"You what?" She let the screen door swing shut. Luxurious Greek temper flooded into her beautiful face.

There was no going back now. Gillette blurted, "Do you love Ed? Are you going to marry him?"

"Christ, I don't believe you! From prison? You hacked into my e-mail from prison?"

"Do you love him?"

"Ed's none of your goddamn business. You had every chance in the world to have a family with me and you chose not to. You have absolutely no right to say a word about my personal life!"

"Please-

"No! Well, Ed and I are going to New York. And we leave in three days. And there's not a single goddamn thing in the world you can do to stop me. Goodbye, Wyatt. Don't bother me again."

"I love-

"You don't love anyone," she interrupted. "You social engineer them."

She walked inside, closing the door quietly.

He walked down the steps to Bishop.

Gillette asked, "What's the phone number at CCU?"

Bishop gave it to him and the hacker wrote the number on the specification sheet and jotted, "Please call me." He wrapped the sheet around the circuit board and left it in the mailbox.

Bishop led him back down the gritty, wet sidewalk. He gave no reaction to what he'd just witnessed on the porch.

As the two of them approached the Crown Victoria, one with perfect posture, the other with a permanent slouch, a man appeared out of the shadows across the street from Elana's house.

He was in his late thirties, thin, with trim hair and a mustache. Gillette's first impression was that he was gay. He was wearing a raincoat but had no umbrella. Gillette noticed that the detective's hand was hovering near his pistol as the man approached.

The stranger slowed and cautiously held up a wallet, revealing a badge and an ID card. "I'm Charlie Pittman. Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department."

Bishop read the card carefully and seemed satisfied with Pittman's credentials.

"You're state police?" Pittman asked.

"Frank Bishop."

Pittman glanced at Gillette. "And you're…?"

Before Gillette could speak, Bishop asked, "What can we do for you, Charlie?"

"I'm investigating the Peter Fowler case."

Gillette recalled: He was the gun dealer killed by Phate, along with Andy Anderson, on Hacker's Knoll earlier that day.

Pittman explained, "We heard there was a related operation here tonight."

Bishop shook his head. "False alarm. Nothing that'll help you out. Good night, sir." He started to walk past, gesturing Gillette to come with him, but Pittman said, "We're swimming upstream on this one, Frank. Anything you can tell us'd be a big help. The Stanford people're all shook up 'cause somebody was selling guns on campus. We'rethe ones they're beating up on."

"We're not pursuing the weapon side of the investigation. We're after the perp who killed Fowler but if you want any information you'll have to go through troop headquarters in San Jose. You know the drill."

"Is that where you're working out of?"

Bishop must've known police politics as well as he knew life on the mean streets of Oakland. He was suitably evasive as he said, "They're the ones you ought to talk to. Captain Bernstein can help you out."

Pittman's deep eyes scanned Gillette up and down. Then he glanced into the murky sky. "I'm sure sick of this weather. Been raining way too long." He looked back to Bishop. "You know, Frank, we get the scut work, we county folks. We're always getting lost in the shuffle and end up having to do the same work somebody else's already done. Get kind of tired of it sometimes."

"Bernstein's a straight shooter. He'll help you out if he can."

Pittman looked over Gillette once more, probably wondering what a skinny young man in a muddy jacket -clearly not a cop – was doing here.

"Good luck to you," Bishop said.

"Thanks, Detective." Pittman walked back into the night.

When they were inside the squad car Gillette said, "I really don't want to go back to San Ho."

"Well, I'm going back to CCU to look over the evidence and grab a few winks. And I didn't see any lockup there."

Gillette said, "I'm not going to escape again."

Bishop didn't respond.

"I don't really want to go back to jail." The detective remained silent and the hacker added, "Handcuff me to a chair if you don't trust me."

Bishop said, "Put your seat belt on."

The Junipero Serra School looked idyllic in the early-morning fog.

The exclusive private school, located on eight landscaped acres, was sandwiched between Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center and one of the many Hewlett-Packard facilities near Stanford University. It enjoyed a wonderful reputation and was known for launching virtually all of its students to advanced schools of their (well, their parents') choice. The grounds were beautiful and the staff was paid extremely well.

At the moment, however, the woman who'd been the receptionist of the school for the past few years wasn't basking in the benefits of her working environment; her eyes were filled with tears and she struggled to control the tremors in her voice. "My God, my God," she whispered. "Joyce just dropped her off a half-hour ago. I saw her. She was fine. I mean, just a half hour."

Standing in front of her was a young man, with reddish hair and mustache, wearing an expensive business suit. His eyes were red, as if he'd been crying too, and he clasped his hands in a way that suggested that he was very upset. "She and Don were driving to Napa for the day. To the vineyard. They were meeting some of Don's investors for lunch."

"What happened?" she asked breathlessly.

"One of those buses with migrant workers… it veered right into them."

"Oh, God," she muttered again. Another woman walked past and the receptionist said, "Amy, come here."

The woman, wearing a bright red suit and carrying a sheet of paper headed with the words "Lesson Plan," walked to the desk. The receptionist whispered, "Joyce and Don Wingate were in an accident."

"No!"

"It sounds bad." The receptionist nodded. "This's Don's brother, Irv."

They nodded and stricken Amy said, "How are they?"

The brother swallowed and cleared his emotion-thickened throat. "They'll live. At least that's what the doctors're saying now. But they're both unconscious still. My brother broke his back." He forced back tears.

The receptionist wiped away her own. "Joyce's so active in the PTA. Everybody loves her. What can we do?"

"I don't know yet," Irv said, shaking his head. "I'm not thinking real clearly."

"No, no, of course not."

Amy said, "But everybody at the school'll be here for you, whatever you need." Amy summoned a stocky woman in her fifties. "Oh, Mrs. Nagler!"

The gray-suited woman approached and glanced at Irv, who nodded at her. "Mrs. Nagler," he said. "You're the director here, right?"

"That's right."

"I'm Irv Wingate, Samantha's uncle. I met you at the spring recital last year."

She nodded and shook his hand.

Wingate recapped the story of the accident.

"Oh, my God, no," Mrs. Nagler whispered. "I'm so sorry."

Irv said, "Kathy – that's my wife – she's up there now. I'm here to pick up Sammie."

"Of course."

But Mrs. Nagler, sympathetic though she was, nonetheless ran a tight ship and wasn't going to deviate from the rules. She leaned over the computer keyboard and typed with blunt, polish-free nails on the keys. She read the screen and then said, "You're on the authorized list of relatives to release Samantha to." She hit another key and a picture popped up – the driver's license photo of Irving Wingate. She looked up at him. It was a perfect match. Then she said, "But I'm afraid there're two other things we have to verify. First, could I see your driver's license, please?"