"Fuck no. This is staying in traffic where it belongs. Which suits me fine, I got stuck with a low number-three fifteen."

"We'll hit that by Halloween. I drew three sixty-six-a murder a day and one to grow on."

Kitty looked at Thaddeus: "What's that all about?"

He ducked his head, embarrassed. "Some of the guys have a pool on the number of homicides this year. But they drew numbers out of a hat, because there're only thirty numbers anyone really wants, three thirty-five to three sixty-five."

"Are you in it?"

"Of course not," he said, frowning. Honesty compelled him to add, "You had to put in a dollar to draw for one of the slots, then five dollars if you got the right to make a pick."

"Assholes," Kitty said, taking the good coffee beans out of the freezer. She had been serving Ferlinghetti and Rainer four-year-old canned decaf from the back of the refrigerator and stale kolaches someone had brought her after the Polish Festival in June. She tossed the pastry into the metal trash can, where it thumped loudly, then put Thaddeus to work making huevos rancheros for everyone. Tess was so disoriented from the events of the day, she didn't know if she was famished or nauseous. A little of both, she decided.

"Do you really think the driver was after one of you?" Tyner asked a little later as she sopped up her eggs with wholewheat tortillas.

She hesitated and watched again as Jonathan flew herky-jerky through the air. "I keep a pretty regular schedule, you know. Someone would only have to watch me for a day or two to know when I leave for the boat house."

"I hate to agree with detectives Ferlinghetti and Rainer, but why would anyone want to kill you, besides Mr. Ross's girlfriend?"

"I don't know, unless it's because I know something I don't know I know. I don't know if I mentioned it, but I've, um, been doing a little work on Rock's case on my own time."

Tyner gripped his coffee cup so hard, Tess thought it might shatter in his hand. She knew he was yearning to scream at her, as if she were some undisciplined novice, but felt he had to restrain his temper in front of Kitty and Tad.

"How did you have time to do things on your own when I made you come to my office every afternoon?"

"There are twenty-four hours in a day, Tyner. I knew I'd have to tell you eventually what I was up to, but I thought…I thought I'd have found out who killed Abramowitz, and then you couldn't be too mad at me."

"And did you find out?"

"No," Tess admitted, frowning. "I found out a lot-but none of it seems to have anything to do with Abramowitz's murder."

Her story tumbled out, a disjointed narrative that shot forward and back in time. The trip to VOMA, the strange visit from Cecilia. Her talk with Ava. Rock's refusal to stay away from Ava, even though she wouldn't return his phone calls or see him. Tracking down Abner Macauley. Trying to find Macauley's gun.

"Jesus, Tess-what were you thinking?"

"I don't know. I thought it would show he was worried about his safety. It seems pretty lame now, I admit."

"Did you find anything at all?"

"A floppy disk taped to his calendar. I was going to read it last night, but Jonathan showed up…" They all knew how that had ended. "It's probably not anything. The weird thing is, all his files were empty. Does that mean anything? Could there have been something incriminating there?"

"I'm sure moving his files to other offices would have been routine under any circumstances. Death can't interfere with the business of law, not when one's hours are billed at six hundred dollars per," Tyner said. "That floppy you found is useless. No matter what's on it, the prosecutor would have it barred from the trial. There's no way to prove whose it is, or where it came from. It's too easy to tamper with those things."

"I hadn't thought about that."

Thaddeus slipped out, but Kitty stayed, sponging down counters that were already clean. Tess sat miserably, the complete failure.

"So it was a simple hit-and-run," Tyner said. "Some drunk at the wheel. Maybe he thought it was funny, chasing you two down the alley, then he panicked when he hit Jonathan. As the song says, it could happen to you. After all, it happened to me."

Kitty had taken all of this in, uncharacteristically quiet. Now, as she poured fresh coffee, she asked: "What about the possibility the car was after Jonathan, had followed him here? Maybe they waited all night for him."

Tess shook her head. "No, Ferlinghetti was right about that. You don't kill the reporter, you kill the source."

Tyner chewed his eggs. "I think you're a little paranoid. That's what happens when you skulk around, poking through other people's drawers, literally and figuratively. If you had followed my instructions, you might not be in conspiracy mode right now."

This was no fake gruffness. Tyner was angry. Then again, Tyner was always angry.

"Can I ask you something, Tyner? Something personal?"

"I did not kill Michael Abramowitz, Detective Monaghan."

"No, seriously. Were you always so mean, or did getting…hurt make you bitter, the way O'Neal said? The only time you're nice is when you're coaching. Even then you're always yelling."

"No, Tess, getting hit by a car didn't make me bitter. In fact I'm actually nicer than I used to be-but that's about age, not about circumstances, about realizing that winning a silver medal in the Olympics isn't something you can coast on forever, which I might have done if I had been able to keep rowing. Believe it or not, I don't live my life in a perpetual state of before and after. The accident changed my life, but it didn't define it. I've just got a lousy personality. And you seem to bring out the worst in me, Tess."

"Me? Why?" She had assumed Tyner's constant fury was general, not specific.

"Because you're so goddamn lazy!" He banged his mug down on the table, so hard the silverware jumped. "You could be one of the best female rowers in Baltimore, but you won't work at it. You could be a good-looking woman, but you run around in baggy clothes with that stupid braid hanging out of your head. You're smart enough to find a new career, but you'd rather moon over your lost reporting job.

"So I finally accepted you as you are. I told you: Don't extend yourself, don't take any initiative, do only what you're told-and you do the exact opposite. You expend all your energy on foolish causes. You're a mule, Tess. A stubborn, cantankerous young woman wrapped up in herself. I could kick you, if I could kick at all."

Tess felt a strange, almost masochistic thrill at Tyner's harsh words. It was at once awful and fascinating to hear her flaws enumerated so well.

"Does this means I'm fired?"

"It means you've fulfilled your contractual obligation to Rock." Tyner's voice was almost sad. "I don't think I'll need you anymore, Tess."

"Don't worry. I'll find a way to fill my days." Tess pushed away from the table and ran upstairs. His words hadn't hurt her-her own parents had said much worse many times-but they had hit home in a way her parents' criticism never could.

Before-and-after mode. That's how she had been living for two years, since the paper folded. No, not quite. She had been stuck on the fence, longing for "before," refusing to let "after" begin.

She sat on her bed, looking in the mirror over the bureau, the same mirror in which Jonathan had examined his face last night, so worried about his nose. The memory did not sting as much as she thought it would. She was still a little numb. Eventually, she knew, she would have a thousand memories to confront, tucked away in every corner of her small apartment. It would hurt more before it hurt less.

She unlocked her desk drawer, fished out Abramowitz's disk, and loaded it into her computer. Her Mac, an older model, almost seemed to shudder as the floppy went in. ABRAMOWITZ: A LIFE, was the floppy's label, but it contained only one document. It had last been changed on September 12, the day Abramowitz died. Eagerly she called it up, noting the number of characters in the lower lefthand corner. It was a huge file, perhaps 1,000 pages, she calculated.