Tess could not believe how quickly he moved, how expertly. Then she thought about the West Baltimore shopkeeper, his heart giving way after a boy, a boy who grew up to be this man, whipped a pistol back and forth across his face. Wink could never hurt anyone, Lea had cried. He never hit me back, Linda had sneered. No, Wink's great shame was that he couldn't hurt anyone, although he could stand by with the best of them and watch a man die.

"You were Wink's accomplice," she said. Her rib, cracked or broken, made it hard to talk. She felt as if she had tumbled down a long flight of stairs and was still falling. "You're the one on the yearbook page. If I had seen it again, I would have known you."

"Actually, I'm on the facing page. And Raymond Sterling was so fat, with such long hair hanging in his face, you probably wouldn't have recognized him. But I couldn't take that chance."

"Raymond?" If she hadn't been in so much pain, she might have laughed.

"Raymond John Sterling. I started using my middle name after my parents sent me to military school in Indiana. That was the deal my father cut with the judge-military school instead of Montrose. After all, I'd never been in trouble before. Wink was the bad boy. Wink was even bad at being bad-the only time I ever got caught was when I was with Wink. That's the real difference between bad boys and good boys, you see. Bad boys get caught."

She tried to rise again and he pushed her down by stomping on her back with his foot, then squatted over her. His mouth was close to her ear, his voice the soft, encouraging voice of the man she thought she knew. "I have to hit you a few times, Tess, to make it look realistic. Just a few more taps, then I'll shoot you, I promise. One quick, clean shot in the head, okay?"

He patted her cheek, then slapped her so hard that her teeth cut the inside of her mouth and blood began dribbling down her face. It was a strange sensation, wet, cold, and hot all mingled on her face.

"Silver and gold," she panted, spitting blood with each word. "Sterling and Wink."

"Yeah, that's me," he replied, not realizing she was still fitting the pieces together. The cell phone in his pocket, and the convenient call to Feeney the night of Wink's death, making sure the Blight got the story. The edge in his voice, when he'd found her at his computer tonight. He had spoken that roughly to her only once before-the day she'd confessed she had been to see Linda Wynkowski. Turkey sausage on Rosita's pizza, his constant quest for low-fat food. Little things, but they had come together in one moment of perfect clarity. If only she could have had that moment in a less deserted, better-lighted place.

Sterling brought a sleek, almost elegant gun out of the pocket of his coat. Even Tess, with her complete ignorance of firearms, knew it was exactly the sort of weapon the greyhound gang would have used on her. Sterling was careful, he thought things out.

"Rosita?" she asked. God help her, but she really wanted to know.

"She jumped," he said. "Honestly. We had been…together for a while, after I first came to the paper. Consenting adults, a no-fault break-up. But she tried to use that to get her job back, said she'd go to Lionel and complain I had harrassed her. Another blackmailer, like Wink. She crawled out on the balcony railing, said she would jump if I didn't get her reinstated. As if I could, after all she had done."

After all she had done?

"All I want to do is get on with my life," he said, almost as if he expected some sympathy. "That's all I've ever wanted."

High beams from an oncoming car swept across the parking lot and Sterling dropped his left hand to his side, so the gun was out of view. Feeney, Tess thought, at once hopeful and despairing. Sterling would simply kill him, too.

But the car that idled fifty feet away was an expensive utility vehicle, something Feeney wouldn't be caught dead driving. Tess heard its door open and slam, heard a key clicking in a lock, a trunk's springs yawning.

"Fancy meeting you two here." It was Whitney's voice, as clear and obnoxiously self-assured as if they'd met at some restaurant or museum.

"Gun," Tess said, or tried to say. Her nose was bleeding and her speech was getting gummy and thick. Sterling backed away until his car was between him and Whitney. Tess heard a shot, then a muffled sound of surprise. Jesus, he had killed her. She almost wished she could live long enough to see how Sterling was going to arrange this "accident." College Roomies in Bizarre Murder-Suicide in Leakin Park/Longtime Relationship Suspected. Both their mothers would die.

A second shot, much louder than the first. Tess still couldn't see anything-Whitney's lights must be on bright, they were so blinding. How had Sterling been able to aim? He hadn't. Sterling staggered forward, his right hand pressed to his shoulder, where a shiny mass, purple-black in the headlights, was spilling across his camel's hair coat. He dropped his gun and fell forward.

"That's the problem with hunting rifles," Whitney said, walking toward Sterling, who had joined Tess in the gravel. "They rip the shit out of things at this range. You probably won't have a tendon left in that shoulder, Sterling. No more squash for you."

Sterling didn't give up easily. He tried to crawl toward his weapon, reaching for it with his right hand. But he was left-handed, and his injury made him clumsy and slow.

"Oh, Sterling, give me a break." Whitney cracked the rifle hard against his injured arm, and he screamed again, a pathetic, high-pitched sound. For good measure, or perhaps for the sheer hell of it, Whitney took the butt of the rifle and brought it down hard on Sterling's nose, breaking it with a fearsome crack almost as loud as the gunshots.

"It's very important that you stay still now," she told him, as if he were a small child and she his babysitter. "I've had enough from you."

The passenger side door of Whitney's Jeep opened then. Tess, still at ground level, saw a pair of sockless ankles, red and chafed in the wintry night. It was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.

"I called 911 on the car phone," Feeney said. "I told them we're going to need an ambulance."

"Feeney," Tess said. "Whitney?" She wondered if she was ever going to speak in complete sentences again, or even lift her arms over her head. But Feeney understood what she was trying to ask.

"When I got the message from you, I thought I could get Whitney to give me a ride in her four-wheel drive, maybe play peacemaker between the two of you and get my big story at the same time. It never occurred to me Whitney's hunting rifle would come in even handier than her Jeep Cherokee."

"You never know when you're going to need a little protection." Whitney raised an eyebrow at Tess, keeping her rifle trained on Sterling. "I believe I tried to tell you that once, back in the sub shop."

Feeney picked up Sterling's gun and held it in his palm a little tentatively, as if it might bite him. Then he pointed it at his boss, now almost unconscious from the loss of blood.

"I've waited my whole life to hold a gun on an editor," he said. "I thought it would feel better than this."

"Speak for yourself," Whitney said, but her voice was shaking.