Emily slams the drawer closed so hard the framed photo of Ashley on its surface tips over. Fine, Im out of here.

Wait. Fiona reaches around the corner into her office, then extends the can of Diet Pepsi. This is yours.

Emily storms silently out the door, carrying the can.

Watching her go, Fiona finds herself smiling for the first time all day.

The ringing telephone startles Brynn from a sound sleep, and it takes her a moment to get her bearings.

Oh. Right. Its the middle of the afternoon, and shes taking a nap on the couch while Jeremy takes one in his bed.

The cordless phone is on the coffee table; she set it there after she hung up with Garth right after lunch. He said h.e.l.l be home late tonight again.

Hes been working full speed ahead on his book, fueled, apparently, by his experience at the symposium. Hes spent every weeknight and most of this past weekend at the campus library.

s.n.a.t.c.hing up the phone before the ringing can wake Jeremy, Brynn is surprisedand dismayedto hear Fionas voice.

Whats wrong? she asks immediately. Fee rarely calls her; its usually the other way around. Especially during a workday.

I have an offer for you.

Brynn relaxes her grip on the phone a bit. So it isnt bad news. Thank goodness.

What kind of offer?

How would you like to earn some cash?

How? Maybe Fiona needs her to stuff envelopes again. Brynn did that for her last year, from home, and earned enough to replace the broken bedroom television.

I need a new a.s.sistant. I just fired Emily.

Oh Fee, I cant come to work for you.

Why not?

Because I have Jeremy.And another child on the way.

You can put him in day care. The woman I used for Ashley is still Fee, stop, I cant put him in day care.

Why not? Fiona answers her own question. Its not that you cant, its that you wont.

Youre right. I wont. Im a stay-at-home mom, Fee. That means I stay at home.

But you guys are pinched for cash. Youve said it yourself. How about if you just help me out temporarily, until I can hire someone full time?

I cant. Im sorry.

Fine. I just thought Id try to help you out, but No, you didnt. You thought Id helpyouout.

Thanks anyway, Brynn tells her. Good luck finding someone.

Fiona hangs up without saying another word.

If Ca.s.sandra Ashfords corpse has been found by now, it hasnt been identified yet.

Thats going to be an interesting challenge for the investigators when they cant immediately find her wallet, her carher fingers, or her teeth, either.

It was worth the extra time to painstakingly pull them out and pocket them, rendering Missing Persons dental records useless. And cutting off her hands to eliminate her fingerprints took no time at all.

Itwas a challenge to dispose of the teeth and hands, but theyre well hidden, buried a good foot beneath the earth, several yards into fairly remote underbrush off a highway somewhere in central Ma.s.sachusetts. The wallet was tossed into a strip-mall Dumpster, the identification removed, and burned.

So when somebody finally does check that cabin, and finds a decomposing corpsewearing a pointy party hat, of course, and surrounded by birthday party trappingsit wont immediately be clear that it belongs to Ca.s.sandra Ashford of Danbury, Connecticut. She herself made sure of that, having used cash and a pseudonym to maintain her anonymity.

So she was running for her life, obviously. Which is why her family has yet to even report her missing. She probably told them she was going away for awhile.

n.o.body is looking for her.

Some hapless soul will have to stumble across her by accident.

Eventually, of course, the gory details will wind up in some police database, as well, perhaps, as in the press, and a connection will be made to Matilda Harringtons murder.

But for now, as far as the authorities know, that was an isolated incident.

Which means not only are the police probably not looking for Ca.s.sandra Ashford But they arent looking for me, either.

Not yet, anyway.

Now what? Fiona wonders, lighting a new cigarette from the one in her hand.

She really thought Brynn would jump at the chance to get out of the house, where, as far as Fiona can tell, shes spent her days cooped up and paranoid.

Plus, she can probably use some extra money, especially with Christmas coming.

Never mind the fact that Im left in a lurch without an a.s.sistant and I really need her,Fiona thinks, stubbing out the original cigarette and inhaling the new one.

Who else is there?

Deirdre.

Maybe she should just come right out and ask her sister for help, instead of beating around the bush, inviting her to come up for their birthday as if everything is just fine.

Yes, she should have asked Deirdre for help, and she should have told her whats going on. She should have admitted that she needs her Because Im alone. And Im scared. And I have no one else.

She dials her sisters cell phone.

It rings several times and goes into voice mail.

Dammit, Fiona mutters, and shakes her head. She hangs up rather than leave a message she knows will go unanswered for several days, and tries a new tactic.

Clutching her cigarette between her lips, she flips through her Rolodex to find her sisters girlfriends number.

Antoinette answers on the second ring.

Hi, its Fiona!

Theres a brief pause.

Fiona? Whats going on? Antoinette asks in her lilting island patois.

Im just looking for my sister and I know she doesnt answer her phone so I hoped youd answer yours and put her on.

I would if I could, but I cant, Antoinette tells her. Shes gone.

Gone?

We broke up, and Deirdre moved out over a month ago. I have no idea where she went.

I cant keep doing this,Garth tells himself as he peeks into the boys room, bathed in the golden glow of a SpongeBob night-light. His sons are both sound asleep.

Of course they are.

Its five in the morning.

Garth closes the door quietly and tiptoes down the hall, past the master bedroom where Brynn, too, was deep in slumber when he looked in on her a moment ago.

This is nothing new, this creeping around his own house in the dead of night. But lately, it feels wrong.

He has to start coming home at a reasonable hour again so that he can see his children, eat with them, tuck them into bed. He has to start being a better father. And, yes, a better husband.

In the den, he settles into his recliner with a newspaper and a mug of herbal tea. Hes feeling too keyed up to sleep, but maybe if he reads, and sips Somewhere in the house, a door creaks.

Footsteps scurry.

Another door closes.

One of the boys? Garth bolts from his chair and makes a beeline for the hall, where he sees a crack of light beneath the closed bathroom door.

Relieved, he pulls it open, expecting to see Caleb trying to avert one of his infrequent bed-wetting episodes.

But theres Brynn, kneeling on the floor in front of the toilet, throwing up.

Hey, Garth says gently, and touches her hair. Youve got that stomach bug? Its going around on campus.

She says nothing, and continues retching.

When shes finished, she stands, looking wan, and rinses her mouth at the sink.

I hope the boys dont catch it. Garth takes a towel thats dangling from the broken-off towel bars protruding p.r.o.ng and hands it to her.

Brynn takes it from him and wipes her face and hands, saying, Yeah, so do I.

Fiona reaches over to turn off her alarm clock the minute before its set to go off.

She often wakes before it does, but this morning is different.

Its different because she didnt wake up; she hasnt slept at all.

Paranoiafueled by Tildys murder and Ca.s.sies disappearing acthas taken over now.

Fiona has spent the last eight hours coming to terms with the fact that shes entirely alone. James hasnt called her. Emily is gone, and Brynn wont step in to help, and her business is too much to manage single-handedly. Especially now. And Deirdre G.o.d, even her twin sister has lied to her and fallen off the face of the earth.

That, of course, was the final blow. Deirdre is a grown woman; she has a right not to answer her phone or return calls. But why didnt she at least confide in Fiona about the breakup?

According to Antoinette, Deirdre was probably afraid to admit to Fiona that their relationship didnt make it.

Thats because she was always proud that she had succeeded in the only place where you had failed. She said you were good at everything. You had everything she didnt: a college degree, a great kid, money, a thriving business right there in your hometown where everyone respects you. Deirdre always said she could never live up to all that.

Antoinettes words stung. It never occurred to Fiona that her sister had an inferiority complexand that she could hide it so well for all these years.

For Fiona, its as if the invisible cord that joined her to her twin has suddenly snapped, and shes been catapulted into an alternate universe where nothing is familiar.

And danger is lurking at every turn.

Maybe shes wrong about that.

But Fiona cant afford to take any chances.

Because if she doesnt do something drastic If she just continues to go about her daily business from now until Sunday She might not live to see Monday.

She knows what she has to do.

And she knows that there are only two people she can possibly ask for help.

One is Brynn. Sh.e.l.l agree to help. With this, anyway. Fee can count on her.

As for the other Fiona can only cross her fingers and hope she wont be rebuffed.

She picks up her purse and makes sure she has several quarters for the pay phone down the block. She isnt even going to risk making a call from here.

Maybe its paranoia, but she cant help feeling like the walls have eyes and ears.

You should have told him.

The refrain has been running through Brynns head all day.

This morning, when Garth caught her being sick in the bathroom, would have been the perfect opportunity to break the news of her pregnancy.

She actually thought for a moment that it was so obviously morning sickness, he wouldhave to figure it out.