"Okay," he said. "Your house." He moved toward her again.

"No! Stop!"

"What?" His face creased with frustration, but he stopped all the same. "Not in the church. I got it. It's sacrilegious. But don't tell me there's a problem with your house because it's the rectory."

"The problem's not my house." She rubbed her face. Wished she had some cold water she could splash on. Or dunk her head in. "The problem's you. And me."

"Oh, for-not that again. Look, let me point something out to you, okay? For two and a half, three years now, I never touched you. I didn't kiss you, I didn't"-his hands flexed as if he were grabbing hold of her-"I didn't do anything. And let me tell you, it wasn't for lack of thinking about it! Jesus, I used to go for weeks where I swear the only thing I could think about was having you. But I didn't do anything about it." He stepped closer. "I exercised self-control." He enunciated every word. "Because I was married."

He jammed one hand through his hair, making it stick up even farther.

"Now I can't keep my hands off you. Doesn't that tell you I've"-he cast around for the right word-"I would've never let myself while Linda was alive. Never."

"I know that."

"Then why the hell can't we work with what we have? I love you. I want you. Why can't you trust that to be enough?"

"Because it wasn't enough before!"

He looked dumbfounded. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about last winter. I broke it off with you for the sake of your marriage. Do you have any idea what that felt like? To just give up everything and walk away?"

"Of course I do. You think it was any easier for me?"

"Yes! I do! You had someone you loved to console you. I had nothing! Then, when you found out Linda had been murdered, you came crawling right back-"

"Wait a minute-"

"-looking for help and understanding and sympathy and what all, using me like an emotional life-support system, to hell with whether it was peeling me raw or not-"

"Using you?"

"I gave, and I gave, and I gave, and what did I get in return? When that bitch of a state police investigator accused me of murder, you believed her!"

"I did not!"

"You did so! I was there! I saw you!"

"Christ, Clare, I thought about the possibility for thirty seconds. You're going to hang me up to dry for thirty seconds? I'm sorry I'm not so perfect and all-giving as you are."

"You see? It's all about you. Again. When does it get to be about me, Russ? When does it get to be about what I need?" Her eyes teared up, but the words kept coming, as if she had tapped some vat of acid and now it had to gush out until it ran dry. "I killed for you. I killed a man to save you. And then I had to turn around and let you go again, and you know what? I know your wife died. I know it was the worst moment of your life. But I was having the worst moment of my life, too, and you just turned your back on me. You rejected me, everything I had to give and everything I needed. We always said we were holding on, and you let go. You… let… me… fall." She was crying freely now, wiping away the tears with the back of her hand. She opened her mouth and found herself saying, "I hate you for that."

She had reached the bottom of it. Her head felt emptied out, except for the echo of Deacon Aberforth's words, Are you angry with your police chief?

And her reply. Of course not.

Russ was pale beneath his tan. He opened his mouth. Shut it. Scrubbed his hand over his eyes. He turned away from her, then jerked and spun back around, and she knew with a sick certainty that the words you turned your back on me had been driven into his ear like a spike.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said. His voice was hoarse.

His phone rang. He slapped his pocket, stricken. She waved one hand. "Go ahead," she said. He checked the number. Flipped the phone open.

"Van Alstyne"-he coughed-"Van Alstyne here." She watched him as he listened. Who said getting everything out into the open was a good idea? She didn't feel better, or healthier, or more honest. She just felt dirty. And empty.

"Aw, shit," he said. He closed his eyes for a moment. "Where?" He nodded. "I'll be right there." He listened again. "Yeah. That's fine." He glanced at her. "No, I'll tell her."

Fear stirred in her gut.

"Yeah," Russ said again. " 'Bye." He snapped the phone shut. Looked at her. "That was Lyle. Some kids were in the Cossayuharie Muster Field. They found Amado's body."

She followed in her own car. He could see her headlights behind him, bright against the tree-shrouded twilight of the mountain road. While he had been in St. Alban's, getting his intestines handed to him on a steaming platter, the sun had set. That seemed appropriate. On the stereo, Bill Deasy sang Is it my curse, to always make the good things worse? He had bought the CD as a present for himself last Christmas, because the songs made him think of Clare.

When had he started listening to music again?

He didn't know. He didn't know much of anything, it seemed. How the hell had he wound up gutting the only two women he'd ever loved? He ought to go home and tell his mom he hated her. Make it a perfect trifecta.

From the high ground of the Muster Field, headlights, roof lights, portable lamps, and road flares blazed against the pale violet sky, as visible as the solstice fires or mountaintop beacons of ancient Scotland. He hoped the modern-day descendents of those Scots would ignore the call, or else his people would be dealing with an unholy mess of spectators and speculation.

He parked his truck at the end of a line of vehicles crowding Route 137's nonexistent shoulder. He spotted at least two SUVs with FIRE AND RESCUE tags. Lyle must have called for help in dealing with the traffic. They would need it. There were already more cars around than official personnel could account for.

He stepped out as Clare pulled in ahead of him. He waited until she emerged from her Subaru. She had reattached her collar. She didn't look at him. "Find whoever's handing out those flares and put one in front of your car," he said. She nodded. Walked past him, up the shadowy road. He reached for her as she went by, then dropped his hand. What the hell was he going to say to her, here and now? He shook his head.

As soon as he stepped onto the field, he heard Lyle bellowing his name. Russ couldn't see anything in the glare of light bars and headlights, but he headed for the sound. Past the rescue vehicle and the squad cars, the rear of the field spread in darkness, the black bulk of the two-hundred-year-old trees picked out against the star-glimmering sky. Heat lightning flickered over the western mountains. A pair of Maglites barely dented the gloom.

"Over here!" Russ followed Lyle's voice, to find the deputy chief struggling to set up one of the halogen site lamps while Kevin Flynn trained two flashlights on the contrary apparatus.

"Kevin, what are you doing here? You're not on tonight." Russ reached for the lamppost and held it aloft so Lyle could unfold the base. "Where's Noble?"

"Lyle called me," Kevin said. He sounded subdued, for a kid whose usual response to a major crime was "Whoopee!"

"I sent Noble back to talk with the kids who found Esfuentes." Lyle grunted as he wrestled the sectional flaps into position.

"Instead of setting up the lights?" Russ crouched down and seized the battery pack. "You're not working to your strengths, here, Lyle."

"I don't want him near the body." Lyle pressed one hand over Russ's and, with the other, jammed the plug into the battery. The darkness exploded into white light, and all three men shielded their eyes.

"He's here?" Instinctively, Russ looked down to see if he was fouling evidence.