This baroque sense of responsibility had plagued her much of her life, though her Homeland therapist, a skinny, pale girl who had the nervous, awkward movements of a virgin, always turned the equation around. It wasn't that Janet Simmons was responsible for all the people in her life; it was that Janet Simmons believed she could be responsible for them. "Control," the virgin told her. "You think you can control everything. That's a serious error of perception."

"You're saying I have control issues?" Simmons taunted, but the virgin was tougher than she looked.

"No, Janet. I'm saying you're a megalomaniac. Good news is, you chose the right profession."

So, her urge to right Milo Weaver's wrongs had nothing to do with justice, empathy, philanthropy, or even equal rights for women. That didn't mean that her actions, in themselves, were not virtuous-even the virgin would admit that.

Yet for weeks her desires had been stumped by a simple lack of real evidence. She could place Weaver at the deaths of the victims, but she wanted more. She wanted reasons.

The Weavers' brownstone lay on a street of brownstones, though theirs was noticeably more run-down. The front door was unlocked, so she climbed the stairs without buzzing anyone. On the third floor, she rang the bell.

It took a moment, but finally she heard the soft pad of bare feet on wood leading up to the door; the spy hole darkened.

"Tina?" She produced her Homeland ID and held it out. "It's Janet. Just need a few minutes of your time."

The shift of the chain being undone. The door opened, and Tina Weaver stared back at her, barefoot, in pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. No bra. She looked the same as at their last meeting in Disney World, only more tired.

"Did I come at the wrong time?"

Tina Weaver's body shrank slightly at the sight of Simmons. "I'm not sure I should speak to you. You hounded him."

"I think Milo killed two people. Maybe three. You expect me to let that go?"

She shrugged.

"Did you know he's back?" Tina didn't ask where or when; she just blinked. "He turned himself in. He's at the Manhattan office.”

“He's all right?"

"He's in trouble, but he's fine. Can I come in?"

Milo Weaver's wife wasn't listening anymore. She was walking down the corridor toward the living room, leaving the door open. Simmons followed her to a low-ceilinged room with a big flat-screen television but old, cheap-looking furniture. Tina dropped onto the sofa, knees up to her chin, and watched Simmons take a seat.

"Stephanie's at school?"

"It's summer vacation, Special Agent. She's with the sitter.”

“They're not missing you at work?"

"Yes, well." Tina wiped something off her arm. "The library's flexible when you're the director."

"The Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, at Columbia. Very impressive."

Tina's expression doubted anyone would be impressed by that. "You going to ask your questions, or what? I'm pretty good at answering. I've had plenty of practice."

"Recently?"

"The Company sent some goons two days ago, right in this room."

"I didn't know."

"You guys aren't very good at communicating, are you?"

Simmons rocked her head. "The different agencies cooperate like an estranged couple. But we're in counseling," she said, smiling to cover her annoyance: Fitzhugh had lied about interrogating Tina. "Fact is, we're now investigating your husband on multiple levels, with the hope of understanding how the levels connect."

Tina blinked again. "What multiple levels?"

"Well, murder, as I said. Two suspected murders and one verified murder."

"Verified? Verified how?"

"Milo confessed to killing Thomas Grainger."

Simmons braced herself for an explosion, but got none. Wet, red-rimmed eyes, yes, and tears. Then, a quiet sobbing that shook Tina's whole body, her elevated knees swaying. "Look, I'm sorry, but-"

"Tom?" she spat out. "Tom Fucking Grainger? No…" She shook her head. "Why would he kill Tom? He's Stef's godfather!"

Tina cried for a few seconds, face down, then raised her head, cheeks damp.

"What does he say?"

"What?"

"Milo. You said he confessed. What's his goddamned excuse?"

Simmons wondered how to put it. "Milo claims that Tom used him, and in a fit of anger he killed the man."

Tina wiped at her eyes. With eerie calmness, she said, "Fit of anger?"

"Yes."

"No. Milo, he-he doesn't have fits of anger. He's not that kind of person."

"It's hard to know what people are really like."

A smile filled Tina's face, but it didn't match her voice: "Don't be condescending, Special Agent. After six years, day-in-day-out, with the stress of raising a child, you get a pretty good idea what someone's like."

"Okay," said Simmons. "I take it back. You tell me, then-why would Milo kill Tom Grainger?"

It didn't take long for Tina to reach a conclusion: "Only two reasons I can think of. If he was ordered to do it by the Company."

"That's one. The other?"

"If he needed to protect his family."

"He's protective?"

"Not freakishly so, but yes. If he thought we were in serious danger, Milo would take whatever steps necessary to remove that danger."

"I see," Simmons said, as if committing this to memory. "A week ago, he visited you. In Texas. You were at your parents' house, right?”

“He wanted to talk to me.”

“About what, exactly?"

She chewed the inside of her mouth thoughtfully. "You know this already. Rodger told you."

"I try not to depend on the reports. What did Milo want to talk to you about?"

"About leaving."

"Leaving Texas?"

"Our lives."

"I don't know what that means," Simmons lied.

"It means, Special Agent, that he was in trouble. You, for instance, were after him for some murders he didn't do. He told me Tom was dead, but all he said was someone had killed him, and he had killed that man."

"Who's this other man?"

Tina shook her head. "He didn't share details. Unfortunately, that's the kind of man he-" She paused. "He always avoided details that might upset me. He just said that the only way to stay alive was to disappear. The Company would kill him, because they would think he killed Grainger. He wanted us-me and Stef-to disappear with him." She swallowed heavily, remembering. "He had these passports all ready. One for each of us, with other names. Dolan. That was the family name. He wanted us to disappear, maybe to Europe, and start life again as the Dolans." She went back to chewing her cheek.

"And you said?"

"We're not sitting in Europe, are we?”

“You said no. Any reason?"

Tina stared hard at Janet Simmons, as if shocked by her lack of intuition. "All the reasons in the world, Special Agent. How the hell do you rip a six-year-old girl out of her life, give her a new name, and not leave scars? How am I supposed to earn a living in Europe, where I can't even speak any languages? And what kind of a life is it when you're looking over your shoulder every day? Well?"

Simmons knew it from the way the series of rhetorical questions burst out, so smoothly, as if it were a speech Tina Weaver had been practicing ever since that moment, a week ago, when she refused her husband's last request: They were reasons after the fact, the ones she used to justify her abandonment. They had nothing to do with why she'd said no in the first place.

"Milo's not Stephanie's biological father, right?"

Tina shook her head, exhausted.

"That would be…" Simmons pretended to be trying to remember, but she knew all this by heart. "Patrick, right? Patrick Hardemann."

"Yes."

"How much of Stephanie's childhood was he around for? I mean, before Milo."

"None of it. We split up while I was pregnant.”

“And you met Milo…”

“On the day I gave birth."