Over his shoulder was his ruddy backpack, containing the syringe and drugs, and on his arm was a black London Fog raincoat. He was too hot to wear it and he wondered why on earth he’d brought the coat with him. The radio updates about the impending storm suggested that a helmet and armor would be better protection than gabardine.

Kohler had parked his BMW up the road, a half mile from here, and had made his way through a field into this forest, making slow progress. His leather soles slipped off the damp rocks and he’d fallen twice onto the hard ground. The second time he’d landed on his wrist, nearly spraining it. The vicious thorns of a wild rosebush hooked his pant leg and it took five painful minutes to free himself.

Kohler recognized, though, that he’d been lucky. The nurse who’d alerted him to the escape reported that the young man had run from the hearse in Stinson and had apparently gotten as far as Watertown.

As Kohler had sped in that direction down Route 236, he was certain that he’d sighted Michael in a clearing. The doctor raced to the turnoff, climbed from the car and searched the area. He’d called his patient’s name, pleaded with him to show himself, but received no response. Then the doctor had driven off once more. But he hadn’t gone far. He pulled off onto a side road and waited. Ten minutes later he believed that he’d seen the same figure hurrying on once more.

Kohler had found no sign of Michael since. Hoping he might stumble across him by chance, the psychiatrist had taken to the wilderness again, heading in the direction in which Michael seemed to be headed-west.

Where are you, Michael?

And why are you out here tonight?

Oh, I’ve tried so hard to look into your mind. But it’s as dark as it ever was. It’s as dark as the sky.

He tripped again, on a strand of wire this time, and tore his slacks on a sharp rock, gouging his thigh. He wondered if there was a danger of tetanus. This thought discouraged him-not the risk of disease but the reminder of how much basic medicine he’d forgotten. He wondered if his knowledge of the human brain compensated for the long-forgotten facts of physiology and organic chemistry he once had learned and recited so easily. Then these thoughts faded, for he found the sports car.

There was nothing remarkable about the vehicle itself. He didn’t for a minute think that Michael had lifted the hood and tried to hot-wire it. His patient would be far too frightened at the thought of driving a car to steal one. No, Kohler was intrigued by something else-a small object resting on the ground behind the rear bumper.

The tiny white skull ironically was the exact shade of the car itself. He stepped closer and picked it up, looking carefully at the delicate bones. A tiny fracture ran through the cheek. Trigeminal, he thought spontaneously, recalling the name of the fifth pair of cranial nerves.

Then the skull teetered on the tips of his fingers for an instant and tumbled with a soft crack onto the trunk of the car, rolling into the dust of the shoulder. Kohler remained completely still as the muzzle of the pistol slid along his skin from his temple to his ear, while a fiercely strong hand reached out and fastened itself to his shoulder.

Trenton Heck pointed the Walther up at the turbulent clouds and eased the ribbed hammer down. He put the safety on and slipped the gun back into his holster.

He handed the wallet back to the skinny man, whose hospital identification card and driver’s license seemed on the up-and-up. The poor fellow wasn’t quite as pale as when Heck had tapped the muzzle to his head a few minutes before.

But he wasn’t any less angry.

Richard Kohler dropped to his knees and unzipped the backpack Heck had tossed onto the grass before frisking him.

“Sorry, sir,” Heck said. “Couldn’t tell whether you were him or not. Too dark to get a good look, with you crouched down and all.”

“You come up on Michael Hrubek that way and he’ll panic,” Kohler snapped. “I guarantee it.” He rummaged inside the pack. Whatever was so precious inside-just a couple of bottles, it looked like-didn’t seem to be damaged. Heck wondered if he’d caught himself a tippler.

“And I’ll tell you something else.” The doctor turned, examining Heck. “Even if you’d shot him, he’d’ve turned around and broken your neck before he died.” Kohler snapped his fingers.

Heck gave a brief laugh. “With a head wound? I don’t know about that.”

“There’s apparently a lot you don’t know about him.” The doctor rezipped the pack.

Heck supposed he couldn’t blame the man for being pissed off but he didn’t feel too bad about the ambush. Kohler, it turned out, had been padding down the same path Hrubek must’ve taken earlier in the evening. In the dark, how was Heck to know the difference? True, the doctor was undoubtedly a lot punier. But then so are all suspects after they turn out not to be suspects.

“What’s your interest here exactly, sir?” Heck asked.

Kohler eyed his civvy clothes. “You a cop, or what?”

“Sort of a special deputy.” Though this was untrue and he had no more police powers than an average citizen. Still he sensed he needed some authority with this wiry fellow, who looked like he was in the mood to make trouble. Heck repeated his question.

“I’m Michael’s doctor.”

“Quite a house call you’re making tonight.” Heck looked over the doctor’s suit and penny loafers. “You did some fine tracking to get yourself all the way here, considering you haven’t got dogs.”

“I spotted him up the road, headed in this direction. But he got away.”

“So he’s nearby?”

“I saw him a half hour ago. He can’t’ve gotten that far.”

Heck nodded at Emil, whose head was up. “Well, for some reason the scent’s vanished. That’s got me worried and Emil antsy. We’re going to quarter around here, see if we can pick it up.”

The tone was meant to discourage company, as was the pace that Heck set. But Kohler kept up with man and dog as they zigzagged across the road and along the fields surrounding it, their feet crunching loudly on leaves and gravel. Heck felt the stiffening of his leg muscles, a warning to go slow. The temperature was still unseasonable but it had dropped in the last half hour and the air was wet with the approaching storm; when he was tired and hadn’t slept his leg was prone to seize into agonizing cramps.

“Now that I think about it,” Heck said, “you were probably better off tracking him without dogs. He fooled our search party damn good. Led us all in the opposite direction he ended up taking.”

Kohler once again-for the fourth time, by Heck’s count-glanced at the Walther automatic. The doctor asked, “Led you off? What do you mean?”

Heck explained about the false clue-dropping the clipping that contained the map of Boston.

The doctor was frowning. “I saw Michael in the hospital library yesterday. Tearing clippings out of old newspapers. He’d been reading all morning. He was very absorbed in something.”

“That a fact?” Heck muttered, discouraged once again at Hrubek’s brainy talents. He continued, “Then he pulled a trick I’ve only heard about. He pissed on a truck.”

“He what?”

“Yep. Took a leak on a tire. Left his scent on it. The truck took off for Maine and the dogs followed it ’stead of going after his footsteps. Not many people’d know about that, let alone psychos.”

“That’s not exactly,” Kohler said coolly, “a word we use.”

“My apologies to him,” Heck responded with a sour laugh. “Funny thing: I was just falling asleep-you know how this happens sometimes?-and I heard a truck horn. It just come to me-what he’d done. Emil’s good but following airborne scent of a man hanging on to a tractor-trailer? Naw, that didn’t seem right. For that many miles? I drove back to the truck stop and sure enough picked up his backtrack. That’s a trick of the pros. Just like he hid that clipping in the grass. See, I wouldn’t’ve believed it, it’d been lying out in the open. He’s clever. He’s fooled dogs before, I’ll bet.”