Kehoe looked at his watch, took a sip of his drink, and smiled at me.

"The front entrance to the theater was completely barred," I said. "They know none of us went out that way, and if they go back the way we came in through the office tower, the security guard will tell them we never passed by there again."

"You're giving that dumb bastard a lot more credit than I would. And I guess you don't know there's a series of exits right behind the stage. Three doors and a truck bay wide enough to fit a container shipment. That would be the logical way to take anybody out of here quickly," Kehoe said, running his tongue round and around his lips. "Those doors are the first things your buddies would have seen when the release went up on the firewall."

I looked at Dobbis and he nodded in agreement.

"I guarantee you they'll look everywhere else before they even figure out there's an entrance to this dome," Kehoe said, as Mona Berk took the glass from his hand and sipped at it. "It sits in the middle of this city like a gigantic ball, and it's never had any use at all."

"The noise-"

"You got a lot of degrees, maybe, but you don't know anything important, do you? Like everything else in a theater, that door is soundproofed. Scream, Miss Prosecutor, and maybe a passing pigeon'll hear you up above, but nobody else will."

He reached into his pants pocket and withdrew something. They were small objects that I couldn't see, but I could hear the metallic sound as he jiggled them together in his fingers.

Kehoe opened the chamber of his revolver. He lifted his hand to his mouth and I watched in horror as he kissed the tip of a bullet and placed it in the gun. He grinned at me and sucked in air again, kissing a second bullet and loading it in the chamber.

"I wasn't counting on two of you," he said. "I hate to waste the lead."

I raised my head and tried to scoff at his arrogance, which frightened me every bit as much as it did Chet Dobbis. I knew there was no way out, but Ross Kehoe must have known that, too. We were all trapped here together. "They're not stupid enough to think a woman disappeared from within a theater and simply couldn't be found anywhere."

"Don't be so sure of yourself, Alex," Kehoe said, pointing the gun at me and cocking his head, as though he was practicing taking aim. "That theory didn't do anything to help Natalya Galinova get out of the Met alive, did it?"

Two hours must have passed before Ross Kehoe and Mona Berk left the area where Chet Dobbis and I had been restrained. They had forbidden us to talk to each other as they whispered between themselves, reformulating their plans.

The only other noise I could hear came through the broken skylight above-the honking of car horns and the occasional scream of sirens, too far away to be useful to me.

Kehoe walked away from us and down the staircase. I was even more tired now and terribly frightened as I had watched Kehoe deteriorate throughout the night, fighting with Mona and then pouring himself a second drink.

My arms ached from trying to stretch at and work the binds behind me, but I sat up at attention when I heard what sounded like the door-our only connection to freedom-slide on its tracks. It seemed like Kehoe had left.

Ten minutes later the door reopened and Kehoe walked up the steps and back to us.

He spoke to Mona. "Nobody down there. They've got the lights on now, but I couldn't see anyone."

I whispered to Dobbis, "How can he tell? What could he see?"

"Do you remember those perforated stars, the enormous ones over the proscenium with cutouts in the grillwork?"

They were the most beautiful part of the auditorium's design. "Yes, of course."

"If Kehoe walked around that entire dark chamber we came through, he'd reach the area behind those eight stars. When the Shriners built the place, that was an organ loft. Another anachronism, another empty space. But from behind those stars you can pretty well see the entire auditorium. And you can do it without being seen from below."

Everything seemed to be working to Kehoe's advantage.

Mona got up from the bar stool and moved to the bed, stretching out on top of it. Kehoe walked over to us.

"You might as well rest. You need to save some energy to make your way out of here when we're ready to go."

His back was to Mona, who had rolled over on her side. As he squatted to look behind me to check that the ties were still secure, he laid his hand on my knee, then ran his forefinger up the length of the inside of my thigh. I suppressed a gag as my eyes followed his dirty fingernail along the seam of my gray slacks.

"Go where? How?" I asked as he pushed up to his feet. Had he lost it entirely that he thought he could walk us out of this dome?

"Chet will tell you. This theater has more trapdoors and underground passages than the Vatican. Two, three in the morning, maybe we'll get moving. Might even have to wait until tomorrow night."

Kehoe lifted the revolver and stroked his cheek with the barrel. "Unless you get on my nerves too much."

"And then what?" I asked. "Cops will be looking for you everywhere. Your home, the airports, the train stations, the car rental-"

"You know, Alex, that's the nice thing about owning your own planes. BerkAir. Not that we intend to take you and Chet quite that far with us. Maybe a little insurance to get us to the right private field."

"BerkAir to the Bahamas, no doubt."

"Follow the money," Kehoe said, sitting up against the headboard of the bed, next to Mona, to keep an eye on us. He rested the gun on his chest.

"Mona's money," I said, wondering whether Joe Berk had fixed things in his will after Briggs dropped the lawsuit.

"I hate fucking rich people," he said, rubbing his hand over Mona's backside and laughing to himself. "It's just their money I like."

If she had appeared to have been reclining calmly before he made that remark, Mona was on her feet and obviously restless again, looking for something, or someone, to be the target for her hostility. She paced back and forth beside the bed before walking to the swing that was suspended from the ceiling high above us. With one hand she grabbed the brass chain while she steadied the seat with her other one.

"Stay off that," Kehoe said.

"Why?" she asked. I didn't think that Mona Berk was used to taking orders. She ignored him and pulled herself up on the swing, pumping her legs to get it moving,

"You want me to pull you off that or what?" Kehoe's mildest threat would have done the trick for me.

"I want you to get us out of here, Ross. That's what the fuck I want." She was going higher and higher, disappearing for seconds against the backdrop of the dark walls as she flew by. I could see only the shiny brass chain making a dizzying arc as I tried to follow its motion.

Kehoe walked toward the swing and Mona kicked harder, nearly grazing the top of his head as he came closer.

When she flew back past him, Kehoe reached out and grabbed Mona's leg, pulling on it as he twisted the chain around and around with his well-muscled arm. Her head snapped forward and she wrapped her elbows tightly against the metal links to keep herself from falling off.

"Are you crazy?" she yelled at Kehoe. "What's wrong with you?"

"Stop the damn thing!" he said, stepping away as the seat of the swing jerked up and down while Mona tried to unravel herself.

She came to a stop, threw her head back, and started laughing. "You're nervous, aren't you? You're as goddamn nervous as I am, aren't you?"

I watched as she jumped off and walked over to Kehoe. I couldn't hear what they were saying to each other but I could see that they were arguing, which couldn't be good for any of us.