*  *  *

It was not until dinner was over and they were leaving Giacometti’s that Elliot had a chance to speak to his father alone.

“It’s good to see you making the effort to get out and be with people again,” Roland said as they walked to their cars. “I admit I was worried for a while there. You’re a lot like your mother. You both always took things too much to heart.”

“We did?”

But Roland wasn’t being facetious. “The world will break your heart if you let it, son.”

“Dad, I was in law enforcement for how many years? I don’t think I’m any starry-eyed idealist.”

“Of course you are. All cynics are disappointed idealists. The more stars in the eyes, the harder the fall.”

Elliot’s amusement faded. “What was Mom disappointed about?”

“Not in you. Never in you.”

“Was she disappointed in you?”

Roland looked flabbergasted. Slowly, the affection in his face hardened into something else. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Elliot had not meant to have this conversation here and now—he wasn’t sure he had ever meant to have it, would ever have had the nerve for it—but all at once it was on them, and he couldn’t see how to turn back.

He heard himself say, “What’s your relationship with Pauline Baker?”

“What?”

“Are you having an affair with her?”

For one instant Elliot thought his father was—for the first time in his life—going to strike him. He braced for it, mentally as well as physically, but in fact Roland’s unmoving silence was worse.

“An affair? With the wife of one of my best friends?” he said after what seemed like a very long time. “That’s what you think of me, is it?”

“I…No. I don’t know. I have to ask.”

“Why? Why would you have to ask me that? What possible reason could you have for asking me such a thing? Am I one of your suspects? A suspect in what?”

Elliot’s stomach roiled with a sick brew of guilt and shame and stubborn fear. “You’re not answering the question.”

“It’s none of your goddamned business, Elliot. That’s why I’m not answering the question. I don’t know if I’m more horrified that you would ask this question or that you honestly think there’s a need to ask this question.”

Elliot licked his lips. His mouth felt like it had been swabbed with cotton. “When you talk about Pauline, I sense that…you have feelings for her.”

“I’ve known her for twenty years. She’s the wife of my oldest—”

“More than that,” Elliot cut in, and this time Roland stopped trying to talk over him and fell silent.

Neither moved. Neither spoke.

“Go to hell,” Roland said at last, with finality. He walked away. Elliot stood motionless, watching him get in his car, reverse in a tight, neat arc, and speed out of the restaurant parking lot. The angry hornet buzz of the engine was swallowed by the night.

Of the trip back to Goose Island, Elliot remembered little. He could only remember one other argument with his father that had left him feeling this lousy—if “lousy” was the right word for sick at heart—and that was when he had told his parents he had joined the FBI. They could joke about it now, sort of, but at the time Roland had viewed Elliot’s decision as a defection. As a rejection of everything Roland believed in and had fought for. Roland had seen Elliot’s career choice as a betrayal, pure and simple. They had not spoken for six months. In fact, if Elliot’s mother had not died, they still might not be speaking. Despite what Roland thought, in some ways, Elliot was too much like him.

Too restless to wait in his car on the ferry crossing, Elliot got out and walked up and down the barge railings. Why had he pushed the issue? Why had he asked the question at all? He didn’t believe his father was accountable to him, nor did he believe that it was his place to judge if Roland had had an affair.

And he didn’t think—not seriously—that Roland had.

Except…there was nothing like working law enforcement for a few years to give you a jaded view of human nature. No matter how well you thought you knew someone, no one ever entirely knew anyone else. And if Roland had by some chance had an affair with Pauline Baker, how far back did that connection go? Why had Roland been so concerned over Terry Baker’s disappearance?

Elliot stood at the railing on the lower deck and listened to the slap of water, the rumble of the ship engines. Spray struck him in the face. It had a salty taste. His heart felt like lead. He was horrified that he could even consider these things. But what if they were true? What if Roland had an affair with Pauline? What if a child had resulted from that union? What if Tom Baker had discovered that fact?

Elliot shook his head. A little imagination was useful in solving crimes, but this bordered on delusional. And yet…

Somewhere in the black churning night a bell buoy tolled its sad song.

From the first he’d been skeptical of the idea that Terry had committed suicide. He needed to find out more about Tom Baker. Tucker had mentioned a police record. Granted, Elliot’s dad had a police record too, but Roland had advocated peaceful overthrow of the government. Passive resistance and canny handling of the media had been Roland’s idea of how to effect change. Baker, on the other hand, had a temper and Elliot had witnessed firsthand that he was prone to physical violence. Yes, Elliot definitely wanted to get a look at Tom Baker’s rap sheet, but with Tucker and the FBI’s withdrawal from the case, he was going to have to figure another way to obtain that criminal history record.

His uneasy preoccupation persisted as he drove off the ferry and headed home through the deep woods of Goose Island.

The two-story cabin was completely dark as he drove over the crest of the hill. He always left the porch light on, so the bulb must have blown. He parked in the garage and went through to the kitchen.

Maybe Steven was right. It would be nice to have a dog to greet him when he arrived home. The cabin felt cold and too quiet. A glance at the answering machine showed an unblinking red light, and he sighed. Fixing a drink, Elliot carried it into the sunroom where he spent a few minutes fiddling with the Pickett’s Charge diorama. Outside, the tall silhouettes of the pines swayed in the wind that shook the windows in their frames. He could see the long room reflected in the glinting, lamplit panes, see himself sitting hunched in his chair, nursing his drink and scowling at nothing.

Too bad Jim Feder was a student instead of another instructor. Too bad he was a suspect. Elliot would have liked company tonight, and he wasn’t feeling particularly particular. Even so, Charlotte needn’t have any fears on his account. Getting involved with a student wasn’t his style. True, Feder was an adult and he wasn’t Elliot’s student, but witnessing Anne Gold’s misery was a reminder of why mixing academics and sex was such a bad idea.

Not that mixing law enforcement and sex was much better because who was he kidding? There was only one person Elliot wanted tonight.

And by the evidence presented, the feeling was mutual. He let himself remember that astonishing kiss in Tucker’s car. The way Tucker’s face had looked afterward, flushed, his hard mouth pink and swollen from kisses. Elliot’s own face heated thinking about it.

So what was the problem, really? So long as everybody was on the same page? They were both adults. They both knew it was only sex. Everybody needed sex. No shame in admitting that.

He rolled the whisky over his tongue, considering. He even put his glass on the table in preparation of getting up and going to the phone.

The problem was that his newfound acceptance, this hard won calm, was too much like his reconstructed knee joint. It still worked, after a fashion, and it was mostly pain free, but it was not built to withstand prolonged, extreme stress—and nothing defined Tucker Lance like extreme.