Speaking In Tongues

1

Crazy Megan parks the car.

Doesn’t want to do this. No way.

Doesn’t get out, listens to the rain.

The engine ticked to silence as she looked down at her clothes. It was her usual outfit: JNCO jeans. A sleeveless white tee under a dark denim work shirt. Combat boots. Wore this all the time. But she felt uneasy today. Embarrassed. Wished she’d worn a skirt at least. The pants were too baggy. The sleeves dangled to the tips of her black-polished fingernails and her socks were orange as tomato soup. Well, what did it matter? The hour’d be over soon.

Maybe the man would concentrate on her good qualities-her wailing blue eyes and blond hair. Oh, and her body too. He was a man.

Anyway, the clothes covered up the extra seven… well, all right, ten pounds that she carried on her tall frame.

Stalling. Crazy Megan doesn’t want to be here one bit.

Rubbing her hand over her upper lip, she looked out the rain spattered window at the lush trees and bushes of suburbia. This April in northern Virginia had been hot as July and ghosts of mist rose from the asphalt. Nobody on the sidewalks-it was deserted here. She’d never noticed how empty this neighborhood was.

Crazy Megan whispers, Just. Say. No. And leave.

But she couldn’t do that. Mega-hassle.

She took off the wooden peace symbol dangling from her neck and flung it into the backseat. Megan brushed her blond hair with her fingers, pulled it away from her face. Her ruddy knuckles seemed big as golf halls. A glance at her face in the rearview mirror. She wiped off the black lipstick, pulled the blond strands into a ponytail, secured the hair with a green rubber band.

Okay, let's do it. Get it over with.

A jog through the rain, She hit the intercom and a moment later the door latch buzzed.

Megan McCall walked into the waiting room where she’d spent every Saturday morning for the past seven weeks. Ever since the Incident, She kept waiting for the place to become familiar. It never did.

She hated this. The sessions were bad enough but the waiting really killed her. Dr. Hanson always kept her waiting. Even if she was on time, even if there were no other patients ahead of her, he always started the session five minutes or so late. It pissed her off but she never said anything about it.

Today, though, she found the new doctor standing in the doorway, smiling at her, lifting an eyebrow in greeting. Right on time.

“You’re Megan?” the man said, offering an easy smile. “I’m Bill Peters.” He was about her father’s age, handsome. Full head of hair. Hanson was bald and looked like a shrink. This guy… Maybe a little George Cooney, Crazy Megan decides. Her wariness fades slightly.

And he doesn’t call himself “Doctor.” Interesting.

“Hi.”

“Come on in.” He gestured. She stepped into the office.

‘How’s Dr. Hanson?” she asked, sitting in the chair across from his desk. “Somebody in his family’s sick?”

His mother. An accident. I hear she’ll be all right. But he had to go to Leesburg for the week.”

“So you re like a substitute teacher?”

He laughed. “Something like that.”

"I didn't know shr-therapists took over other patients.”

“Some don’t.”

Dr. Peters-Bill Peters-had called yesterday after school to tell her that Hanson had arranged for him to take over his appointments and, if she wanted, she could make her regular session after all. No way, Crazy Megan had whispered at first. But after Megan had talked with Peters for a while she decided she’d give it a try. There was something comforting about his voice. Besides, baldy Hanson wasn't doing diddly for her. The sessions amounted to her lame bitching about school and about being lonely and about Amy and Josh and Brittany, and Hanson nodding and saying she had to be friends with herself. Whatever the hell that meant.

“This’ll he repeating some things,” Peters now said, “but if you don’t mind, could we go over some of the basics?”

“I guess.”

He asked, “It’s Megan Collier?”

“No, Collier’s my father’s name. I use my mother’s. McCall.” She rocked in the stiff-backed chair, crossing her legs. Her tomato socks showed. She uncrossed her legs and planted her feet squarely on the floor,

“You don’t like therapy do you?” he asked suddenly

This was interesting too. Hanson had never asked that. Wouldn’t ask anything so blunt. And unlike this guy, Hanson didn’t look into her eyes when he spoke. Staring right back, she said, “No, I don’t.”

He seemed amused. “You know why you’re here?”

Silent as always, Crazy Megan answers first. Because I’m fucked up. I’m dysfunctional. I'm a nutcase. I’m psycho. I’m loony. And half the school knows and do you hare a fucking clue how hard it is to walk through those halls with everyone looking at you and thinking. Shrink bait. shrink bait? Crazy Megan also mentions what just plain Megan would never in a million years tell him-about the fake computerized picture of Megan in a straitjacket that made the rounds of Jefferson High two weeks ago.

But now Megan merely recited, “‘Cause if I didn’t come to see a therapist they’d send me to Juvenile Detention.”

When she’d been found, drunk, strolling along the catwalk of the municipal water tower two months ago she’d been committing a crime.

The county police got involved and she maybe pushed, maybe slugged a cop. But finally everybody agreed that if she saw a counselor the commonwealths attorney wouldn’t press charges.

“That’s true. But it’s not the answer.” She lifted an eyebrow

“The answer is that you’re here so that you can feel better.”

Oh, please, Crazy Megan begins, rolling her crazy eyes. And, okay it was totally stupid, his words themselves. But.

but,.. there was something about the way Dr. Peters said them that, just for a second, less than a second, Megan believed that he really meant them. This guy’s in a different universe from Dr. Loser Elbow Patch Hanson.

He opened his briefcase and took out a yellow pad. A brochure fell out onto the desk. She glanced at it. A picture of San Francisco was on the cover.

“Oh, you’re going there?” she asked.

“A conference,” he said, flipping through the brochure. He handed it to her.

“Awesome.”

“I love the city.” he continued. “I’m a former hippie. Tie-dyed-in-the-wool Deadhead and Jefferson Airplane fan… Whole nine yards. Course. that was before your time.”

“No way. I'm totally into Janis Joplin and Hendrix,”

“Yeah? You ever been to the Bay Area?”

“Not yet. But I’m going someday. My mother doesn’t know it. But I am.”

He squinted. “Hey, you know, there is a resemblance-von and Joplin. If you didn’t have your hair up it’d he the same as hers.”

Megan now wished she hadn’t done the pert ‘n’ perky ponytail.

The doctor added, “You’re prettier, of course. And thinner. Can you belt out the blues?”

“Like, I wish…"

“But you don’t remember hippies.” He chuckled.

“Time out!” she said enthusiastically. “I’ve seen Woodstock , like, eight times.”

She also wished she’d kept the peace symbol.

“So tell me, did you really try to kill yourself? Cross your heart.”

“And hope to die?” she joked.

He smiled.

She said, “No.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, I was just drinking a little Southern Comfort. All right, maybe more than a little.”

“ Joplin ’s drink,” he said. “Too fucking sweet for me.”

Whoa, the F-word. Cool. She was almost-almost-beginning to like him.

He glanced again at her hair-the fringes on her face. Then back to her eyes. It was like one of Josh’s caresses. Somewhere within her she felt a tiny ping-of reassurance and pleasure.

Megan continued her story. “And somebody I was with said no way they’d climb up to the top and I said I would and I did. That’s it. Like a dare is all.”

“All right, so you got nabbed by the cops on some bullshit charge.”

“That’s about it.”

“Not exactly the crime of the century.”

“I didn’t think so either. But they were so… you know.”

“I know” he said. “Now tell me about yourself. Your secret history.”

“Well, my parents are divorced. I live with Bett. She has this business? It’s really a decorating business but she says she’s an interior designer ‘cause it sounds better. Tate’s got this farm in Prince William. He used to be this famous lawyer but now he just does people’s wills and sells houses and stuff. He hires people to run the farm for him. Sharecroppers. Sound like slaves, or whatever, but they’re just people he hires.”

“And your relationship with the folks? Is the porridge too hot, too cold or just right?”

“Just right.”

He nodded, made a small notation on his pad though he might’ve been just doodling. Maybe she bored him. Maybe he was writing a grocery list.

Things to buy after my appointment with Crazy Megan.

She told him about growing up, about the deaths of her mother’s parents and her father’s dad. The only other relative she’d been close to was her aunt Susan-her mother’s twin sister. “She’s a nice lady but she’s had a rough time. She’s been sick all her life. And she really, really wanted kids but couldn’t have them.”

“Ah,” he said.

None of it felt important to her and she guessed it was even less important to him.

“What about friends?”

Count ‘em on one hand, Crazy Megan says.

Shhhh.

“I hang with the goth crowd mostly,” she told the doctor.

“As in ‘gothic’?”

“Yeah. Only She decided she could tell him the truth. “What it is is I kinda stay by myself a lot. I meet people but I end up figuring, why bother? There’re a lot of losers out there.”

“Oh, yeah.” He laughed. “That’s why my business is so good.”

She blinked in surprise. Then smiled too.

“What’s the boyfriend situation?”

“This won’t take much time,” she said, laughing ruefully. “I was going with this guy? Joshua? And he was, like, all right. Only he was older. And he was black. I mean, he wasn’t a gangsta or anything. His father’s a soldier, like an officer in the Pentagon, and his mother’s some big executive. I didn’t have a problem with the race thing. But Dr. Hanson said I was probably involved with him just to make my parents nuts.”

“Were you?”

“I don’t know. I kinda liked him. No, I did like him.”

“But you broke up?”

“Sure. Dr. Hanson said I ought to dump him.”

“He said that?”

“Well, not exactly. But I got that impression.”

Crazy Megan thinks that Mr. Handsome Shrink, Mr. George Clooney stud, ought to’ve figured it out: How can a psycho nutcase like me go out with anybody? If I hadn’t dumped Josh-which I cried about for two weeks-if I hadn’t left, then everybody at his school would be on his case. “He’s the one with the loony girl. “And then his folks would find out -they’re the nicest people in the universe and totally in love-and they’d be crushed. .. Well, of course I had to leave…

“Nobody else on the horizon?” he asked.

“Nope.” She shook her head.

“Okay, let’s talk about the family some more. Your mother.”

“Bett and I get along great.” She hesitated. “Only it’s funny about her-she’s into her business but she also believes in all this New Age stuff crap. I’m, like, just chill, okay? That stuff is so bogus. But she doesn’t hassle me about it. Doesn’t hassle me about anything really. It’s great between us. Really great. The only problem is she’s engaged to a geek.”

“Do you two talk, your mom and you? Chew the fat, as my grandmother used to say?”

“Sure… I mean, she’s busy a lot. But who isn’t, right? Yeah, we talk.” She hoped he didn’t ask her about what. She’d have to make up something.

“And how ‘bout Dad?”

She shrugged. “He’s nice. He takes me to concerts, shopping. We get along great.”

“Great?”

C.M.-Crazy Megan-chides, Is that the only word you know, bitch? Great, great, great… You sound like a parrot.

“Yeah,” Megan said. “Only..

“Only what?”

“Well, it’s like we don’t have a lot to talk about. He wants me to go windsurfing with him but I went once and it’s a totally superficial way to spend your time. I’d rather read a book or something.”

“You like to read?”

“Yeah, I read a lot.”

“Who’re some of your favorite authors?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Her mind went blank.

Crazy Megan isn’t much help. Yep, he’s gonna think you’re damaged.

Quiet! Megan ordered her alter ego. She remembered the last book she’d read. “You know Márquez? I’m reading Autumn of the Patriarch.”

His eyebrow lifted. “Oh, I loved it.”

“No kidding. I-”

Dr. Peters added, “Love in the Time of Cholera. Best love story ever written. I’ve read it three times.”

Another ecstatic ping. The book was actually sitting on her bedside table. “Me too. Well, I only read it once.”

“Tell me more,” he continued, “about your father.”

“Urn, he’s pretty handsome still-I mean for a guy in his forties. And he’s in pretty good shape. He dates a lot but he can’t seem to settle down with anybody. He says he wants a family.”

“Does he?”

“Yeah. But if he does then why does he date girls named Bambi?… Just kidding. But they look like they’re Bambis.” They both laughed.

“Tell me about the divorce.”

“I don’t really remember them together. They split up when I was three.”

“Why?”

“They got married too young. That’s what Bett says. They kind of went different ways. Mom was, like, real flighty and into that New Age stuff I was telling you about. And Dad was just the opposite.”

“Whose idea was the divorce?”

“I think my dad’s.”

He jotted another note then looked up. “So how mad are you at your parents?”

“I’m not.”

“Really?” he asked, as if he were completely surprised. “You’re sure the porridge isn’t too hot?”

“I love ‘em. They love me. We get along gre-fine. The porridge is just right. What the fuck is porridge anyway?”

“Don’t have a clue,” Peters said quickly. “Give me an early memory about your mother.”

“What?”

“Quick! Now! Do it!” His eyes flashed.

Megan felt a wave of heat crinkle through her face. “I-”

“Don’t hesitate,” he whispered. “Say what’s on your mind!”

She blurted, “Bett’s getting ready for a date, putting on makeup, staring in a mirror and poking at a wrinkle, like she’s hoping it’ll go away. She always does that. Like her face is the most important thing in the world to her. Her looks, you know.”

“And what do you think as you watch her?” His dark eyes were fervent. Her mind froze again. “No, you’re hesitating. Tell me!”

“‘Slut.’”

He nodded. “Now that’s wonderful, Megan.”

She felt swollen with pride. Didn’t know why. But she did.

“Brilliant. Now give me a memory about your father. Fast!”

“Bears.” She gasped and lifted a hand to her mouth. “No… Wait. Let me think.”

But the doctor pounced. “Bears? At the zoo?”

“No, never mind.”

“Tell me.”

She was shaking her head, no.

“Tell me, Megan,” he insisted. “Tell me about the bears.”

“It’s not important.”

“Oh, it is important,” he said, leaning forward. “Listen. You’re with me now, Megan. Forget whatever Hanson’s done. I don’t operate his way groping around in the dark. I go deep.”

She looked into his eyes and froze-like a deer in headlights.

“Don’t worry” he said softly. “Trust me. I’m going to change your life forever.”

2

“They weren’t real bears.”

“Toys?”

“Bears in a story.”

“What’s so hard about this?” Dr. Peters asked.

“I don’t know.”

Crazy Megan gives her a good burst of sarcasm. Oh, good job, loser You’ve blown it now. You had to tell him about the book.

But the other side of her was thinking: Seven weeks of bullshit with Dr. Shiny Head Hanson and she hadn’t felt a thing but bored. Ten minutes with Dr. Peters and she was hooked up to an electric current.

Crazy Megan says, It’s too hard. It hurts too much.

But Bill couldn’t hear G.M., of course.

“Go on,” he encouraged.

And she went on.

“I was about six, okay? I was spending the weekend with Tate. He lives in this big house and nobody’s around for miles. It’s in the middle of his cornfields and it’s all quiet and really, really spooky. I was feeling weird, all scared. I asked him to read me a story but he said he didn’t have any children's books. I was really hurt. I started to cry and asked why didn’t he have any. He got all freaked and went out to the old barn-where he told me I wasn’t ever supposed to go-and he came hack with this book. It was called The Whispering Bears. Only it turned out it wasn’t really a kid’s story at all. I found out later it was a book of folk stories from Europe.”

“Do you remember it?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s stupid.”

“No,” Peters said, leaning forward again. “I’ll bet it’s anything but stupid. Tell me.”

“There was a town by the edge of the woods. And everybody who lived there was happy, you know, like in all fairy stories before the bad shit happens. People walking down the street, singing, going to market, having dinner with their families. Then one day these two big bears walked out of the woods and stood at the edge of town with their heads down and it sounded like they were whispering to each other.

“At first nobody paid any attention then little by little the people stopped what they were doing and tried to hear what the bears were saying. But nobody could. That night the bears went back into the forest. And the townspeople stood around and one woman said she knew what they were whispering about-they were making fun of the people in the village. And then everybody started noticing how everybody else walked funny or talked funny’ or looked stupid and they all ended up laughing at each other, and everybody got mad and there were all kinds of fights in town.

“Okay, then the next day the bears came out of the forest again and started whispering, blah, blah, blah, you get the picture. Then that night they went back into the woods. And this time some old man said he knew what they were talking about. They were gossiping about the people in town. And so everybody figured that everybody else knew all their secrets and so they went home and closed all their windows and doors and they were afraid to go out in public.

“Then-the third day-the bears came out again. And it was the same thing, only this time the duke or mayor or somebody said, ‘I know what they’re saying! They’re making plans to attack the village.’ And they went to get torches to scare away the bears but they accidentally set a house on fire and the fire spread and the whole town burned down.”

Megan felt a shiver. Her eyes slipped to the top of the desk and she couldn’t look up at Dr. Peters. She continued, “Tate only read it to me once but I still remember the last line. It was, ‘And do you know what the bears were really whispering about? Why, nothing at all. Don’t you know? Bears can’t talk.’”

This is so bogus, Crazy Megan scoffs. What’s he going to think about you now?

But the doctor calmly asked, “And the story was upsetting?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe ‘cause everybody’s lives got ruined for no reason.”

“But there was a reason for it.”

Megan shrugged.

He continued, “The town was destroyed because people projected their own pettiness and jealousy and aggression on some innocent creatures. That’s the moral of the story. How people destroy themselves.”

“I guess. But I was just thinking it wasn’t much of a kid’s story. I guess I wanted The Lion King or 101 Dalmatians.” She smiled. But Peters didn’t. He looked at her closely.

“What happened after your father finished it?”

Why did lie ask that? she wondered, her palms sweating. Why?

Megan looked away and shrugged again. “That’s all. Bett came and picked me up and I went home.”

“This is hard, isn’t it, Megan?”

Get a clue.

Quiet! Megan snapped to CM.

She looked at Dr. Peters. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Would it be easier to write down your feelings? A lot of my patients do that. There’s some paper.”

She took the sheets that he nodded toward and rested them on a booklet he pushed forward for her to write on. Reluctantly Megan picked up a pen.

She stared at the paper. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Say what you feel.”

“I don’t know how I feel.”

“Yes, you do.” He leaned close. “I think you’re just afraid to admit it.”

“Well-”

“Say whatever comes into your mind. Anything. Say something to your mother first. Write a letter to her. Go!”

Another wave of that scalding heat. Spotlight on Crazy Megan…

He whispered, “Go deep.” “I can’t think!”

“Pick one thing. Why are you so angry with her?”

“I’m not!”

“Yes, you are!”

She clenched her fist. “Because..

‘Why?”

“I don’t know. Because she’s… She goes out with these young men. It’s like she thinks she can cast spells on them.”

“So what?” he challenged her, “She can date who she wants. She’s single. What’s really pissing you off?”

“I don’t know!”

“Yes, you do!” he shot back.

“Well, she’s just a businesswoman and she’s engaged to this dweeb. She’s not a fairy princess at all hke she’d like to be. She’s not a cover girl.”

“But she wears an exotic image? Why does she do that?”

“I guess to make herself happy. She wants to be pretty and young forever. She thinks this asshole Brad’s going to make her happy. But he isn’t.”

“She’s greedy? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes!” Megan cried. “That’s it! She doesn’t care about me. The night on the water tower? She was at Brad’s and she was supposed to call me. But she didn’t.”

“Who? Her fiancé’s?”

“Yeah. She went up there, to Baltimore, and she never called. They were fucking, I’ll bet, and she forgot about me. It was just like when I was little. She’d leave me alone all the time.”

“By yourself?”

“No, with sitters. My uncle mostly”

“Which uncle?”

“My aunt Susan’s husband. My mom’s twin sister. She’s been real sick most of her life, I told you. Heart problems. And Bett spent all this time with her in the hospital when I was young. Uncle Harris’d baby-sit me. He was real nice, but-”

“But you missed your mother?”

“I wanted her to be with me. She said it was only for a little while because Aunt Susan was real sick. She said she and Susan were totally close. Nobody was closer to her than her sister.”

He shook his head, seemed horrified. “She said that to you? Her own daughter?”

Megan nodded.

“You should have been the person closest to her in the world.” These words gripped her by the throat. She wiped more tears and struggled for breath. Finally she continued, “Aunt Susan’d do anything to have kids but she couldn’t. Because of her heart. And here Mom got pregnant with me and Susan felt real bad about that. So Mom spent a lot of time with her.”

“There’s no excuse for neglecting children. None. Absolutely none.”

Megan snagged a Kleenex and wiped her face.

“And you didn’t let yourself be angry? Why not?”

“Because my mother was doing something good. My aunt’s a nice lady. She always calls and asks about me and wants me to come visit her. Only I don’t ‘cause…

“Because you’re angry with her. She took your mother away from you.

A chill. “Yeah, I guess she did.”

“Come on, Megan. What else? Why the guilt?”

“Because my aunt needed my mom more back then. When I was little. See-”

Crazy Megan interrupts. Oh, you can’t tell him that! Yes, I can. I can tell him anything.

“See, Uncle Harris killed himself.”

“He did?”

“I felt so bad for my aunt.”

“Forget it!” he snapped.

Megan blinked.

“You’re Bett’s daughter You should have been the center of her universe. What she did was inexcusable. Say it. Say it!”

“I…"

“Say it!”

“It was inexcusable!”

“Good. Now write it to her. Every bit of the anger you feel. Get it out.”

The pen rolled from Megan’s lap onto the floor. She bent down and picked it up. It weighed a hundred pounds. The tears ran from her nose and eyes and dripped on the paper.

“Tell her,” the doctor said. “Tell her that she’s greedy. That she turned her back on her daughter and took care of her sister instead.”

“But,” Megan managed to say, “that’s greedy of me.”

“Of course it’s greedy. You were a child, you’re supposed to be greedy. Parents are there to fill your needs. That’s the whole point of parents. Tell her what you feel.”

Her head swam-from the electricity in the black eyes boring into hers, from her desire, her fear.

From her anger…

In ten seconds, it seemed, she’d filled the entire sheet. She dropped the paper on the floor. It floated like a pale leaf The doctor ignored it.

“Now. Your father.”

Megan froze, shaking her head. She looked desperately at the wall clock. “Next time. Please.”

“No. Now. What are you mad about?”

Her stomach muscles were hard as a board. “Well, I’m mad ‘cause why doesn’t he want to see me? He didn’t even fight the custody agreement. I see him every two or three months.”

“Tell him.”

“I-”

“Tell him!”

She wrote. She poured her fury on to the page. When the sheet was half full her pen braked to a halt.

“What else is it, Megan? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, what do I hear?” he said. “The passion’s slipping. Something’s wrong. You’re holding back.” Dr. Peters frowned, “Whispering bears. Something about that story’s important. What?”

“I don’t know.”

“Go into the place where it hurts the most. We go deep, remember. That’s how I operate. I’m Super Shrink.”

Crazy Megan can’t take it anymore. She just wants to curl up into a little crazy ball and disappear.

The doctor moved closer, pulling his chair beside her. Their knees touched. “Come on. What is it?”

“No. I don’t know what it is…

“You want to tell me. You need to tell me.” He dropped to his knees, gripped her by the shoulders. “Touch the most painful part. Touch it! Your father’s read you the story. He comes to the last line. ‘Bears can’t talk.’ He puts the book away. Then what happens?”

She sat forward, shivering, and stared at the floor. “I go upstairs to pack.”

“Your mother’s coming to pick you up?”

Eyes squinting closed painfully. “She’s here. I hear the car in the driveway.”

“Okay. Bett walks inside. You’re upstairs and your parents are downstairs. They’re talking?”

“Yeah. They’re saying things I can’t hear at first then I get closer. I sneak down to the landing.”

“You can hear them?”

“Yes.”

“What do they say?”

“I don’t know. Stuff.”

“What do they say?” The doctor’s voice filled the room. “Tell me!”

“They were talking about a funeral.”

“Funeral? Whose?”

“I don’t know. But there was something bad about it. Something really bad.”

“There’s something else, isn’t there, Megan? They say something else.”

“No!” she said desperately. “Just the funeral.”

“Megan, tell me.”

“I…"

“Go on. Touch the place it hurts.”

“Tate said…,” Megan felt faint. She struggled to control the tears. “He called me… They were talking about me. And my daddy said.. She took deep gulps of air, which turned to fire in her lungs and throat. The doctor blinked in surprise as she screamed, “My daddy shouted, ‘It would all’ve been different without her, without that damn inconvenient child up there. She ruined everything!’”

Megan lowered her head to her knees and wept. The doctor put his arm around her shoulders. She felt his hand stroke her head.

“And how did you feel when you heard him say that?” He brushed away the stream of her tears.

“I don’t know… I cried.”

“Did you want to run away?”

“I guess I did.”

“You wanted to show him, didn’t you? If that’s what he thinks of me I’ll pay him back. I’ll leave. That’s what you thought, isn’t it?”

Another nod,

“You wanted to go someplace where people weren’t greedy, where people loved you, where people had children’s books for you, where they read and talked to you.”

She sobbed into a wad of Kleenex.

“Tell him, Megan. Write it down. Get it out so you can look at it.”

She wrote until the tears grew so bad she couldn’t see the page. Then she collapsed against the doctor’s chest, sobbing.

“Good, Megan,” he announced. “Very good.”

She gripped him tighter than she’d ever gripped a lover, pressing her head against his neck. For a moment neither of them moved. She was frozen here, embracing him fiercely, desperately. He stiffened and for a moment she believed that he was feeling the same sorrow she was. Megan started to back away so that she could see his kind face and his black eyes but he continued to hold her tightly, so hard that a sudden pain swept through her arm.

A surge of alarming warmth spread through her body. It was almost arousing.

Then they separated. Her smile faded as she saw in his face an odd look.

Jesus, what’s going on?

His eyes were cold, his smile was cruel. He was suddenly a different person.

“What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?” He said nothing.

She started to repeat herself but the words wouldn’t come. Her tongue had grown heavy in her swollen mouth. It fell against her dry teeth. Her vision was crinkling. She tried once again to say something but couldn’t.

She watched him stand and open a canvas bag that was resting on the floor behind his desk. He put away a hypodermic syringe. He was pulling on latex gloves.

“What’re you” she began, then noticed on her arm, where the pain radiated, a small dot of blood.

“No!” She tried to ask him what he was doing but the words vanished in comic mumbling. She tried to scream.

A whisper.

He walked to her and crouched, cradling her head, which sagged toward the couch.

Crazy Megan is beyond crazy. She loves him, she’s terrified of him, she wants to kill him.

“Go to sleep,” he said in a voice kinder than her father’s ever sounded. “Go to sleep.”

Finally, from the drug, or from the fear, the room went black and she slumped into his arms.

3

One hundred and thirty years ago the Dead Reb had wandered through this field.

Maybe shuffling along the very path this tall, lean man now walked in the hot April rain.

Tate Collier looked over his shoulder and imagined that he saw the legendary ghost staring at him from a cluster of brush fifty yards away. Then he laughed to himself and, crunching through rain-wet corn husks and stalks, the waste from last year’s harvest, he continued through the field, inspecting hairline fractures in an irrigation pipe that promised far more water than it had been delivering lately. It’d have to be replaced within the next week, he concluded, and wondered how much the work would cost.

Loping along awkwardly, somewhat stooped, Tate was in a Brooks Brothers pinstripe beneath a yellow sou’wester and outrageous galoshes, having come here straight from his strip mall law office in Fairfax, Virginia, where he’d just spent an hour explaining to Mattie Howe that suing the Prince William Advocate for libel because the paper had accurately reported her drunk-driving arrest was a lawsuit doomed to failure. He’d booted her out good-naturedly and sped back to his two-hundred-acre farm.

He brushed at his unruly black hair, plastered around his face by the rain, and glanced at his watch. A half hour until Bett and Megan arrived. Again, the uneasy twist of his stomach at the thought.

He glanced once more over his shoulder-toward where he’d seen the wisp of the ghostly soldier gazing at him from the cluster of vines and kudzu and loblolly pine. Tate returned to the damaged pipe, recalling what his grandfather-born Charles William Collier but known throughout northern Virginia as “the Judge”-had told him about the Dead Reb.

A young private in the bold experiment of the Confederacy took a musket ball between the eyes at the first battle of Bull Run. By all laws of mercy and physiology he should have fallen dead at the picket line. But he’d simply dropped his musket, stood up and wandered southeast until he came to the huge woods that bordered the dusty town of Manassas. There he lived for six months, growing dark as a slave, sucking eggs and robbing cradles (the human victuals were legend only, the Judge appended in a verbal footnote). The Dead Reb was personally responsible for the cessation of all foot traffic after dusk through the Centreville woods that fall-until he was found, stark naked and dead indeed, sitting upright in what was the middle of Jackson’s Corner, now a prime part of Tate Collier’s farm.

Well, no ghosts here now, Tate reflected, only a hundred feet of pipe to be replaced..

Straightening up now, he wiped his watch crystal.

Twenty minutes till they were due.

Look, he told himself, relax.

Through the misty rain Tate could see, a mile away, the house he’d built eighteen years ago. It was a miniature Tara, complete with Done columns, and was white as a cloud. This was Tate’s only real indulgence in life, paid for with some inheritance and the hope of money that a young prosecutor knows will be showered upon him for his brilliance and flair, despite the fact that a commonwealth’s attorney’s meager salary is a matter of public record. The six-bedroom house still groaned beneath a hearty mortgage.

When the Judge deeded over the fertile Piedmont land to Tate twenty years ago-skipping Tate’s father for reasons never articulated though known to one and all of the Collier clan-the young man decided impulsively he wanted a family home (the Judge’s residence wasn’t on the farmland itself but was eight miles away in Fairfax). Tate kept a two-acre parcel fallow for one season and built on it the next. The house sat between the two barns-one new, one the original-in the middle of a rough, grassy field punctuated with patches of black-eyed Susans, hop clover and bluestem, a stand of bitternut hickory trees, a beautiful American beech and eastern white pines.

The eerily balmy wind grabbed his rain slicker and shook hard. He closed two buckles of the coat and happened to be gazing toward the house when he saw a downstairs light go out.

So Megan had arrived. It had to be the girl; Bett didn’t have keys to the house. No hope of cancellation now. Well, if you live three miles from a Civil War battlefield, you have to appreciate the persistence of the past.

He glanced once more at the fractured pipe and started toward the house, heavy boots slogging through the untilled fields.

Like the Dead Reb. No, he reflected, nothing so dramatic. More like the introspective man of forty-four years that he’d become.

An enthymeme is an important rhetorical device used in formal debate.

It’s a type of syllogism (“All cats see in the dark. Midnight is a cat. Therefore Midnight sees in the dark.”), though the enthymeme is abbreviated. It leaves out one line of logic (“All cats see in the dark. Therefore Midnight sees in the dark.”). Experienced debaters and trial lawyers like Tate Collier rely on this device frequently in their debates and courtroom arguments but it works only when there’s a common understanding between the advocate and his audience. Everybody’s got to understand that the animal in question is a cat; they have to supply the missing information in order for the logic to hold up.

Tate reflected now that he, his ex-wife and Megan had virtually none of this common understanding. The mind of Betty Susan McCall would be as alien to him as his was to her. Except for his ex-wife’s startling reappearance seven weeks ago-with the news about Megan’s drunken climb up the water tower-he hadn’t seen her for nearly two years and their phone conversations were limited to practical issues about the girl and the few residual financial threads between people divorced fifteen years.

And as for Megan-how can anyone know a seventeen-year-old girl? Her mind was a moving target. Her only report on the therapy sessions was: “Dad, therapy’s for, like, losers. Okay?” And her Walkman headset went back on. He didn’t expect her to be any more informative-or articulate-today.

As he approached the house he now noticed that all of the inside lights had been shut off. But when he stepped out of the field he saw that neither Megan’s nor Bett’s car was in the drive.

He unlocked the door and walked into the house, which echoed with emptiness. He noticed Megan’s house keys on the entryway table and dropped his own beside them, looking up the dim hallway. The only light in the cavernous space was from behind him-the bony light from outside, filtering through the entryway.

What’s that noise?

A wet sound, sticky, came from somewhere on the first floor. Repetitive, accompanied by a faint, hungry gasping.

The chill of fear stirred at his neck.

“Megan?”

The noise stopped momentarily. Then, with a guttural snap of breath, it resumed again. There was a desperation about the sound. Tate's stomach began to churn and his skin prickled with sweat.

And that smell… Something pungent and ripe.

Blood! he believed. Like the smell of hot rust.

“Megan!” he called again. Alarmed now, he walked farther into the house.

The noise stopped though the smell was stronger, almost nauseating.

Tate thought of weapons. He had a pistol but it was locked away in the barn and there was no time to get it. He stepped forcefully into the den, seized a letter opener from the desk, flipped on the light.

And laughed out loud.

His two-year-old Dalmatian, her back to him, was flopped down on the floor, chewing intently. Tate set the opener on the bar and approached the dog. His smile faded. What is that? Tate squinted.

Suddenly, with a wild, raging snarl, the dog spun and lunged at him. He gasped in shock and leapt back, cracking his elbow on the corner of a table. Just as quickly the dog turned away from him, back to its trophy.

Tate circled the animal then stopped. Between the dog’s bloody paws was a bone from which streamed bits of flesh. Tate stepped forward. The dog’s head swiveled ominously. The animal’s eyes gleamed with jealous hatred. A fierce growl rolled from her sleek throat and the black lips pulled back, revealing bloody teeth.

Jesus…

What is it? Tate wondered, queasy. Had the dog grabbed some animal that had gotten into the house? It was so badly mauled he couldn’t tell what it had been.

“No,” Tate commanded. But the dog continued to defend its prize; a raspy growl rose from her throat.

“Come!”

The dog dropped her head and continued to chew, keeping her malevolent eyes turned sideways toward Tate. The crack of bone was loud.

“Come!”

No response.

Tate lost his temper and stepped around the dog, reaching for its collar. The animal leapt up in a frenzy, snapping at him, baring sharp teeth, Tate pulled back just in time to save his fingers.

He could see the bloody object. It looked like a beef leg bone. The kennel owner from whom he’d bought the Dalmatian told him that bones were dangerous treats. Tate never bought them and he assumed Megan must have been shopping on her way here and picked one up. She sometimes brought chew sticks or rubber toys for the animal.

Tate made a strategic retreat, slipped into the hallway. He’d wait until the animal fell asleep tonight then throw the damn thing out.

He walked to the basement stairs, which led down to the recreation room Tate had built for the family parties and reunions he’d planned on hosting-people clustered around the pool table, lounging at the bar, drinking blender daiquiris and eating barbecued chicken. The parties and reunions never happened but Megan often disappeared down to the dark catacombs when she spent weekends here.

He descended the stairs and made a circuit of the small dim rooms. Nothing. He paused and cocked his head. From upstairs came the sound of the dog’s growl once more. Urgent and ominous.

“Megan, is that you?” his baritone voice echoed powerfully.

He was angry. Megan and Bett were already twenty minutes late.

Here he’d gone to the trouble of inviting them over, doing his fatherly duty, and this was what he got in return

The growling stopped abruptly. Tate listened for footsteps on the ground floor but heard nothing. He climbed the stairs and stepped out into the drizzle once more.

He made his way to the old barn, stepped inside and called Megan’s name. No response. He looked around the spooky place in frustration, straightened a stack of old copies of Wallace’s Fanner, which had fallen over, and glanced at the wall-at a greasy framed plaque containing a saying from Seaman Knapp, the turn-of-the-century civil servant who’d organized the country’s agricultural extension services program. Tate’s grandfather had copied the epigram, for inspirational purposes, in the same elegant, meticulous lettering with which he filled in the farm’s ledgers and wrote legal memos for his secretary to type.

What a man hears, he may doubt, What he sees, he may possibly doubt. But what he does, he cannot doubt.

“Megan?” he called again as he stepped outside.

Then his eye fell on the old picnic bench and he thought of the funeral.

No, he told himself. Don’t go thinking about that. The funeral was a thousand years ago. It’s a memory deader than the Dead Reb and something you’ll hate yourself for bringing up.

But think about it he did, of course. Pictured it, felt it, tasted the memory. The funeral. The picnic bench, Japanese lanterns, Bett and three-year-old Megan… He pictured the cluster of week-old Halloween candy lying in grass, a hot November day long ago…

Until Bett had shown up at his door nearly two months ago with the news of Megan and the water tower he hadn’t thought of that day for years.

What he does, he cannot doubt…

The rain began in earnest once again and he hurried back to the house, climbed to the second floor and looked in her bedroom. Then the others.

“Megan?”

She wasn’t here either.

He walked downstairs again. Reached for the phone. But he didn’t lift the receiver. Instead he sat on the living room couch and listened to the muted sound of the dog’s teeth cracking the bone in the next room.

Dr. Peters-well, Dr. Aaron Matthews-sped away from Tate Collier’s farm in Megan’s Ford Tempo. His hands shook and his breath came fast.

A close call.

He didn’t know why Collier had returned home this morning. He always kept Saturday hours at his office. Or had, every Saturday for the past three months. Ten to four. Clockwork. But not today. When Matthews had driven to Collier’s farm-with Megan in the trunk, no less-he’d found, to his shock, that the lawyer had returned. Fortunately he was heading out into the fields. When he was out of sight Matthews had parked in a cul-de-sac of brush beside Collier’s driveway, fifty feet from the house, had snuck into the large structure using Megan’s keys. He’d tossed the Dalmatian a beef bone to keep it busy while he did what he’d come for.

He’d managed to escape to the Tempo just as Collier was returning.

Still, it unnerved him. It was bad luck. And although he was a Harvard-trained psychotherapist and did not, professionally, accept the existence of luck, sometimes it took little more than a shadow of superstition like this to drop him into the cauldron of a mood. Matthews was bipolar the diagnosis that used to be called manic depression. In order for him to carry out the kidnapping he’d gone off his meds; he couldn’t afford the dulling effects of the high doses of Prozac and Wellbutrin he’d been taking. Fortunately, once the medication had evaporated from his bloodstream he found himself in a manic phase and he’d easily been able to spend eighteen hours a day stalking Megan and working on his plan. But as the weeks had worn on he’d begun to worry that he was headed for a fall, And he knew from the past that it took very little to push him over the edge into a lethargic pit of depression.

But the near miss with Collier faded now and he remained as buoyant as a happy child. He sped to I-66 and headed east-to the Vienna, Virginia, Metro lot-the huge station for commuters fifteen miles west of D.C. It was Saturday morning but the lot was filled with the cars of people who’d taken the train downtown to visit the monuments and museums and galleries.

Matthews drove Megan’s car to the spot where his gray Mercedes was parked then climbed out and looked around. He saw only one other occupied car-a white sedan, idling several rows away. He couldn’t see the driver clearly but the man or woman didn’t seem to be looking his way. Matthews quickly bundled Megan out of the Tempo’s trunk and slipped her into the trunk of the Mercedes.

He looked down at the girl, curled fetally and unconscious, bound up with rope. She was very pale. He pressed a hand to her chest to make sure that she was still breathing regularly. He was concerned about her; Matthews was no longer a licensed M.D. in Virginia and couldn’t write prescriptions so to knock the girl out he’d stockpiled phenobarb from a veterinarian, claiming that one of his rottweilers was having seizures. He’d mixed the drug with distilled water but couldn’t be sure of the concentration. She was deeply asleep but it seemed that her respiration was fine and when he took her pulse her heart rate was acceptable.

Between the front seats of the Tempo he left the well-thumbed Amtrak timetable that Megan had used as a lap desk to write the letters to her parents and that now bore her fingerprints (and only hers-he’d worn gloves when handling it). He’d circled all the Saturday trains to New York.

He’d approached the abduction the way he once would have planned the treatment of a severely disturbed patient: every detail meticulously considered. He’d stolen the writing paper from Megan’s room in Bett McCall’s house. He’d spent hours in her room-when the mother was working and Megan was in school. It was there that he’d gotten important insights into her personality: observing the three Joplin posters, the black light, the Marquez book, notes she’d received from classmates laced with words like “fuck” and “shit.” (Matthews had written a breakthrough paper for the APA Journal on how adolescents unconsciously raise and lower emotional barriers to their therapist according to the doctors’ use of grammar and language; he’d observed, during the session that morning, how the expletives he’d used had opened her psyche like keys.)

He’d been careful to leave no evidence of his break-in at Bett McCall’s. Or in Leesburg-where Dr. Hanson’s mother lived. That had been the biggest problem of his plan: getting Hanson out of the way for the week-without doing something as obvious, though appealing, as running him over with a car. He’d done some research on the therapist and learned that his mother lived in the small town northwest of Washington, D.C., and that she was frail. On Wednesday night Matthews had loosened the top step leading from her back porch to the small yard behind her house. Then he’d called, pretending to be a neighbor, and asked her to check on an injured dog in the backyard. She’d been disoriented and reluctant to go outside after dark but after a few minutes he’d convinced her-nearly had her in tears over the poor animal, in fact. She’d fallen straight down the stairs onto the sidewalk. The tumble looked serious and for a moment Matthews was worried-if she died

Hanson might schedule the funeral around his patients’ sessions. But he waited until the paramedics arrived and noted that she’d merely broken bones. After Hanson had left a message canceling her regular session Matthews had called Megan and told her he was taking over Hanson’s patients.

Now Matthews started the Mercedes and switched cars-parking Megan’s in the space his had occupied-and then sped out of the parking lot.

He took his soul’s pulse and found his mood intact, There was no paralysis, no anger, no sorrow dishing up the fishy delusions that had plagued him since he was young. The only hint of neurosis was understandable: Matthews found himself talking silently with Megan, repeating the various things he’d told her in the session and what she’d said to him. A bit obsessive but, as he’d occasionally said to patients, So what?

Finally, he turned the Mercedes onto the entrance ramp to I-66 and, doing exactly fifty-eight miles an hour, headed toward the distant mountains. Megan’s new home.

4

The woman walked inside the house of which she’d been mistress for three years and paused in the Gothic, arched hallway as if she’d never before seen the place.

“Bett,” Tate said.

She continued inside slowly, offering her ex-husband a formal smile. She paused again at the den door. The Dalmatian looked up, snarling.

“Oh my, Tate…

“Megan gave her a bone. She’s a little protective about it. Let’s go in here.”

He closed the den door and they walked into the living room.

“Did you talk to her?” he asked.

“Megan? No. Where is she? I didn’t see her car.”

“She’s been here. But she left. I don’t know why.”

“She leave a note?”

“No. But her house keys’re here.”

“Oh. Well.” Bett fell silent.

Tate crossed his arms and rocked on the carpet for a moment. He walked to the window, looked at the barn through the rain. Returned.

“Coffee?” he asked.

"No, thank you.”

Bett sat on the couch, crossed her thin legs, clad in tight black jeans. She wore a black silky blouse and a complicated silver necklace with purple and black stones. She sat in silence for a few moments then rose and examined the elaborate fireplace Tate’d had built several years ago. She caressed the mortar and with a pale pink fingernail picked at the stone. Her eyes squinted as she sighted down the mantelpiece. “Nice,” she said. “Fieldstone’s expensive.”

She sat down again.

Tate examined her from across the room. With her long, Pre-Raphaelite face and tangle of witchy red hair, Betty Susan McCall was exotic. Something Virginia rarely offered-an enigmatic Celtic beauty. The South is full of temptresses and lusty cowgirls and it has matriarchs galore but few sorceresses. Bett was a businesswoman now but beneath that façade, Tate Collier believed, she remained the enigmatic young woman he’d first seen singing a folk song in a smoky apartment on the outskirts of Charlottesville twenty-three years ago. She’d performed a whaling song a cappella in a reedy, breathless voice.

It had, however, been many years since any woman had ensnared him that way and he now found himself feeling very wary. A dozen memories from the days when they were getting divorced surfaced, murky and unsettling.

He wondered how he could keep his distance from her throughout this untidy family business.

Bett’s eyes had disposed of the fireplace and the furniture in the living room and were checking out the wallpaper and molding. His eyes dogged after hers and he concluded that she found the place unhomely and stark. It needed more upholstered things, more pillows, more flowers. new curtains, livelier paint. He felt embarrassed.

After several minutes Bett said, "Well, if her car’s gone she probably just went out to get something."

“That’s probably it.”

Two hours later. no messages on either of’ their phones, Tate called the police.

The first thing Tate noticed was the way Konnie glanced at Bett. With approval.

As if the lawyer had finally gotten his act together: no more young blondes for him. And it was damn well about time. This woman was in her early forties, very pretty Smooth skin. She had quick eyes and seemed smart. Detective Dimitri Konstantinatis of the Fairfax County Police had commented once, “Tate, whv’re all the women you date half your age and lemme guess. a third your intelligence? If’ that. Why's that. Counselor?”

Konnie strode into the living room and stuck his hand out toward her lie shook the startled woman's hand vigorously as Tate introduced them. “Bett, my ex-wife. this is Konnie Konnie’s an old friend from my prosecuting days.

“Howdy.” Oh, the cop’s disappointed face said, so she’s the ex. Giving her up was one bad mistake, mister. The detective glanced at Tate. “So, Counselor, your daughter’s up ‘n’ late for lunch, that right?”

“Been over two hours,”

“You’re fretting too much, Tate.” He poked a finger at him and said to Bett, “This fella? Was the sissiest prosecutor in the commonwealth. We had to walk him to his car at night.”

“At least I could find my car,” Tate shot back. One of the reasons Konnie loved Tate was that the lawyer joked about Konnie's drinking;

he was now in recovery-no alcohol in four years-and not a single soul in the world except Tate Collier would dare poke fun at him about it. But what every other soul in the world didn’t know was that what the cop respected most was balls.

Bett smiled uneasily.

Tate and Konnie had worked together frequently when Tate was a commonwealth’s attorney. The somber detective had been taciturn and distant for the first six months of their professional relationship, never sharing a single personal fact. Then at midnight of the day a serial rapist-murderer they’d jointly collared and convicted was sentenced to be “paroled horizontal,” as the death row parlance went, Konnie had drunkenly embraced Tate and said that the case made them blood brothers. “We’re bonded.”

“Bonded? What kind of pinko touchy-feely crap is that?” an equally drunken Tate had roared.

They’d been tight friends ever since.

Another knock on the front door.

“Maybe that’s her,” Bett said eagerly. But when Tate opened the door a crew-cut man in a cheap, slope-shouldered gray suit walked inside. He stood very straight and looked Tate in the eye. “Mr. Collier. I’m Detective Ted Beauridge. Fairfax County Police. I’m with Juvenile.”

Tate led him inside and introduced Beauridge to Bett while Konnie clicked the TV’s channel selector. He seemed fascinated to find a TV that had no remote control.

Beauridge was polite and efficient but clearly he didn’t want to be here. Konnie was the sole reason Megan’s disappearance was getting any attention at all. When Tate had called, Konnie’d told him that it was too early for a missing person’s report; twenty-four hours’ disappearance was required unless the individual was under fifteen, mentally handicapped or endangered. Still, Konnie had somehow “accidentally forgotten” to get his supervisor’s okay and had run a tag check on Megan’s car. And he’d put in a request for Jane Doe admissions at all the area hospitals.

Tate ushered them into the living room. Bett asked, “Would you like some coffee or…?“ Her voice faded and she laughed in embarrassment, looking at Tate, undoubtedly remembering that this had not been her house for along, long time.

“Nothing, thanks, ma’am,” Beauridge said for them both.

In the time it had taken Konnie to arrive, Bett had called some friends of Megan’s. She’d spent the night at Amy Walker’s. Bett had called this girl first but no one had answered. She left a message on the Walkers’ voice mail then called some of her other friends. Brittany, Kelly and Donna hadn’t seen Megan or heard from her today. They didn’t know if she had plans except maybe showing up at the mall later. “To, you know, like, hang out.”

Konnie asked Tate and Bett about the girl’s Saturday routine. “She normally has a therapy session Saturday morning,” Bett explained. “At nine. But the doctor had to cancel today. His mother was sick or something.”

“Could she just’ve forgotten about coming here for lunch?” “When we talked yesterday I reminded her about it.”

“Was she good about keeping appointments?” Beauridge asked. Tate didn’t know. She’d always shown up on time when he took her shopping or to dinner at the Ritz in Tysons. He told them this. Bett said that she was “semigood about being prompt.” But she didn’t think the girl would miss this lunch. “The three of us being together and all,” she added with a faint cryptic laugh.

“What about boyfriends?” Konnie asked.

“She didn’t-” Tate began.

Then halted at Bett’s glance. And he realized he didn’t have a clue whether Megan had a boyfriend or not.

Bett continued, “She did but they broke up last month.”

“She the one broke it off?”

“Yes.”

“So is he trouble, you think? This kid?” Konnie tugged at a jowl. “I don’t think so, He seemed very nice. Easygoing.”

So did Ted Bundy, Tate thought.

“What’s his name?”

“Joshua LeFevre. He’s a senior at George Mason.” “He’s a senior in college?” Tate asked.

“Well, yes,” she said.

“Bett, she’s only seventeen. I mean-”

“Tate,” Bett said again. “He was a nice boy. His mother’s some executive at EDS, his father’s stationed at the Pentagon. And Josh’s a championship athlete. He’s also head of the Black Students’ Association.”

“The what?”

“Tate!”

“Well, I’m just surprised. I mean, it doesn’t matter.” Bett shrugged with some exasperation.

“It doesn’t,” Tate said defensively. “I’m just-” “-surprised,” Konnie repeated wryly. “Mr. ACLU speaks.” “You know his number?” Beauridge asked.

Bett didn’t but she got it from directory assistance and called. She apparently got one of his roommates. Joshua was out. She left a message for him to call when he returned.

“So. She’s been here and gone. No sign of a struggle?” Konnie looked around the front hall.

“None.”

“What about the alarms?”

“I had them off.”

“There a panic button she could hit if somebody was inside waiting for her?”

“Yep. And she knows about it.”

Bett offered, “She left the house keys here. She has her car keys with her.”

“Could somebody,” Konnie speculated, “have stole her purse, got the keys and broken in?”

Tate considered this. “Maybe. But her driver’s license has Bett’s address on it. How would a burglar know to come here? Maybe she had something with my address on it but I don’t know what. Besides, nothing’s missing that I could see.”

“Don’t see much worth stealing,” Konnie said, looking at the paltry entertainment equipment. “You know, Counselor, they got TVs nowadays bigger’n cereal boxes.”

Tate grunted.

“Okay,” Konnie said, “how ‘bout you show me her room?”

As Tate led him upstairs Beauridge’s smooth drawl rolled, “Sure you got nothing to worry about, Mrs. Collier-”

“It’s McCall.”

Upstairs, Tate let Konnie into Megan’s room then wandered into his own. He’d missed something earlier when he’d made the rounds up here: his dresser drawer was open. He looked inside, frowned, then glanced across the hall as the detective surveyed the girl’s room. “Something funny,” Tate called.

“Hold that thought,” Konnie answered. With surprisingly lithe movements for such a big man he dropped to his knees and went through what must have been the standard teenage hiding places: under desk drawers, beneath dressers, wastebaskets, under beds, in curtains, pillows and comforters. “Ah, whatta we got here?” Konnie straightened up and examined two sheets of paper.

He pointed to Megan’s open dresser drawers and the closet. “These’re almost empty, these drawers. They normally got clothes in them?”

Tate hesitated, concern on his face. “Yes, they’re usually full.”

“Could you see if there’s any luggage missing?”

“Luggage? No… Wait. Her old backpack’s gone.” Tate considered this for a moment. Why would she take that? he wondered. Looking at the papers, Tate asked the detective, “What’d you find?”

“Easy, Counselor,” Konnie said, folding up the sheets. “Let’s go downstairs.”

5

What would Sidney Poitier do?

Joshua LeFevre shifted his muscular, trapezoidal body in the skimpy seat of his Toyota and pressed down harder on the gas pedal. The tiny engine complained but slowly edged the car closer to the Mercedes.

Come on, Megan, what the hell’re you up to?

He squinted again and leaned forward as if moving eight inches closer to the Merce were going to let him see more clearly through his confusion. He assumed the man, not Megan, was driving though he couldn’t be sure. This gave him a sliver of comfort-for some reason the thought of this guy tossing Megan the keys to his big doctor’s car and saying, “You drive, honey,” riled the young man beyond words. Made him furious.

He nudged the car faster.

Sidney Poitier… What would you do?

LeFevre had seen In the Heat of the Night when he’d been ten. (On video, of course-when the film had originally come out, in the sixties, the man who would be his father was doing basic training push-ups in.

Fort Dix and his to-be mother was listening to Smokey Robinson and Diana Ross while she worked on her 4.0 average at National Cathedral School.) The film had affected him deeply. The Poitier character, Detective Tibbs, ended up stuck in the small Southern town, butting horns with good-old-boy sheriff Rod Steiger. Moving slow, solving a local murder, step by step… Not getting flustered, not getting pissed off in the face of all the crap everybody in town was giving him.

Sure, the movie didn’t have real guts, it was Hollywood’s idea of race relations, more softball than gritty, but even at age ten Joshua LeFevre understood the film wasn’t really about black or white-it was about being a man and being persistent and not taking no when you believed yes.

It choked him up, that flick-the way important movies always do, those films that give us our role models, whether it’s the first time we see them or the hundredth.

Oh yes, Joshua Nathan LeFevre-an honors English major at George Mason University, a tall young man with his father’s perfect physique and military bearing and with his mother’s brains-had a sentimental side to him thick as a mountain. (The week that students in his nineteenth-century-lit seminar were picking apart a Henry James novel like crows, LeFevre had slunk back to his apartment with a very different book hidden in a brown paper bag. He’d locked his door and read the entire novel in one sitting, crying unashamedly when he came to the last page of The Bridges of Madison County.)

Sentimental, a romantic. And accordingly, Sidney Poitier-rather than Samuel L. Jackson or Wesley Snipes-appealed to him.

So, what would Mr. Tibbs do now?

Okay, he was saying to himself, let’s analyze it. Step by step. Here’s a girl’s got a bad home life. None of that talk-show abuse, no, but it’s clearly a case of Daddy don’t care and Momma don’t care. So she drinks more than she ought and hangs with a bad crowd-until she meets LeFevre. And seems to get her act together though she falls off the normal wagon every once in a while. And then one night she climbs up to the top of a water tower (and why didn’t she call me, dammit, instead of guzzling a fifth of Comfort with Donna and Brittany, the Easy Sisters?). And once she’s up there she does a little dance on the scaffolding and the cops and fire department come to get her down.

And she goes to see this shrink…

Who tells her she’s got to break up with him.

And so she does.

“Why?” LeFevre had asked her a few weeks ago as they sat in his car, parked in front of her house, on what turned out to be their last date.

“Why?”

“It’s not the differences…“ Meaning the age, meaning the race. It was… what the hell was it? He replayed Megan’s little speech.

“It’s just that I’m not ready for the same kind of relationship you want.”

And what kind is that? I don’t remember proposing. I don’t think we’ve even talked about our relationship. We just have fun together.

“Oh, Josh, honey, don’t cry… I need to see things, do things. I feel, I don’t know, all tied down or something… Living with Bett’s like living with a roommate. You know, her date for Saturday’s the biggest deal in the world. All she worries about is her skin getting old.”

Old skin? I like your mom. She’s pretty, smart, offbeat. I don’t get it. What’s her skin got to do with breaking up? LeFevre had been very confused as he sat in his tiny car beside the woman he loved.

“Oh, honey, I just need to get away. I want to travel, see things. You know.”

Travel? Where was this coming from? I’ve got a trust fund, Mom and Dad’re loaded, I’ve lived in Jeddab, Cyprus, London and Germany. I speak three languages. I can show you more of the world than the Cunard Line.

“Okay, What it is is this therapist. Dr. Hanson? See, he thinks it’s not a good idea for me to be in a relationship with you right now.”

Then we’ll back off a bit. See each other once a week or so. How’s that?

“No, you don’t understand,” Megan had said brutally; pulling away from him as he tried to take the Southern Comfort bottle out of her hand. And she’d climbed out of the passenger seat and run into her house.

Cruising down I-66 now, LeFevre leaned over and sniffed the headrest to see if he could smell her perfume. Heartbreakingly, he couldn’t. He pushed the accelerator harder, edging up on the gray Mercedes.

‘We, you don’t understand.”

No, he sure as hell hadn’t.

Joshua LeFevre had waited a tormented three weeks then-this morning-woke up on autopilot. He hadn’t been able to take the girl’s silence and the suffocating frustration anymore. He’d driven to Hanson’s office around the time Megan’s appointment would be over. He’d parked up the street, waiting for her to come out. Josh LeFevre could bench-press 220 pounds, he could bicycle 150 miles a day. But he wasn’t going for intimidation. Oh no. He was going to Poitier the man, not Snipes him.

Why, he was going to ask the doctor, did you talk her into breaking up with me? Isn’t that unethical? Let’s sit down together. The three of us. Josh had a dozen arguments all prepared. He believed he could talk his way back into her heart.

“No, you don’t understand.”

But now he did.

God, I’m an idiot.

The doctor had her break up because he wanted to luck her

No psychobabble here. No inner child. Nope. The shrink wanted to play the two-backed beast with LeFevre’s girlfriend. Simple as a shot in the head.

From where he’d been parked near the office he hadn’t been able to see clearly but suddenly, before the appointment was supposed to be over, Megan’s Tempo was pulling out of the lot-with the shrink himself driving, it seemed, and heading north.

He’d followed the car to Manassas -to Megan’s dad’s farm-where LeFevre’d waited for about twenty minutes. Then, just when he’d been about to pull into the long drive, the car had sped out again and they’d driven to the Vienna Metro parking lot. They’d switched cars-taking the German shrinkmobile-and headed west on 1-66.

What was it all about? Had she picked up some clothes from her father’s place? Was she going away for the weekend?

LeFevre was crazed. He had to do something.

But what would Sidney Poitier do? The script had changed.

Wait till they got to the doctor’s house? The inn they were going to? Confront them there?

No, that didn’t seem right.

Oh, hell, he should just go home… Forget this crap. Be a man.

His foot eased up on the gas… Good idea, get off at the next exit. Quit acting like a lovesick loser It’s embarrassing. Go home. Read your Melville. You’ve got a presentation due a week from Monday…

The Mercedes pulled ahead.

Then the thought burst within him: Bullshit. I’m going to deconstruct motifs in some fucking story about a big-ass whale while my girlfriend's in bed whispering into her therapist’s ear?

He jammed his foot to the floor

Would Poitier do this?

You bet.

And so LeFevre kept his sweating hands on the wheel of the car, straining forward, and sped after the woman whom he loved and, he believed somewhere in a portion of his sloppy heart, who loved him still.

“She’s run away?” Bett whispered.

The four of them were in the living room, like strangers at a cocktail party, knees pointed at one another, sitting upright and waiting to become comfortable. Konnie continued, “But y’all should consider that good news. The profile is most runaways come back on their own within a month.”

Bett stared out the window at the misty darkness. “A month,” she announced, as if answering a trivia question. “No, no. She wouldn’t leave. Not without saying anything.”

Konnie glanced at Beauridge. Tate caught the look.

“I’m afraid she did say something.” Konnie handed Bett and Tate what he’d found upstairs. “Letters to both of you. Under her pillow.”

“Why there?” Bett asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“So you wouldn’t find ‘em right away,” Konnie explained. “Give her a head start. I’ve seen it before.”

Beauridge asked, “Is that her handwriting?”

Konnie added, “There’s a buddy of mine, FBI document examiner, Parker Kincaid. Lives in Fairfax. We could give him a call.”

But Bett said it was definitely Megan’s writing.

“‘Bett,’ “ she read aloud then looked up. “She called me Bett. Not Mom. Why would she do that?” She started again and read in a breathless, ghostly voice, “‘Bett-I don’t care if it hurts you to say this… I don’t care how much it hurts…’”

She looked helplessly at her ex-husband then read to herself. She finished, sat back in the couch and seemed to shrink to the size of a child herself. She whispered, “She says she hates me. She hates all the time I spent with my sister. I Mystified, hurt, she shook her head and fell silent.

Tate looked down at his note. It was stained. With tears? With rain? He read:

Tate:

The only way to say it-I hate you for what you’ve done to me! You don’t listen to me. You talk, talk, talk and Bett calls you the silver-tongued devil and you are but you never listen to me. To what I want. To who I am. You bribe me, you pay me off and hope I’ll go away. I should of run away when I was six like I wanted to. And never come back.

I’ve wanted to do that all along. I still want to. Get away from you. It’s what you want anyway, isn’t it? To get rid of your inconvenient child?

His mouth was open, his lips and tongue dry, stinging from the air that whipped in and out of his lungs. He found he was staring at Bett.

“Tate. You okay?” Konnie said.

“Could I see that again, Mrs. McCall?” Beauridge asked.

She handed the stiff sheet over.

“You’re sure that’s her writing paper?”

Bett nodded. “I gave it to her for Christmas.”

In a low voice Bett answered questions no one had asked. “My sister was very sick. I left Megan in other people’s care a lot. I didn’t know she felt so abandoned… She never said anything.”

Tate noted Megan’s careless handwriting. In several places the tip of the pen had ripped through the paper. In anger, he assumed.

Konnie asked Tate what he’d found in his own room.

He was so stunned it took him a minute to focus on the question. “She took four hundred dollars from my bedside drawer.”

Bell blurted, “Nonsense. She wouldn’t take…

“It’s gone,” Tate said. “She’s the only one who’s been here.”

“What about credit cards?” Konnie asked.

“She’s on my Visa and MasterCard,” Bett said. “She’d have them with her.”

“That’s good,” Konnie offered. “It’s an easy way to trace runaways. What it is we’ll set up a real-time link with the credit card companies. We’ll know within ten minutes where she’s charged something.”

Beauridge said, “We’ll put her on the runaway wire. She’s picked up anywhere for anything on the eastern seaboard, they’ll let us know Let me have a picture, will you?”

Tate realized that they were looking at him.

“Sure,” he said quickly and began searching the room. He looked through the bookshelves, end-table drawers. He couldn’t find any photos.

Beauridge watched Tate uncertainly; Tate guessed that the young officer’s wallet and wall were peppered with snapshots of his own youngsters. Konnie himself, Tate remembered from some years ago, kept a picture of his ex-wife and kids in his wallet. The lawyer rummaged in the living room and disappeared into the den. He returned some moments later with a snapshot-a photo of Tate and Megan at Virginia Beach two years ago. She stared unsmilingly at the camera. It was the only picture he could find.

“Pretty girl,” Beauridge said.

“Tate,” Konnie said, “I’ll stay on it. But there isn’t a lot we can do.”

“Whatever, Konnie. You know it’ll be appreciated.”

“Bye, Mrs. Coll-McCall.”

But Bett was looking out the window and said nothing.

The white Toyota was staying right behind the Mercedes, Aaron Matthews noted. He wondered if it was the same auto he’d seen in the Vienna Metro lot when he was switching cars. He wished he’d paid more attention.

Matthews believed in coincidence even less than he believed in luck and superstition. There were no accidents, no flukes. We are completely responsible for our behavior and its consequences even if we can’t figure out what’s motivating us to act.

The car behind him now was not a coincidence.

There was a motive, there was a design.

Matthews couldn’t understand it yet. He didn’t know how concerned to be. But he was concerned.

Maybe he’d cut the driver off and the man was mad, Road rage.

Maybe it was someone who’d seen him heft a large bundle into the trunk of the Mercedes and was following out of curiosity

Maybe it was the police.

He slowed to fifty.

The white car did too.

Sped up.

The car stayed with him.

Have to think about this. Have to do something.

Matthews slid into the right lane and continued through the mist toward the mountains in the west. He looked back as often as he looked forward.

As any good therapist will advise his patients to do.

6

The rain had stopped but the atmosphere was thick as hot blood.

In her stylish shoes with the wide, high heels, Bett McCall came to Tate’s shoulder. Neither speaking, they stood on the back porch, looking over the back sixty acres of the property.

The Collier spread was more conservative than most Piedmont farms: five fields rotating between soy one year and corn and rye the next. A classic northern Virginia spread.

“Listen to me, Tate,” the Judge would say.

The boy always listened to his grandfather.

“What’s a legume?”

“A pea.”

“Only a pea?”

“Well, beans too, I think.”

“Peas, beans, clover, alfalfa, vetches… they’re all legumes. They help the soil. You plant year after year of cereals, what happens?”

“Don’t know, sir.”

“Your soil goes to hell in a hand basket.”

“Why’s that, Judge?”

The man had taught the boy never to be afraid to ask questions.

“Because legumes take nitrogen from the air. Cereals take it from the soil.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll plant Mammoth Brown and Yellow for silage and Virginia soy too. Wilson and Haerlandts are good for seed and hay How do you prepare the land?”

“Like you’re planting corn,” the boy had responded. “Sow them broadcast with a wheat drill.”

Out of the blue the Judge might glance at his grandson and ask, “Do you cuss, Tate?”

“No sir.”

“Here. Read this.” The man thrust into Tate’s hand a withered old bulletin from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Immigration. A dog-eared chapter bemoaned the rise of young farmers’ profanity. Even some of our girls have taken to this deplorable habit.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Judge,” Tate had said, remembering without guilt how he’d sworn a blue streak at Junior Foote at school just last Thursday.

Gazing at his fields, the Judge had continued, “But if you do find it necessary to let loose just make sure there’re no womenfolk around, Almost time for supper. Let’s get on home.”

Tate stayed at his grandparents’ house in Fairfax as often as at his parents’. Tate’s father was a kind, completely quiet man, best suited to a life as, say, a court reporter-a career he’d never dared pursue, of course, given the risk that he’d be assigned to transcribe one of his father’s trials. The Judge had agonized over whether or not to leave the farm to his only son and had concluded the man just didn’t have the mettle to handle a spread of this sort. So he deeded it over to Tate while the other kin got money. (Ironically, as Tate learned during one of the few frank conversations he’d ever had with his father, the man had been dreading the day that the Judge would hand over the farm to him. His main concern seemed to be that running the farm would interfere with his passion of collecting Lionel electric trains.) Tate’s timid, ever-tired mother suited her husband perfectly and Tate could remember not a single word of dissension, or passion, between the two. Little conversation either.

Which is why, given his druthers, adolescent Tate would hitch or beg a ride to his grandparents’ house and spend as much time as he could with them.

As the Judge had presided at the head of the groaning board table on Sunday afternoons Tate’s grandmother might offer in a whisper, “The only day to plant beans is Good Friday”

“That’s a superstition, Grams,” young Tate had said to her, a woman so benign that she took any conversation directed toward her, even in disagreement, as a compliment. “You can plant soy all the way through June.”

“No, young man. Now listen to me.” She’d looked toward the head of the table, to make sure her husband wasn’t listening. “If you laugh loud while planting corn it’s trouble. I mean, serious trouble. And it’s good to plant potatoes and onions in the dark of the moon and you better plant beans and corn in the light.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Grams.”

“Does,” she’d responded. “Root crops grow below ground so you plant them in the dark of the moon. Cereals are above ground so you plant in the light.”

Tate admitted there was a certain logic there.

This was one of three or four simultaneous discussions going on around the dinner table-aunts and uncles and cousins, as well as the inevitable guest or two that the Judge would invite from the ranks of the bench and bar in Prince William and Fairfax Counties. One crisp, clear Sunday, young Tate shared an iced tea with one guest who’d arrived early while the Judge was en route from the farm. The slim, soft-spoken visitor showed a great interest in Tate’s ant farm. The visitor was Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, taking a break from penning an opinion in a decision-maybe a landmark case-to come to Judge Collier’s farm for roast beef, yams, collard greens and, of course, fresh corn.

“And,” Crams would continue, scanning the table for the sin of empty serving bowls, “it’s also bad luck to slaughter hogs in the dark of the moon.”

“Sure is for the hogs,” Tate had offered.

The dinner would continue until four or five in the afternoon, Tate sitting and listening to legal war stories and planning and zoning battles and local gossip thick as Crams’s mashed potatoes.

Now, because his ex-wife stood beside him, Tate was keenly aware that those Norman Rockwell times, which he’d hoped to duplicate in his own life, had never materialized.

The vestige of a familial South for Tate hadn’t survived long into his adulthood. He, Bett and Megan were no longer a family. Among the multitude of pretty and smart and well-rounded women he’d dated Tate Collier hadn’t found a single chance for family.

And so, as concerned as he now was about Megan, the return of these two into his life was fraught with pain.

It brought practical problems too. He was preparing for the biggest case he’d had in years. A corporation was petitioning Prince William County for permission to construct a historical theme park near the Bull Run Battlefield. Liberty Park was going to take on King’s Dominion and Six Flags. Tate was representing a group of residents who didn’t want the entertainment complex in their backyard even though the county had granted tentative approval. Last week Tate had won a temporary injunction halting the development for ninety days, which the developer immediately challenged. Next week, on Thursday, the Supreme Court in Richmond would hear the argument and rule whether or not to let the injunction stand. If it did, the delay alone might be enough to put the kibosh on the whole deal.

Overnight Tate Collier had become the most popular-and unpopular-person in Prince William County, depending on whether you opposed or supported the project. The developer of the park and the lenders funding it wanted him to curl up and blow away, of course. But there were hundreds of local businessmen, craftsmen, suppliers and residents who also stood to gain by the park’s approval and the ensuing migration of tourists. One editorial, lauding the project, called Tate “the devil’s advocate.” A phrase that certainly resonated in this fervent outpost of the Christian South.

Liberty Park ’s developer, Jack Sharpe, was one of the richest men in northern Virginia. He came from old money and could trace his Prince William ancestry back to pre-Civil War days. When Tate had brought the action for the injunction, Sharpe had hired a well-known local firm to defend. Tate had chopped Sharpe’s lawyers into little pieces-hardly even sporting-and the developer had fired them. For the argument in Richmond he’d gone straight to Washington, D.C., to hire a law firm that included two former attorneys general, one former vice president, and, possibly, a future president.

Tate and Ruth, his secretary-assistant-paralegal, had been working nonstop on the argument and motion papers for a week, and would continue to do so until, probably, midnight of the day before the argument.

So Bett’s reappearance in his life-and Megan’s disappearance from it-might have some serious professional repercussions.

Queasy, he thought again of that day when he and Bett had fought so bitterly-ten or eleven years ago. He’d never known the girl had overheard his outburst.

Your inconvenient child…

Why had fate brought them back into his life? Why now?

But however he wished otherwise, they were back. And there was nothing he could do about it.

Finally Tate asked his ex-wife, “Think we should call my mother?”

“No,” Bell said. “Let’s give it a few days. I don’t want to upset her unnecessarily.”

“What about your sister?”

“Definitely not her.”

“Why not?” Tate wondered aloud. He knew Susan cared very much for Megan. More than most aunts would for a niece. In fact, she’d always seemed almost jealous that Bell had a daughter and she didn’t.

“Because we don’t have any answers yet,” Bett responded. Then, after a few moments, she sighed. “This isn’t like her.” She glanced at the letter in her hand. Then shoved it deep into her purse.

Tate studied his wife’s face. Tate Collier had inherited several talents from the Judge. The main gift was, of course, a way with words, and the other, far rarer, was the ability to see the future in someone’s face. Now he looked into his ex-wife’s remarkable violet eyes, saw them narrow, alight on his and move on, and he knew exactly what was going through her mind. Debate is not just about words, debate is about intuition too. The advocate who can see exactly where his adversary is headed will always have an advantage, whatever rhetorical flourishes the opponent has in his repertoire.

He didn’t like what he now saw.

Bett stepped determinedly off the porch and into the backyard, toward the west barn, where her car was parked. He followed and paused on the shaggy lawn, which was badly in need of a mowing. He stared intently at the white streak of the energetic Dalmatian, which had finally forsaken the bone and was zipping through the grass like a greyhound.

Tate glanced at the old barn, alien and yet very familiar. Then his eyes fell on the picnic bench that he and Bell had bought at one of the furniture stores along Route 28. They’d used it only once-for the gathering after the funeral fourteen years ago. He remembered the events with perfect clarity now. It seemed like last week.

He saw Bett looking at the bench too. Wondered what she was thinking.

That had been an unseasonably warm November-just as odd as this April’s oppressive heat. He pictured Bett standing on the bench to unhook a Japanese lantern from the dogwood after the last of the family and well-wishers had left or gone to bed.

Today; Tate paused beside this same tree, which was in its expansive, pink bloom.

“Are you busy now?” she asked. “Your practice?”

“ Lot of little things. Only one big case.” He nodded at the house, where a paralyzing stack of documents for the Liberty Park argument rested. When they were married the house had been littered with red-backed legal briefs, forty or fifty pages long. The Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Many of them were for death penalty cases Tate was prosecuting. Although he’d been the Fairfax County commonwealth's attorney Tate had often argued down in Richmond on behalf of other counties. “Have voice, will travel,” his staff had joked. His specialty had become special-circumstance murder cases-the official description of capital punishment cases.

These assignments and his eagerness to take such cases were a source of friction between husband and wife. Bett was opposed to the death penalty.

Death, Tate reflected, always seemed to lurk behind their relationship. Her sister Susan’s continual battle with serious heart disease, and the suicide of Susan’s husband, Harris. Then the death of Bett’s parents and Tate’s father and grandfather, all in the tragically short period of three years.

Tate kicked at piles of cornstalks.

“I have this feeling, Tate.” Bett’s hands lifted and dropped to her sides. “Do you understand what I mean?”

No. He didn’t. Tate was dogged and smart, but feelings? No, sir. Didn’t trust them for a minute. He saw how they got the people he’d prosecuted into deep, deep trouble. When they’d been married Bett lived on feelings. Intuition, sensations, impressions. And sometimes, it seemed, messages from the stars. Drove him crazy.

“Keep going,” he said.

She shrugged. “I don’t believe this.” She tapped her purse. Meaning the letter, he supposed.

“Why do you think that?”

“I was remembering something.”

“Hmm?” he offered noncommittally.

“I found a bag under Megan’s bed at home. When I was cleaning last week. There was a soap dish in it.”

He noticed the woman’s tears. He wanted to step close, put his arm around her. Tate tried to remember the last time he’d held her. Not just bussed cheeks but actually put his arms around her, felt her narrow shoulder blades beneath his large hands. No memory came to mind.

“It was a joke between us. I never had a dish in my bathroom. The soap got all yucky, Megan said. So she bought this Victorian soap dish. It was for my birthday. Next week. There was a card too. I mean, she wouldn’t buy me a present and a card and then do this.”

Wouldn’t she? Tate wondered. Why not? When the pressure builds to a certain point the volcano blows-and it doesn’t care about the time of year or who’s picnicking on the slopes, drunken lovers or churchgoers. Any lawyer who’s done domestic relations work will testify to that.

“You think someone made her do this? Or that it’s a prank?” Tate asked.

“I don’t know She might’ve been drinking again. I checked the bottles at home and they didn’t look emptier but… I don’t know.”

“That’s not much to go on,” her ex-husband said.

Suddenly she turned to him and spoke. “It’s not a hundred percent thing we’ve got, Megan and me. There’re problems. Of course there are. But our relationship deserves more than this damn letter. More than her running out…“ She crossed her arms, gazed into the fields again. She repeated, “Something’s wrong.”

“But what? Exactly? What do you think?”

“I don’t know,”

“Well, what should we do?”

“I want to go look for her,” Bett said determinedly. “I want to find he r.”

Which is exactly what he’d seen in her purple eyes a few moments earlier. This is what he’d known was coming.

Yet now that he thought about it he was surprised. This didn’t sound like Bett McCall at all. Bett the dreamer, Bett the tarot card consulter. Passive, she’d always floated where the breezes took her. Forrest Gump’s feather… The least likely person imaginable to be a mother. Children needed guidance, direction, models. That wasn’t Bett McCall. When he’d heard from Megan that Bett had become engaged last Christmas Tate was surprised only that it had taken her so long to accept what must have been her dozenth proposal since they’d divorced. When they’d been married she’d been charming and flighty and wholly ungrounded, relying on him to provide the foundation she needed. He’d assumed that once they’d split up she’d quickly find someone else to play that role.

He wondered if he was standing next to a Betty Susan McCall different from the one he’d been married to (and wondered too if she was thinking the same about him).

“Bett,” he said to reassure her, “she’s fine. She’s a mature young woman. She vented some steam and’s going off for a few days. I did it myself when I was about her age. Remember?” He doubted that she did but, surprising him, she said, “You made it all the way to Baltimore.”

“And I called the Judge and he came to get me, A two-day runaway Look, Megan’s had a lot to deal with. I think the soap dish is the key.”

“The dish?”

“You’re right-nobody’d buy a present and a card and then not give them to you. She’ll be back for your birthday. And know what else?”

“What?”

“There’s a positive side to this. She’s brought up some things that we can talk about. That ought to be talked about.” He nodded-toward the house, where his letter rested like a bloody knife.

Logic. Who could argue with it?

But Bett wasn’t convinced.

“There’s something else I have to tell you.” She chewed on her narrow lower lip the way he remembered her doing whenever she’d been troubled. She gripped the porch banister and lowered her head.

Tate Collier, intercollegiate debate champion, national moot court winner, expert forensic orator, recognized the body language of an impending confession.

“Go ahead,” he said.

“The night of the water tower thing-I was… out.”

“Out?”

She sighed. “I mean, I didn’t get home. I was at Brad’s in Baltimore. I didn’t plan on it; I just fell asleep. Megan was really upset I hadn’t called.”

“You apologized?”

“Of course.”

“Well, it was one of those things. An accident. She’d know that.”

Bett shook her head, dismissingly. “I think maybe that’s what started her drinking before she climbed up the tower. It didn’t help that she doesn’t like Brad much.”

The girl had described Bett’s fiancé as a nerd who parted his hair too carefully, thought sweaters with reindeer on them were stylish and spent too much time in front of the TV. Tate didn’t share these observations with Bett now.

“It takes a little while to get used to stepparents. I see it all the time in my practice.”

“I held off going over to his place for a while after that. But last night I went there again. I asked her if she minded and she said she didn’t. I dropped her at Amy’s on my way to Baltimore.”

“So, there.” Tate smiled and caught her eye as she glanced his way.

“What?”

He lifted his palms. “It’s just a little payback. She’s over at somebody's house, going to let you sweat a bit.”

So, no need to worry.

You go your way and I’ll go mine.

“That may be,” Bett said, “but I’ll never forgive myself if I just forget it and something happens to her.”

Tate’s phone buzzed. He answered it.

“Counselor,” Konnie’s gruff voice barked.

“Konnie, what’s up?”

“Got good news.”

“You found her?”

Bett’s head swiveled.

The detective said, “She’s on her way to New York.”

“How do you know?” Tate asked.

“I put out a DMV notice and a patrol found her car at the Vienna Metro station. On the front seat was an Amtrak schedule. She’d circled Saturday trains to Penn Station. Manhattan.” The Metro would take her from Vienna to Union Station in downtown D.C. in a half hour.

From there it was three hours to New York City. Konnie continued. “You know anybody up there she’d go to visit?”

Tate told this to Bett, who took the news cautiously. He asked about where she might be going.

She shook her head. “I don’t think she knows a soul up there.”

Tate relayed the answer to Konnie.

“Well, at least you know where she’s going. I’ll call NYPD and have somebody meet the trains and ask around the station. I’ll send ‘em her picture.”

“Okay. Thanks, Konnie.” He hung up. Looked at his ex-wife. “Well,” he said. “That’s that.”

But the violet eyes disagreed.

“What, Bett?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, Tate. I just don’t buy it.”

“What?”

“Her going off to New York.”

“But why? You haven’t told me anything specific.”

Her palms slapped her hips. “Well, I don’t have anything specific. You want evidence, you want proof. I don’t have any.” She sighed. “I’m not like you.”

“Like me?”

“I can’t convince you,” she said angrily. “I don’t have a way with words. So I’m not even going to try.”

He started to say something more, to cinch his argument, to end this awkward reunion, to send her back out of his life. But he considered what she’d just said and recalled something-what the Judge had said after Tate had finished an argument before the Supreme Court in Richmond in a death penalty case, which Tate later won. His grandfather had been in the audience, proud as could be that his offspring was handling the case. Later, over whiskeys at the ornate Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, the somber old man had said, “Tate, that was wonderful, absolutely wonderful. They’ll rule for you. I saw it in their faces.”

I did too, he’d thought, wondering what else the Judge had in mind. The old man’s eyes were dim.

“But I want you to understand something.”

“Okay,” the young man said.

“You’ve got it in you to be the most manipulative person on earth.”

“How do you mean, sir?”

“If you were greedy you could be a Rockefeller. If you were evil you could be a Hitler. That’s what I mean. You can talk your way into somebody's heart and get them to do whatever you want. Judge or jury, they won’t have a chance. Words, Tate. Words. You can’t see them but they’re the most dangerous weapons on earth. Remember that. Be careful, son.”

“Sure, sir,” Tate had said, paying no attention to the old man’s advice, wondering if the court’s decision would be unanimous. It was.

What he does, he cannot doubt.

Bett gazed at him and in a soft voice-sympathetic, almost pitying- she said, “Tate, don’t worry about it. It’s not your problem. You go back to your practice. I can handle it.”

She fished in her purse, pulled out her car keys.

He watched her walk away. Then he called, “Come on in here.” She hesitated. “Come on,” he said and wandered into the barn, the original one-built in the 1920s. Reluctantly she followed. It was a grimy place, the barn, filled with as much junk as farm tools. He’d played here as a boy, had a ream of memories: horses’ tails twitching with muscular jerks on hot summer afternoons, sparks flying as the Judge edged an axe on the old grinding wheel. He’d tried his first cigarette here. And learned much about the world from the moldy stacks of National Geographics. He also got his first glimpse of naked women-in the Playboys the sharecroppers had stashed here.

He slipped off his suit jacket, hanging it up on a pink, padded coat hanger. What was that doing here? he wondered. A former girlfriend, he believed, had left it after they’d taken a trip to the Caribbean.

Bett stood near him, holding on to a beam that powder-post beetles had riddled. Tate rummaged through a box. Bell watched, remained silent.

He didn’t find what he was looking for in one box and turned to another. He glanced up at her then continued to rummage. He finally found the old beat-up leather jacket. He pulled it on, took off his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his dress shirt.

Then he righted a battered old cobbler’s bench, dropped down onto it and took off his oxford wing tips and socks. He massaged his feet.

His eyes fell again on the picnic bench, visible just outside the door. Thinking again of the night of the funeral. Megan in bed. Bett, unhooking the Japanese lantern, the November night still oddly balmy. She seemed to float like a ghost in the dim air above the bench. He’d come up next to her. Startled her by speaking to her in a heartrending whisper.

I have something to tell you.

Now he shoved that hard memory away and pulled on white work socks and his comfortable boots.

She looked at him in confusion, shook her head. “What’re you doing?”

“You did it after all,” he said with a faint laugh.

“What?”

“You convinced me.” He laced the boots up tight. “I think you’re right. Something happened to her. And we’re going to find out what. You and me.”