“Why do you think he killed him?” Jessica kept watching LeBrun’s jittery profile.

“Who the fuck knows? Maybe the kid kept trying to bum cigarettes from him like he did me. Maybe Larry just got fucking tired of giving him smokes. And he’d hang around, you know, always trying to get a cookie or something. Maybe Larry got sick of it.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good reason to kill a person.” Jessica had mended the knife cut in her down jacket with a piece of silver duct tape and she kept picking at it.

“What d’you know about it? You an expert on killing people? Maybe Larry just got fed up. You hear what I’m saying? Maybe he was fed up right to here.” LeBrun took his hand off the wheel and wiped a finger across the top of his forehead. “I seen it happen. You think someone doesn’t have a reason to kill a person but there’s always a reason. Like killing someone for the fun of it, even that’s a reason, right? Maybe not a good reason but it’s a reason. Maybe Larry killed him just for the fun of it. Like a sick joke.”

“He didn’t seem like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like crazy, I guess.”

LeBrun glanced at her angrily. “What do you know about crazy? You don’t know shit. People aren’t crazy, nobody’s crazy. They’re just not all the same, that’s all. Fuckin’ diversity, that’s what they call it. Like tall guys and short guys.”

“It seems pretty crazy to kill a person for no reason.”

LeBrun hit the flat of his hand on the steering wheel. “The kid went and got himself killed. Maybe if he’d been minding his business, it wouldn’t have happened.”

Jessica kept silent for a moment, then she asked, “Do you think someone paid him to kill Scott?”

“Who the fuck would pay him?” LeBrun kept shifting in his seat, as if he were sitting on a broken spring.

“I don’t know, maybe somebody who didn’t like Scott. Maybe a relative.”

“Shit, you’re as bad as the fucking cops. I should make you sit in the back of the truck and freeze your ass off. That’s what you’ll get if you don’t shut up.”

Jessica kept silent. Her backpack with her clothes was by her feet and when she moved she could feel her money belt. She had given LeBrun a thousand dollars and had said she would give him another thousand when she got away with Jason. Actually, she had been surprised that he had trusted her. On the other hand, she wouldn’t have the nerve to cheat him. She would hate to have him come looking for her.

“Maybe it was an inheritance,” said Jessica after another minute, “maybe he was supposed to inherit some money and now it’s going to somebody else. Maybe that somebody paid your cousin to kill him. You know, a contract killing.”

“What did I say? You want to sit back there in the cold?”

“You think your cousin threw my kitten into the pool?”

LeBrun slammed on the brakes and Jessica was thrown forward against the dash. The tires squealed as the truck fishtailed. When the pickup came to a stop, LeBrun shouted, “I’ve had fuckin’ enough! Get in the back!”

“No, Frank, please, I won’t say anymore.”

“Get in the back!”

Jessica opened the door. There were no lights on the road and it was cold. Once she had climbed into the bed of the pickup, LeBrun started up quickly so she slipped on the cold metal and banged against the tailgate.

Fortunately, she only had to ride in the back for about ten minutes. Still, it was freezing and she couldn’t curl herself up tight enough to stay warm. The metal floor was like ice on her butt. The bumps were jarring and she had to hold on to the side, otherwise she would slide around.

At the edge of Exeter, LeBrun pulled into a supermarket parking lot and let her back in the cab. “Okay, show me where you live, but don’t open your trap about anything else.”

Jessica had sent Jason another letter, then talked to him twice on the phone. Jason had said that Tremblay would be out of town, that he was flying to Chicago. And by nine o’clock Dolly was usually so drunk that it was impossible to wake her. Jessica knew; she had tried. Jason had promised to leave the front door unlocked. They would get him and drive down to Boston to the bus station, where they would take the first bus going south. The next day, Saturday, they would be in Washington and she could call her uncle, at least to talk to him, if not to stay with him. And she would tell him about Tremblay, tell him about every awful thing that Tremblay had ever done.

The house on Maple Street was dark, but that didn’t surprise Jessica. It was past ten and Dolly was either in bed or asleep in front of the TV in the den. It was a tall late-eighteenth-century house, perfectly symmetrical, with no curving lines—a pretty, oversized shoe box was how she described it to herself. Jessica didn’t think of the house as hers. It was Tremblay’s house, even though her father had bought it after he and Dolly had gotten married. But Tremblay had put his stamp on it and it smelled of him. He had gotten rid of everything that had belonged to her father, except those things that Tremblay wanted for himself, like her father’s leather chair and his shotguns and hunting rifles. Every time Jessica saw Tremblay in her father’s chair, she felt angry. She had wanted to tell him that it was her chair now. Even the house was hers. One time she told him that when she got her money she would kick him out, but Tremblay had just laughed.

LeBrun parked in front, although Jessica would have preferred him to park down the street, but she was afraid to say anything and she was still cold from sitting in the back of the truck. When they got out, LeBrun shut his door too loudly. Jessica wondered what the neighbors would do if they saw them, whether they would call the police. The large Federalist houses had big yards and old trees. Maybe the neighbors wouldn’t notice the pickup, maybe no dogs would start barking.

Jessica led the way up the walk to the front steps. The yard was covered with snow, though the walk had been shoveled. There was a snowman without a head that her brother must have built. Not too many years before, she had been building snowmen herself. Exeter didn’t have as much snow as Bishop’s Hill—only a few inches. Between the racing clouds, she could see a few stars. LeBrun walked noisily and again she wanted to tell him to be quiet. She had said she could get Jason by herself, that LeBrun should stay in the truck, but he insisted on coming. “I like seeing rich people’s houses,” he had said. “I want to see what I’m aiming for.” As for Jason, she’d told him to pack a small bag and to take nothing that wasn’t really necessary. Jason had said he had saved fifteen dollars and she had been touched by that. Jessica pressed down on the latch and the front door opened. Stepping inside, she smelled the stale odor of Tremblay’s cigars and the cleaning detergent that the maid used. It made her recall other times, not nice times. LeBrun came in after her, scuffing his feet.

“Can’t you be quiet?” she whispered angrily.

LeBrun snorted.

Jessica heard the grandfather clock ticking in the living room and the hum of the refrigerator. She had thought Jason would be down in the hall waiting for her. She couldn’t believe he had fallen asleep, even though it was past his bedtime. She had told him to wait in the hall, but perhaps he was in the living room. She recalled several times when he had gone to sleep on the couch.

Jessica went to the entrance of the living room. “Jason,” she whispered. She moved quietly to a floor lamp by her father’s old leather chair and turned it on. The living room was empty. She turned the light off again. She felt angry and frightened. If it hadn’t been for Jason, she would have gone down to Boston on her own.

“So now what’re you going to do?” asked LeBrun when she had returned to the hall. “Looks like your little brother’s let you down.”

“Maybe he’s in his room upstairs.”