Shane takes my hand, gives it a reassuring squeeze. “The next few hours are going to be crucial. I want you to be very, very careful. This man, whoever he turns out to be, he won’t hesitate to kill.”

“I’ll be careful. You be careful, too.”

“Always,” he says with a grin. “That’s my motto.”

I’m thinking that I’ve known Randall Shane for less than a week, but already we’re so comfortable in each other’s company that it’s like we’re old friends. Is it because we’ve been thrown together under incredible stress and pressure, or is there something else going on?

A voice hails us from the doorway to the apartment building. Big Mike Vernon stands on the steps with his son, who clings to his hand. “Mikey decided he wanted to say goodbye to the nice lady,” he explains.

The boy shrieks gleefully, then buries his face in his father’s ample midriff, as if hiding from the world.

We wave and turn away. Spatters of cool rain hit my face, and thunder rumbles in the distance.

“God is bowling,” I say. “Tenpins in heaven.”

“What?”

“My mother used to say that.”

“Uh-huh. We need the rain, I guess.”

We’re crossing the street when a car pulls out from the curb. I’m not really paying attention, other than to note that it’s silver or gray, and looks like a new model. Shane, however, is alert, and that’s the only reason I’m alive, because when the car suddenly accelerates with a screech of rubber, he scoops me up in his long, strong arms, and flings me out of the way.

I land on my back and get the wind knocked out of me, and sense the whoosh of the tires just missing my head. But there’s a horrible sound of flesh on metal, and then Shane is flying over the hood, spinning through the air, and he comes to earth with a sickening crunch, headfirst.

Behind me, Mike is shouting, but I’m not really paying attention. All I can think about is Randall Shane, and the blood, and the way he lies as still as death.

37 a sleep so deep

Four miles from the scene of the hit-and-run, with sirens keening in the distance, Cutter pulls into the breakdown lane, opens the door and pukes his guts out, spattering the pavement. Not because he’s revolted by what he’s done—assault with a motor vehicle is a whole lot less visceral than slitting an enemy’s throat—but because he lost control of the situation. Because he allowed himself to react without thinking.

He’d been parked there at the curb, engine quietly ticking over, debating whether or not to be on his way. So far as he was aware, no one in Sussex had any connection to him. Whoever Supermom was visiting up there, it was not likely to be anyone who could point her in the right direction. She and her hired hand were spinning their wheels. Maybe the tall, lanky dude was intentionally running up the bill, taking her on wild-goose chases for billable hours. Wouldn’t be the first time that lawyers and private dicks conspired to strip a client of assets.

Almost made him feel sorry for the lady.

And then, incredibly, just as Mrs. Bickford and company were about to leave, a familiar figure had appeared in the entrance of the tenement building. It took precisely one heartbeat for Cutter to recognize Big Mike Vernon—hadn’t seen the guy in eight years—and to understand with sickening finality that all his elegant survival plans had just been blown sky high.

If they knew enough to seek out and question Mike, then they were already onto him, or soon would be.

In that moment he simply reacted, pedal to the metal. He’d felt the collision, seen the investigator airborne, flying over the fender, but was less certain about the woman. Maybe he’d hit her, maybe not. Didn’t dare turn around and attempt to finish the job, not with Big Mike present and screaming for the cops. The guy looked huge and slow, but the glacial appearance was deceptive. When he had to move, Mike was more than capable. Best to flee the scene before the cavalry arrived.

Not that killing Mrs. Bickford would put the cork back in the bottle anyhow. The knowledge was out there, no doubt already passed on to lawyers and prosecutors and various law enforcement agencies. He had to face the fact that for all his elaborate precautions, he’d somehow been identified, that cops would be looking for him in the next few hours. So, a major alteration in the plans. The surgery would proceed, of course—there was no turning back from that—but he had to stop entertaining the notion that he’d be able to return to his life as a devoted father, that they’d all live happily ever after, he and Lyla and Jesse.

Wasn’t going to happen. The ever-after was already here.

You’re a dead man, he tells himself. Deal with it.

After rinsing out his mouth with a bottle of warm springwater, Cutter takes a deep breath and carefully maneuvers the Caddy back into traffic. Have to ditch the vehicle at the first opportunity. But not before he returns to the boatyard. Not before he prepares Mrs. Bickford’s boy for what must come.

Sad but true. The boy has to be sacrificed. Tomas will be sedated—Cutter doesn’t wish to cause him any discomfort—and then at the appropriate moment an ice pick will render him brain dead, and he will begin the short journey to the end of his life.

When Ted passed away I was sitting in the hospital cafeteria, sipping a cup of coffee, munching on a chocolate-chip cookie and mindlessly watching CNN. Talking heads jabbering about politics or crime or maybe something inane, who knew, since the volume was blessedly down. And I was having trouble holding a coherent thought in my head, not having slept in more than twenty-four hours. Ted had been through about four crash codes in that time period, but when I’d left him he’d been resting peacefully, and it was my intention to return to his bedside and stay with him for however long it took, days or weeks, it didn’t matter. That’s what I tried to tell myself. The truth is that knowing he was dying didn’t mean I was ready for it to actually happen. Just as I hadn’t been willing to accept that his form of lymphoma was a death sentence.

At first I’d wanted him home, made comfortable with hospice care, so it would happen in familiar surroundings, but he’d said no. Afraid of spooking Tommy by letting death into house. If the boy were older and could comprehend what was going on, maybe, but how would a child react at four? Why risk inflicting more trauma than necessary? Ted wanted Tommy to remember him alive and happy, not in pain and dying. Best to stay under medical supervision, where they knew what to do, how to cope with the terminal cases.

Trouble was, I didn’t know how to cope. And to this day I’m convinced that Ted chose his moment, sending me away for coffee and a cookie while he prepared to leave his poor, ruined body.

Randall Shane is different, but somehow the same. Not a husband or a lover, but most definitely a friend. And here I am, keeping vigil, at least for a few precious minutes.

“Mrs. Brickyard?”

It feels silly and a bit stupid answering to the wrong name—must have been Mike Vernon’s doing, as they loaded Shane into the ambulance—but I can’t bring myself to correct the E.R. doctor, just in case he’s been tuned in to the local news.

The man in the white coat looks a bit like Doogie Howser, M.D., but he’s all business, with none of Doogie’s sympathetic bedside manner. Only on TV, I guess. Impossible to say what he’s about to impart, as his expression gives nothing away.

“I’m Dr. Vance,” he announces, then checks his notes before continuing. “Mr. Shane is badly concussed, as we assumed.”