"This is a major research facility, not the free clinic. And what's with all this James Bond foolishness?"

"Alex," Jessica said, her voice dipping low, "Just this one time, I need a favor. This is off the record. I can't go to anyone but you. It's for a story. It's very, very important. I can't tell you anything else. It's very big."

Alex sighed, silent.

"Please?" Jessica whimpered.

"Girl, what have you gotten yourself into?"

"I can't tell you. I just need some tests run."

"What kind of tests?"

"I don't know. Screen it for diseases. I need to know if there's anything strange about it. And I bet you there is."

"Where'd you get this blood from?" Alex asked.

"I can't say."

"Well, whose is it?"

Jessica sighed. "Look. I can't say. Can you do this?"

This time, the silence was long. When Alex spoke again, there was no joking in her voice. "This doesn't sound ethical. And depending on how old the sample is, it may or may not even be much good. You know that, right?"

"It's a fresh sample," Jessica lied.

"What about anticoagulants?"

"Huh?" Jessica said. "Alex, I don't know. Look, I've put the syringe in an envelope, and I'm going to come by and slip it into your purse. I'll stay for lunch, but we won't discuss it there. You can only begin testing when the lab is absolutely empty. If you feel like you have to call me at home, just say you want to talk about the book I lent you. And I'll go to a pay phone. From now on, we call it the book."

"You know what?" Alex said after a moment. "You sound like you have lost your natural mind."

"Alex, will you do this?"

"All right," Alex said reluctantly. "Bring me the d.a.m.n book."

David met Jessica at the door, grinning. "She made an offer."

At first, Jessica didn't know who "she" was, or what the offer was for. Then she remembered that their house was for sale, and how busy David had been showing it to prospective buyers.

"How much?" she asked.

"One hundred fifty."

"For this?" Jessica hadn't thought they'd clear more than ninety thousand.

"She wants to shut out any other buyers. The woman is a historian. She's very fond of the neighborhood, and she likes the river, the Indian lore, the burial ground, all of it."

As he hugged her and she thought about what this meant, Jessica whooped with joy. David had paid cash for the house, so everything they made from the sale was profit. They would have more than enough money to begin their new life, first in Senegal, and then wherever else they chose to go. Jessica was transported, at that moment, far from where her mind had been in the morning's early hours, when she was turning the shed upside down searching for a knife David may have tossed out a year ago, when the floors were done. There was simply no reason to suspect him.

Suddenly, she felt guilty. David trusted her, but she hadn't trusted him. And now she had stolen his blood.

David hadn't been to the shed yet, she guessed from his preoccupation with discussing details about the sale. As soon as she got a chance, she would grab that paper bag and throw it away. If David asked questions, she'd tell him she'd been cleaning and thrown out a bag full of chemicals.

After dinner, David was in such a playful mood that he started chasing Kira around the house, his head covered under a box with holes cut out for his eyes. They must have been playing the game earlier; David had painted the box with bold strokes of black and red paint, creating a horrible face. He was making convincing s...o...b..ring noises inside his mask.

"Daddy's the Box Monster!" Kira shrieked, ducking from him.

Jessica watched them, smiling, from the table. She expected to have to clean up a sc.r.a.pe or a b.u.mp any moment, as they came precariously close to knocking over the packed boxes. But she felt a familiar twinge of envy. They were having fun together.

Jessica picked up an empty box on the kitchen counter. "Where's the paint? I want to play," she said, pretending to pout.

"Up in Kira's room," David said, sounding m.u.f.fled.

"Mommy's going to be a monster too!" Kira cried, excited.

As Jessica reached the top landing, the phone rang. Alex. She ran into her bedroom to pick up the phone. "h.e.l.lo?"

"It's me, Sis," Alex said. She sounded weary. "Look, I haven't had a chance to start reading that book yet."

"h.e.l.lo?" David's voice interrupted from the downstairs line.

"I've got it," Jessica said quickly, and she waited until she heard the click as David hung up the phone. There was a new squeal from Kira downstairs.

"There are too many people hanging around for me to do much reading, if you catch my drift. I have to crash."

"Okay. Just let me know," Jessica said, her words clipped. Alex sounded like she thought this was some kind of game. For all Jessica knew, their phone line could be bugged. In fact, David had told her it probably was, since Mahmoud had known about their plans to leave. Of course, explaining the bugged phone to Alex would mean explaining many other things she could not.

She should tell Alex to forget it, to throw the blood away. Why was she so curious about what was in that syringe? Was she genuinely interested because David was her husband, or simply because, as a reporter, she felt a deep need to know?

It was probably a little of both. *

"We'll talk tomorrow. Go on home and rest," Jessica said.

"*Night, Double-O Seven."

Jessica cringed and sighed, hanging up. As usual, Alex wasn't being serious. Well, she thought, her sister would probably realize very soon that there was nothing at all to joke about.

PART FOUR.

The Living Blood.

38.

Mahmoud drew his curtains, blotting out the infernal midday sun. Then, before taking Khaldun's letter in his hands, he burned sage and lit the candle on his table. The movements of his fingers were deft and gentle on the envelope. His teacher's correspondences were rare, to be treasured.

The response was one line, written in Khaldun's script in ancient Ge'ez: Redress Dawit's grievous error, but be humane. Return with Dawit soon.

Mahmoud read the words several times over. He had expected this, but the impact of the statement was powerful. Khaldun did not intend to send additional Searchers. Khaldun expected him to contend with his friend alone. As it should be.

After this, his long friendship with Dawit would be no more.

In the candlelight, Mahmoud waited for sadness to come. It did not. He tried to revisit his earlier rage at his friend's transgression. That, too, would not come.

Mahmoud felt nothing. He was ready.

He blew the candle out.

39.

The white glow from the television set bounced off the towers of boxes in the living room. "Was that cannon fire? Or was it my heart pounding?" Jessica heard Ingrid Bergman's voice say.

For the thousandth time, David was watching Casablanca. His face was full of such captivation that he could have been lost inside of unearthed home movies full of ghosts. His expression was the same when he watched It's a Wonderful Life or The Philadelphia Story or any of those old flicks that bored her, frankly, because they were full of nothing but white faces. David never got sick of them. His eyes searched the glimmering screen, unblinking, half mournful, half hopeful.

David was squeezed between boxes on the sofa, his elbow propped up on one to support his head, and Kira was asleep, curled up with her head resting on his thigh. What a sight they were, Jessica thought as she stood in the entryway with a bowl of frozen yogurt. Their silent sweetness made her wish for David's camera.

"Want to carry her up?" David asked quietly, peering back at Jessica. Her presence had broken his spell.

"I'll let you do that later," she said, smiling. "There's no school tomorrow. Let her cuddle."

"You're going to bed already?"

"Nope. I need to write some notes to my friends I've been putting off. You know-we're moving, more details to come. Just so they'll know we didn't vanish."

On the television, violins swirled a romantic fury as Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman shared a fervid gaze. "I'll turn it off if you want," David said.

"No," Jessica said. She leaned over David to kiss his forehead. "Watch the ending. Maybe she'll stay with him this time instead of catching the first plane out of Dodge."

"I'll be up soon," David promised, his eyes on the movie.

It was all happening so fast.

Signs of change were everywhere Jessica looked. That morning, David had repainted the bathroom, and the smell of the paint still pervaded the house. They'd taken down the picture frames and packed them away. The bookshelves in the bedroom, like the ones downstairs, were bare. Their house was in transition, and Jessica hated transitions. She wanted to be settled either here or in Senegal, but not caught somewhere in between.

What would it be like, she wondered, to live with constancy, the way David struggled so hard to live? And to live that way literally forever? Was it bliss or boredom? The three of them could freeze, like the features on David's face or the reels of Casablanca, and time would ramble on around them, meaningless.

It was a staggering, frightening idea. But it was a reality for David. And it could be a reality for her. Jessica was sitting benumbed by the thought, occasionally scribbling a line to her college roommate in Rochester, when the phone rang. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Jessica," Alex's voice said, tight and unfamiliar. "I have to talk to you about this blood. I really do."

"h.e.l.lo?" David's voice broke in from downstairs.

Jessica's heart thudded. "Honey, I'm on," she said to David, amazed she could think of coherent words. "You can hang up."

For long seconds, Jessica knew she hadn't heard a click. He must still be hanging on. He had heard. He knew. He would come flying upstairs any minute to demand to know why she'd given his blood to her sister.

"Who's this? Alexis?" David asked at last.

"Hey, David."

"Honey, I have it," Jessica repeated, and this time she heard a loud distortion and then a click as David rested the handset on its cradle. She waited, holding her breath. He was gone.

"Jessica?" Alex said. "I have to talk to you. I mean it."

"Okay. Just slow down. Are you at home?"

"I'm still at the lab. Should I come over-"

"No, not here," Jessica said. She'd better hope the line wasn't bugged after all, because they'd dropped any pretense of speaking in a code. Not that the code had been all that brilliant to begin with, she realized. Jessica's palm, wrapped around the receiver, felt clammy. What had her sister found?

"I'll be right there," Jessica said.

"You're coming now?"

"Give me twenty minutes." She couldn't contain her curiosity. "So, is it an interesting book?"

Alex didn't answer the question. She sighed. "Girl, I'm so tired. Just please bring your behind over here-now."

David had been surprised Jessica wanted to run out of the house so late-"It's almost eleven," he pointed out, looking at his watch- but she hadn't seen any suspicion in his face. Thank goodness. Maybe he hadn't heard exactly what Alex said, after all. She couldn't even remember what crazy story she'd concocted for him, something about girl talk. She hoped that David's trust would make her lame story sound as convincing as his early stories had to her. She promised to come back soon.

Alex met her in the near-empty parking lot beyond the side entrance to the university's hematology lab. Jessica parked the minivan next to her sister's Beamer, which was shining under the streetlamp. The lab was two blocks away from Jackson Hospital, where Jessica could just make out the red neon sign for the emergency room. It made her think of Uncle Billy.

Alex was wearing her white coat and thin plastic gloves. She looked exhausted, her eyelids open in slits and her face oily. "Long night, huh?" Jessica asked her as they walked through the dimly lighted hall.

At first, Alex didn't answer. "You don't know how long," she said finally. "Last night, too."

"So what did-"

"Let's wait until we get to my desk. We'll have privacy there," Alex said in a low tone. "There are a couple of folks still chilling here tonight. Now you've got me paranoid."

The plate on the laboratory door was engraved RESEARCH/HEMA-TOLOGY. The lab, inside, was bright from fluorescent lighting. As always, Jessica wondered how in the world someone who had grown up in the same house with her could make any sense of the forbidding-looking equipment, with the various test tubes and meters and computer displays. Alex had a small desk in a midsized office behind the lab. There were three other desks in the room; Alex's was closest to the window, which overlooked the parking lot.