Pushing the notebook at Murphy, she jumped up for her knapsack purse, where she'd been carrying her own list of cardiac arrest victims. "You don't think we could be this lucky, could we?" she asked, yanking them out and adding them to the pile.

"Of course we can," Murphy assured her, his finger steadily tracking down the crinkled, lined page. "That's how reporting works. Just ask Geraldo Rivera."

Even so, when they matched up every name but one, Murphy was the one to let out the low whistle. "It's almost a dead match. Fifteen out of sixteen are on that cardiac arrest list."

Timmie grimaced. "Nice turn of phrase, Murphy. You should be a reporter..." Reaching out to the list, she pointed to the only name that didn't match up. "Bertha Worthmueller," she said, tapping the paper. "I know her. I took care of her the other night. Tiny little woman with a big nose. Looks like a mole."

Murphy scowled. "Don't ever take care of me, Leary. I don't think I could stand the affection."

But Timmie was already shaking her head. "No, that's not the point. She's the only surviving old-timer, and she hasn't been doing well. I remember Ellen saying it when she was taking care of her, and she was right. She's been weak and nauseated. They've had her on parenteral nutrition only for the last four days."

Murphy raised an eyebrow. "She's also ninety-three and has Alzheimer's."

Timmie glared at him. "What if she's already being poisoned?" she demanded. "Nobody'd notice. Like you said, she's old, she's sick, and she has Alzheimer's, just like all the others."

Murphy sat back and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. Shaking one out, he didn't bother to light it, just stuck it in his mouth, as if the oral stimulation was all he needed in order to think. "And you think who, exactly, is poisoning her?"

Timmie glared at him. "Not Landry, okay? It still doesn't mean it can't be Mary Jane or Davies or anybody who works up in that unit."

"Or the golden boy."

"No."

"He'd have access. He'd have motive. He'd have the weapon."

"No."

Murphy leaned back, crossed his arms, raised his eyebrows. The farther away he moved from her, the faster Timmie's heart worked. Timmie was amazed how quickly one could go from elation to distress. The thrill of the hunt had just become "Oh shit, the tiger's turned on me."

"Only one way to make sure," he said easily. "Watch her. Watch him. Make sure he never sees her alone."

"I can't."

"Which? Check the drugs? Control access? Take care of her?"

She got to her feet. "Do it alone," she said, walking. "And who else will help? Who can we trust up there?"

There was a tiny silence, and then Murphy's quiet question. "You don't trust the golden boy after all?"

Timmie still couldn't look at Murphy. "You don't understand." She was pacing now, using every inch of space in the room. Swinging at the Nerf ball as she walked past.

"Make me understand."

"What, in twenty-five words or less?"

She couldn't look at him. Hell, she couldn't even breathe. She'd known this was coming. She should have prepared. Set aside some of her store of guts to ride it through.

Behind her, Murphy rustled in his chair. "Are you saying you're falling in love with him?"

Well, at least that was worth a laugh. "You've been watching way too much ER, Murphy."

"Then what?"

Again, that terrible feeling of claustrophobia. The weight of inevitability she'd been running from all these years. Timmie walked over to the window, where she could see the tidy columns of yellow mums marching along her clean walk to the street. The last of the leaves were falling, leaving behind spectral trees against a cold sky. The lush, soft town of summer was being stripped of its guise and left with reality.

"I need Alex to be innocent," she said, not knowing how to say what she'd never before admitted. "If he isn't, there isn't anybody for my father."

Timmie didn't see Murphy, but she heard the hesitation in his voice. "There's you."

"You want coffee?" she asked, spinning around and heading straight for the kitchen. "I want coffee. Hell, I want a drink, but I don't drink. So coffee it is."

He followed her right to the edge of the kitchen, and just stood there.

"Leary?"

Timmie refused to look at him. She slammed through cabinets as if she were chasing cockroaches.

And Murphy waited.

Timmie pulled out coffee. She pulled out filters and she pulled out cups. Finally, though, she couldn't pull anything else out, and she couldn't manage to actually put everything together. So she stood there, her hands on the counter, staring at an empty coffee machine and thinking how much she hated what she had to do.

"You have kids, Murphy?" she asked.

"Yep." He sounded a tad confused.

Timmie nodded to herself. Sucked in a slow breath for courage, lifted her head, and stared out the window.

"I wonder if you know how much they hate you."

Silence. She hadn't expected anything else. So she faced him, and she told him.

"I have a feeling that you weren't just a great drunk, Murphy. You were a magnificent drunk. Larger than life, charismatic as hell. Brilliant and funny and beautiful. And when you got home, still a drunk. Still undependable and forgetful and unintentionally cruel. Still smelling like piss and vomit in the morning when your kids crept into bed to find a safe place. Still provoking massive, howling arguments that were more terrifying than storms, and walking back out to drink some more as if none of it mattered."

She wasn't going to cry. Not in front of Murphy. Not in front of anybody. She hadn't done it in years, and she wasn't going to do it now. But, God, faced with Murphy's tight, closed expression, all Timmie could think of was how her chest hurt. "Your kids would do anything," she said, her voice hushed, "anything to belong to you, because that's all kids want. But you never noticed, and so eventually they'll give up and belong to something else."

She blinked fast. Swallowed. Finished.

"Alex only knew my father when he was brilliant and beautiful," she said. "So I know he'll fight for him, no matter what I say."

Murphy was so still Timmie wondered if she'd frozen him into immobility. Or insulted him to death.

But Murphy was made of stronger stuff. Most great drunks were.

"You really hate him?" he asked.

She couldn't help but smile. "Oh, yes. Every bit as much as I adore him. I was the lucky one in the family. I got to see him when he was beautiful, too. So I may be the queen of denial, but I'm also the grand empress of ambivalence."

Timmie didn't know what she expected after that. She didn't expect Murphy to really understand, no matter how smart he was. She certainly didn't expect him to forgive her. So she turned back to her coffee and braced herself for his reaction.

"I'm sorry, Leary," he said.

She closed her eyes. Son of a bitch. How dare he?

"Don't be sorry, Murphy," she said. "Just help me catch the son of a bitch who's doing this so I never have to talk about this shit again as long as I live."

Chapter 19

Timmie made her coffee. Murphy made his own copy of the list and went home. The house got very quiet. Too quiet, with just the hum of the refrigerator and the hall clock for company. Too still with nothing in motion but a second hand. Timmie hummed. She paced the kitchen and consigned a couple of piles of debris to the trash. She took a dozen swings at the Nerf ball and cleaned up the sewing box she'd left out and watched the clock until Meghan was due home, like a prisoner ticking off the days of her sentence.