him with one hand locked over his skinny shoulder, and retrieved his backpack. “Come on, buddy. Just a little way further.”

The kid stumbled, nearly falling, as Russ steered him through the clunky double doors and up the short hall to the intake desk.

“Heya, Chief.” Alta Brewer, the head ER nurse, came out of her cubicle. “What have you got for us?”

“A drunk and disorderly call. The kid was weaving his way down Main Street thumping against storefronts.”

Alta leaned up close and sniffed. “He doesn’t smell like booze.”

“That’s why I brought him to you.” He shook the backpack with his free hand. “There’s nothing in here, so I couldn’t tell what he’s on. I figured you folks ought to have a look at him.”

Alta flicked a penlight on and peered into the kid’s enormous pupils. “Good call.” She leaned over the intake counter. “Get me a gurney,” she called to an unseen co-worker.

“Hey, I saw Reverend Fergusson’s car outside in the chaplain’s spot. Can you tell me what she’s here for?”

Alta looked up from the blood pressure cuff she was strapping to the kid’s wiry arm. “Reverend Fergusson’s back?”

“Yeah. She got in last week.” He kept his voice neutral.

Alta grinned at him as an orderly trundled a bed through the inner ER doors. “Well. I bet you’re right happy about that.”

So much for his cool outward demeanor. He helped Alta hump the semiboneless kid onto the gurney. “I’ll be right there,” Alta told the orderly as he rolled the guy-who was now making outboard motor noises-away. She wedged herself back behind the intake counter and tilted the computer monitor down. “She can’t be on call again as chaplain yet. I would have heard about it.” She punched a few keys. “Oh. Here it is. By request of the family.” She looked up at Russ. “Patient in for heart failure. Must be one of her parishioners.”

“Where can I find her?”

“Third floor, in CIC. I’m sure you remember it from your own stay.”

“Vaguely. Most of what I saw was the ceiling tiles.”

She laughed as he headed for the elevator. Upstairs, the doors opened on the central care station. He had spent a lot of time on this floor after he’d made the mistake of stepping in front of a desperate drug dealer two years ago. The shots to his chest and thigh had laid him out for a long time. The big counter looked different from an upright and unmedicated position.

One of the two nurses manning the monitor screens looked up. “Mr. Van Alstyne?” He recognized her-she had been his night shift nurse, a sturdy woman with a voice like a glass of warm milk. She had hummed sometimes, when she got busy. He had liked it. Now she left the central station, smiling, looking him up and down just a bit, as if she were still assessing his condition. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d whipped out a stethoscope. “It’s nice to see you fit and on your feet.”

“Believe me, it’s even nicer to be here under my own power.” The corridor on either side of the station was empty. Cardiac intensive care didn’t have ambulatory patients, and visitors were strictly limited. “I’m looking for Reverend Fergusson.”

The night nurse’s smile stretched into a grin. Yeah, she would have remembered Clare. He suspected ministers didn’t usually stay at a parishioner’s bedside for twenty-four hours straight.

“You’re in luck,” the nurse said. “One of the care team has just gone in to flush his shunt and tap his lines. The family should be coming out any-” Her prediction was proved true before she could finish it. Five doors down the hall, a group emerged from a room: two men in their sixties in rumpled business wear that looked like it had been slept in, a grandmotherly sort in hospital-sensible sweats, and a tired-faced priest in black clericals with a long white satin stole about her neck. She glanced his way and stopped, blinking her surprise. She said something, low, to the family. He caught the word “cafeteria.” They drifted toward the elevators, passing behind him and the night nurse with scarcely a glance at his uniform and gun, too emotionally wrung out to be curious.

Clare limped toward him. She had traded the donated crutches for an ugly but functional hospital-issue cane, and the first thing that came out of his mouth was “Did Dr. Anne take a look at your ankle?”

She stuck her foot out. The ACE bandage had been replaced with a plastic-and-Velcro cast. “She gave me this. It makes walking a lot easier, I can tell you.”

“What about your shoulder?”

“I’m on antibiotics for that. Took my first dose this afternoon.” Her eyes shifted away.

“Really?” He didn’t try to hide his skepticism.

She looked straight at him. “I really am taking antibiotics, yes. What are you doing here?”

“Picked up some guy so stoned he couldn’t tell me his name. Thought he’d better get seen.” He shook his head. “Druggies.”

Clare glanced at the night nurse, back behind her curved counter. “Nancy? Will you let me know when Gail is done and I can go back in, please?”

“Of course I will, Reverend.”

Clare gestured with her head toward the CIC lounge across from the elevators. He resisted the urge to wrap his arms around her and tote her into the room, settling for walking just behind her to catch her if she fell. The waiting room was done in early modern Valium, all mellow colors and soft lights. The well-sprung modular seating said, Stretch out here and have a nap, everything will be fine. Clare looked at the couch facing the door with distaste. “Not there. In the corner.” She limped toward a pair of chairs half-hidden behind a banana palm and dropped into one of them like a marionette who had had its strings cut.

“Mr. Fitzgerald’s in congestive heart failure. The family called me.”

“You’ve got a sprained ankle and a banged-up shoulder. You need to rest. Couldn’t the priest who filled in for you be doing this? He’s still around, isn’t he?”

“Father Lawrence is at his daughter’s house in Glens Falls, not here. It wouldn’t matter anyway. Mr. Fitzgerald is my parishioner.”

He leaned forward. Her face was drawn, but despite being smudged purple with fatigue, her eyes were as bright and alert as ever. She must have downed a thermosful of coffee. “Okay. How long will it take you to hear his confession, or whatever? I’m finishing up my shift. I’ll drive you home.”

“Russ.”

“It’s the least I can do. I would have done it for-” He cut himself off before ramming his boot all the way down his throat.

“For your wife?” She spread her arms as if to emphasize the black clericals and the symbols she wore. Collar. Cross. Stole. “I’m not Linda. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do for me.” She let her arms drop. “Mr. Fitzgerald is dying.” She smoothed a hand over her stole, dimpling the heavy satin. “He’s dying, and his children are afraid, and I’m going to stay until the end.”

He took off his glasses. Polished them against the knee of his trousers. He thought of her reaction to the couch. Realized she must have sat there after he’d been shot, not knowing if he would live or die. He’d been back on the job within five months. Linda would have insisted he retire. Clare had never said a word, other than “Be careful.” She understood his job was what he did.

So this was what she did.

He put his glasses back on. “Can I do anything to help?”

She smiled. “Not unless you’ve taken up prayer while I was gone.”

He made a noise.

“I have a question for you.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her change-of-subject tone. “What?”

“How is Eric McCrea doing since he came back? In your judgment?”

“Why? Is there something I should know about?” She flipped her hand open. Answer the question. “Okay,” he said. “I haven’t seen or heard anything that worries me. He’s taken several sick days since he came back from Iraq. Which is a lot, for him. I told him he could have more time before he returned to duty. I figured this is his way of pacing himself.”

She nodded. “He seemed… charged up when he responded to the call from the soup kitchen Friday. Aggressive. As if he were perceiving a threat where none existed. Could he be using something? Steroids?”

“It’s possible, I suppose. That sort of behavior’s not unusual, coming off a war zone. I remember trying to clear some underbrush from behind Mom’s house the summer I got back from Nam. I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t walk into the trees and the tangle without my M-15 in my hand.”

She smiled faintly. “I wonder if that’s one of the reasons you became a cop. So you’d never have to go without your gun.”

“No.” Involuntarily, his hand fell to his service piece. “I haven’t fired my gun off the range since the Christie hostage incident. Before that, it had been seven years.”

“I didn’t say use it. I said go without it.”

He opened his mouth to argue. Closed it. “Hmm.” He nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on Eric. If he seems stressed, I can partner him up with one of the other officers or give him some time off. We’ve got access to a psychiatrist the town contracts with. Although having done my mandatory fatal fire session with the guy, I’m not wild about sending anyone else to him.”

Clare’s smile was broader this time. “Lowest bidder, huh?”

“That’s my guess.” He thought about where they were, thought about who might see them, thought the hell with it. He stood. Bent over her, bracing his hands on the arms of her chair. Kissed her. “Call my cell phone after-when you’re ready to come home. I’ll drive over and fetch you.”

“From your mother’s? That’s ridiculous.”

“Just call me.”

“Russ, I told you. I don’t need you riding to my rescue because I’m out late or because I got a little banged up. I can take care of myself.”

“Clare.” He touched his forehead to hers. “Listen.” He pulled back so he could see her eyes. So she could see his. “Every day you were in Iraq, I woke up wondering if this was it, if this was the day I’d get word that you’d been killed. Every night I watched footage and commentary and reporting and statistics until I wanted to put a boot through the damn TV. I had to see it, and hear it, and think about it, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.” He straightened. “For God’s sake, now you’re home, let me do something. I’m not trying to turn you into-I don’t know-the little woman. I just need to-to-” He ran out of words.

“Take care of me.” Her voice was balanced between understanding and dislike. “Russ-”

“You’d be helping me out.” That stopped her. “Please?” He didn’t need to see her expression to know that phrase had won her over. The day Clare could resist helping someone was the day cows would fly over Millers Kill and start grazing on the roof of St. Alban’s.

“Okay.” She sighed. “I’ll call you. But-”

“Reverend Fergusson?” A different nurse was standing in the wide doorway. “I’m all set.”

“Thanks.” Clare leaned forward and braced her aluminum cane. “I have to go. I don’t want him to be alone.”

Russ stood. Took her hand and pulled her upright.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You told me once that saying you couldn’t do something alone wasn’t the same as saying you couldn’t do it at all.”

She paused. “I remember.”

“Think about that, hmn? Next time you’re dead-set on going it alone?”

She looked at him. “I’ll try.”

He watched her limp off to Mr. Fitzgerald’s room, to watch the night through with a dying man. That was what she did. He turned, and left to go back to what he did.

FRIDAY, JULY 29

Hadley was heading back to the station to clock out when she got the squawk. “Fifteen-seventy, this is Dispatch, what’s your forty?”

She unhooked the mic. “Dispatch, this is fifteen-seventy, I’m inbound at the east end of Burgoyne.”

“We’ve got multiple reports of a three-car crash on the Sacandaga Road near the entrance to the new resort.”

Shit. Home late again. “Roger that, Dispatch, I am responding.” She switched on her light bar and sirens, checked her mirrors, and made a U-turn back toward the shortcut to Route 57.

The entire month of July had been crazy with tourists, and things didn’t look like they were going to let up in August. She called home but only got the answering machine. “Granddad, I’m going to be late. I have frozen barbecue chicken breasts and those green beans the kids like in the freezer. All you have to do is nuke them. Don’t take the kids to McDonald’s again.” It wasn’t so bad for Hudson and Genny-they would have a couple small cheeseburgers, some onion rings, and milk-but Granddad’s idea of a fast-food meal was two Big Macs and a super-sized order of fries, washed down with a large milkshake. Not what the doctor ordered for a man who had heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes.

She swung onto the Sacandaga Road and saw red-and-whites ahead. She triggered her mic. “All channels, this is MKPD fifteen-seventy responding to an accident on Sacandaga Road, over.”

“Fifteen-seventy, this is fifteen-sixty-three.” Kevin Flynn’s unit. “Responding same. I am westbound on Sacandaga Road. Over.”

Right on his heels came Eric McCrea’s voice. “Fifteen-seventy, this is fifteen-twenty-five. I am southbound from Old Route 100.”

Hadley’s stomach churned. As overworked as they were during the summer months, it had to be one hell of a mess for Harlene to send three officers.

She slowed as she approached the final rise before the entrance to the Algonquin Waters. At the top of the hill, her gaze swept the horizon, the scene laid out before her like toys thrown about by a sulky child. Two cars parked on the shoulder. A Ford Taurus skewed across both lanes, an old Saab rammed halfway into its rear quarter. The third car way off in the field. Upside-down, its grill and side crumpled and scored, its make or model unidentifiable. People-good Samaritans or uninjured drivers, she couldn’t tell-on the road and in the field.

Holy shit. She and Kevin and Eric were it, for the next however many minutes it took for the ambulance and the fire trucks to get here. Hadley followed Flynn’s squad car down and parked in the travel lane, leaving her lights whirling. Flynn swung wide, between the accident and the parked cars, stopping on the other side of the tangle, blocking the northern approach as she blocked the west. In the next second, Eric McCrea’s unit came over the hill. He slowed and pulled in behind her.

She and Eric got out of their cars. Eric popped his trunk and removed a crowbar. “Kevin!” His shout carried over the wreckage. “Meet me at the off-road vehicle!”

“I can-” Hadley began.

“If there’s a fire risk, we’re going to have to get the occupants out.” He strode toward the field, gesturing toward the other two cars. “See if anybody there needs help.”

I can do that, she wanted to say, but he and Flynn were already heading downslope-steeply downslope, she could see, as they rapidly disappeared from view. Hadley turned her attention to the cars blocking the road.

A young woman barely out of her teens sat sideways in the front of the Saab, her hands cradling her very pregnant belly, her face red and raw and terrified. A deflated air bag covered the steering wheel. A big, bearded guy crouched in front of her saying something in soothing tones.

“Hey there.” Hadley squatted beside him. “What do we have here?”

The man looked as relieved as a con with an eleventh-hour pardon. “Thank God. She says she’s, uh, leaking. Down there.”

“Are you”-he looked easily old enough to be the girl’s father instead of the baby’s, but you never knew-“related?”

“No, ma’am. I was just driving home to Millers Kill and came across ’em. There’s an older couple in the Ford, but they were just shaken up some, so I thought I’d better stay with her.”

“Please help me.” The girl’s voice was wild. “I don’t want to lose my baby.”

“It’s going to be okay. There are ambulances on the way. They’ll be here any minute. What’s your name?”

“Christy. Christy Stoner.” Her chest rose and fell in quick, shallow bursts. Shock, or panic? Either way, it couldn’t be good.

“Christy, how far along are you?”

“Seven months.”

“Are you having any contractions?”

She shook her head. Gulped a breath. Let out a bleating, gasping cry.

“Okay, Christy, listen to me. Are you listening? You need to calm down. Your baby needs all the air it can get right now.”

Christy nodded, panting.

“Is this your first pregnancy?”

The girl jerked her head up and down. Hadley spotted the rings on her third finger, a skinny little diamond and a big fat band. “Why don’t we call your husband? You can talk to him while we’re checking you out.” That might help the girl relax.

“He’s in Afghanistan. He’s a marine.”

Oh, great. Hadley gestured the bearded man to come closer. “Okay, Christy. I want you to hold-what’s your name?”

“Dennis Walker.”

“I want you to hold Dennis’s hands and squeeze them tight.” She did so, her knuckles whitening. Walker let out a grunt. “Now I want you to close your eyes and take slow… even… breaths.”

Christy shut her eyes and opened her mouth.

“Dennis, I want you to pull her upright. We’re going to move her to the backseat so she can lie down.”

Christy groaned, then gasped, as they helped her out, but between the two of them, they got her relocated. Hadley had her lie on her left side, a vague memory from her own pregnancies that the left was better for circulation or something.

“You said she was leaking.” Hadley addressed Walker over the roof of the car. “Any idea what?”

“Are you kidding?”

She ducked back down into the Saab. The girl was wearing a maternity sundress, rucked up around her knees in the move. “Christy, did it feel like your amniotic fluid bursting? Or maybe letting go some pee?”

Walker made a strangled sound.

“I couldn’t tell! I don’t know what it feels like when your water breaks.”

“Okay. I’d like your permission to check your panties to see if I can tell what’s happened.”

“Oh, jeez!” Walker twisted this way and that, finally turning his back to the car.

“Okay.” Christy brought her knee up. Hadley bunched the girl’s skirt in her hands and took a look. Oh, shit. She was worried she was going to have to get more personal, but that wouldn’t be necessary. Christy’s white maternity undies were soaked right through with clear amniotic fluid-and streaked with blood.

“What’s going on?”

Hadley snapped the girl’s dress back into place and whirled around. She had thought Flynn’s face seemed more mature since his TDY. His bones a little more defined, maybe, or his expression a little more tempered. Standing in front of her now, he looked years older.

“The other car?”

He shook his head. “Dead.” His mouth compressed. “No seat belt.” He looked over her shoulder. “Her?”

“Seven months pregnant.” Hadley dropped her voice. “I think it might be a partial placental abruption.”

“What’s that?”

“The placenta peels away some from the uterus. It’s all kinds of bad.” She glared at the road. “Where the hell is that ambulance?”

“Hey! Officer!”

They both turned. Walker had squeezed himself between the front and rear seats so Christy could hold his hand again. “She says she’s getting her pains!”

Hadley opened her mouth to either pray or swear, but she was cut short by the whoop whoop whoop of the ambulance cresting the hill, followed by the fire department’s chemical response truck, two volunteer fire police pickups, and, praise God, a second ambulance.

Duane Adams, one of their own part-time officers, led the EMTs. He prided himself on being fast. With good cause. Within two minutes, he had Christy Stoner on a stretcher, an IV in her arm and a fetal monitor strapped across her belly. They were pulling out, hospital bound, before Walker managed to extricate himself from the floor of the Saab. The last Hadley saw of the pregnant girl was a flip of her sundress over her tan legs as they slid her into the ambulance. God, look out for her and the baby.

Flynn went over to see what he could get from the elderly couple while they were being examined by the remaining EMTs. Hadley pulled out her own notebook. “Dennis, can I get your statement?”

The big man tore his gaze away from the now vanished ambulance. “Sure.”

Hadley checked her watch to note the time. She blinked. It had been exactly ten minutes since she had gotten the call from Harlene. She shook her head to clear it. “Can you tell me what you saw?”

“I was headed up to town on the Sacandaga Road”-he pointed to a spot south of the accident site-“and the Ford and the young lady’s car were coming down the hill toward me. All of a sudden, that Mini Cooper comes bombing outta the resort road. Musta been going seventy, at least. Those folks”-he thumbed toward the Ford-“kinda spun. I figured he slammed on the brakes and tried to skid himself. Probably woulda gotten by without more’n a scare if, uh, Christy hadn’t been behind him.” Walker gestured to the front of the Saab, accordioned into the rear corner of the Ford. “Wasn’t her fault, I don’t think. She mighta left more room between ’em, but, you know, unless she was a NASCAR racer in her spare time, there’s no way she coulda swerved.” He rubbed his big hands together. “Damn, I hope her and her baby come out okay.”

“Me, too. Then what happened?”

“Then? I called nine-one-one and got out to see if I could help. There was a lady come down the resort road after the Mini Cooper. She said she was a friend of the woman in the car. She took off down the field to check on her, I guess.” He glanced toward the pasture spreading out beneath the road. The car that had caused the accident, its driver, and her friend were invisible from where Walker and Hadley stood. As they watched, one of the paramedics toiled up the grassy slope into view. “What happened to her?” Walker asked. “The other driver, I mean.”

“She was killed.”

“Damn.” He shook his head, his beard swaying along in somber disapproval. “I hate to say it, but I figured something like this was gonna happen sooner or later. There’s a blind spot at the end of that resort road with all them trees and bushes there. Folks build up a good head of steam coming off the mountain and don’t have the sense to stop and look both ways.” He sighed. “It ain’t like it used to be.”

Hadley was quite sure of that. There were a number of increasingly dangerous intersections in the area, roads meant for farm vehicles and pokey local traffic overwhelmed by tourists and trucks and commuters rushing to get to Saratoga or Albany. Chief Van Alstyne’s wife had died in a collision less than ten miles from this spot.

She took Walker’s contact information and thanked him again for stopping to help.

“Anybody woulda done the same.” He rubbed his hands again. “I just hope that girl and her baby do all right.”

The fields around them were gold and green and bright with the summer sun, still high at six o’clock, but the accident site slid into the cool blue shadow of the mountain as she and Eric and Flynn processed the scene. The elderly couple elected to go to the hospital for a more thorough checkup, and the wrecker arrived. The fire police set up detours, and Hadley called for another tow truck.

The chemical response truck inched down the steep grade to the pasture and sprayed the remains of the Mini Cooper with fire retardant. The Ford, a total loss, was chain-winched to the side of the road, and the Saab, also a goner, got loaded on the flatbed and started for town.

The mortuary transport rumbled up, never in any hurry, and the body was removed. The driver, a middle-aged woman named Ellen Bain, had been coming from her job at the Algonquin Waters Resort after having “just one drink at the bar,” according to her sobbing co-worker. Ellen was also “a very safe driver!”-although the friend admitted she never used her seat belt.

“She used to tell us about a driver who got burned right up because he couldn’t get out of the car.” The woman could hardly speak. “She always said she wanted to be thrown clear in case of an accident.”

Hadley, who had hiked down to the crumpled Mini Cooper to take pictures, had to turn her head away.

Eric and Kevin took photos and measurements of the skid marks, and the second wrecker came to impound Bain’s car until the final report had been written, and the chemical response guys sprayed the torn and flattened grass once more for good measure.

They gave the all clear to the fire police volunteers, and the road was reopened. Hadley watched as the volunteers’ pickups jounced past. Nothing now but three cop cars and some broken glass on the roadbed to tell what had happened here. Everything else had faded into twilight.

“I never understood why people made those roadside shrines until I became a cop.” Flynn stood beside her, his hands tucked up under his arms.

“It doesn’t seem right all cleaned up,” she agreed. “It shouldn’t be so easy to ignore. Or forget.” A harsh growl, a sound of anger and pain, jerked her around. “What the hell?”

Thud. Thud. Thud. A dull hammering, punctuated by McCrea’s voice, low and vicious. Coming from the slope below the road. “Eric?” Kevin’s hand went to his gun. “Are you okay?”

No reply. She and Flynn headed toward the noise, both their guns out now. McCrea was halfway down the slope, straddling a deep gash where the Mini Cooper’s bumper had dug into the earth and wrenched off. He was flailing at the dirt with the crowbar, beating-Hadley peered into the gloom, looking for the snake. There was nothing there.

“Goddamn fucking stupid bitch! ” Eric smashed the bar down. “Goddamn fucking drinks -” Thud. “And speeds -” Thud. “And doesn’t wear a goddamn fucking seat belt! ” Thud.

“Eric!” Flynn sounded appalled. “What are you doing, man?”

McCrea looked up at them, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. “We live in the safest fucking place in the world.” Eric’s voice was grating. “We have air bags and seat belts and traffic signals. We have highway inspectors and road crews and goddamn designated drivers. And that stupid bitch just throws -” Thud. “ It all -” Thud. “A way !” Thud.

“I know. It sucks.” Flynn stepped toward Eric. “It really does. Why don’t you give me the crowbar, and we’ll go get a beer. Blow off some steam.”

“I don’t want to blow off some steam! ”

Hadley shook herself. Eric McCrea was acting like a three-year-old lashing out at feelings he couldn’t name or express, and one thing she knew how to deal with was a cranky three-year-old. “Okay, Eric.” She kept her voice calm. “We’re not in any hurry. We’ll wait for you.” Flynn shifted his weight-going for McCrea or going for his car, she couldn’t tell-and she wrapped her hand around his forearm. “We’ll keep an eye on you to make sure you don’t accidentally get hurt. Go on. Go right ahead.”

Eric’s arm twitched. He kicked at the gouged and torn soil beneath his boots. “Just-leave.”

“No, man, that wouldn’t be right.” Kevin’s tone told her he had caught on to what she was doing and was running with it. “We came on the call together, we’ll leave together.”

“Jesus.” McCrea stepped toward them. Stepped back. Shook his head. “I can’t do it with you watching me.”

“Take your time,” Hadley said. “Just ignore us.”

McCrea barked a laugh. Harsh, but genuine. He tossed the crowbar at Kevin’s feet. “You two are assholes, you know that?”

Flynn picked up the crowbar. “Takes one to know one, big guy. C’mon.”

She drove back to the station with her heater on, despite the lingering warmth from the day. It took that long to get the chill inside her under control. In the squad room, they checked in and went straight to their reports. No joking or chatter tonight. Eric was the first to finish.

“The offer’s still open if you want a beer,” Kevin said.

Eric paused at the door. “Thanks, Kev. I think I’d better just go home. G’night, Hadley.”

“Goodnight,” she called. He left, his footsteps echoing down the hall. She glanced over at Flynn. It was just them now. Harlene had gone off duty after the last emergency vehicles had been dispatched; calls to the station would be routed through the Glens Falls board until morning. Ed and Paul were patrolling; if the need arose, one of them might stop by the station. A lot of times over the past year, she would have found the chief working late, but since Reverend Clare had gotten home, Van Alstyne bolted out the door as soon as possible and didn’t show up again until the morning briefing, blissed-out and yawning.

Nope. It was just her and Kevin Flynn. The situation she had been dreading since he came back from his TDY. It wasn’t that they had slept together. Yeah, he was a lot younger than she was, and yeah, it was against departmental regs, but, hey, things happen. In fact, if he hadn’t gotten all emotional about it, she would have been tempted to keep on as friends-with-benefits, because it had been pretty good. Okay, really good, if she was being honest. Flynn had acted as if she were the final exam in sex ed and he was determined to make honor roll. How could she have known it was all book-learning with no hands-on experience?

She had been very hands-on-and because of that, he thought he was in love. With her. Right.

Flynn shut his computer down and scraped his chair back. “You done?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll walk out with you.”

They went down the granite steps into the sweet warm night. Hadley fished her keys out of her pocket. “See you tomorrow.”

“Hadley?”

Here it comes. “Yeah?”

“You were great with that pregnant girl. I’m glad you were there for her. I’m pretty sure she was glad, too.”

“Uh… thanks.”

“Good night.” Flynn clicked open his Aztek. He hopped in and was pulling out of the department’s parking lot before Hadley managed to fit her key into her car door.

She sat in the driver’s seat and looked at herself in the rearview mirror. Well. Evidently, she was no longer irresistible to Kevin Flynn. The small sting of that made her laugh, and laughing, she backed out and headed home to her kids.