M ITCH YEAGER HUNG UP THE PHONE AND EXHALED HARSHLY. HE listened, wondering if the call had awakened Estelle and the baby, but upstairs, all was quiet.

He had expected to feel different somehow. So much waiting and planning had gone into this night. Not everything had been done according to his instructions, of course. And there were a few more matters to attend to. His pleasure would have to wait a bit longer.

He could be patient.

The thought made him smile.

Loose ends. That was it. He would feel better once he settled everything to his satisfaction.

At least he knew Eric and Ian were home now. He would have to find some way to reward them. Eric, he thought, needed more assurance. He loved his nephews, but neither of them was all that bright. Took after their late mother in the brains department.

Mitch heard the baby cry, but Estelle rushed in to take care of him, and soon he quieted. Mitch wondered if the boy would be smart. Couldn’t really tell yet, of course. If he was, Mitch would teach him to run Yeager Enterprises. Wouldn’t that be something? Yes, that would be perfect.

He moved to his desk and picked up a small, framed photograph-a black-and-white image of Mitch and his brother. Adam, about twenty, his arm around Mitch’s skinny shoulders. Mitch was fifteen or so. Adam smiling, his eyes full of mischief.

He missed him every day. Every single day.

V IEWED FROM THE BACK, THE MAN WHO HAD SPENT THE LAST FEW HOURS keeping a vigil in the hospital room might have been mistaken for a boxer. He was an athletic man in his late twenties: his sturdiness could not be hidden beneath his suit, nor his height disguised by the odd way in which he leaned against the window, both large hands against the glass, one splayed open, the other clenched in a fist; his forehead was bent against the same cold, smooth surface. It was raining, but he seemed unaware of the drops colliding against the other side of the pane, or of his own reflection, the reflection of a man revisiting some too familiar misery.

His hands, their knuckles crosshatched with scars, might have fooled the unobservant into thinking that he made his way in the world with his fists. But a closer look at the right hand, the open one, would reveal black ink stains marring otherwise clean, long fingers.

“O’Connor?”

It was no more than a puzzled whisper, but the younger man’s reverie was instantly broken, and he moved to the bedside of the man who had called his name.

“I’m here, Corrigan,” he said quickly.

“Should have known,” Corrigan murmured, turning his right eye-the one that wasn’t bandaged-toward his visitor. Speaking slowly through stitched and swollen lips, he said, “Can’t the devil wait ’til I’m dead before he sends his minions?”

“It’s worse than that, Jack Corrigan. The bastard made me come here alone, on account of him and the boys below being too busy laying in fuel for the times to come. Claims they’ve never had to build a fire as hot as the one they’ll need for the likes of you.”

“I say we make him wait. I’m going to nobody’s cold hell.”

“Agreed,” O’Connor said. He watched as Corrigan tried to take stock of his surroundings. “You’re in St. Mary’s.”

“What time is it?”

“Nine o’clock. Sunday night.”

“Sunday night…” Corrigan repeated, bewildered.

“You’ve needed the rest. And need more. Don’t worry, just sleep. I’ll be here.”

Corrigan seemed unable to resist the suggestion, and began to fall asleep again, but then as if suddenly recalling something troubling, he looked up at O’Connor and said, “The car…”

O’Connor frowned. Jack hadn’t driven a car in more than twenty years- not since the accident that had permanently injured his ankle and caused so many other troubles. O’Connor decided that Corrigan was still in a fog, confused as any man might be after so severe a beating. “Don’t let that trouble you now, Jack,” he said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

Corrigan seemed unsure of this, but lost his struggle to stay awake.

O’Connor felt a sensation of relief run through him from his shoulders to his shoes, and he now looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. Up to that moment, he had been aware only of his battered and bandaged friend, of his own helplessness and anger, of long-ago memories of the only other time he had seen Jack in a hospital bed. But now Corrigan had awakened and spoken and even joked a bit. There was still plenty to worry over, but O’Connor relaxed enough to acknowledge to himself that he was tired.

O’Connor got the call at five this morning, not long after Jack had been found at the edge of a marsh, soaked to the skin in brackish water. Someone at the hospital had found O’Connor’s business card and phone number in Corrigan’s water-logged wallet. O’Connor had insisted Jack carry the card, thinking of the nights when Jack might spend his cab fare on booze. In case of emergency, please notify… he had written on the back of it and added his home number. He had been called more than once. Nothing else the hospital staff had found in the wallet had been readable, but because O’Connor had lived in three different apartments in the last five years, he had used pencil to write his phone number on the card. Pencil didn’t run.

Forty dollars had survived the soaking, so O’Connor was fairly sure the reason for the beating hadn’t been robbery. God knew what had happened to Jack or why, but O’Connor figured that it was likely the answer would have something to do with a woman. That could wait.

A uniformed officer had stopped by to take as much of a report as he could, which wasn’t much of one. O’Connor had asked him to get in touch with Dan Norton, a friend of Jack’s who worked as a homicide detective with the Las Piernas police. He hadn’t had much hope that the officer would do that, so he was surprised when Norton had come by for a few minutes, at about ten that morning. He was one of half a dozen friends who had visited while Jack was still out cold. O’Connor knew Norton would make sure the case got whatever attention could be spared to it.

O’Connor looked around the room. There was a second patient’s bed, empty but neatly made, and after a brief study, he adjusted it almost to a sitting position. He pulled his tie free of his collar, tucked it into his pocket, took off his suit coat and draped it neatly over the back of a chair, removed his shoes and placed them beneath, then climbed onto the bed.

He lay on his side, facing Corrigan, trying to mentally list his enemies. It was a long damned list.

A young nurse came in and shook her head when she saw him, but said nothing.

She took Corrigan’s pulse, made a note on a chart, and said, “His color is better. That’s a good sign.”

“He woke up,” O’Connor said.

“When?” she asked, surprised.

“Just now. Talked to me a bit, then fell back to sleep.”

“You should have come to get me,” she scolded.

“It was me he wanted to talk to,” he said.

She rolled her eyes in exasperation, then caught the look of amusement on his face. “You’re going to get us in trouble, Mr. O’Connor. Visiting hours were over long ago. If one of the nuns comes in here-”

“One of them has come by already,” he said, smiling.

“Look, why don’t you just go home and let us-”

The smile disappeared. “Forget it. Until I know who did this to him, I’m not leaving.”

“I know, I know. You’re going to defend him single-handedly if his attackers make another attempt on his life.”

“Do you think I’m not up to the job?” he asked, throwing his long legs over the edge of the bed, sitting up straight.

“Apparently you don’t think this hospital is.”

“Although the reputation of the Sisters of Mercy is undoubtedly a fierce one,” he said, “and while I’m sure many a man has died of cruel injuries sustained from wimples and rosary beads, playing bodyguard is not really in their line of work, now is it?”