The ride back to Hilltop House was beautiful, silent, and sad, with the Shenandoah River glittering in the moonlight and the two of them saying nothing, or next to nothing, while thinking the same thing: Everyone around me dies. Nikki. Bonilla. Shaw. It was a roll call of the dead.

McBride drove with one hand on the wheel, and his arm thrown casually along the back of the seat. It made Adrienne tense, worrying that he was about to put his arm around her or, worse, that he would not. Not that his arm around her would be a good idea. On the contrary…

The car rolled through the countryside, the mountains and forests black against the starry sky.

Watery headlights loomed in the rearview mirror, sending a chill down McBride’s spine. But then the car swept past them, and they were alone again. “I’ve been thinking,” McBride said. “Maybe you should go someplace.”

“Like where?”

“The moon, if you can get tickets. Otherwise, anywhere you can lay low.”

She thought about it. And the truth was: there was nowhere she could go. Her basement bunker on Lamont Street was out. She didn’t have a job anymore. And after Bonilla and Shaw, she wasn’t about to stay with friends. “I want to find out what happened to Nikki,” she insisted. “And, anyway: you need me.”

“I do?” McBride glanced at her. The world inside the car was chiaroscuro, all black and white, noir. It was the moonlight. She looked good in it.

“Yeah,” she said. “You need the car, and my name’s on the paperwork.”

He shrugged. “Okay, you can stay.”

“That was easy.”

McBride chuckled, but what he was thinking was: it wouldn’t take much for my arm to slip around her shoulder. Then Hilltop House hove into view, and the moment was gone.

But not forgotten.

In their room, he asked her to tell him what she’d learned about Crane. She responded by pulling out a sheaf of papers from her suitcase, and handing them to him.

They consisted, mostly, of printouts from Nexis, including a couple of obits from the Washington Post and the Sarasota Star-Tribune. He read them carefully, noting the organizations that Crane had belonged to and the name of a surviving sister in Sarasota. As he went through the printouts, one at a time, he did his best to ignore Adrienne, who was sitting on the bed, cross-legged. The room was small and stuffy, and he kept to the couch, an uncomfortable wicker object near the balcony.

“We’re going to Florida, aren’t we?” she asked.

“Yeah, I think we have to.” He was doing his best not to look at her, keeping his eyes on the landscape outside the window. In the distance, down by the river, he could see parallel strings of lights—one white, one red, pulsing along in opposite directions. They appeared and disappeared as the road wound in and out of sight in the folds of the mountains. “We can look up the sister, for starters,” he suggested, “see what she can tell us. Go to the courthouse—see if there was any litigation. Check out his will…”

“Ummmm,” she said, stretching her arms over her head. “So, basically, we’ll go down there and beat the bushes.”

“Unless you have a better idea,” he agreed, pulling open the door to the balcony so that a rush of cold air entered the room—which had suddenly become quite warm.

She caught his eyes, held them for just a little too long and then executed another languorous stretch, extending her legs and flexing her feet, while raising her interlaced hands overhead. She arched her back, displaying her body, opening it toward him.

McBride groaned inwardly. Getting to his feet, he stepped out onto the balcony.

The truth was that all day, he’d been constantly aware of her, in the moony obsessed manner of an adolescent. It was like high school. No—worse—junior high. At various points during the day—even in the austerity of Shapiro’s cabin, even in the darkness cast by his terrifying anecdotes, even in the face of the horrible news about Ray Shaw—he had suffered the painful tumescence that had made seventh grade an agony.

Standing out on the balcony, he looked down at the lights of the cars and thought about it: how long had it been since he’d taken a woman to bed? He couldn’t be sure—his memory was still coming back in bits and pieces, flashes. But it was before Jeffrey Duran—that much was certain.

“So whatcha gonna do, boy?”

It was a line from Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell album, and it reminded him of all the good music he’d missed, as well, Jeff Duran having been, not merely celibate, but entrained by a different drummer. Or not even a drummer: Oprah.

“Whatcha gonna do!?”

Adrienne was a fox, and that was a fact. But it was also a fact that Lew McBride was the last thing she needed. She’d already lost her sister, her job, and very nearly her life—and he was responsible for all of it. It wouldn’t be right to take advantage of her simply because they’d been thrown together in what were, after all, desperate circumstances. Still…

It was unnatural, sleeping in the same room like this and keeping your distance. It’s human nature, he told himself, arguing with his conscience. They’d been through a lot together, and it wasn’t just a question of sex—he really liked her. She was smart and attractive, funny and vulnerable. It was like what happened during wars and natural disasters. People reached out. So why fight it? Why not just… make your move!

But it was too late—or, if not too late, an interregnum. The cold had had its effect, and he reentered the room, diminished. Adrienne remained where she was, sitting on the bed, reading the hotel’s potted guide to Harpers Ferry and environs. She looked up at him from under thick, dark lashes—a killer look, her eyes full of allure and invitation. She shifted position, a series of fluid adjustments that made it impossible not to think of other adjustments her body might make. Without the clothing.

“Looking at the stars?”

His eyes went to the ceiling. “No,” he replied. “I was thinking… “ He laughed. “You don’t want to know what I was thinking.”

She made a little sound in the back of her throat, and it took all his willpower not to launch himself at the bed. A flying dive into the depths of her.

Instead, he said, “I guess we’d better get some sleep.”

She nodded. Pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. All closed off now. The radiator ticked in the hot room. After what seemed like a long time, she heaved a sigh, and flashed a bright little smile. “Great,” she said.

It was a long way, and they took turns at the wheel, driving all the next day, arriving late at night. They checked into a Super 8, requesting a room with twin beds. She was actually embarrassed by the way she felt. She would not have thought her body capable of this swoony teenage lust.

In the morning, they went to the sales office at La Resort on Longboat Key, where a tanned blonde told them that the contents of Calvin Crane’s condo had been cleaned out weeks before. The unit itself—three bedrooms, oceanside, with every amenity—was for sale. Were they interested?

No.

They drove back by way of Armand’s Circle, stopping for lunch at Tommy Bahama’s, where they ate salads and conch chowder, discussing their next move. Which was the courthouse in Bradenton, where they all but struck out. Crane wasn’t engaged in litigation with anyone, or not, at least, in Manatee County. And his will wasn’t as interesting as they’d hoped. Half of his estate was bequeathed, in equal proportions, to Harvard University and the American Cancer Society. The remainder was earmarked for his “beloved sister, Theadora Wilkins,” and his “lifelong friend, Marijke Winkelman.”

Their next stop was a trailer park in Bradenton, where Crane’s Jamaican caretaker, Leviticus Benn, lived with a pack of barking dogs. A tall black man with an easy smile, Benn was gracious, but spooked—and a little angry at the way he’d been treated. “First night—Mister Crane’s dead—Five-Oh come through my house with one of them tooth combs. And what they find? A little ganja. Just a taste. I mean, residue. From my personal use, you understand. Next thing, I’m in the middle of heavy manners. Like this trailer park is Gestapo Gardens. And I got to ask—I ask the policeman: how’s this gonna solve your bad crime? Tell me that!”