"Uh-huh."

"Something went wrong. I had all the plans made. This woman was going to pay me back a lot of money I'd loaned her. But she lied to me."

"What happened?"

Pell was looking Jennie right in the eye. He reflected quickly that the only person who'd ever caught him lying was Kathryn Dance. But thinking of her was a distraction so he put her out of his mind. "She had her own plans, it turned out. She was going to use me. And you too."

"Me? She knows me?"

"Not your name. But from the news she knows we're together. She wanted me to leave you."

"Why?"

"So she and I could be together. She wanted to go away with me."

"This was somebody you used to know?"

"That's right."

"Oh." Jennie fell silent.

Jealousy…

"I told her no, of course. There's no way I'd even think about that."

An attempted purr. It didn't work.

Sweetheart…

"And Susan got mad. She said she was going to the police. She'd turn us both in." Pell's face contorted with pain. "I tried to talk her out of it. But she wouldn't listen."

"What happened?"

He glanced at the car. "I brought her here. I didn't have any choice. She was trying to call the police."

Alarmed, Jennie looked up and didn't see anybody in the car.

"In the trunk."

"Oh, God. Is she-"

"No," Pell answered slowly, "she's okay. She's tied up. That's the problem. I don't know what to do now."

"She still wants to turn you in?"

"Can you believe it?" he asked breathlessly. "I begged her. But she's not right in the head. Like your husband, remember? He kept hurting you even though he knew he'd get arrested. Susan's the same. She can't control herself." He sighed angrily. "I was fair to her. And she cheated me. She spent all the money. I was going to pay you back with it. For the car. For everything you've done."

"You don't have to worry about the money, sweetheart. I want to spend it on us."

"No, I'm going to pay you back." Never, ever let a woman know you want her for her money. And never, ever be in another human being's debt.

He kissed her in a preoccupied way. "But what're we going to do now?"

Jennie avoided his gaze and stared into the sun. "I…I don't know, sweetheart. I'm not…" Her voice ran out of steam, just like her thoughts.

He squeezed her leg. "I can't let anything hurt us. I love you so much."

Faintly: "And I love you, Daniel."

He took the knife from his pocket. Stared at it. "I don't want to. I really don't. People've been hurt yesterday because of us."

Us. Not me.

She caught the distinction. He could sense it in the stiffening of her shoulders.

He continued, "But I didn't do that intentionally. It was accidental. But this…I don't know." He turned the knife over and over in his hand.

She pressed against him, staring at the blade flashing in the sunset. She was shivering hard.

"Will you help me, lovely? I can't do it by myself."

Jennie started to cry. "I don't know, sweetheart. I don't think I can." Her eyes were fixed on the rump of the car.

Pell kissed her head. "We can't let anything hurt us. I couldn't live without you."

"Me too." She sucked in breath. Her jaw was quivering as much as her fingers.

"Help me, please." A whisper. He rose, helped her to her feet and they continued to the Lexus. He gave her the knife, closed his hand around hers. "I'm not strong enough alone," he confessed. "But together…we can do it together." He looked at her, eyes bright. "It'll be like a pact. You know, like a lovers' pact. It means we're bonded as close as two people can be. Like blood brothers. We'd be blood lovers."

He reached into the car and hit the trunk-release button. Jennie barked a faint scream at the sound.

"Help me, lovely. Please." He led her toward the trunk.

Then she stopped.

She handed him the knife, sobbing. "Please…I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, sweetheart. Don't be mad. I can't do it. I just can't."

Pell said nothing, just nodded. Her miserable eyes, her tears reflecting red from the melting sun.

It was an intoxicating sight.

"Don't be mad at me, Daniel. I couldn't stand it if you were mad."

Pell hesitated for three heartbeats, the perfect length of time to hatch uncertainty. "It's okay. I'm not mad."

"Am I still your lovely?"

Another pause. "Of course you are." He told her to go wait in the car.

"I-"

"Go wait for me. It's okay." He said nothing more and Jennie walked back to the Toyota. He continued to the trunk of the Lexus and looked down.

At Susan Pemberton's lifeless body.

He'd killed her an hour before, in the parking lot of her building. Suffocated her with duct tape.

Pell had never intended Jennie help him kill the woman. He'd known she'd balk. This whole incident was merely another lesson in the education of his pupil.

She'd moved a step closer to where he wanted her. Death and violence were on the table now. For at least five or ten seconds she'd considered slipping the knife into a human body, prepared to watch the blood flow, prepared to watch a human life vanish. Last week she'd never have been able to conceive of the thought; next week she'd consider it for a longer period.

Then she might actually agree to help him kill someone. And later still? Maybe he could get her to the point where she'd commit murder by herself. He'd gotten the girls in the Family to do things they hadn't wanted to-but only petty crimes. Nothing violent. Daniel Pell, though, believed he had the talent to turn Jennie Marston into a robot who would do whatever he ordered, even kill.

He slammed the trunk. Then snagging a pine branch, he used it to obscure the footprints in the sand. He returned to the car, sweeping behind him. He told Jennie to drive up the road until the car was on gravel and he obliterated the tire prints, as well. He joined her.

"I'll drive," he said.

"I'm sorry, Daniel," she said, wiping her face. "I'll make it up to you."

Begging for reassurance.

But the lesson plan dictated that he give no response whatsoever.

He was a curious man, Kathryn Dance was thinking.

Morton Nagle tugged at his sagging pants and sat down at the coffee table in her office, opening a battered briefcase.

He was a bit of a slob, his thinning hair disheveled, goatee unevenly trimmed, gray shirt cuffs frayed, body spongy. But he seemed comfortable with his physique, Dance the kinesics analyst assessed. His mannerisms, precise and economical, were stress-free. His eyes, with their elfin twinkle, performed triage, deciding instantly what was important and what wasn't. When he'd entered her office, he'd ignored the decor, noted what Dance's face revealed (probably exhaustion), gave young Rey Carraneo a friendly but meaningless glance and fixed immediately on Winston Kellogg.

And after he learned Kellogg's employer, the writer's eyes narrowed a bit further, wondering what an FBI agent was doing here.

Kellogg was dressed quite unfederal compared with this morning-in a beige checkered sports coat, dark slacks and blue dress shirt. He wore no tie. Still, his behavior was right out of the bureau, as noncommittal as their agents always are. He told Nagle only that he was here as an observer, "helping out."

The writer offered one of his chuckles, which seemed to mean: I'll get you to talk.

"Rebecca and Linda have agreed to help us," Dance told him.

He lifted an eyebrow. "Really? The other one, Samantha?"

"No, not her."

Nagle extracted three sheets of paper from his briefcase. He set them on the table. "My mini-opus, if that's not an oxymoron. A brief history of Daniel Pell."

Kellogg scooted his chair next to Dance's. Unlike with O'Neil, she could detect no aftershave.