A blue Chevy coming down the street laid on the horn as the back end of the pickup lurched into its path. The car swerved, a man shouted “Asshole!” and the car kept on moving.

As Jan slammed on the brake and put the truck into drive, Oscar Fine fired again. The shot didn’t hit the truck, but Jan had the sense it went in through the passenger window and out the driver’s door.

Oscar was running into the street now, his face set in grim determination. Jan cranked the wheel hard again and stomped on the accelerator, narrowly missing him with the truck’s right front fender. He pivoted so hard he went down to the pavement, even though he hadn’t been hit.

The gun was still on the seat next to her, but there was no time to use it. And what kind of shot could she get off anyway, driving flat out, Oscar Fine directly behind her?

She raced past the black Audi, guessing that was his car. But he was still a good fifty feet away from it. By the time he reached it, got in, fired it up, she could be a block or two away.

It might be just enough of a head start.

She heard a sharp ping, above and behind her head. Sounded like a bullet had gone into the cab, above the back window.

It just made her drive faster. She glanced into her mirror, saw the man running for the black car. It was the last image she had of him before she hung a hard right and kept on going.

She never noticed that, in all the excitement, the wind had swept up her picture of Ethan and carried it out the window.

Oscar Fine was about to take chase when he saw the piece of paper fluttering through the air.

He was almost glad for an excuse not to get in the car and go after Jan Harwood. Chases invariably ended badly. A crash. Attracting the attention of the police. And with only one hand, it was difficult for Oscar Fine to perform quick steering maneuvers.

If he could find her once, he could find her again. Especially with everything Dwayne had told him. He let the car door close and walked up the street to pick up the piece of paper. It appeared to be nothing more than a simple white square, but after he bent over, picked it up, and flipped it over, he saw that it was a photograph.

A picture of a small, smiling boy. Oscar Fine slid it into his pocket.

That was when it occurred to him that if he was going to have to go out of town, he was going to have to call someone to feed his cat.

Not long after my talk with Gretchen Richler, there was an unexpected call.

I grabbed the phone before the first ring was finished. “Hello?”

“Mr. Harwood?” A woman’s voice. Something about it was familiar.

“Yes?”

“You’re not the person to do this story anymore.”

“What? Who is this?”

“I sent you the information about Mr. Reeves’s hotel bill. So you could write about it. Why didn’t you do a story?”

I took a second to focus. “He paid Elmont Sebastian back,” I said. “My editor felt that killed it.”

“Well, then give that list to someone else, someone who can get the story done. I called the paper and they told me you were off or suspended because your wife is missing. I don’t want anyone who might have killed his wife working on this story, no offense.”

“List? What are you talking about? A list?”

She sighed at the other end of the line. “The one I mailed to you.”

I patted my jacket side pocket, felt the envelopes I’d stuffed in there when I’d passed my mailbox on the way out of the Standard. I dug them out. One of them was from payroll, another was a useless news release from a soap company, and the third was a plain white envelope addressed to me, in block printing, with no return address. I tore it open, took out the single sheet of paper and unfolded it.

“Mr. Harwood?”

“Hang on,” I said, scanning the sheet. It was a handwritten list of names of people on Promise Falls council, with dollar amounts written next to them. They ranged from zero up to $25,000.

“Jesus,” I said. “Is this for real? Is this what Elmont Sebastian’s been paying these people?”

“You’re just looking at this now?” the woman said. “That’s what I mean. That’s why someone else should be looking into this. That son of a bitch Elmont has screwed me over one time too many, and I want to see him nailed. You want to do a story, ask women at Star Spangled Corrections how they like getting felt up every day by the male employees and no one at the top giving a damn.”

So she did work for Elmont. And the hell of it was, considering my current situation, she was right. Someone else should be doing this story.

I asked, “Why didn’t you show up at Lake George?”

“What?” she said. “What are you talking about?”

“The email you sent me. To meet you up there.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I’m not meeting you or anyone else face-to-face. You think I’m stupid?”

She hung up.

I sat there a moment, slid the paper back into the envelope and stuffed it back into my pocket. Any other time, this would have made my day, but getting a great story wasn’t exactly a priority at the moment.

But one thing my anonymous caller had said stuck with me. She had not emailed me to meet her in Lake George. Someone else had lured me up there. It was all part of the setup. It fit in perfectly with Natalie Bondurant’s theory.

Jan.

I spent pretty much all of the rest of that day trying to find out everything I could about Constance Tattinger. I didn’t have a lot to work with. There must have been a Tattinger family living in Rochester in the 1970s and 1980s, but after that, according to Gretchen Richler, they had moved away.

I explained to Dad that I had some work to do, and he said he did as well. He was going to get started on repairing all the damage I’d done in the house.

He phoned my mother and explained, quietly, what had happened, and that he was going to stay there for the rest of the day, if that was okay with her. It would mean she’d have to look after Ethan without any assistance.

Mom said that was fine. She asked to speak to me.

“Tell me how you are,” she said.

“I’m losing my mind, but otherwise, okay,” I said.

“Your father says you’ve ripped your house apart.”

“Yeah. And I felt pretty stupid about it, until Dad found something I missed. I think I have a lead on Jan.”

“You know where she is?”

“No, but I think I know who she is. I could really use a computer. I need to search for people named Tattinger.”

“Your father says he’s coming home for more tools. I’ll send him back with my laptop.”

I thanked her for that, and said, “Something bad happened, something I feel responsible for.”

Mom waited.

“Horace Richler-he tried to kill himself. I stirred things up. And finding out that someone was out there-my wife-using his daughter’s name, it was too much for him.”

“You’re doing what you have to do,” Mom said. “It’s not your fault, what happened to that man’s daughter. Whatever it is that Jan may or may not have done, that’s not your fault, either. You need to find out the truth, and that may be difficult for some people.”

“I know. But they’re good people, the Richlers.”

“Do what you have to do,” Mom said.

I told Dad to make sure he came back with Mom’s laptop. He was already making a list of things he needed and added “laptop” to the bottom.

“Be back in a jiff,” he said.

I called Samantha Henry at the Standard. “Can you do me a favor?” I asked her.

“Shoot,” she said.

“I need you to check with the cops, whoever else you can, see what you can get on the name Constance Tattinger.”

“Spell it.”

I did.

“And who’s this Constance Tattinger?”

“I’d rather not say,” I said.

“Oh, okay,” she said. “So you’re on suspension, the cops think you may have killed your wife, and we’re actually writing stories about you, one of our own employees, and you want me to start trying to dig up info for you without telling me why.”