“Why?” I said, when I had enough air in my lungs to get the word out cleanly.

“Well, after you learned about Marion and Buzzy, I assumed you’d want to talk to her.”

I looked around the living room. It was clear Marion was not living here anymore. There were no books in the bookshelves. Wherever Marion went, there were books. “You tell him to tell me?”

“No, sir. Never met the gentleman.”

“But you have met the Macs, I’m guessing.”

“And who might the Macs be?”

“Mike McBeth, Jerry McQuaid, Declan McCoppin, maybe.”

“Ah, those Macs.” He grinned in what was meant to pass for irony. Grinning did not become Roland Andrews. It made you want to cover his mouth with your hand. “Fine fellows, one and all. Would like to change the legal establishment down in your neck of the woods, from what I understand.”

“And why are you involved? What’s in it for you?”

“Why, I’ve got a job to do, Georgie. I told you that back in Philly when we first met. And here I am, lo these many years later. Still doing it.”

“Screwing up my life, you mean.”

“Hey, you screwed up your own life, son. Threw in your lot with the Gregorys.” His eyes, small to begin with, narrowed into mere slits.

I had not moved from my position in front of the wall. I would have moved, but I wasn’t sure where to go. The living room was not that big. It had black-leather-and-chrome furniture and all of it matched. Quite different from what she had bought for our house.

“What’s your relationship with her?”

I didn’t have to use her name. He knew whom I meant. That was why he smirked. Given how thin his lips were, it came more naturally to him than a grin. “You might say employer to employee.”

My knees wobbled. I wanted very much to sit down. No, I wanted to run. Run right at Roland Andrews. Run through him and then through that window that ran the length and breadth of the wall behind him, get myself up in the air six floors above Storrow Drive, pumping my legs and swirling my arms just as I had when I’d leaped off the cliff in Idaho. Run, leap, fall.

“You shouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “I told you that things were going to happen that never would have if you hadn’t done what you did.” Somehow Roland had gotten his hand on my arm. He was not gripping it like he was going to break it this time. He was guiding me into a seat, into one of the black-leather-and-chrome chairs.

“You want some water, Georgie?”

I didn’t answer and he didn’t get it. I think he was afraid of what might occur if he left the room.

When Marion lived here she had African masks, Tibetan prayer rugs, a photograph of a hillside village in Italy that she said was her ancestral home. She had … stuff. Now there was nothing personal at all. It could have been a hotel room.

“Where is she?”

“Gone back to Washington. She wanted to do it long before she did. We convinced her to stay on for a while, that was all.”

Looking out the window I could see the Charles River and Cambridge on the other side. I could see sailboats on the water and cars on Memorial Drive. People enjoying themselves, driving home, going on errands, living normal lives. Not me. I couldn’t even marry normally. “So this whole thing was just work to her?”

“I didn’t say that, Georgie. I think there was a time she really liked you.”

Until when? The Berkshires? Until she didn’t move down the Cape? Until she met Buzzy? Out loud, I said, “Until she met you?”

“Well, you gotta figure, Georgie, here you were, right in the Gregorys’ home base, right in their nest, so to speak. But you don’t join any clubs, don’t go out partying; you don’t even date. The only thing you ever did was ride your damn bike. Hard to make contact with someone on the road cruising by himself. So we made contact with her, instead.”

I was fumbling with the math. Twelve years since I had witnessed Kendrick Powell being violated. Eleven and a half since I had last seen this evil little creature in front of me. Eight since I had joined the D.A.’s office.

Andrews read my mind. “Mr. Powell is a patient man, Georgie. He’s had to be. He tried to act quickly once, and that’s when you let him down.”

Five years since she reappeared in my life.

“So you sent her down the Cape to hook up with me, huh?”

“No. We just saw her with you, recognized her from that little stunt she pulled with the police in Old Town, Alexandria, and thought, well, she might be game.”

Spring of my first year of law school. Nineteen ninety-seven. Eleven years ago. They recognized Marion from then. My breath was coming in short spurts. I looked at Andrews. I looked past him to the window. I wanted to run again.

Roland had been standing the entire time. Now he took a seat on the black-leather-and-chrome couch at right angles to my black-leather-and-chrome chair. It was a good place for him to sit. He could block me if I moved. Tackle me if I bolted.

“She did have a job up here,” I asked, my voice tight. “Didn’t she? With a law firm?” I didn’t want to sound as though I was pleading, but I knew I was.

“Oh, yes. Got the job, contacted you, came down to see you all on her own. At first, we were just watching, hoping she’d loosen you up a bit. Talk you into going to some of those Gregory soirées.”

Of course. The ones to which I had never been invited.

“But you proved to be a tough nut to crack, Georgie. As far as I can tell, you’ve never even been in the Gregory compound. With or without Marion.”

“What good would it have done you if I had?”

“Who knows? But there would be something. With the Gregorys, there always is.”

“So it all proved to be a big waste of time, didn’t it?” I was trying to be smug. “All that watching, all that scheming.”

“Not really. We’re here now, aren’t we?” Andrews smiled. It was an ugly thing. A fissure in a glacier.

“We’re here because you paid my wife to spy on me.”

“No, George. We’re here because the Gregorys murdered Heidi Telford.”

My head was suddenly too light to stay upright. It wanted to fall forward onto my chest. It wanted to drift away. It wanted to spin in different directions. Somehow I kept my eyes on Roland Andrews. I wanted to search his face, look for clues as to how one thing had led to another, but for several moments I could not quite get it in focus.

“I’m not going to help you,” I said at last. It was a statement of desperation, a claim more of spite than of purpose.

“Oh, but you already are. I mean, you just led us to Patty Margolis, didn’t you?”

Sometimes you get hit with so many things you become inured. You start looking for them, expecting them, almost not caring when they rip into you. “You followed me?”

“I’d say it’s a safe bet someone’s always following you, Georgie. Pull up at a red light, look at the guy in the car next to you. Think, Does he know Roland? Is he one of Roland’s guys?”

Was it possible? Twelve years of watching me go to school, go to work, go home at night and watch television?

“How about the people on that airplane that flew you into Indian Creek? They legit rafters or they working for Mr. Powell? Tell me, Georgie, you see anybody on that raft trip that maybe shouldn’t have been there? Any couple that struck you as maybe not being a couple or who didn’t do the things everybody else did?”

“You had me followed to Idaho?”

Roland Andrews laughed. At least that is what I think he was doing. It came out in a gruff barking sound, like he was spitting up a hairball. “Maybe I was there myself. You check out that little landing strip at Loon Creek?”

“You shoot at me, Roland?” It was the first time I had ever used his Christian name. It was meant to reduce him to my level. To show that he was every bit as venal as I was.

“Do you really think I’d miss if I shot at you?”

No, I didn’t think that. But maybe his henchmen would. The couple that had been blown off the raft, the ones who had declined to go to the hot springs.