When we were within a dozen feet of the Canadian psychologist, McCoy called out.

“Doctor? Doctor Charpentier?”

Charpentier half turned and saw us. He was wearing a red bandana under the floppy white hat, a sweatband. His face lit with the prospect of visitors and turned away as he set his hoe against a nearby wheelbarrow and pulled the buds from his ears.

McCoy said, “Doctor, I want you to meet one of your temporary neighbors. He’s renting Road’s End.”

Charpentier turned fully to me. He stripped away the sweatband, then removed his sunglasses. My knees softened and a hiss rose in my ears.

Charpentier was Jeremy Ridgecliff. My brother. Two years gone from the Alabama Institute for Aberrational Behavior, an escapee.

Jeremy grabbed my hand in his right hand, his left hand under my forearm, steadying me. His palm was as hard and dry as oak. His eyes twinkled with delight.

“So pleased to meet you, Mr Ryder,” he said, his voice inflected with a French accent. “Have you journeyed far?”

My first attempt at speech was a dry hack.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Charpentier smiled. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“Our guest is from Mobile, Alabama,” McCoy offered. “He’s a police detective. Part of his work involves psychology. A subject we’d like to talk to you about. We have a problem in the Gorge area, and may be able to use your expertise.”

“My, my … I’m so infrequently useful these days. Anything I can do to help will be an honor, Detective, uh … I’m sorry,” he said, flicking the ear buds at his neck. “I play my music too loud and my ears take a few moments to recover. You said your name was Carton? Is that like Sydney Carton in the Dickens novel, A Tale of Two Brothers?”

“Carson,” McCoy corrected. “It’s Carson Ryder. And wasn’t that A Tale of Two Cities, Doctor?”

Jeremy clapped his hands. “Of course. My subconscious mingled the title with two characters in the story, Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. They were close as brothers.” Jeremy looked at me with amusement. “I forget, Mr Ryder … which man sacrificed himself for the other?”

“I don’t recall,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

My brother struck the exaggerated profile of a ham actor. “’Tis a far far better thing I do now than …” He turned back to me. “Or something suitably noble. Now then, Mister Carson Ryder, what sort of detecting do you do that involves psychology?”

“Homicide. Plus I also work a special unit that tracks psychopaths and sociopaths.”

“Oddly enough, I’ve had a bit of experience there,” my brother said, innocent as a starling.

Ten minutes later, Jeremy and I stood side by side on the porch of a fictitious Canadian psychologist and watched as McCoy drove away, Jeremy waving and calling adieu! Claiming other duties, McCoy had dismissed himself after the length of a glass of iced tea.

When I heard McCoy’s vehicle finish grinding up the steep lane to the top of the ridge, I turned to Jeremy.

“Explanation time, brother,” I said.

12

I followed Jeremy inside. The living room was a huge space, stone fireplace holding one end, bookshelves the other. Windows reached from the shelves to the vaulted ceiling peak. The wood walls shone softly, polished to a buttery gloss. The furniture was more delicate than the cabin; a couch, sofa and chair set on a braided rug inscribing an oval on the oak floor. A low table set centered the grouping. A chrome lamp arched fifteen feet from its base in the corner to the shade floating over the table. To the rear I saw a well-appointed kitchen with hanging pots, a beaten copper counter.

Though the exterior proclaimed rustic, the interior said Manhattan loft, reminding me that, in Manhattan, my brother had scammed a delusional paranoiac man into stealing from his brother-in-law. The take amounted to tens of thousands of dollars that he’d used in his escape and subsequent hideaways, but even the whole sum would have been nowhere near what this place cost.

“This must have cost a fortune, Jeremy,” I said. “Where’d you steal the money?”

Jeremy turned to me, his eyes guarded and cryptic. “I’ve learned a modest trade.”

“You? A trade?”

He gestured me upstairs to a room devoid of décor, like a cell, or a place where attention was riveted on a single task, no distraction allowed. The shades were drawn, everything lit solely by a bank of computer screens, four in all. The monitors sat on a long desk with a single ergonomic chair, a keyboard angled in front of the chair. The same screensaver played on all monitors, a white line inscribing random shapes against the dark.

My brother, who spent the bulk of his time in dark spaces in his mind, preferred this sort of room. The warm and bright furnishings downstairs were just a stage set for visitors. Jeremy crossed to the desk, tapped a button, turning the screensaver into charts and graphs, stock symbols and prices ticking in the corners.

“You play the stock market?” I asked.

Jeremy grinned, his eyes cold in the glare of the monitor images. “The market has but two states, Carson: scared child or blustering drunkard. I feel which one’s in charge and place my bets accordingly. Yesterday the blustering drunkard opened the shop. I bought a medical firm at four bucks a share. Just before noon I sold at six and a half. At one the scared child took control, and my former med stock plunged to under three within a half-hour. I shorted on another stock that promptly dropped a third of its value. Yesterday I made over four thousand dollars pressing keys on my computer. I’ve become quite the little capitalist, brother.”

“Under the name of Charpentier, no doubt.”

“The process of creating the identity involved a child who died in Moose Hat in 1963, plus a few brilliantly manufactured certificates from the underground market.”

“So you started your stock operation before you arrived? That’s how you made the money to buy this place?”

Jeremy smiled as if he hadn’t heard my question. He clapped a hand on my shoulder, squeezed it to the point of pain.

“Come, Brother, let’s have a drink to celebrate our joyous reunion.”

We retreated downstairs where Jeremy fetched iced teas and we sat in the living room. Though resembling a handsome and distinguished professor in his late forties, the eyes, voice and mannerisms were fully Jeremy’s. I felt if I could grab the top of his scalp and pull, the professor would become a limp costume in my hand, my forty-two-year-old brother revealed, naked and scheming.

“The way I’m figuring things, Jeremy,” I said, “you tricked me here.”

He crossed his long legs, a man at ease. “The last we talked, you were planning a vacation, but dithering over destination. I went to the cabin-rental place and bought you a contest to win. The owner, Dottie, thought it all very cute. She said, ‘He won’t really believe I kept his name for nine years, will he?’ I said, ‘Hon, this guy believes in love.’”

“You mimicked Donna Cherry’s voice. Sent me to the crime scene.”

“I heard them nattering on my police-band radio, talking about a dead body, where it was located and so forth. They seemed confused and I thought you should meet the local constabulary.”

“Why?”

He looked at me like I was the one not making sense. “Aren’t dead bodies your field of endeavor?”

“I got there first, Jeremy. I could have been killed.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. Did you like my interpretation of Miz Cherry’s voice? I hybridized Scarlett O’Hara with a cat in heat. Is the lady prettier than her voice?”

“Yes,” I sighed. Talking to my brother was like talking into a whirlwind of conversational snippets.

“She’d have to be. Are you fucking her yet?”

“What?”

“If she’s pretty, you’ve commenced a charm offensive to get into her pants, Carson. You need the attention.”