As to sleep, well, that’s going to be difficult with my mind jangling with images of Bruce and his special tattoo, and all the unspoken stuff about what my son may be going through, and the possibility of arrest hanging over my head. My attorney, borrowing a strategy from Shane, seems reluctant to get specific about what will happen if I’m charged with murder. Not wanting to add to my burden, apparently. Is bail possible, or will I be held awaiting trial? I can’t stand the thought of being shut up while Tommy is still missing. Strange how that’s the only part of a possible arrest that really bothers me; my standing in the community, my business, what my friends will think, what Fred Corso’s poor wife must think, none of it matters. Just not being there when my son comes home. That’s unthinkable.

With sleep out of the question, I prowl the guest room, looking for clues about my host. Unlike the rest of the house, this room seems untouched by his personality. A couple of lighter spots on the wall indicate that pictures may once have hung there, but no more. Nothing in the closet—just a few empty hangers. No books, no knickknacks, no indications that the room has ever been occupied. But the place has a scrubbed feel, as if someone worked hard to eradicate any trace of human habitation.

The fact is, I’m a terrible snoop. Let me in your house and I’ll seek out the secret you. I won’t open a diary, but almost everything else is fair game. I’ll check out your books, your refrigerator, your medicine cabinet. Shameful habit, but I can’t help it. As it happens, the cabinet in the attached bathroom is as empty as the closet. There’s an unopened bottle of generic shampoo in the shower stall, and a bar of soap still in the wrapper.

Back in the bedroom area, I slide open the top drawer of a pine chest and notice neatly folded linens, pillowcases and sheets with the factory creases still intact. And then, under the linens, I find what has been hidden. A framed photograph facedown against the bare wood. No doubt it will match one of the lighter spots on the unadorned wall.

In a way, the picture itself is shocking. A somewhat younger and much more relaxed Randall Shane grins at the camera. One arm around a willowy blonde with gorgeous eyes and a shy smile, the other resting on the shoulders of a girl who looks a lot like her mother. Nine or ten years old, with the clear eyes and the serious expression of a deep thinker. A little beauty who’s going to be serious trouble as an adolescent, testing all the rules, you can just feel it.

So my knight in slightly dented armor was married, once upon a time. Married and the father of a brilliant little girl. One of those kids, like Tommy, whose personality is fully formed at a young age. Suddenly the family photo seems icy cold in my hands and I hastily return it to the bottom of the drawer, feeling deeply ashamed. How dare I intrude in the man’s private life, simply to satisfy my curiosity? It’s a violation of his generosity, of his trust.

Still, I can’t help wondering. Divorced, or something worse? Something he does not share with strangers or clients. Most divorced men would have mentioned having a child by now. Shown off a well-thumbed snapshot. Alluded to the fact that they, being parents, had some idea of what I was going through. And yet Shane had done nothing of the sort. Never alluded to anything but his previous career and his present vocation. Is this loss—for it has to be a loss, one way or another—is this emptiness in his life somehow connected to his sleep disorder? And if so, how exactly?

Leave it alone, I urge myself. None of your beeswax. And never dare mention this, or he’ll know you for a snoop and never trust you again.

And I depend on his trust. Shane is my hope. Despite my current reliance on the big man, and my interest in what makes him tick, there’s no twinge of physical attraction between us, no prospect of romance. My heart is too full of Tommy for anything like that. Not to mention Ted, who still guides me in memory. But it makes me wonder what Ted would think of Shane. Would they be friends or rivals? Friends, I think. Buddies, even. He’s exactly the kind of self-contained, self-deprecating guy my Ted gravitated to. For sure he’s the type of adult male Tommy likes to be around. A true-blue father figure without any of that macho bluster that confuses boys—or girls, for that matter.

Determined to avoid another onslaught of tears—crying hurts when your tear ducts are empty—I strip off my clothes, shower, towel dry and slip into the neatly made bed. Not allowing myself to think about who this bed might have belonged to, back in the day.

Counting sheep, counting Bruce, counting my own heartbeats, I eventually drift off into a light, troubled sleep, and find myself floating down empty corridors, searching for my son.

Then out of nowhere I’m sitting bolt upright in the bed, wide-awake and shivering with fear. Because of the noise.

A dull thump! that seems to shake the floor. And then, very clear, a man shouting. Muffled, can’t make out the word.

Wham!

Right outside my door. Sounds like two men fighting for advantage, bouncing off the walls.

Shane cries out in pain: “No! God, no!”

I’m out of the bed in a flash, grabbing a sheet to cover myself. Scared to leave the bed, but even more sacred of doing nothing. Fear drives me to the door, into the hallway. A flickering light from the living room shows me the way to the source of the shouting and thumping.

Shane lies on the floor, writhing and groaning. He’s wedged between the sofa and the coffee table, face pressed into the rug.

The TV is on, with the sound off. One of the shopping channels, hawking jewelry.

As Shane’s long arms flail, the coffee table staggers away, bumps up against my shins. “Gah!” he groans. “No, no!”

The man who doesn’t sleep is having a nightmare.

I kneel by his head. At the touch of my outstretched hand his body goes still.

“Jean?” he says, his mouth muffled by the rug.

“It’s Kate,” I tell him. “Kate Bickford.”

“Gah!” he says, spitting rug.

“It’s okay,” I say, and give his bristly head a pat.

“Oh, God.” He rolls over, breathing heavily.

“You were dreaming.”

“Not dreaming,” he says thickly. “Hallucinating.”

He glances at me in the sheet, then quickly looks away.

“Sounded like you were fighting,” I tell him. “I thought the man in the mask was here. In the house.”

Shane leans against the sofa, knees drawn up, still breathing heavily. Face slick with night sweats and his eyelids twitching. Careful not to look at me in the sheet, although I’m perfectly decent. Underwear, a full sheet, what could he see? But covers his face with his trembling hands, groans softly and says, “I’m really sorry, Kate. For scaring you.”

“Don’t be.”

“Really sorry,” he repeats, sounding mournful if not humiliated. “Look, I’m okay. Go back to bed, you need your sleep.”

“This is what I’m going to do,” I say, rising from the floor and adjusting the sheet. Very togalike, really. Almost formal. “I’m going to get dressed and then I’m going to make us breakfast.”

“Okay,” he says.

And that’s what happens.

30 baking bread

Cramming a body into a steel drum is hard work, Cutter discovers. If the victims had happened to be small or slight of build, no problem, but Hinks and Wald are both solid men. Not giants, by any means, but well muscled, heavy of sinew and bone, and they seem to resist going into the barrels. It’s like pushing huge lumps of stiffening taffy back into a tube. Grunt work of the worst kind. Digging shallow graves would, in hindsight, have been much less effort, but he’s already committed to the barrels.