That he thought he might be falling in love with her.

It’s crazy, he thought as he walked across the grass now. I’ve known her for just a couple of weeks. But her strength, her confidence, her will in the face of all this had made a huge impression on him. Never before had he met a woman like Carolyn.

“Terrific,” he said out loud. “I finally meet someone I think I could really fall for, and I might have to lose my life to a pitchfork-wielding ghost.”

He realized he had walked to the place where the woods began intruding onto the well-manicured lawn. Just ahead lay the path that wound its way down the steep side of the hill into the village.

An enormous black crow high in the tall oak tree in front of him let out a cry, startling Douglas. The bird flapped its wings, then took off soaring down the side of the hill. Douglas kept his eyes on it, listening to the cries it made.

That was the moment he realized he wasn’t alone.

He turned his head, and Beatrice stood in the brilliant sunshine not three feet away from him.

“You’ve got to help us,” Douglas said instinctively. “You don’t want this killing to go on, do you? It’s not you doing it. I know that. So please help us!”

She looked at him with pitiful eyes. She seemed to Douglas the manifestation of sadness, what sadness would look like if it took human form. She cocked her head at him, as if looking for something there. Then she turned and walked away, toward the path.

“Wait!” Douglas called after her.

But she kept walking, the breeze moving her flowing white dress. Douglas realized she was leading him somewhere.

And he thought he knew the destination.

Beatrice disappeared into the trees. Douglas followed, certain that he knew where he’d find her. And he was right. Rushing along the path, skillfully jumping over the protruding roots of trees, he emerged into the old Young family cemetery. And there stood Beatrice, forlornly gazing down upon a patch of tall yellow grass.

Douglas hurried over to her. But even as he approached her, she vanished into the light, a flickering static of incandescence.

He reached the spot where she had been standing. Why here? There was nothing here. The nearest stone was a good three yards away. This was just a stretch of empty ground, covered with grass and the occasional black-eyed Susan.

But then he felt something underfoot.

He bent down, pushing aside the grass.

A sparkle of granite.

There was a stone embedded in the earth. A flat stone overgrown with grass and weeds and moss. He scraped at the moss, peeling it back like a moldy carpet. He saw what was inscribed on the stone.

Just the letter M.

And above it, a carving of a small cherub.

Douglas stared at the stone.

“Why did Beatrice want me to see this?” he asked out loud.

He traced the M with his finger.

Malcolm.

Perhaps it stood for Malcolm.

Was that Beatrice’s last name? Was this the place where they had buried her? Here, in an unmarked grave. Forgotten by the world.

But the cherub…

Something about the cherub.

It frightened him. Cherubs were little angels. Symbols of love. Cupid was kind of a cherub. With his little boy’s body and his magic arrows of love. There was nothing frightening about Cupid.

But this little winged figure set Douglas’s heart racing.

It had been roughly carved. A local stonecutter had most likely been hired to do a rush job. Someone had told him to carve a cherub above the M. And so he had etched a rough approximation of a human face and attached two wings in place of ears. The mouth on the face was open, perhaps in song. But it looked as if it were crying.

Or screaming.

Suddenly Douglas felt a terrible chill. He stood up, letting the grass obscure that terrible cherub once again.

M.

What was M?

What lay buried under that stone?

It felt good to be back in New York. Carolyn took considerable comfort in the bleating of taxicabs and the rumble of the subway. She felt safe here, far away from the mysteries of Mr. Young’s house in Maine. It was good to see Andrea, to spend a little time with her, to hear her laugh. And it was ever so good to get back home, to her own apartment, and pretend for a few stolen hours that the room in Mr. Young’s basement was just a figment of her imagination-or at least something so far away that it couldn’t touch her.

But touch her it did. Unless she could prevent the lottery, it waited to claim another life.

A life that might be Douglas’s.

She closed her eyes now as she waited for the green WALK sign. She was at the corner of Houston Street and Avenue A. This wasn’t her neighborhood. Carolyn lived in Hell’s Kitchen, rapidly transforming itself into one of Manhattan’s trendiest areas. Here in the East Village, bohemia still clung tenaciously to the streets. She opened her eyes and looked across the street. Somewhere in that block lived one of the most unusual people she had ever met in her entire life. And she was depending on her now to provide the solution to the problem that plagued the Young family. It was no longer just an assignment for Carolyn. It was no longer just a means for making money.

It had become personal.

As the light changed, Carolyn began a brisk walk across the street. She couldn’t deny the feeling that had surged up inside her the moment Douglas had moved to kiss her. She had shared so much with him. She hadn’t felt that comfortable with a man-with anyone-in a very long time. She had told him about Mom, and about Andrea. She had even told him about David. She figured she might as well: who’s to say Howard Young would not tell him at some point?

She didn’t fully trust Mr. Young. He withheld too much. She still didn’t know if he chose to withhold-or if some power prevented him from revealing too much. But she knew that he possessed information that could help her find an answer. By not sharing such information with her, he made her job more difficult-just as he had made Kip’s job more difficult, and no doubt Dr. Fifer’s job and the jobs of all those who had tried to end the curse before her. It was as if, on some level, Mr. Young didn’t want them to succeed.

But that’s crazy, Carolyn thought as she reached the other side of the street. His grief is very real. He has seen so much tragedy. He wants it to end. I have to believe that he wants it to end.

On the sidewalk ahead of her, a dreadlocked young man played the xylophone. Carolyn smiled to see a trained gibbon, attached to the man’s leg by a leash, dancing to the music its master made. People had stopped to watch and laugh.

If only I could stay here in New York, Carolyn said. Never go back to Maine.

Maybe she should have refused the assignment. But she wasn’t able to walk away. Not then, not when she realized that someone would die and that she was their only chance. And certainly she couldn’t turn her back on the job now, not when it might be Douglas who faced death.

I like him, Carolyn thought. I like him a great deal.

That was why she had been distant the day she left. The emotion was too troubling. The last time she had fallen in love, she had been hurt. Badly. Now, she might fall in love only to watch the man she loved walk into that room and never walk back out. And it would be because of her. Because she never found the solution.

“Diana must have the answer,” Carolyn said out loud, heading up the brownstone steps and ringing the doorbell. “She must.”

“Who is it?” crackled the voice over the intercom.

“Diana, it’s Carolyn Cartwright.”

“Oh, yes, Carolyn. Come upstairs.”

The door buzzed, and Carolyn pulled it open.

The tenement was in bad repair. The plaster on the walls was cracking, and the entire building had sunk a bit, leaving the steps at an angle. Diana lived on the very top floor, the fifth. There was a rickety, early twentieth-century cage elevator, but Carolyn preferred the stairs. She had been here several times before. Once she’d gotten stuck in the elevator. She didn’t want that experience again.