"Honey, they're all somebody's children."

The nurse wouldn't help her. Catherine finally buzzed the doctor on call, but he refused to sign a release. Nathan needed to remain at the hospital. Particularly given his "condition."

And what condition is that, she thought wildly. The infamous condition nobody can identify? Briefly, she contemplated calling Tony Rocco. She could beg, she could plead. Maybe Tony would come down, sign Nathan's release.

And what then? She'd take Nathan home where he'd be magically safe?

Boo! the message had read. Boo!

Inside her own car, parked in her father's driveway, written in her lipstick.

She left the hospital, footsteps fast, hands shaking. At home, she went manically from room to room. The reporters clustered outside her brownstone were gone. Police, too. Where were the vultures when you needed them? Someone else had probably gotten shot tonight. Or maybe a senator had gotten caught with his cute young aide. Even the dubious celebrity of infamy could last only so long.

She checked doors and windows. Turned on lights until her townhouse glowed like a landing strip. The master bedroom thwarted her, however. The police still considered it a crime scene and she wasn't allowed to touch anything. Easy for them to say. They had patched the shattered slider with sheets of plastic. It didn't even block the goddamn wind. How was that going to stop an intruder?

She'd move the bureau. Shove it in front of the slider. Of course, if it was light enough for her to move, it would definitely be light enough for a man to move. Okay then. She'd move the bureau to block the entry, turn on the outdoor spotlight to illuminate the upper patio, then close the master bedroom door and nail it shut from the outside. Perfect.

She went downstairs to find Prudence.

"I need your help," she told the nanny briskly.

"We're doing a little rearranging."

Prudence didn't say anything. Years of training, Catherine thought. Years of very expensive British training.

They went upstairs. Prudence helped her push the heavy painted pine bureau in front of the broken sliding glass door. There were still some shards of glass on the carpet. Blood-, too. Prudence saw all of it and didn't say a word.

Catherine went down to the laundry room and dug around until she found the tool kit. When she started pounding nails into the outer frame of the bedroom door, Prudence finally spoke.

"Madam?"

"I saw someone outside," Catherine said briskly.

"Lurking. Probably just a tabloid reporter, looking to make a quick buck. How much do you think the papers would pay for a detailed photo of the Back Bay murder scene? I will not let anyone profit from this tragedy."

Prudence seemed to accept that explanation. After another moment, Catherine added, "I want to thank you, you know. This has been a terrible time. Heaven knows what you must think. But you've been there for Nathan. I appreciate that. He needs you, you know. With everything that's going on, he really, really needs you."

"Nathan's doing better?"

"He should be home tomorrow." She had another thought.

"Maybe if he's feeling up to it, we could all go on vacation. Somewhere warm, with sandy beaches and drinks with little umbrellas in them. We could get away from… from all of this."

She finished hammering in the last nail. She tried the door, shaking it hard. It held.

That should do it. She hoped.

"Prudence, if anyone comes to the door that you don't know, don't answer it. And if you see any other… reporters… please tell me."

"Yes, Madam," Prudence said.

"And the lights?"

"I think," Catherine said, still breathing heavily, "that we'll leave them on for a little bit longer."

Tony Rocco had had a long day. Ten p.m." he was finally leaving the hospital. Not bad ten years ago, but he was supposedly at the pinnacle of his career now. At this stage of the game, the hungry residents were supposed to deal with the endless grind of puking kids and snotty noses. He only came in for the big stuff.

His wife liked to remind him of that nightly.

"Jesus Fucking Christ, Tony, when are you going to start demanding some respect? Just walk away from that damn hospital. Private practice is where the money is. You could be making three, four times what you're bringing home now. We could be making…"

He had stopped listening to his wife about five years ago. It had been halfway through a Thanksgiving dinner at his parents' house, when for the first time, honest to God, midway through his mother's rant about his father daring to go play golf with his friends, Tony had looked across the table at his lovely bride of three years and realized that he'd married his mother. It had hit him just like that. A giant thwack to the head.

His mother was a nag. His wife was a nag. And in another fifteen years he'd look just like his father, slightly hunched shoulders, chin tucked against his chest in perfect turtle posture, and selectively deaf in both ears.

He should've divorced her right then, but there were the children to consider. Yeah, his two darling, beautiful children, who already looked at him with his wife's accusing stare every time he was late for dinner.

He found himself thinking of Catherine again. The way she'd first come to him nine months ago. Her fingers brushing up his arm. Her long black hair teasing his cheek as she leaned over his shoulder to study Nathan's medical records.

She'd come to his office one day without Nathan, wearing a long black overcoat. She'd walked into his office. She'd locked the door behind herself. She'd looked him right in the eye and said, "I need you."

Then she'd thrown open her coat to reveal nothing but smooth white skin and tantalizing bits of black lace. He'd taken her right then and there, up against the wall, his trousers around his knees, her legs around his waist.

She'd climaxed so hard, she'd sunk her teeth into his shoulder. Then they'd tumbled to the floor and next thing he knew, she was on her hands and knees and he was riding her from behind, already as hard and horny as a teenager catching his second wind.

Afterwards, when both of them were too exhausted to move, when he could barely summon his receptionist by phone to tell her to cancel all his appointments for the afternoon, he'd seen the contusion on Catherine's left side.

It was nothing, she'd told him. She stumbled against the counter in the kitchen. That day, neither of them had commented on the bruise's perfect palmlike shape.

She'd wept the day she'd finally told him about Jimmy. They'd been in a hotel room in Copley Square. She'd just spent twenty minutes on her knees doing stuff he'd only ever read about in magazines. Now he held her close, stroking her hair.

I need you, she'd whispered against his chest. Oh God, Tony, you don't know what it's like. I am so afraid… He should leave this stupid hospital, Tony thought now, walking through the empty parking garage, his footsteps ringing off the cement. He was sick and tired of people telling him what to do-his wife, the head of Pediatrics, a prick like Judge Gagnon. What was the point of working so hard for so many years if he never got to do anything he wanted to do?

He loved Catherine Gagnon. He was tired of all this shit. Screw his wife, screw the kids. He'd drive to Catherine's house right this minute. Tell her he took it back. He was sorry he'd let her down, sorry he'd told her he couldn't help Nathan.

Hell, he was sorry he'd sat in front of some state cop this afternoon, feeling like half a man as he tried to explain how he could love Cat and yet do nothing to protect her from Jimmy. The way that trooper had looked at him… That was it. He would buck the system. He would stand on his own two feet. Just this once, he would do what he wanted to do, and screw the other women in his life.