“Sure enough, they took the Pine Summit turnoff. I didn’t know what the situation would be, and Jack and I weren’t really official-”

“You mean Carlson didn’t want you working on this,” I said.

“Well, actually, he let me work on it. I don’t know if he felt sorry for me or what. He told me I seemed to be personally connected to every murder in Las Piernas, so I could work on a missing persons case. He knew I’d look for you anyway. But he didn’t like the idea of Jack getting involved, and so we were sort of an unofficial back-up tail, you might say. Good thing, because Paul shook the official one.

“Anyway, like I said, I didn’t know exactly what the situation would be, but I knew there were at least three of them, and Paul had other cousins. So I stopped off at the sheriff’s station and told them what was going on. By the time we convinced the sheriff and his deputy to get up off their behinds and follow us up there, Raney had apparently started back down. We came across his truck – what was left of it. I was afraid… well, we stayed just long enough to determine there was only one body. The sheriff fooled around calling another unit but I couldn’t wait. Jack and I took off for the cabins. You know the rest.”

I know we all had our own mental pictures of what happened from there, and the silence that followed was an uneasy one.

“I don’t know how I could have been so wrong about Paul,” Jack said, just above a whisper. “I can understand why he hated me. I just never thought he was so bitter toward his grandmother.”

No one said anything for a long time. I felt myself wearing down and told them I was going to call it a night.

Jack stood up, gently putting Cody on the floor. “I’ll say good night, then. I’m glad we talked.”

“Stay if you want to,” I said. “I just don’t have any stamina. I wish-” I didn’t finish it.

“That you could go back to being your old self?” Jack asked.

“Yes.”

“Give up on that one, Irene. Just about everything changes.” And with that, he said good night again and left.

OVER THE NEXT WEEK or so, I tried to come to grips with the implications of just about everything changing. The first disappointment came with the unsettling realization that I was not going to heal overnight. I didn’t like being so dependent on others, but that was the simple fact of the matter. There was very little that I could do for myself, even when I started to be able to hobble around a little.

There was also the fact that I was still feeling scared. Afraid that if I was alone I would be kidnapped. What were the odds? A million to one still made me break out in a cold sweat.

Looking back on it, that week I did more feeling than thinking. It was as if everything I had tried to repress during my captivity came boiling up and over me. The terror of it demanded to be acknowledged.

Frank’s support was unwavering, but I doubt that we could have made it through that time alone. Fortunately, we didn’t have to try. Lydia, Guy, Rachel, and Pete came by and spent hours with me, talked to me, watched me sleep, woke me from nightmares. Took care of and cared about me.

When I protested to Rachel that she should find something more enjoyable to do with her vacation, she said, “What, I don’t look like I can make a decision? When I’m doing something I don’t want to be doing, you can put the story in that newspaper of yours. Basta.”

Okay, enough. I didn’t mention it again.

Two new friends were over fairly often: Jacob and Jack. Like my other friends, the first time Jacob came over, he was shaken by my appearance. But, like them, he recovered quickly. He was full of youthful energy and loaded with questions about working for newspapers. His father, I learned, had won the election. Julie’s parents had put her on restriction, so he hadn’t seen much of her. I imagined I would see less of him once she was paroled.

Jack seemed to need to be around us, and he came by several times each day. He brought groceries, helped Lydia and Rachel cook, talked hockey with Guy and Pete. He did errands that would have taken up Frank’s time, allowing Frank to spend it with me instead.

Jack was solicitous to me, and kept me company if none of my other baby-sitters could be there, but usually he allowed the others to pamper me.

I woke up and limped out of the bedroom on Tuesday morning, and found him sitting on the couch with Cody, reading a book.

“Rachel had to leave for a few minutes,” he said, looking up. “Need anything?”

I shook my head and slowly made my way over to a chair. “What are you reading?”

“Ovid,” he said, and laughed at my undisguised look of surprise.

“I never know what to make of you, Jack,” I said, then felt embarrassed at my own bluntness. As usual, he didn’t seem to mind.

“No, I guess not. And I suppose that extends beyond catching me reading the Metamorphoses.”

I nodded. Jack never ceased to puzzle me. Two days before, I had found him sitting on the couch, working with a notebook computer. When I asked why a biker needed a computer, he told me that the notebook had been his first indulgence after coming into his inheritance; he found he needed a computer to keep track of his mother’s complex estate. I noticed that he had yet to go on a big spending spree; like his mother, he seemed to prefer to live simply.

“Okay,” I said, “I give up. Why the Metamorphoses?”

“As for that, my mother read more Greek mythology than Mother Goose to me when I was a little sprout. So I guess I just wanted to remind myself of those days.”

“Oh.”

He closed the book and studied me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell the truth.”

“It’s just a mood, Jack. Give me five minutes – or maybe less – and it will change.”

“So talk to me before the five minutes are up. I’d hate to miss the full impact of this one.”

“Just feeling frustrated.”

“About your injuries?”

“Not this time – not any more than usual. It’s just that I know there’s a fourth person involved in all of this. The department won’t let Frank work on the case. I’m in a funk because Frank can’t seem to get anyone to even take the idea seriously.”

“I guess they consider it a closed case.”

“But it’s not. This fourth man is still out there.”

“How did you learn about him?”’

I swallowed hard, pushing the suddenly sharp memory of the cabin away. “The second day I was up there. I heard Devon and Raney talking about him.”

“You’re sure? You were scared and in a lot of pain and-”

“I’m sure. There’s another man involved in this.”

“And you want him brought to justice.”

“It’s more selfish than that. I’m scared to death of him.”

He idly fingered the pages of the closed book, then said, “Maybe you should tell me what happened.”

Why I found it easier to tell that story to Jack Fremont, whom I had known only for a number of days, than to friends I had known for years, I can’t say. He listened calmly, which somehow kept me calm as I sketched out the basics of what had happened.

When I finished, Jack was quiet for a while, then said, “There’s no immediate help for feeling afraid, I suppose. You’ve obviously been through a lot, and it will take time before you feel safe again.”

“That’s why I was hoping that somehow we could find this ‘Pony Player.’”

“You suspect someone in particular?”

I hesitated. I had suspicions, but they were based on seeing a limo at a funeral and one brief conversation with Murray Plummer. I didn’t even know how Malcolm Gannet might have earned the nickname “Pony Player.” I hadn’t had a chance to determine who else might be the Pony Player; as soon as I was able to go back to work, I intended to do some digging, but until then, I couldn’t do much more than guess.

“It’s not the kind of thing I’d like to say about anyone,” I answered uneasily, “at least, not without more reason to do so. I’m just saying that I’ll feel less afraid when the fourth person is caught.”