Gus wondered if Chris missed making decisions.

Staring down at the bright feast of fruits at the supermarket, sitting shoulder to shoulder like a rainbow of soldiers, she couldn't help comparing the serviceable russets and grays of the Grafton County Correctional Facility to the unintended beauty of the grocery store. The options were staggering- should she pick the tangerines, the green Granny Smith apples, the smooth-cheeked tomatoes? A choice at every turn-the complete antithesis of being told to eat this, to walk here, to shower now.

She reached toward the Clementines. They were Chris's favorite, and she would have loved to bring him some the following Tuesday . . . but was that even allowed? She imagined one of those burly blue-suited men splitting the fruit into sections to check for razor blades, much as Gus herself had mashed Chris's Halloween candy when he was a child, looking for pins. Except she had been searching out of love. The officers would be searching out of duty.

Gus opened the bag and spilled the Clementines back onto their pile.

Can you believe it?

In that household?

Gus turned around, pushing her cart toward the array of lettuce, but all she saw were several Bainbridge biddies doing their weekly shopping.

Well, I believe it. 1 saw the boy once, and he was . . .

Did you know the father won some medical honor?

Gus clenched her hands on the grip of the shopping cart. Steeling herself, she wheeled toward the women who'd busied themselves sniffing melons. "Pardon me," Gus said, baring her teeth in a tight smile. "Did you have something you wanted to say to me, directly?"

"Oh, no," one of the women said, shaking her head.

"Well, I would," her companion announced. "I think when a child that young commits a crime as horrible as this one, you have to lay the blame at the feet of the parents. After all, he'd have to learn that behavior somewhere."

"Unless he's just a bad seed," the first woman murmured.

Gus gaped at them. "Do you mind telling me," she said softly, "why this is any concern of yours?"

"When it happens in our town, it becomes our problem. Come along, Anne," the second woman said, and they sailed into an adjoining aisle.

With high color spotting her cheeks, Gus left her partially filled shopping cart and headed out of the store. It was only because she had to jostle past a mother with twins at the checkout that she even noticed the newspapers on the stand. Folded to reveal its headline banner, the Grafton County Gazette screamed MURDER IN A SMALL TOWN, PART II. And in much smaller print: "Evidence Mounts Against High School Scholar-Athlete Jailed for Killing Girlfriend."

Gus focused on the headline again. PART II, it said. What had happened to PART I?

The Hartes received the Grafton County Gazette, most people in the area did. As hokey as it was, with its lead stories about dairy farm silos that burned down and school budget impasses, it also was the one paper that covered the town of Bainbridge. A good number of households got the Boston Globe, too, but only to compare the crime statistics and political posturing and basically remind them how idyllic their lives were in New Hampshire. On nights they were too busy to crack open the Globe, the Gazette-a maximum of thirty-two pages-was something they had the time to read.

The only time Gus could remember not reading the paper, in fact, were those days surrounding the arraignment, when she had been so sick at heart that she could barely function in her own world, much less read about the one around her.

Gus took several deep breaths and read the article. Then she flipped to the masthead, found what she was looking for, and rolled the newspaper up beneath her arm. So what if they found proof that Chris had been at the carousel? There had never been any question that he was at the scene of the crime. She did not realize until she had reached her car that she'd taken the paper without paying. For a moment she considered going back in to leave thirty-five cents, then she decided against it. Fuck it, she thought. Let them think the whole family's full of felons.

The OFFICES OF THE Grafton County Gazette were almost as somber as the jail, a pleasant thought which gave Gus the impetus to march up to the receptionist with two-toned hair and demand to see Simon Favre, editor in chief. "I'm sorry," the receptionist predictably said. "Mr. Favre is in-"

"Trouble," Gus finished for her, and pushed through the double doors that led to the editorial offices.

Green computer screens scrolled and beeped; in the background was the sound of a printer. "Excuse me," Gus said, addressing a woman who was sitting at one of the desks, bent over a string of negatives with a loupe. "Could you tell me where Mr. Favre is?"

"That way," the woman said, pointing to a door at the far end of the room. Gus nodded and crossed toward it, knocking once and then swinging open the door to find a smallish man with a telephone tucked to his ear. "I don't care," he said. "I told you that already. All right. Good-bye."

He looked up at Gus and narrowed his eyes. "Can I help you?"

"I doubt it," Gus said crisply. She slapped her copy of the Gazette down on his desk so that the offensive headline was clear. "I want to know when newspapers started printing fiction."

Favre made a sound at the back of his throat and twisted the paper so that he could read it right side up. "And you are?"

"Gus Harte," she said. "The mother of the boy who is accused of an alleged murder."

Favre pointed to a word. "We say it's an alleged crime right here," he said. "I don't understand-"

"No, you couldn't," Gus cut in. "You couldn't, because you don't have a son who's innocent, but who has to sit in jail for nine months until he has a chance to prove it. You couldn't, because you let a reporter take a piece of information from the police for the shock value. My son never hid the fact that he was with Emily Gold when she died, so why make it seem like that's the turning point of the case?"

"Because, Mrs. Harte," Favre said, "it's a good hook. And there aren't a hell of a lot of those in our neck of the woods."

"That's exploitation," she said. "I could sue you."

"You could," the editor in chief said. "But I'd think you're paying enough for legal bills right now." He stared at her until she looked away. "Of course, we'd be willing to hear your side of the story. As you're probably aware, the girl's mother gave Lou an exclusive; he'd be happy to interview you as well."

"Absolutely not," Gus said. "Why should I have to make explanations for what happened, when Chris did nothing wrong?"

Favre blinked once. "You tell me," he said.

"Look," Gus said, "my son is innocent. He loved that girl. I loved that girl. There's your truth." She smacked her palm down on the newspaper. "I want a retraction printed."

Favre laughed. "Of the story?"

"Of the tone. Something which says more clearly than this garbage that Christopher Harte is not guilty until he's convicted in a court of law."

"Fine," Favre agreed.

He'd given in too easily. "Fine?"

"Fine," Favre repeated. "But it won't make any difference."

Gus crossed her arms over her chest. "Why not?"

"Because the public's already got wind of this," the editor said. "It might even have been picked up on the AP." He crumpled up the newspaper into a ball and tossed it into the trash. "I could say your boy sprouted angel wings and flew to heaven, Mrs. Harte. That could even be the truth. But if people have already sunk their teeth into the story, they're not going to let it go."

Selena WALKED INTO Jordan's house, slipped off her coat, and stretched

out on the couch. Thomas, who'd heard the door, came running out of his

bedroom. "Oh, hey," he said. "What's up?"

"Look at you," Selena said, yawning. "You get more handsome every

day."

"You gonna go out on a date with me yet?"

Selena laughed. "I told you. Your senior prom, or when you hit six feet

two, whichever comes first." She picked up a half-finished can of Pepsi,

sniffed it, and drank, eyes scanning the mess of paperwork on the living

room floor. "Where's your father?"

"Here," Jordan announced, stomping out of the bedroom in baggy

pair of sweats and a Nike T-shirt. "Who the hell gave you the key to my

house?"

"I did," Selena said, unruffled. "Made a copy months ago." "Well, by all means," Jordan said. "Don't ask my permission first." "Lighten up." Selena turned to Thomas. "What's gotten into him?" "He got the discovery from the AG's office today." Thomas shook his

head dolefully. "He needs a soft shoulder to cry on."

"I don't have soft shoulders, and I don't make a habit of getting it on

with people who pay me," Selena said.

"I'm not paying you," Thomas pointed out.

"Good-bye, Thomas," Selena and Jordan chorused. With a laugh, Thomas went back to his room and closed the door.

Selena rolled to a sitting position on the couch as Jordan sank into the piles of paper littering the floor. "That bad?"

Jordan tapped his finger against his lips. "I wouldn't necessarily say it was all bad. It just isn't categorically good. A lot of the evidence could go both ways, depending on the point of view."

"You're going to keep him off the stand."

Selena said it as a statement, knowing full well that would be Jordan's intention.

"Yeah." Jordan's eyes swept over Selena, reclining against the pillows with the Pepsi in her hand. "I think we've got a stronger case that way." Now that Chris had volunteered the information that he had not planned to kill himself, that was his story. Period. If he got up on the stand, that was what Jordan ethically would have to coach him to say. On the other hand, if he kept Chris off the stand, Jordan could say whatever the hell he wanted to get his client free. As long as Chris didn't perjure himself, Jordan could use any damn defense he liked.

"Say you're a juror," Jordan hypothesized. "Which of these two versions are you more likely to believe: Chris, who outweighed Emily by fifty pounds, was really along for the ride that night to try to stop her from killing herself, but couldn't manage to yank the gun away from her? Or: they were both going to kill themselves in this beautiful testimony to their love . .. except then Emily blew her brains out and they were all over Chris's shirt and it wasn't so beautiful anymore, and he passed out before he could use the gun on himself."

"I see your point," Selena said. She gestured toward the loose piles. "Where should I start?"

Jordan rubbed his hands over his face. "I don't know. It's going to take me days to get through this. I guess, first off, try his parents. We need a flawless character witness or two."

Selena reached for a piece of paper, flipped it over-laundry ticket-and began to make a list. As Jordan buried his nose in a forensics report, Selena picked up the nearest file. The police interview with the Golds, postmortem. Nothing unexpected from Emily Gold's mother-a lot of hysteria, a healthy dose of grief, a strict refusal that her darling girl was suicidal.

"Oh, that?" Jordan said, glancing over. "I skimmed it this afternoon. You're not going to get squat out of the woman. She gave an exclusive to the Gazette." He grimaced. "Nothing like a little unbiased reporting to help speed justice along."

Selena didn't answer. She had turned the page and was riveted by the second interview. "Melanie Gold's a lost cause," she agreed. Then she smiled at Jordan. "But Michael Gold might be your saving grace."

Being a mother gives you a singular sort of vision, a prism through which you can see your child with many different faces all at once. It is the reason you can watch him shatter a ceramic lamp, and still remember him as an angel. Or hold him as he cries, but imagine his smile. Or watch him walk toward you, the size of a man, and see the dimpled skin of an infant.

Gus cleared her throat, although there was no way Chris would be able to hear her across the din of other visitors and the sizable distance. She crossed her arms and gripped her elbows, trying to pretend that the sight of her firstborn in regulation prisonwear did not affect her; that the dull wash of fluorescent lights on his hair did not seem unnatural. As he came closer, she fixed a wide smile across her face, certain the strain would split her in two.

"Hi," she said brightly, hugging Chris as soon as the officer stepped back. "How are you doing?"

Chris shrugged. "All right," he said. "Considering." He began to pick at the snaps on his overwashed shirt-not the faded jumpsuit he'd been wearing before, Gus noticed. The matching shirt and elastic-waist pants looked like surgical scrubs, and were short-sleeved, even in December. "Aren't you cold?"

"Not really. They keep the thermostat at seventy-eight degrees," Chris told her. "Most of the time I'm too hot."

"You should ask the officers to turn it down," Gus suggested, and Chris rolled his eyes.

"Now why," he said, "didn't I think of that?"

A tight silence noosed them. "I saw Jordan McAfee," Chris said, finally. "And some lady who helps him with his cases."

"Selena," Gus said. "I've met her. Striking, isn't she?"

Chris nodded. "We didn't really talk that much," he said. He looked into his lap. "He told me not to tell anyone about what happened."

"Your case, you mean," Gus said slowly. "That's not surprising."

"Mmm," Chris agreed. "But I was wondering if that included you."

Well, there it was. All the normalcy Gus had worked so hard to create- the smile, the embrace, the idle conversation-dissolved against the simple fact that no matter how hard she pretended, the relationship of mother to son was irrevocably altered when one of the parties was in jail. "I don't know," she said, trying to keep the dialogue light. "I guess it depends on what you're going to tell me." She leaned forward, whispering. "Professor Plum, in the Library, with the Wrench?"

Startled, Chris laughed, and it was the best moment Gus had had since this whole nightmare had begun. "I wasn't going to be that obvious," he said, his eyes still smiling. "But I think it might hurt you all the same."

She tried to ignore the chill fluting over her skin. "I'm made of fairly hearty stock."

"You must be," Chris said, "or else where would I have gotten it from?" The thought of James, with his Mayflower antecedents, fell between them like a stone. "The thing is," Chris continued, "I told Jordan something that I already told Dr. Feinstein. Something I didn't tell you."

Gus sat back, trying not to assume the worst. She smiled, encouraging him.

"I wasn't suicidal," Chris whispered. "Not that night, and not now."

The bald fact that this confession had not been "I'm guilty" had Gus grinning like an idiot. "Well, that's wonderful," she said, before she had a chance to reason it through.

Chris stared at her patiently, waiting for the other shoe to drop. When her eyes widened and her palm covered her mouth, he nodded. "I was scared," he admitted. "That's why I said what I did. And Em, well, she was going to kill herself. I was playing along to try and keep her from doing it."

Gus reeled from the implications of the admission. It meant that her son was not a hair away from killing himself, certainly that was news for celebration. And it meant that the reason she and James had not seen suicidal tendencies in their son prior to that night was not due to their own negligence, but because there were no suicidal tendencies.

It also meant that Chris, unjustly accused to begin with, was being condemned for being a hero. And that, had he turned to someone else to help him save Emily, this entire horrible outcome might never have come to pass.

Suddenly aware of all the other ears around them, Gus shook her head imperceptibly. "Maybe you should write all this down," she suggested, "and just mail it to me." She cocked her head at the inmate beside Chris.

Turning slightly, he reddened. "You're right," he said.

"I'm glad you told me," Gus hastened to add. "I can even understand why you said what you did to the ... authorities. But you didn't have to lie to us."

Chris was silent for a moment. "I didn't see it so much as lying," he said finally. "It was more like not telling all of the truth."

"Well," Gus said. She wiped at her eyes, feeling silly for having to do it. "Your father will be thrilled. He didn't understand how someone with so much going for him would want to kill himself."

Chris pinned her with his gaze. "It can happen," he assured her.

"Maybe you'd like to tell your father yourself," Gus said softly. "He's in the car. He wanted to come in-"

"No," Chris interrupted. "I don't want to see him. You tell him, if you want. I don't care one way or the other."

"You do care," Gus insisted. "He's your father." When Chris shrugged, she felt her anger rise on James's behalf. "He's just as much as part of you as I am," she reminded Chris. "Why won't you see him, when you let me visit?"

Chris traced a scar in the table. "Because," he said quietly. "You never expected me to be perfect."

On Wednesday afternoon, one of the officers stopped on the catwalk in front of Chris and Steve's cell. "Get your stuff together, guys," he said. "You're getting a room with a view."

Steve, who'd been reading in the upper bunk, leaned down and looked at Chris. Bounding to the floor, he gathered his belongings. "Do we get to stay together upstairs?" Steve asked.

"Far as I know," the officer said, "that's the plan."

They had both petitioned the Classification Board for a transfer to medium security, although the likelihood of actually being granted permission seemed slim after the debacle with Hector still fresh in everyone's minds. But neither Chris nor Steve was about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Chris jumped up from his own bunk and collected his toothbrush, his spare jumpsuit, a pair of shorts, and his stash of commissary food. He glanced at the pillow and blanket on his bunk, then turned to the officer. "Do I need to take those?" he asked.

The officer shook his head, then directed them out of the catwalk, past the other maximum security cells. Some of the inmates hooted as they passed, or called out questions. By the time they reached the stairwell near the control room, it was quiet again.

"You two have the top bunks," the officer said as they made their way upstairs. This did not come as a surprise to Chris; the less seniority you had, the worse position you got-and upper bunks were considered less desirable than lower ones. It also meant that there would be two people already in the cell he and Steve were about to enter, and like any combination of elements, it remained to be seen how they all would mix.

The walls upstairs were cinder block, but painted a pale, sunny yellow. The catwalks were twice as wide; the cells a foot and a half bigger in all directions. There were four bunks in each cell, but there was also a large common room that connected the two pods, with tables and chairs and so much space that Chris felt his spine stretch and was only then aware that he'd been stunting himself.

"What did I tell you?" Steve said, tossing his things onto the left upper bunk. "Nirvana."

Chris nodded. Their other cellmates were not in, but their belongings were neatly arranged in boxes set squarely on the two lower bunks, a clear attempt to let the newcomers know their place.

About fifteen men were sitting in the common room, some watching the television mounted high on the wall, others fitting together pieces of the jigsaw puzzles that were stacked on top of the lockers.

Chris sank down onto a plastic chair-plenty of room for it here, unlike the narrow catwalk in maximum security. Steve sat across from him and propped his feet on the table. "What do you think?"

Chris grinned. "That I'd sell my own grandmother to keep from being sent down to maximum again."

Steve laughed. "Yeah, well. Everything's relative." He reached on top of some lockers and pulled down two Milton Bradley boxes. "This is all they've got," he complained. "Someone set the Monopoly board on fire last month."

Chris laughed out loud. A room full of felons, and the only games were Sorry! and Risk.

"What's funny?" Steve asked.

Chris reached for the box in Steve's left hand, Sorry! "Nothing," Chris said. "Nothing at all."

James STOOD UP AND walked toward the podium to the thunderous applause of his colleagues. Gus thought he was strikingly handsome against the burgundy walls of the dining room, holding up his plaque. "This," he said, brandishing the award, "is a tremendous honor."

Bainbridge Memorial Hospital toasted one of its own every year in conjunction with the teaching staff of the nearby medical school. Ostensibly, the dinner was supposed to make the young men and women entering the medical field realize what sort of demigods they'd be joining. This year, Dr. James Harte had been chosen as the honoree for his continuing contribution to Bainbridge Memorial Hospital, although everyone present knew that James was being feted because of his inclusion in the "Best Doctors" listing. Unfortunately for the nominating committee, the event had already been planned when the small glitch regarding Dr. Harte's son had come to pass.

"The good thing about this particular award," James said, "is that I've had some time to figure out what I'm supposed to say to you all. I was told: something inspirational. So before I begin perhaps I should apologize for choosing to become a surgeon, instead of a minister."

He waited for the polite laughter to die down. "When I was much younger, I believed that studying hard and passing a battery of exams was all I needed to become a doctor. But there is a great difference between being a practicing physician, and a practiced physician. I used to think that the study of ophthalmology was all about getting to the malady. I was looking people, literally, right in the eye, and I wasn't necessarily seeing them. In hindsight-no pun intended-I realized how much I was missing. I urge those of you at the start of your careers to remember that you aren't being trained to treat afflictions, but patients."

He gestured to the director of surgery. "Of course, I never would have gotten this wise without a brace of bright colleagues to spur me on, and a fabulous institution like Bainbridge in which to do it. And I'd have to thank my parents, who gave me my toy doctor's kit at age two; my mentor, Dr. Ari Gregaran, who blessed me with everything I know; and of course, Augusta and Kate, for teaching me that if there are patients at a hospital, there has to be patience at home." He lifted his plaque again, and the room dissolved into applause.

Gus clapped woodenly, a smile pasted to her face. He had forgotten to mention Chris.

Intentionally?

Her head was spinning. She stood up before James could even make his way back to the table and pushed her way blindly toward the ladies' room. Inside, she leaned against the sink and ran cool water over her wrists, James's words circling inside her head: 1 was looking people right in the eye, and 1 wasn't necessarily seeing them.

She straightened her dress and took her handbag, intending to walk out of the bathroom and head into the lobby where she'd ask the concierge to call her a cab. James would figure it out, and maybe by the time he got home she'd have spit enough anger out of her mouth to be able to speak to him.

She yanked open the wooden door of the bathroom and almost fell on top of James. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Are you sick?"

Gus tilted her head. "As a matter of fact," she said. "I am." She crossed her arms. "Do you realize you didn't mention Chris in your acceptance speech?"

James had the grace to blush. "Yeah. I realized it just as I was coming off the podium, when I saw you leaving the room. I always said it was a damn good thing I wasn't an actor, because I'd forget someone important when I went up to get my Oscar."

"It's not funny, James," Gus said tightly. "There you were, preaching acceptance to all these . .. fawning medical students, and you can't even practice that in your own backyard. You left Chris's name out on purpose. You didn't want anyone associating the little scandal with your Big Night."

"I didn't do it intentionally, Gus," James said. "Subconsciously? Well, that's a different story. Yes, if I'm going to be truthful, I didn't want anything to ruin tonight. I'd much rather have the audience pointing at me and saying 'Oh, that's the Best Ophthalmalogical Surgeon in the Northeast' than 'His son's on trial for murder.' "

Gus felt her face heating. "Just get away from me," she said, trying to push past him. "No wonder you feel so comfortable here. These people are all like you. Not one of them mentioned Chris to me. Not one of them asked if he's all right, if we know when the trial is going to be, nothing."

"That's not my fault," James pointed out. "It hits too close to home. Don't you see, Gus? I am too similar to these people. If this sort of thing can happen to me, who's to say that one day, it couldn't happen to them?"

Gus snorted. "Well, it has happened, James. It is happening. And no matter what you say-or don't say-you can't just wish it away."

She was halfway down the hall when she heard her husband's voice, so soft that she might have imagined the pain striped through it. "No," he said. "But you can't stop me from trying."

ONE OF THE THINGS THAT Selena Damascus had learned in her ten years as a private investigator was that accidents did not just happen. From time to time they were carefully plotted, calculated, and arranged to one's advantage-all, of course, under the cloak of happenstance.

She would tell anyone who asked that there was no magic to being an investigator; it required only common sense and an ability to get people to talk. To that end, however, she had developed a repertoire of skills, designed to get her as much information as quickly as possible. She was not above using her looks, her body, or her brain to get her behind a closed door; and once she weaseled her way inside she'd be damned if she left before she had something worthy to take home.

The day she intended to meet Michael Gold, Selena woke up at four in the morning. She dressed in jeans and a white Gap T-shirt, and was waiting in her car on a Class IV road that veered off Wood Hollow when Michael Gold's truck rambled out of his driveway shortly after five. Of course, by that point, she already knew that Michael owned his own veterinary practice, mostly large animals. She knew that he drove a Toyota 4X4. She knew that when he stopped for coffee en route to his first call, he added milk but no sugar.

Selena followed Michael's truck discreetly, an act made all the more challenging by the lack of cars on the road at this hour. When he pulled into a long driveway marked "Seven Acre Farm," she drove by without glancing back. She parked a half mile down the road and doubled back, following the sweet scent of hay and horses to a field in the distance.

Having studied Michael for a few days, Selena knew that he started in the barn, greeting all the animals and getting the lay of the land no matter what the call was for. That morning, the farrier was working as well, which was a wonderful boon since the burly man pounding horseshoes would assume she was the vet's assistant, and the vet would assume that she was the farrier's. She smiled at everyone she passed-bloody busy here, for so early in the morning-and found Michael bent over the foreleg of a sorrel mare in one of the stalls.

Hearing her approach, he let the horse's leg fall to the straw. "I don't see any signs of abcess, Henry," he said, twisting to see over his shoulder. "Oh." He came to his feet, brushing off his hands and leaning against the horse. "Sorry. Thought you were somebody else."

Selena shook her head. "No problem. Can I help you in there?"

"Everything's under control. You haven't seen Henry around, have you?"

"No," she answered honestly. "If I do, though, I'll send him your way." Before he could ask any questions, she disappeared down the aisle of the barn.

She studiously avoided Michael for an hour, until he shook hands with a man leading a big bay out of the barn and walked toward the driveway. Then she positioned herself at the fence post closest to his truck, smiling when he greeted her as he began to store away the tools of his trade.

"You're Dr. Gold?" Selena asked.

"Yeah," Michael said, "but only on my letterhead. My clients call me Michael."

"I'd imagine your clients don't call you much of anything at all," Selena teased.

Michael laughed. "Okay, then. Their owners."

"I wonder if you've got a minute to talk." Selena said.

"Sure. Is it about one of the horses at the farm?"

"To be honest," Selena said, "it's about Christopher Harte."

She watched the shock leap into his expression, carefully smoothed by a creditable blankness. "Are you a reporter?" he asked finally.

"I'm an investigator," Selena admitted. "Working for the defense."

Michael laughed. "And you actually thought I'd want to talk to you?" He pushed past her and opened the door of his truck, swinging himself inside.

"I didn't think you'd want to," Selena called out. "But I thought you might need to."

He unrolled the window of the door he'd already closed. "What do you mean by that?"

Selena shrugged. "I've seen how you go about your work. And I can't imagine why someone who goes to such great lengths to save animal lives would intentionally ruin a human one." She paused, watching the play of emotions on his face. "That's what it would be, you know," she added softly.

Michael Gold looked at her, his throat working. Selena placed a hand on his forearm. "What happened to your daughter was horrible, and terribly sad. No one on our side is discounting that."

"I don't think I'm the person you ought to be talking to," Michael said.

"You're wrong," Selena countered. "You're exactly who I ought to be talking to. I want to ask you-Emily's father-a question: Would she have wanted Chris caught up in this circus? Would she have believed he could kill her?"

Michael ran his thumbnail along the lip of the steering wheel. "Ms., um..."

"Damascus. Selena Damascus."

"Selena, then," he said. "How would you like a cup of coffee?"

The DINER THAT Michael drove to was more of a truck stop than anything else, peopled with burly men in red flannel and grimy baseball caps, whose rigs were lined up in the parking lot like the long keys of a xylophone. "Not much in the way of cuisine around here," he said, by way of apology, and slid into the booth in the rear of the restaurant. He played with the salt and pepper shakers-nervous, Selena thought-while waiting for the waitress to bring over two white ceramic mugs filled with steaming coffee.

"Careful," he warned, as Selena brought the rim to her lips. "It can be pretty hot here."

Selena took a more tentative sip, and grimaced. "And as corrosive as battery acid," she added. She set her cup down on the table and spread her palms flat on the table, on either side of a small notebook and pen. "So," she said casually.

Michael exhaled. "I need to know," he said. "Is this off the record?"

"I already told you, Dr. Gold. I'm not a reporter. There is no record."

He seemed surprised by this. "Then why do you need to speak to me?"

"Because there is going to be a trial," Selena said softly. "It's important for us to know what you might have to say."

"Oh," Michael said. Clearly the thought had not yet occurred to him that he'd be dragged onto the stand to replay his grief in front of a jury. "Is anyone going to know that you and I talked?"

Selena nodded. "The defense attorney will know," she said. "Chris will know."

"Well, that's all right," Michael said. "It's just-how can I explain this to you? I don't want it to look like I've switched to the other side."

"I don't see how it could," Selena said. "I only want to ask you some questions about your daughter, and her relationship with Chris. You don't have to answer if you feel uncomfortable."

"Okay," Michael said after a moment. "Shoot."

"Did you know that your daughter was suicidal?"

Michael sighed. "Wow. Don't start off soft, do you?" He shook his head. "That's a catch-22, you know. If I tell you that she was suicidal, I'm admitting to something I don't really want to. The thing is, I don't know if I can't believe it because of what it is-you know, suicide with a capital S- or because I'm still in denial." He bit his lower lip. "But if I tell you that Emily wasn't suicidal, then how do I explain the fact that she's dead?"

Selena waited patiently, fully aware that he hadn't really answered-and that he hadn't blamed Chris. Michael exhaled slowly. "I didn't know she was suicidal," he said finally. "But I'm not sure if that's because I didn't know what I was supposed to be looking for, or because she wasn't suicidal at all."

"Did she come freely to you to discuss problems?"

"She could have," Michael said, leaving Selena to think that she didn't.

"Who else," she pressed, "would Emily have turned to for support?"

"Melanie, I suppose, more than me." He smiled ruefully. "It's a girl thing, I guess. Sometimes when she was angry she'd lock herself in a room and paint three or four canvases until she got it all out of her system." He hesitated, then shook his head.

"What?" Selena urged.

"I was going to say: And of course she'd talk to Chris. But then I decided I shouldn't."

"It's no secret that your daughter and Chris were involved," Selena pointed out.

"Involved," Michael said, turning the word over on his tongue. "You could say that."

"What would you say?"

He smiled. "They were flip sides of the same coin. There were actually times when the kids were growing up that I forgot Chris wasn't my own son."

"Sounds like they spent a lot of time together."

"Inseparable, I think you'd call it."

"Pretty intense for a high school romance," Selena observed.

"It wasn't a high school romance," Michael said. "At least, nobody saw it like that. Nobody would have been surprised to find them getting married after college."

"You think that's what Emily wanted?"

"Yeah. And Chris. Hell, to be honest, all four of us parents."

Selena wrote down: Together out of love? Or to live up to their parents' expectations? "It would be very helpful to the defense if you'd grant me access to Emily's bedroom." A total longshot, but inside, she knew, would be a multitude of clues that might help the defense-photos tucked into a mirror, love notes stored in a jewelry box, pads still imprinted with the curl of Chris's practiced name.

"I couldn't," Michael said. "Even if I-well, my wife wouldn't understand." He ran a finger around the rim of the coffee cup. "Melanie, you know, she's seized on this.. . trial. I look at her sometimes, and I wish it was that easy for me, too. I wish I could forget that, oh, six months ago we all were joking about where we'd hold the wedding. I've tried, you know, because of Emily, but I can't seem to throw the past away."

Selena held her tongue, the time-honored interrogator's trick for getting a subject to keep talking. "See, I identified Emily's body at the hospital. But the morning before that I had seen Emily at breakfast, running outside when Chris honked in his car to take her to school. I watched him kiss her as she got into the car. And I can't hold the two things together in my head."

Selena studied his face. "Do you think Chris Harte killed your daughter?" "I can't answer that," Michael said, staring at the table. "If I do, I wouldn't be putting my daughter first. And nobody loved Emily more than me." He lifted his eyes. "Except, maybe, for Chris."

Selena inclined her head. "Will you speak to me again, Dr. Gold?" Michael smiled, feeling a weight burst free. "I'd like that," he said.

FOR A MOMENT Melanie STOOD at the doorway of her daughter's bedroom, staring at the thick layer of paint on the six-panel door, which could not completely obliterate the deeply carved warning KEEP OUT.

Emily had been, oh, maybe nine, when she'd scraped the message into the wood with an X-Acto knife, earning her a grounding for defacing the door and another one for taking a dangerous tool from her father's desk drawer. And if Melanie recalled correctly, she'd made Emily paint the door again by herself. But even if the words had been erased, the idea behind it hadn't, and from that day on neither Michael nor Melanie entered the bedroom without knocking first.

Feeling only slightly stupid, Melanie raised her fist to the door and pounded twice, then turned the knob. As far as she knew, Michael had not been coming in here, either. The last people through had been the police, searching for God knew what. Melanie didn't think they'd taken anything, at any rate. The pictures of Chris were still tacked around the dresser mirror, the arms of his swim team sweatshirt still wrapped around the pillow on the bed-Em had said it smelled of him. The book Emily had been reading for English class was cracked open, face down, on the nightstand. A pile of clothing that Melanie had washed and given to Em to put away remained on the edge of the bureau.

Sighing, Melanie took the first items of clothing and began to put them back in their respective drawers. Then she stood in the center of the room, turning around, trying to decide what she should do next.

She was not ready to take down all the evidence that Emily had lived here, slept here, breathed here only weeks before. But there were some things in this room that she could no longer stand seeing.

Melanie began by plucking the photos of Chris from the edge of the mirror. He loves me, he loves me not, she thought. She collected the pictures into a pile and put them on the bed, then unwrapped Chris's sweatshirt from the pillow and rolled it into a ball. She peeled the tape carefully from a caricature of Emily and Chris that had been stuck to the closet door and added it to the cache on the bed. Then, satisfied, she looked around for something in which to put it all.

If Melanie hadn't been reaching for one of the empty shoeboxes in the back of Emily's closet, she never would have noticed that there was a hole in the plaster. But she was down on her hands and knees, groping, when she felt her hand go through the wall.

Thinking of rats and bugs and bats, she was relieved when the only object her fingers closed around was solid and immobile. She withdrew a cloth-bound book which fell open to reveal the familiar, neat loops of Emily's handwriting.

"I didn't know she still kept one," Melanie murmured. When Em had been younger, she'd had a diary, but it had been years since Melanie had seen her writing in it. Flipping to the last page and then back to the first, she realized that this journal was recent. It went back almost a year and a half. And as far forward as the day before Emily's death.

Feeling decidedly uncomfortable, Melanie began to read. Many of the entries were mundane, but certain sentences leaped out at her:

Sometimes it's like I'm kissing my brother, hut how do 1 tell him that? 1 have to look at Chris's face to figure out what I'm supposed to be feeling, and then I spend the rest of the night wondering why I don't. I had that dream again, the one that makes me feel dirty.

What dream? Melanie skipped back a few pages, and then forward. And before she could find another reference to that dream, she found herself reading about the night her daughter had lost her virginity.

Emily had made love for the first time at the same spot where she was murdered.

Melanie read the whole book through, losing track of time. Her hands relaxed, and the journal fluttered to the last page; to the entry made the day Emily had died.

If 1 tell him, he will marry me. It's that simple.

She was talking about the baby. It was clear, even without the specific word on the page. As of the time she'd written this, on November 7, Emily hadn't told Chris she was pregnant. Just as she hadn't told her parents.

Barrie Delaney's whole case against Chris was based on this baby, on the premise that he planned to kill Emily to get rid of it. But how could he get rid of a child he knew nothing about?

Melanie closed the journal, feeling ill. Her mind still trembled with revenge, so full with justice that she did not even notice that in her journal, Emily had not said good-bye.

She gathered the photos of Chris that she'd pulled from the mirror and knotted them in the belly of his sweatshirt. Then she walked downstairs, the book tucked beneath her arm, the sweatshirt clutched in her hand. She went to the formal living room, the one nobody really lived in, which held the house's only fireplace.

They'd used it maybe four times in their whole history of owning the house. With a wood stove in the kitchen, the fireplace seemed extraneous, especially in a room filled with uncomfortable Queen Anne furniture bequeathed from some forgotten relative. Melanie knelt down and scattered the photos across the iron grate, then bunched the sweatshirt on top of it. She retrieved a pack of matches from the kitchen and lit the fire, watching the flames lick at the pictures of Chris before burrowing into the weave of the sweatshirt and erupting in a high blue peak. Then she threw the journal onto the grate, her arms crossed tightly as the binding began to curl and the pages became ash.

"Melanie?"

Coming home from work, Michael's footsteps circuited the house, finally stopping at the small, unused living room. He stared at the fireplace, still smoldering, and then at his wife. "What are you doing?"

Melanie shrugged. "I was cold," she said.