And sat still again.

She had called and left a message here last night, saying it was somewhat important and that he could reach her either at her home or office the next day. She’d been very specific. He could reach her either at home or her office. And he hadn’t been able to do so. Of course, something could have come up. She might have made other last-minute plans, but…

It had been bothering him at some subconscious level since late in the afternoon, and now suddenly it struck him as truly significant. Five minutes later, Hunt had used his computer wizardry and discovered her home address on Seacliff Avenue, and was in a cab on his way home.

There he picked up his Cooper. It didn’t take him fifteen more minutes to pull up outside Nancy Neshek’s house on the cliffs overlooking Phelan Beach. When he got out of his car, he was struck, in spite of the size and stunning architecture of the homes, by how deserted the street felt, and how strongly the gusts blew off the ocean a hundred or more feet below. In the deepening dusk, the two-story Neshek home still exuded a pale yellow glow, although through its lower windows, all was dark inside. Hunt first went to the front door and rang the doorbell, hearing the chimes echo back through the house.

He checked his watch. It was just eight o’clock. Abandoning the front porch, he walked down the driveway and around to the side of the garage, where a quick look revealed a car parked inside. Next, he crossed over a perfectly manicured gravel path and climbed the six steps up to the back door, a thick slab of oak whose large window let Hunt look into a kind of mudroom behind what appeared to be the kitchen.

Going back to the car for his flashlight, he also slipped on a pair of gloves, his heart now pounding in his throat. He knew that he could be shot or restrained or arrested now as a cat burglar and no one would blink an eye. Returning to the back door, he tried the handle and verified that it was indeed locked. He shone a fast beam of light into the mudroom and kitchen and saw nothing unusual or out of place.

Back down those rear stairs, he followed the gravel path again along the back of the house until he came abreast of another bank of windows. Stepping through the garden and getting to them, he saw that they made up the back wall of the dining room.

In the neighbor’s house twenty feet over, a light came on, and he froze. An outside door opened over there, then slammed shut. Another gust rattled the trees and hedges behind him. Drawing a slow breath, he got back through the garden and now followed the lawn next to the gravel path-reducing the noise of his footsteps-around the side of the house, where the neighbors had just turned on their lights.

Hunt estimated when he’d cleared the dining room windows and stepped up to the next bank of them. A dog barked somewhere in the neighborhood as he risked another brief beam from his flashlight. He shone the light over the floor and the leather couch, the rattan rug in the center of the living room, and then the matching chairs over on the piano side.

He would never have seen it if he hadn’t caught a glimpse of a river stone fireplace mantel and leaned in at the window to follow the play of his beam over the stones. And there, with the side of his face pressed against the window, on the floor he saw a hand and a portion of an arm before the rest of the body disappeared from his angle of vision.

Mickey rubbed the boneless goat-leg roast with olive oil, salt, pepper, rosemary, and thyme. He inserted fifteen cloves of garlic into slits he’d made in the meat, and now the smell of the thing cooking with root vegetables in the oven infused the entire small apartment.

Alicia sat on one side of the fold- down table, Tamara and Jim Parr on the other, and after throwing together a beet, arugula, and goat cheese salad, Ian had boosted himself up onto the kitchen counter. Mickey was just stirring the polenta into the pot of boiling and salted water. Ian had explained with no embarrassment at all that he was an addict and an alcoholic and couldn’t drink, but everyone else was having cheap rosé in heavy juice glasses.

They were talking about surfing, which was what Alicia told them she had been doing all day out at Ocean Beach.

“How did you not freeze?” Tamara asked.

“Oh, you never go without a wetsuit. It’s not like surfing in Hawaii or even down south. If you didn’t have a wetsuit, you couldn’t last five minutes.”

“How about the sharks?” Mickey said.

But Alicia was shaking her head. “Not here. Up in Bolinas, maybe, but not here.”

“Famous last words,” Ian put in. “I tell her she’s surfing around the general vicinity of Seal Rock. You know why it’s called Seal Rock? Right. You know the preferred diet of the great white shark? I rest my case.”

But Alicia just shook her head. “I’ve never even seen a shark out there, Ian.”

“Most people who get eaten don’t see ’em, either, except from the inside.”

“Well, I’m not planning to get eaten. Besides, you’ve got to take risks sometimes if you want to do what you want to do.” Suddenly she turned back to face her tablemates. “Am I right, Mr. Parr?”

Flattered to be included, Parr nearly choked on his wine and then, coughing, was shaking his head up and down, laughing at himself. “No guts, no glory,” he said. “That’s my motto, and I managed to get myself old living with it.”

“You’re not old, Mr. Parr.”

“Jim, please.”

“Jim, then. Who is not old in spite of a life of risk.” Then Alicia whirled back on her brother. “See?” And finally, to the rest of them, “Ian doesn’t want me sleeping out in my car either. Too dangerous.”

“It is dangerous,” Ian said. “There’s all kinds of nuts out there.”

Mickey turned away from the stove. “You sleep out in your car?” Alicia nodded. “Sometimes. Last night I did. I wanted the early morning waves.”

“Actually in it?” Mickey asked.

And Tamara clarified, adding, “Mickey’s been spending about half his nights sleeping outside.”

“Mostly on the ground, though,” he said. “I can’t stretch out in my car.”

“She can,” Ian explained. “She’s got a Honda Element. She can run laps in the damn thing if she takes the seats and her surfboard out.”

“Why do you do it, Mick?” Alicia asked. “Sleep out, I mean.”

He stirred the polenta for a moment. “I don’t know exactly,” he said. “It’s not structured. It’s peaceful. You feel free. You wake up with the sun.” He shrugged. “I just like it. How about you?”

She sighed. “Well, here’s the thing. I get two days off a week, Monday and Tuesday. Otherwise, I’ve got to be in a dress and nylons and high heels and makeup. And sometimes, a lot of the time, I guess I feel like I’m trapped. So I drive off and sleep where I stop, and I don’t feel so… I don’t know, so regimented. Like I can still make some of my own decisions, and I’m not stuck in a life I don’t want to live. I mean,” she added, “look at all of us-maybe not you, Jim-but the rest of us. We’re just all marking time, trying to get into something that’s going to feel like our real lives, you know. You guys going to chef classes, and, Tamara, you starting your day job again.

“Maybe I sleep out to remind myself that my real self is still there, I’ve still got time, I’ve got game, I’m going to be doing something that’s really me someday, that matters, and as long as I’m still that person who can just jump up and go sleep out somewhere, then that’s someone I recognize. I’m still here.” As though surprised by how much she’d revealed about herself, she ducked her head a bit into her shoulders and looked around at her audience. “Sorry,” she said. “TMI.” Too much information. “It’s my inner nerd. I can’t shut her up.”

“That’s all right.” Tamara grabbed a bite of arugula from the bowl in front of her. “We’re a tolerant household. The nerd’s welcome too.”