I didn’t care about that, but I did feel badly that I had made the house dangerous for my son.

“It was a stupid thing to do,” I conceded.

Dad was collecting boards and putting them to one side. “I should be able to figure out, through trial and error, which boards go where. But some places, you’re going to have to spring for some new wood. And it’s going to take a few days. I can go home and get my tools.”

“You don’t have to do that right now,” I said.

Dad turned and yelled, “What the hell else am I supposed to do? Tell me that! What the hell else!”

I leaned up against a wall, feeling defeated.

“Honest to God, what a fucking stupid thing to do,” he said, padding farther up the hall, watching for nails as he approached the linen closet.

“That was where I started,” I said. “That was where I found the envelope, in there.”

“But you didn’t find anything else,” he grumbled.

He reached for a piece of white baseboard I’d pried away from inside the linen closet, turned it over to look for nails, and said, “Hello.”

“What?” I said.

“What’s this?”

I moved closer. It was an envelope, similar to the one I’d found before, taped to the back side of the baseboarding. When I’d ripped the boards off, I’d been looking for what might be left behind them, not what might be taped to the back of them.

Dad peeled the tape away. It was yellowed and brittle. When he had the envelope free, he handed it to me. It was sealed. I ripped open the end, blew into it, and pulled out the single piece of paper that had been placed inside. It was folded in thirds.

I unfolded it.

It was another birth certificate, for a child named Constance Tattinger.

“What is it?” Dad asked.

“A birth certificate,” I said.

“Whose?”

Slowly, I said, “I’m not sure.” I knew I’d heard that name. At least the first name, Constance. Recently, within the last couple of days.

“Well, whose name is on it?” Dad asked.

“Dad,” I said, holding up my hand to tell him to keep quiet. “Please.”

I tried to think.

The name had come up at the Richlers’. Constance was the name of Jan’s playmate. The little girl who had been playing with her in the yard when Horace Richler backed his car too quickly out of the driveway.

The little girl who had pushed Jan Richler into the path of the car.

I looked back at the birth certificate, looking for a date of birth for Constance Tattinger.

April 15, 1975. Just a few months before the date of birth on the Jan Richler birth certificate.

I scanned the rest of the document. Constance Tattinger had been born in Rochester. Her parents’ names were Martin and Thelma.

“Jesus,” I said.

“What?” Dad said.

“It all fits.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If you were the grown-up Constance Tattinger, and you needed a new identity, and you were looking for someone who’d died as a child, you could save yourself a lot of time by picking one you already knew about.”

“Constance who?”

“Not just someone you knew,” I said. “But someone whose death you had a hand in.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Dad said.

I needed to confirm this. I went to the phone, got the number again for the Richlers in Rochester, and dialed.

“Hello?” Gretchen Richler.

“Mrs. Richler,” I said. “It’s David Harwood.”

“Oh, yes.”

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I have a question.”

“Okay.” Tiredly.

“You mentioned the first name, I think, of the little girl who was playing in your yard when… the accident happened.”

“Constance,” she said. Gretchen made the name sound like ice.

“What was her family’s name?”

“Tattinger,” she said without hesitation.

“Do you know what happened to her family? Didn’t you say they moved away?”

“That’s right. Not long after.”

“Do you know where they moved to?”

“I have no idea,” she said.

“Do you know anyone in the Rochester area who might know?”

“I have no idea. I really don’t.” She paused. “Why are you asking?”

I didn’t want to reveal to Gretchen Richler things I didn’t know for certain. So I fudged. “I’m just looking into every angle I can think of, Mrs. Richler, that’s all.”

“I see.” Another pause. “Have you found your wife, Mr. Harwood?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“You sound hopeful.”

It was my turn to pause. Finally, I said, “Yes.”

“You think she’s alive.”

“I do. But I don’t yet understand all the circumstances behind why she disappeared.”

“I see,” she said.

“Thank you, Mrs. Richler. I appreciate this. I’m sorry to have disturbed you. Please pass on my regards to your husband.”

“Perhaps I’ll be able to do that when he gets home from the hospital,” Gretchen Richler said coldly.

“I’m sorry? Something’s happened to your husband?”

“He tried to kill himself this morning, Mr. Harwood. I think your visit, and your news, were all a bit too much for him.”

“I’m not going in,” Jan said. “I’m not going down into that basement.”

They were sitting in the pickup, parked in the driveway up close to Banura’s nondescript Braintree house. A couple of houses down, a black Audi was parked at the curb.

“Look,” said Dwayne. “Is it because I lost my cool back there? Is that it?”

Lost your cool? You nearly killed me, Jan thought.

“If that’s what this is about, I’m sorry,” he said, laying it on so thick she could tell he wasn’t. “We’re minutes away from becoming millionaires, you know? You gotta keep your eye on the prize.”

“I’ll keep a watch out here,” she said. “If there’s a problem, I’ll lay on the horn.” Dwayne eyed her suspiciously, prompting Jan to add, “What? You’ve got the goods, you’re going in to get the money. What am I going to do? Drive off?”

That mollified him. “Okay, I guess not.” He appeared thoughtful.

The thing was, she’d been thinking about it. She didn’t give a shit about what might happen to Dwayne, but she needed to know how this was going to play out. If there was still a chance, even one in a million, that she was wrong, that there might be some money in this for her, she was hanging in.

“What if Banny Boy decides to give the stones another inspection?” Dwayne asked. “What if they don’t pass the inspection this time?”

“So, what, now you believe me?” Jan said. “You believe what that woman said?”

Dwayne suddenly looked trapped, less sure of himself. “I don’t know.” He shook his head, as if to cast off any doubts. “No, this is good. Everything’s fine. He looked at the diamonds, he liked them, he offered us money for them. That’s good enough for me. If you want to sit out here and be a big pussy, that’s fine.”

“Good,” Jan said. “Because this is exactly where I’m staying.”

Dwayne glanced at his watch. It was five minutes to two. “This shouldn’t take long, unless he wants me to count the money. How long do you think it would take to count six million?”

“A long time.”

“I don’t want him cheating me.”

“If he’s got a bag of money for you, take it. We’ll go somewhere and count it, and if he shortchanged us, we’ll come back and pay him a visit.” Not that she believed that for a second. If they got away from this house with anything reasonable, she wasn’t coming back. She didn’t ever want to see those photos on the wall again. The picture of that kid, probably Banura, waving a severed arm about. Made her think maybe she had more in common with him than she wanted to admit.

“Yeah, okay.” Dwayne grabbed the bag of diamonds, opened the truck door, the key chiming in the ignition, and started getting out.

“Wait,” Jan said. “Take the gun.”

Dwayne looked at her scornfully. “You heard what the man said. He said not to bring any weapons into his house. He was pretty clear about that.”