"But he did have a gun. I saw it myself."

"Did you? Are you sure it was a real gun? Couldn't it have been a model, or maybe one of Nathan's toys? Why, it could've been one of those fancy cigar lighters in the shape of a revolver."

"Sir, I've viewed over a hundred pistols of various makes and models in the past ten years. I know a real gun when I see it. And it was a genuine Beretta 9000s that the techs recovered from the scene."

The judge scowled, obviously not liking this answer, but was swift to regroup.

"Officer Dodge, did my son actually pull the trigger Thursday night?"

"No, sir. I shot him first."

Maryanne moaned and sank deeper into her chair. In contrast, James nearly grinned. He started pacing, his footsteps ringing against the marble floor, while his finger waggled in the air. "In truth, you don't really know much about what was going on in that room Thursday night, do you, Officer Dodge? You don't know if Jimmy had a loaded gun. You don't know if he had the safety on or off. Why, for all you know, Catherine started the argument that night. Catherine may have even threatened to harm Nathan. Why, for all you know, Jimmy went into the family safe and got out that gun only as a last resort-so he could fight for the life of his child. Couldn't that well be the case?"

"You would have to ask Catherine."

"Ask Catherine Invite my daughter-in-law to lie? How many cases are you called out to a year, Officer Dodge?"

"I don't know. Maybe twenty."

"Ever fire your weapon before?"

"No."

"And the average length of engagement for those callouts?"

"Three hours."

"I see. So on average, you're deployed twenty times a year for three hours each episode, and you've managed in all that time to never fire your weapon. On Thursday night, however, you showed up and shot my son in less than fifteen minutes. What made Thursday night so different? What made you so convinced that you had no choice but to kill my son?"

"He was going to pull the trigger."

"How did you know, Officer Dodge?"

"Because I saw it on his face! He was going to shoot his wife!"

"His face, Officer Dodge? Did you really see it on his face, or were you thinking of someone else's?"

In Bobby's heightened state of agitation, it took him a moment to get it. When he finally did, the world abruptly stopped for him. He suffered a little out-of-body experience, where he suddenly drifted back and became aware of the whole sordid scene. Himself, sitting on the edge of the silk-covered sofa, half leaning forward, his hands fisted on his knees. Maryanne, slumped deep into a cream-colored chair, lost in her grief. And Judge Gagnon, finger still punctuating the air with a prosecutorial flourish, a triumphant gleam in his eyes.

Harris, Bobby thought abruptly. Where the hell was Harris? He turned and found the man lounging in a dark wooden chair in the foyer. Harris delivered a two-fingered salute: he didn't even bother to hide his smugness. Of course he'd dug up the information. That's how this game worked. The Gagnons paid, Harris dug, and the Gagnons got whatever they wanted.

For the first time, Bobby began to truly understand how helpless Catherine Gagnon must have felt.

"If there's a trial, it's going to come out," Judge Gagnon was saying now.

"This kind of thing always does."

"What do you want?"

"She's the reason Jimmy is dead," James said. There was no need to define she.

"Acknowledge it. She cajoled you into firing."

"I'll say no such thing."

"Fine then. Revisionist history. You showed up, you heard my son and his wife arguing, but it was obvious she started it. She was threatening Jimmy. Better yet, she was finally admitting what she was doing to Nathan. Jimmy simply couldn't take it anymore."

"No one in their right mind will believe I heard all that while sitting in another house fifty yards away."

"Let me worry about that. She murdered my son, Officer Dodge. As good as if she pulled the trigger herself. There is no way I'm going to stand by and let that woman harm my grandson too. Help me, and I'll let your little lawsuit slide. Resist, and I'll sue you until you're a broken old man with no career, no home, no dignity, no self. Consult any lawyer. I can do it. All it takes is money and time." James spread his hands.

"Frankly, I have plenty of both." Bobby rose off the sofa.

"We're through here."

"You have until tomorrow. Just say the word and the lawsuit is gone and Harris's little research project is 'forgotten." After five p.m." however, you'll find I'm no longer as forgiving."

Bobby headed for the door. He'd just gotten his hand on the brass knob when Maryanne's soft voice stopped him.

"He was a good boy." Bobby took a deep breath. He turned around, asking as gently as he could, "Ma'am?"

"My son. He was a little wild sometimes. But he was good, too. When he was seven, one of his friends was diagnosed with leukemia. That year for his birthday, Jimmy had a big party. Instead of asking for presents, he asked people to bring money for the American Cancer Society. He even volunteered at the suicide hotline while in college."

"I'm sorry for your loss." "Every Mother's Day, he'd bring me a single red rose. Not a hothouse rose, but a real rose, one that smelled like the gardens of my youth. Jimmy knew how much I loved that scent. He understood that, even now, I sometimes miss Atlanta." Maryanne's gaze went to him, and there was a pain in her eyes that went on without end.

"When it's Mother's Day," Maryanne murmured, "what am I going to do? Tell me, Officer, who will bring my rose?"

Bobby couldn't help her. He walked out the door just as her grief finally broke and her sobs began in earnest. James's arms were already going around his wife and Bobby could hear the man as the door shut behind him: "Shhhh. It's all right, Maryanne. Soon we'll have Nathan. Just think of Nathan. Shhhhh-" Then Catherine got up, Prudence was already gone for the day. Sundays were the nanny's day off and Prudence didn't like to waste a minute. Catherine thought it was just as well. The sun was out, an almost unbearably bright blue sky yawning above, looking the way only a New England sky could look during the crisp days of November. Catherine went from room to room, turning on lights anyway. She thought she might be going a little mad.

Had she slept last night? She couldn't be sure. Sometimes she dreamed, so that must have involved sleep. She'd seen Nathan, the day he was born. She'd been pushing for three hours. Almost there, almost there, the doctor kept telling her. She'd stopped screaming two hours ago, and now only panted heavily, like a barn animal in distress. The doctors lied, Jimmy lied. She was dying and this baby was tearing her in two. Another contraction. Push, screamed the doctor. Push, screamed Jimmy. She sank her teeth in her lower lip and bore down desperately.

Nathan came out so fast, he overshot the doctor's waiting hands and landed on the sheet-covered floor. The doctor cheered. Jimmy cheered. She merely groaned. Then they put little Nathan, on her chest. He was blue, tiny, all covered in muck.

She didn't know what she was supposed to think. She didn't know how she was supposed to feel. But then Nathan moved his tiny little lips rooting for her breast, and she found herself unexpectedly blubbering away like an idiot. She cried, huge fat tears, the only genuine tears she had shed since her childhood She cried for Nathan, for this beautiful new life that had somehow come from her own barren soul. She cried for this miracle she had never believed could happen to her. And she cried because her husband was holding her close, her baby was snuggling against her, and for a fraction of an instant, she did not feel alone.

She'd dreamed of her mother. Catherine saw her standing in the doorway of her childhood bedroom. Catherine lay in her narrow bed, her eyes desperately alert. She had to stay awake, because if she slept, the darkness would come, and in the darkness would be him. Forcing her head into his lap. The smell, the smell, the smell. Grunting as he rammed himself into her, a camel trying to pass through the eye of a needle. The pain, the pain, the pain. Or it would be worse. It would be the days and weeks later, when he didn't even have to force her anymore. When she simply did whatever he wanted, because resistance was futile, because the indignities no longer mattered, because the little girl who'd been thrown into this hellhole didn't exist anymore. Now only her body remained, a dried-up shell going through the motions and feeling only gratitude that he returned to her at all.