At one point Cutter has to take a break and get his breath back, toweling the slick of sweat from his hands and face. He had the foresight to cover their heads with plastic garbage bags, so as not to make eye contact with the dead, but the whole process is exhausting, both physically and mentally.

Putting the paunchy police chief into the home freezer in Mrs. Bickford’s basement was a piece of cake compared to this. And the chief’s death had been accidental, almost, a case of wrong place, wrong time.

Until quite recently, Cutter had never considered himself to be a killer. Certainly not capable of cold-blooded murder. He’d been a soldier doing his duty, and that meant killing the enemy when necessary. But for the last three weeks or so he’s been taking the lives of civilians, American civilians, and the toll is starting to add up. One in Rhode Island, one in New York, and now a total of three in good old suburban Connecticut, with at least two more to go before the mission is completed. Could be even more, if Mrs. Bickford’s rangy investigator sticks his nose in the wrong crack.

The dead have gathered in a pile in the dark corner of Cutter’s brain and at some point they will, he assumes, demand a reckoning. Scratching like frantic bird claws against the windowpane of his soul. Hard to take, even for a trained assassin. Maybe he’ll let slip his sanity and join Lyla in her twilight world. But no, he can’t allow that to happen, not if the plan works, not if he manages to get his own son back home. He’ll have to find another way to deal with it, another way to silence his victims.

Start by not thinking of them as victims. Think of them as unfortunate casualties. Collateral damage.

“Hear that, Hinks? You’re collateral damage.”

Talking to a dead guy stuffed in a barrel. Pretty funny really. It gets him laughing so hard he has to shove a hand in his mouth to make it stop.

Much to my surprise there’s an unexpired packet of yeast hiding in a dry corner of Shane’s refrigerator, behind the butter dish. The yeast, along with a tablespoon of sugar, a teaspoon of salt, a little melted butter and a few cups of King Arthur flour is all that’s needed to make a simple loaf of bread. Making good on my impulse to shed flour on the counters, and also provide us with something fresh and wholesome for breakfast.

It’s been a while since I’ve kneaded dough entirely by hand, without the help of commercial kitchen equipment, and I find it comforting. The world can’t be entirely crazy, or completely evil, if you can make bread with your own hands, and fill a kitchen with that wonderful smell.

“I could go out for doughnuts,” Shane offers, watching me sift the flour through my fingers.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Just seems like a lot of trouble,” he says, indicating the mixing bowl, the flour dust.

I suspect the idea of a woman baking in his kitchen makes him a little nervous. “Don’t worry, I promise not to move in,” I assure him, keeping it light.

The very idea makes him blush. “No, no,” he protests. “It’ll be great. I love bread right out of the oven. It’s been years.”

“I could thaw out the chicken potpie if you prefer.”

“Might be dangerous by now,” he admits. “That’s just for emergencies.”

“Like nuclear attack. Relax, Randall. I enjoy doing this.”

“Right,” he says. “The catering business.”

“I loved cooking and baking long before I went into business,” I say, setting the pan in the preheated oven. “What time is it getting to be?”

“Five in the morning.”

“The sun is up,” I notice. “Time to milk the chickens.”

Shane ignores the lame joke. “Look, Kate, I wanted to apologize. You say it’s not necessary, but I think it is. You’ve got enough on your plate without having to deal with my demons.”

“Oh,” I say, trying to keep it light. “Are they really demons?”

“Sort of.”

“You don’t have to tell me. Not unless you want to.”

He’s obviously been thinking of little else since I found him flailing about on the floor. “Better if you know,” he says with some reluctance. “Not that it’s a big secret. Maria knows. Anybody who knew me at the time, they know.” He forces himself to meet my eyes and says, “I had a family. Wife and daughter. Both killed in an accident.”

That explains the photograph in the drawer, the blank spaces on the wall, and, quite possibly, his obsession with finding lost children.

“I’m very sorry,” I tell him. “It must have been awful. Must still be awful.”

Lame words, but they come from experience. I’d lost a husband and faced losing a child. So I knew something of what he’d gone through, was still going through each day.

“We were driving up from Washington,” he explains, sounding somewhat detached. Finding the necessary distance. “Amy had a project for her world-studies class, I figured it was our chance to show her the Smithsonian. Fabulous museum. We had a great time, stayed longer on the last day than we intended, and then it was time to come home.”

I’d like to know if home was here, in this very house, but don’t want to interrupt him. And figure he’ll make it clear at some point.

“It’s night, heavy traffic,” he says. “We’re on the New Jersey Turnpike when my eyelids start getting heavy. So I pull into a rest area and let Jean take over driving. She’s wide-awake and raring to go. Amy’s in the back, sound asleep. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in a wreck and I’m the only survivor. While I was asleep, Jean got sideswiped by a tractor-trailer and dragged under his rear wheels. Totally his fault.” He pauses, studies the backs of his hands before looking up, eyes incandescent with remembering. “So that’s my story. And yes, the sleep-disorder thing happened afterward. I’m fully aware it has to be related to the accident, to losing my family, but awareness doesn’t make it better.”

My impulse is to give the big guy a hug, but my instincts are picking up a vibe that says a hug is the last thing in the world he wants. It won’t change anything, and it can’t possibly ease the pain. So I let it go and continue to fuss around, cleaning up after myself, making the place tidy again.

“Okay,” I finally say. “You make coffee while we wait on the bread.”

Later, after scoffing down two slices of warm, honey-drenched warm bread, Shane grins at me. “This was a good idea. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Figure we’ve got a busy day ahead of us, right?”

“Absolutely,” he says.

“Care to share?”

He shrugs, takes another slug of strong coffee. “Got several irons in the fire. Waiting for an ID on the vehicle Bruce was driving. Waiting on a list of suspects from my Pentagon source. Waiting on whatever Jared Nichols is cooking up for the state of Connecticut. So while we’re waiting, I’ll try calling around Pawtucket.”

Pawtucket. That stumps me for a moment. And then I remember why Pawtucket, Rhode Island, is important. “The adoption agency,” I say. “Where we got Tommy.”

Shane nods. “I tried phoning them yesterday. They’re no longer in business, so we need to check with the city and possibly the state or county, see where the adoption records are being stored. We might have to run up there, I won’t know until I call.”

Eleven years have passed, but the thought of what happened that fine and glorious evening gives me a heart-size pang. Ted drove, of course, while I chewed my nails. He’d tell me nothing, not even the gender of the baby, in case it fell through, like so many of the other attempts had fallen through. And I knew better than to ask, though I longed to know. Which made for a long, near-silent ride. The only reason I could stand it without freaking out was because Ted had seemed so confident, so certain that our long ordeal was over. Confident not in words but in posture, in the way he gripped the wheel, the way he glanced at me and smiled. And I remember thinking, in the midst of a near anxiety attack, that whatever happened I’d always have Ted, and that even if we never got a baby it would be fine, we’d have each other.