O n the drive back to Wrightsburg King was moodily silent. So much so that Michelle finally gave up any attempt to rouse him from his funk. She dropped him at his house.

"I'm going to head back to the inn for a while," she said, "and check out a few things. I guess I should call into the Service. I'm still employed there, after all."

"Fine, good idea," King said absently, averting his gaze.

"If you don't want to give me your thoughts for a penny, I'll go as high as a nickel." She smiled and touched him lightly on the arm. "Come on, Sean, give it up."

"I'm not sure my thoughts right now are even worth a nickel."

"You saw something back there, didn't you?"

"Not now, Michelle. I need to think some things through."

"Okay, but I thought we were partners," she said, obviously hurt he wasn't interested in her assistance.

"Wait a minute," he said. "There is something you can do for me. You still have access to the Secret Service database?"

"I think so. I had a friend of mine slow-walk my admin leave papers. Actually, after they let me take my vacation time, I'm not sure what my status is. But I can find out quickly enough. I have my laptop back at the inn; I'll log on and check it out. What do you need to know?" When he told her, she looked very surprised. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Maybe nothing, but maybe everything."

"Well, I'm doubtful that'll be on the Service's database."

"Then find it somewhere else. You're a pretty good detective."

"I'm not sure you really believe that," she said. "So far all my grand theories haven't really held up."

"If you find out that answer for me, there will be no doubt left in my mind."

She climbed into the truck. "By the way, do you have a gun?"

He shook his head. "They never gave it back to me."

She pulled her pistol out of its holster and handed it to him. "Here. If I were you, I'd sleep with it."

"What about you?"

"Secret Service agents always keep a spare. You know that."

T wenty minutes after Michelle left, King climbed into his Lexus and drove to his law office. He'd gone there at least five days a week for years until Howard Jennings had been found dead on the carpet. Now it seemed like a foreign land he was entering for the very first time. The place was cold and dark. He turned on lights and cranked up the heat and looked around at the familiar surroundings. They were a measure of how far he'd pulled himself out of the abyss created by the Ritter assassination. And yet as he admired a tasteful oil painting on the wall, ran his hand along the fine mahogany paneling, looked at the order and calm of the place which reflected that of his beautiful home, he didn't feel the usual sense of accomplishment and peace. Rather, he felt a kind of emptiness. What had Michelle said? That his home was cold, even a sham? Had he changed that much? Well, he told himself, he'd been forced to. You took the curves life threw, and you either adapted or got left by the side of the road, a self-pitying wreck.

He trudged to the small room in the lower level housing his law library. Though most research materials were now available on CD, King still liked to see the actual books on the shelves. Hewent to his Martindale Hubbell directory, which listed every licensed attorney in the country, separated by state. He pulled the volume for California, which, unfortunately, had the largest bar membership in the country. He didn't find what he was looking for but suddenly realized why. His edition of Martindale was the most recent. Maybe the name he was seeking would be listed in one of the older editions. He had a particular date in mind, but where could he find this listing? In an instant he had answered his own question.

Thirty-five minutes later he was pulling into a visitor's parking space at the University of Virginia's very impressive School of Law, situated on the north campus. He went directly to the law library and found the librarian he'd worked with in the past when he needed resource materials that were beyond the space and monetary limits of a small law practice. When he told her what he needed, she nodded. "Oh, yes, they're all on disk, but now we subscribe to the on-line service they offer. Let me sign you on. I can just bill it to your account here if that's all right, Sean."

"That'll be fine. Thanks."

She led him to a small room off the main library floor. They passed students sitting at small tables with laptops in front of them dutifully learning that the law can be equal parts exhilarating and stupefying.

"Sometimes I wish I were a student here again," King said.

"You're not the first to say that. If being a law student paid anything, we'd have lots of permanent ones."

The librarian logged him on the system and departed. King settled in front of the PC terminal and went to work. The speed of the computer and ease of the on-line service made his search much easier than the manual one at his office, and it wasn't long before he found what he was looking for: the name of a certain lawyer in California. After several false hits he was almost sure he'd found the one he was looking for. The lawyer was now deceased. That waswhy he hadn't been listed in King's current directory. But in the 1974 edition the man was front and center.

The only problem now was to verify that it was indeed the man he was seeking, and such verification couldn't be found on this database. Fortunately he thought he knew a way to get that confirmation. He called Donald Holmgren, the retired P.D. lawyer who'd initially handled Arnold Ramsey's defense. When King mentioned the name of the firm and the lawyer, and the other man gasped, he wanted to let out a victorious scream.

"I'm sure that was it," said Holmgren. "That's the man who handled Arnold Ramsey's defense. He was the one who cut that great deal."

As King clicked off his cell phone, so many things began to make sense. And yet there were many places where he was still in the dark.

If only Michelle would report back to him with the answer he'd been looking for. The answer that would match what had been scratched on the wall of that prison cell. If she did, he might actually find the truth in all this. And if he was right? The thought actually sent chills down his neck, because the logical conclusion to all this was that at some point they'd be coming for him.