Waiters entered bearing platters of food. Garlic bread, pasta, chicken wings, pizza. Their smells filled the room. Kaitlan buried her nose in the gla.s.s of 7UP. As everyone else loaded their plates, she took a little salad and managed a few bites.

Conversation swirled around her-stories from the Gayner police force, Ed showing pictures of his oldest son playing soccer, Patty shaking her head over some family she'd counseled that day. Kaitlan tried to laugh in all the right places and add a comment when she could. Joe's words echoed in her head. She didn't want anyone else asking if she was okay because she just might lose it, just might not be able to play the part another minute.

She longed to go home, but the thought scared her to death. She'd be going with Craig. Alone.

If only Joe could take her.

That is, if Joe was really her friend.

Hallie announced she couldn't wait any longer to open her presents and dug in, oohing and aahing over each one. One thing about Hallie-she knew how to make a person feel special. "Oh, I love love this bracelet!" she trilled upon opening Kaitlan's gift. Hallie stopped to put it on and held it up to sparkle blue in the light. "Thank you, girl!" this bracelet!" she trilled upon opening Kaitlan's gift. Hallie stopped to put it on and held it up to sparkle blue in the light. "Thank you, girl!"

Kaitlan smiled. "You're welcome."

By nine-thirty she was exhausted from stumbling over lines, an actress on the wrong stage. Her thoughts kept returning to her grandfather. Were he and Margaret sitting by the phone, waiting for her call? Had he figured out what to do?

"Yo!" Steve whooped to Chief Barlow. "You hear what happened when Big Daddy here"-he jabbed a thumb at Ed-"took his kids camping last weekend?"

What if she couldn't call for hours? What if Craig wanted to stay at her apartment?

Chief Barlow shoved a final bit of birthday cake into his mouth, crumbs sticking to his lips. "No, but I bet I'm about to."

Kaitlan's heart tumbled. She couldn't be close to Craig, couldn't kiss him, surely couldn't sleep with him. The thought of even lying with him on her bed made her shudder. The bed, where he'd killed.

Steve guffawed. "First he couldn't get the fire going ..."

What did it matter what her grandfather came up with? Tomorrow was too late. She needed rescuing now. now.

"... then he dropped all the marshmallows in the dirt ..."

Kaitlan fled to the restroom.

She barricaded herself in a stall, leaning her forehead against the door. Six and a half hours, that was all. Her whole life had changed in six and a half hours. It seemed like an eternity. She couldn't do this.

"G.o.d," she closed her eyes, "I know I've made some mistakes. But please-help me."

She exited the stall. Standing next to a woman at the sink, she washed her hands. Kaitlan took her time until the woman left. Then she faced herself in the mirror, wondering how she'd gotten here, where she'd gone wrong. The day she'd walked out of jail she vowed to change her life. She joined a Twelve Step program and committed fully to getting clean. For a year she held two jobs, barely making it, saving every penny she could toward cosmetology school. Some days she wanted to get high so badly she nearly climbed the walls. That's when prayer helped the most. A California license required six hundred hours of school-thirteen to fourteen months if she worked real hard. Not to mention tuition of around ten thousand dollars. She applied for federal grants. Most went to single moms, but amazingly she got one. G.o.d G.o.d, she thought.

In cosmetology school over a third of her cla.s.smates dropped out after the first four months. It was way more demanding than many of them thought-herself included. At first she found it hard to concentrate, the drugs had so messed up her brain. But slowly her head cleared. She pressed on, determined. When her old car broke down, she took the bus. When she didn't have money for the bus, she walked. No help from her mother in England, who couldn't care less. And she was too afraid to ask her grandfather.

The day she earned her license was the happiest day of her life. Moving to Gayner, finding a place to work, meeting Craig-blessings beyond belief.

Now it was all about to be taken away.

The restroom door opened. Sheila and Leslie pushed in, chattering away.

"Hi." Kaitlan forced a smile.

"Hey, Kaitlan!" They disappeared into stalls.

Straightening her shoulders, Kaitlan returned to the party and Craig.

An interminable half hour later as they prepared to leave the restaurant, Chief Barlow closed in. "Son." He shook hands with Craig. "You say goodbye to your sister?"

Resentment flicked across Craig's face. "Twice."

"Then go say goodbye to Joe."

Craig shoved his jaw forward, turned and left.

The chief leaned toward Kaitlan. "Keep yourself out of trouble now."

She gave him a tight smile.

Craig returned and put his arm around her shoulder. "We're leaving, Dad." He spoke the words flatly-I can handle her.

The chief gave them a mock salute. "Good seeing you both."

Craig ushered Kaitlan out the door.

As they crossed the parking lot he kept his head down, hands in his pockets. "Nice party."

"Yeah." Kaitlan hugged herself against the cold.

In the Mustang, Craig put the top up for the drive home.

Kaitlan focused out the window, watching familiar streets go by. They no longer looked friendly.

Somewhere out there lay a woman's body. Kaitlan realized she hadn't noticed if the woman wore a wedding ring. Was some husband going crazy with worry? Children?

Surely by now she'd been reported missing.

They reached Kaitlan's apartment. Her heart pounded and her limbs felt brittle. If Craig touched her she'd break apart.

Please stay in the car.

He pulled up behind her Corolla and cut the engine. "I'll see you inside."

The words. .h.i.t like stones. She opened her door and got out.

Crickets' pulsing songs grated her ears. A chilling breeze lifted a strand of her hair, popping goose b.u.mps down her arms.

The surrounding forest was so dark.

How had she ever felt safe here? The night seemed to have a thousand eyes.

Her footsteps sounded loud as she approached the door and unlocked it. Stepping inside her kitchen, she could feel Craig's looming presence at her back.

This was insanity. She never should have listened to her grandfather.

"I won't be staying," Craig said as she placed her keys and purse on the table. "Tomorrow I'm on the 6:00 a.m. shift."

Relief weakened her knees. She nodded.

"I'll just check your place out. Make sure you're safe."

Kaitlan stood like granite as he walked through the living room, into the hall. She clutched the top of a chair, the fingers of her other hand curling into her palm. Get out, Craig, get out! Get out, Craig, get out! she wanted to scream. The minute he drove away she would throw what she needed into a suitcase and drive like a madwoman to her grandfather's - she wanted to scream. The minute he drove away she would throw what she needed into a suitcase and drive like a madwoman to her grandfather's - "Kaitlan. Come here." He called from the door to her bedroom.

Something cold and slimy unfolded in Kaitlan's chest. For a wild moment she pictured herself tearing out the door and into the black forest.

Where she'd get maybe one hundred feet before Craig caught her. And he'd be furious. furious.

"Hey! Come here. here."

If he tried to hurt her, she'd fight. She'd tell him that others knew what he'd done, and if anything happened to her, they'd go to the police.

Yeah, right. The Gayner police.

Kaitlan did the only thing she could. She walked toward the bedroom.

CHAPTER twenty-seven

Silence echoed through the house. A silence that mocked as Margaret waited for the phone to ring.

She had become accustomed to small noises amid the quiet. The heater kicking on in winter. A newly made ice cube falling in the freezer. The creak of a wall for who knows why, except that the house was old and perched on a hilltop where the wind whirled between ocean and bay.

Tonight Margaret heard none of these. Only the ticking, aching silence.

Dear G.o.d, protect Kaitlan.

Shortly after eight Margaret had tiptoed across the hardwood floor to D.'s office and leaned an ear against the door. No sound from within. Holding her breath she eased open the door, tensing against his sure anger at her intrusion. But she found him in his chair at the computer, legs splayed, head lolled to one side and mouth open. Sleeping.

On his monitor-a randomly rolling ball against black void.

She leaned against the door, its k.n.o.b in her hand as hard as the fist of a corpse.

Through dinner, while cleaning the kitchen and mopping its floor, she'd clung to the hope that the clear mind D. had displayed with Kaitlan would remain. That given this deadline of all deadlines, he would rise above his weaknesses-because he had had to. to.

How foolish she'd been.

Repelled and angered by the futility of the room, she'd shut the office door and hurried away.

Now Margaret stood in the library, facing the bookcase containing the first editions of D.'s novels. She'd been driven to this place with the sense that something here could help their situation. But what?

She scanned the ninety-nine books, shelved in order of publication.

Margaret's eyes landed on Fractions Fractions, D.'s first in his Ben Seitz mathematician-turned-detective series. It was followed by Division Division and and Decimal Point Decimal Point. Margaret's gaze skipped around then, from Tumult Tumult to to Ransacked, Perilous Hope to Midnight Vision, In the Making, Out of Madness, Last Speck of Dawn, Black Over Water, Sky Bright, From the Mist. Ransacked, Perilous Hope to Midnight Vision, In the Making, Out of Madness, Last Speck of Dawn, Black Over Water, Sky Bright, From the Mist. She knew them all. Many she had edited. Those written before she'd started working for D. she'd read on her own. Ninety-nine inciting incidents and story arcs and resolutions, spanning over forty years of work. She knew them all. Many she had edited. Those written before she'd started working for D. she'd read on her own. Ninety-nine inciting incidents and story arcs and resolutions, spanning over forty years of work.

They say a writer's worldview emerges through his stories. Over the years Margaret had seen an element repeat in D.'s books. After Gretchen died it appeared even more strongly. Through symbolism and subtext throbbed what Margaret had come to call his "vain empires" doctrine, the phrase taken from her favorite pa.s.sage in Paradise Lost. Paradise Lost. Always D.'s main characters were in one way or another bent on the dark pursuit of some obsession in their lives-only to discover that their private little empires were all in vain and brought only emptiness. Always D.'s main characters were in one way or another bent on the dark pursuit of some obsession in their lives-only to discover that their private little empires were all in vain and brought only emptiness.

A truth about Darell Brooke himself that he could not, would would not see. not see.

Out of the Blue. Lights Across the Water. River's Edge.

Margaret stuck a hand in her hair. Why was she here?

On impulse she pulled out All But Dead All But Dead, not remembering the story. She read the prologue. Oh, yes. Coal miner Ed Bramley and his nightmares, his epileptic daughter.

Margaret replaced the novel and opened a second-one of D.'s earlier works on the top shelf-and scanned the first two pages. This one she barely remembered.

Wind gusted at the windows. Margaret lifted her head to gaze into the night. The lights of Half Moon Bay dimmed, then disappeared. Fog was rolling in.

She checked the clock. Just past nine. Was Kaitlan still at the restaurant? Was she safe?

Margaret's limbs fairly trembled with tension, antic.i.p.ating the phone.

A clue.

Her eyebrows raised. Yes, that was it. She was looking for a clue in one of D.'s books. Some plot point that would ignite an idea of what they should do-one he had surely forgotten. His past novels were nothing now but a jumble in his head.

Had he ever written a story about a female protagonist trapped as Kaitlan was-one who couldn't go to the police and had no evidence to present if she did ...

Margaret slid out another novel and read the first chapter until the story surfaced in her memory.

No. Nothing here.

She lowered the book and focused out the window again, seeing only her dulled and anxious reflection. The fog now blocked out all view.

The wind had died down. The house was so very still.

Kaitlan.

This bookcase held thousands upon thousands of pages. Where to begin? It could take weeks to find what Margaret needed-if she found it at all.

She put the book back on the shelf and buffed her upper arms, chilled in the warm room of rich wood and leather.

Frustration balled in her throat. She should be moving, working, doing something. Tearing down the hill to the restaurant-did Margaret even know which one it was?-and rescuing Kaitlan. Just barge in and take her, who cared which people saw?

And what then, Margaret, after tipping your hand to Craig? What then?

She gazed at D.'s novels-the very reason Kaitlan had come to him for help in the first place. Somewhere in one of them must lay a crucial piece to this puzzle. A piece that had slipped into the milky waters below her and Darell's consciousness.