"Jesus Christ, Quentin. What are you doing?"

I get up and pace a bit before I head to the car. I don't know how long I'm going to be staying here, and I can't get so involved with these people. Sooner or later somebody is going to try to finish what that lunatic woman in the hotel room started, and I'll either end up bleeding out in the dark or have to move on and completely sever any ties to this place.

This must be something important. Dale doesn't even trust it to the encryption. He's using an old school dead drop-a covert mailbox, essentially.

I slip into the Impala and fire her up.

I drive, eyeing the clock the whole way. I'm not on a schedule here, as long as I get back at a reasonable time we can have dinner.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

There's no answer, of course.

The drop is on the outskirts of Philly. I wouldn't risk driving back into town and Dale knows that. I should be in fucking Venezuela by now, but the more I move, the more likely I am to be spotted. The closer I am to danger, the further I am from harm. Or something.

I park and watch the drop for a long, long time before I approach. It's around the back of an empty pharmacy. It used to be a Walgreen's. Now it's nothing and the building is empty. Around the back there's a drive-through. The drop is in the metal drawer that slides in and out so people could take prescriptions from it.

I don't like it. It's too open. Lots of places for a sniper's nest, for someone to hide and observe, but if this wasn't important, Dale wouldn't go to the trouble. I resign myself to the risk and jog across the parking lot.

Too open, too open.

It takes some elbow grease to get the damned drawer open. It shrieks like I'm ripping out its guts as it slides out and hangs on its track. I retrieve the manila envelope from inside slowly, making sure there are no tripwires or other sneaky surprises waiting to ruin my day. It's light enough, with a slight bulge in the middle.

That doesn't mean it's safe. There are explosives now that could kill me at this range, but are wafer-thin enough to feel like a piece of paper in the envelope. I sniff the edges, checking for an oily or chemical smell, but find nothing. Feeling it tightly in my fingers doesn't bring up the telltale ridges of wiring and the only bulge is in the very middle. From poking around it, I can feel it's a thumb drive.

The car door slaps shut and I sit back, watching. I've taken it. Now it's time to see if I've taken bait. Nothing. Check the clock. It's four thirty, too early for dinner. If I leave right this moment I'll be there at just after five, if I hurry.

Just do it, Quentin.

I flick open my pocketknife, slit the flap, and gently nudge the envelope open with the tip of the blade. There's a slip of paper inside. Again using the tip of the knife, I ease it out slowly, feeling for anything odd, like unusual resistance or a chemical smell.

It's a handwritten note.

Quent- They've put out an open contract on you. Whoever gets you first gets the payment. They're offering double to take you alive. There have been multiple bids so far, but I wouldn't worry about them.

Santiago de la Rosa has put in a bid.

I lower the envelope to the seat next to me.

The paper I just held in my hands is my death warrant.

The drive back is weird, dreamy. I know I drove from Philadelphia back to Castlebrook. I must have talked to the gate guard. I must have parked in Rose's driveway. I know I did all these things but the next thing I know I'm standing on her porch, reaching for the doorbell. I don't make it before Karen rips the door open and beckons me inside, practically bouncing on her feet.

My God, what have I done?

Santiago de la Rosa.

My mentor. The deadliest, most expensive, most ruthless assassin in the entire world. When you need someone difficult to reach to get dead in a hurry, you tap Santiago de la Rosa. When you want someone to suffer before their end, you call Santiago de la Rosa. Others might inflict mere physical tortures, but Santiago has picked up another name in his long career. A whole string of them, really. The Saint of Agony. The Knight of Tears.

He'll work for anyone if the price is right, do anything. I thought I was the same, but there turned out to be something I wouldn't do, and because I refused, I brought this upon myself.

No one living has seen Santiago's face. He always wears a mask, a simple black hood. I think he must have passed it down from person to person-I've talked to people who say Santiago did jobs for the mob in the forties, earlier. Maybe there's more than one of them. I don't know.

He's a total cipher, even after knowing him for years.

It'll be a point of honor for him. One of his pupils did not simply fail; worse, he refused to complete a mission.

I think about all this standing at the threshold of Rose's house.

Karen stares at me.

"Mr. Mulqueen?"

"Yeah."

I shake myself out of it and step inside.

"What are we going to have?"

Kids, always thinking with their stomachs. Rose looks as content as a cat in the sun on the couch. She's changed into simple clothes-a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, no makeup, nothing fancy at all, but she's so radiant I don't know whether to stare at her or drag her upstairs and ravish her.

I guess I'll feed her kids.

I feel like I'm walking through a dream.

Rose yawns behind me. She's barefoot, wearing a baggy shirt that somehow slips off one of her shoulders. Her hair is bound in a loose ponytail, lying over the other shoulder. I can't help myself.I flick it off and watch it sway behind her back.

"Don't get, uh, grabby in front of my kids," she says, blushing.

"Perish the thought. I'll be a perfect gentleman."

I tuck her shirt back into place.

"Thanks," she sighs. "Now, uh, dinner?"

I grin. I wasn't really expecting to cook for them again but I thought I might have to, so I stashed some things here that would come in handy.

"What do you think you'd like?"

"I'll ask the kids-"

"What would you like?"

She blinks. "Oh, uh, I... I don't even remember what I like anymore."

"What was your favorite thing as a kid?"

"My mother used to make us spaghetti and meatballs."

"Fine."

I shrug and start pulling ingredients out of the fridge.

"Might want to give the kids a snack, this might take a while. Then I could use a second pair of hands."

Rose nods and fixes up something quick for the kids to eat while they watch television out in the living room, and returns to me. I have onions and garlic browning with butter in the bottom of the stockpot. The tomato paste and other ingredients will go in momentarily.

Rose hangs behind me.

"I don't really know how to cook," she says sheepishly. "I don't think Russel wanted me to be anything but a trophy."

She clears her throat. "Sorry, I shouldn't talk about my ex."

"No worries. What was he like? Must have been a real charmer to land you."

She sighs and smiles thinly. "No. I was a freshman, he was my economics professor. He was so mature and charming, when my visits during his office hours turned personal, I was walking on air. I loved the attention.

"We started seeing each other outside of school. Just light social stuff at first, like we were friends. He made me feel special, mature and sophisticated. That turned into sleeping with him."

She sighs again, deeper. "I got pregnant. He insisted I drop out. It would have meant his career. He insisted we get married. Stupid me, I obliged."

She leans on the counter next to me.

"Here, bread crumbs and some spices. Start kneading them into the ground beef for me."

She nods and chokes the salt and pepper into the beef like she has her ex-husband's throat between her fingers.

"He was already fucking another student before Karen was born. I didn't find out until I was pregnant with Kelly. One of them showed up at the house wanting to see him."

"Rough," I say.

She nods.

"I should have been mad at her, I suppose, but I wasn't. I mean, what was the difference between her and me? Would some other girl he was fu...sleeping with have been mad at me? I'm surprised it took that long for one of them to show up sniffing around after him."

"Break those into balls."

She nods and smirks a little. "Right. After that he apologized to me, and so on, and so forth. I was so stupid I thought we could actually fix it. I was twenty-three when Kelly was born. I didn't know what to do. How could I be that young and have two kids? Without Russel I'd be helpless. I had no education, no job experience. I was trapped. I thought I could fix it."

"I started working toward an associate's degree at night. Once the kids were in school Russel insisted I find a job. I started out in a gas station. He didn't care about the money. He wanted me out of the house so he could bring more of his students home while I wasn't there.

"That's a new couch out there. I came home early from work one day and found him plowing a psychology major bent over the back of the seat of the old one."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. I filed for divorce. It was a mess. They almost took the kids away from me. If I have any trouble here, I could lose them." Her voice cracks and she starts to shake. "If I get too many stupid yard tickets from Mrs. Campbell, they'll take my little girls away."

I hear a soft sound. A sob.

Christ.

She deposits the last meatball in the baking pan. I slip them in the oven and step behind her, placing my arms around her. I hold her wrists and stick her hands under the hot water, and scrub them with soap. She leans against me and her breathing goes back to normal.

"Sorry, I start to lose myself when I think about them being taken away. They're the only happy thing I've ever had in my life, and I won't let that pig and his slut get their hooks in them..."

She takes a deep breath and trails off. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright. I know how it feels to spend your life looking for bright spots in years of regret."

I also know how it feels not to find any.

God.

I feel sick as I watch the water boil. It feels wrong to touch the food these children are going to eat with these hands that have inflicted pain and misery.

I'm a killer. I don't belong here, and this sweet, gentle, beautiful woman doesn't deserve the only life I can bring her, a short one of suffering and misery and death.

The spaghetti fans out in the boiling water. I feel like I'm standing on one of the noodles, watching it slide down into the boiling water as it softens the bottom of the stalks, and there's nothing I can do to escape slipping in and boiling to death.

At least I can avoid dragging them with me.

It takes me three hours with Rose's help to get the food together. I made too much sauce, and spoon some into freezer bags. The finality of that is weirdly poignant. Something to remember me by.

As we sit down to eat in her kitchen, the room is oddly quiet. The kids know, kids always know. Well, the little one doesn't seem to care, she's too busy shoveling food into her mouth. I'm glad I made two boxes of "biscetty" as she calls it, since she's going to eat one by herself.

Rose is the happiest of the three. She spends half the meal just watching the kids eat.

When her second helping has disappeared, Karen belches loudly and turns purple, she blushes so hard, sinking into her chair.

"I take that as a compliment."

"I don't," Rose says.

"Excuse me," Karen chirps. "Sorry."

Rose suppresses a laugh. "Clean up, will you?"

The two girls carry the dishes into the kitchen.

"Rose, can we talk?"

She looks at me expectantly. "Sure."

"Outside, maybe. Back porch?"

Rose's backyard is completely plain, depressingly so. It's just an expanse of grass that's not even separated from mine or the one next door.

She leans on the railing at the edge of the porch and looks out.