‘That’s an easy one. I want you to give him up.’

‘And his kids?’

‘It’s either his or ours, Frannie. Doesn’t seem like that tough a call to me.’

‘Just give him up?’

He thought that maybe, at last, she’d heard him. With an effort, he reined in his temper. ‘He’s gone anyway, Frannie. He’s on the run. It’s going to look like he killed Bree as soon as that gets out. Then he’s really in the news and the whole story – kids and all – comes out anyway. Then what’s all this been for?’

Her face remained set. ‘It’s not there yet.’

‘What isn’t where?’

‘Nobody’s going to look into Ron’s life. Not unless he gets charged. Ron isn’t anybody’s focus.’

‘Yes he is,’ Hardy said. ‘He’s mine. He’s Scott Randall’s.’

‘Oh, that’s real nice. That’s swell, Dismas.’ Frannie spit the words out at him. ‘Side yourself with my pal Scott Randall.’

‘I’m not siding with Scott Randall. Jesus Christ. I’m trying to get you out of here! I’m trying to put our family together again and all I get from you is poor Ron fucking Beaumont. Because I’ll tell you something, Frannie. He and his kids, they’re gone.’

She looked up at him defiantly. ‘You always think you know everything. You’ve got everything figured out. Well, I’ll tell you something. No they’re not gone. He called you an hour ago. He doesn’t want to run. He wants to go back to his normal life. Don’t you see that?’

Deflated, Hardy rested a haunch on the corner of the table. ‘Don’t you see that that’s not going to happen?’ he asked wearily. ‘It’s not going to happen no matter what.’

‘It will if they find who killed Bree.’

Hardy shook his head. ‘Not true, Frannie. That’s just not true.’ He forced a persuasive tone. ‘Listen, on Tuesday, the grand jury is going to reconvene and by then Scott Randall - even without Glitsky’s help – is going to discover that Ron has cut out. That’s going to be enough to get him indicted. After that he’s high profile. Then it all comes out.’

‘OK, that’s Tuesday,’ she said. ‘If somebody, maybe Abe, can find Bree’s killer before that, some real evidence-’

‘Unlikely.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s already been three weeks. The case is dead. You’re talking three days? It’s not going to happen.’

‘What if Ron helps? What if he tells everybody what he knows about Bree?’

‘Tells who? Like Abe?’

But, infuriatingly, she shook her head. ‘He can’t get involved with the police.’

‘Oh, that’s right. I almost forgot. And while we’re at it, are you saying he didn’t tell the police all he knew when they asked last time?’

‘No, I’m not saying that. And you don’t have to be such a bully. He answered their questions-’

‘But just sort of forgot to volunteer anything interesting he might have known about his own wife’s murder? Give me a break, Frannie. This is ridiculous.’

She slammed her fist on the table pathetically. ‘It’s not ridiculous. Don’t you see the tragedy of all this? Don’t you care about anybody else? Don’t you have any feelings anymore?’

‘Oh, please…’ He was up now, spun around on her. ‘I’ve got more feelings than you can imagine right at this moment. I feel like killing the son of a bitch, for example. I feel like what’s going to happen to our kids without their mother, what’s going on with our marriage for that matter.’

He glared at her, but she said nothing. No denial, just a cold stare back at him.

‘Shit,’ he said, and walked as far away as he could, up against the glass block wall, and stood there.

Her chair scraped. A second later he felt her behind him, although their bodies didn’t touch. ‘Help him,’ she whispered. He couldn’t think of a thing to say and she spoke into the vacuum. ‘You’ve told me I’m in here for another three days anyway, no matter what, isn’t that right? That’s got nothing to do with the secret.’

Glitsky’s distinction, but what was Frannie’s point? ‘So?’

‘So if you’re right, they won’t indict Ron until Tuesday. Which means that the kids – that whole thing – it won’t have to come out until after that, and never if he doesn’t get indicted. That means you have three days.’

He turned. ‘I have three days.’

‘Yes.’

‘For what?’

‘To save some lives, Dismas.’ ‘And how do I do that?’

‘You find Bree’s killer.’

He hung his head. His wife had no idea what she was talking about. ‘Oh, OK. I’ll just run out and do that. Why didn’t I think of that before? It’s so simple.’ He turned. ‘Any bright idea of where I might begin?’

‘With Ron,’ she said. ‘I told you he wants to help.’

‘Well,’ Hardy responded. ‘Old Ron didn’t get around to telling me where I could find him. Maybe next time he calls-’

‘I might know,’ she said.

There was a hole in the floor, a so-called ‘Turkish toilet,’ against the back wall, a block of concrete with a mattress on it, and on the mattress a sheet and two gray woolen blankets. There was no sink. The walls were padded because the administrative segregation unit was where they put the bona-fide crazies before they got medicated.

The door closed behind her – she hardly realized and certainly wasn’t grateful that it wasn’t bars but a true door with a peephole and a place to slide food in on the bottom.

She stood, numb and mute, without moving for a minute or more.

At some level, she was aware of the cold coming up through the paper slippers she wore. Everything was cold.

Overhead, there was a light, recessed behind wired glass. The light would go off sometime soon and plunge the cell into darkness.

There was no control anywhere.

She alternated between not letting herself feel anything, or reacting to everything. Last night, when the light had gone off, she’d cried for nearly an hour. Tonight, the darkness itself would no longer matter. She could tell that already.

She was trying to feel her children, to imagine them with Erin, at least warm and safe. But the connection was gone for now. In its place was only the physical stuff here – the bed and the padded walls and the smell of disinfectant.

Maybe, she told herself, her emotions had played themselves out. But an aura of panic seemed to shimmer around that thought, as if maybe her emotions had been cauterized so deeply that now they had been completely burned away, and she’d never let herself feel anything again, not at a certain level anyway.

And then her husband. Every time he came, all she felt she could do was fight and argue and explain. When all she wanted was the understanding they used to…

But she wouldn’t be weak. Weakness would leave her helpless, unable to make decisions for the kids if it came to that.

What was it going to come to?

No, she would just put feelings away for now. Dismas was on her side – she would believe that. He was working for her interests, as well as his own and the children’s. Though their intimacy was lost, perhaps irretrievably. It certainly felt that way. She knew she bore some of the blame for that.

For all of this.

She had never planned to do anything wrong and now all she had done had gotten her to here. Why did she still feel as though she should defend herself, that it was all defensible? Everything felt wrong. Every decision and act had cost her and her family dearly.

Would anyone ever forgive her? And why should they?

Abruptly, the cell went dark.

An undetermined period of time passed during which she remained motionless. Finally, she reached for the bed, found it, and pulled the blankets to her chin, holding them fisted against her chest.

She couldn’t imagine her babies – where they were, if they were sleeping. And this, finally, brought the blessed tears.