"You want to kill him," I said.

She looked at me, eyes wide, then dropped her chin.

"Of course you do," I said. "Is there a gun in the house?"

She kept her chin pressed to her chest.

"Is there a gun in the house?" I repeated.

"No," she said quietly.

"But you have access to one," I said.

She nodded. "We have a house in New Hampshire. For ski season. There are two there."

"What kind?"

"Excuse me?"

"What kind, Mrs. Dawe?"

"A handgun and a rifle. Christopher sometimes hunts in the late autumn."

Angie reached out, put a hand over Carrie Dawe's. "If you kill him, he still wins."

Carrie Dawe laughed. "How's that?"

"You're destroyed. Your husband is destroyed. Most of the fortune, I'll bet, will go to your criminal defense."

She laughed again, but this time tears had sprung out along the tops of her cheekbones. "So what?"

"So," Angie said softly, tightening her hand on Carrie's, "he set out years ago to destroy this family. Don't let him succeed. Mrs. Dawe, look at me. Please."

Carrie turned her head, swallowed a pair of tears that reached opposite corners of her mouth at the same time.

"I've lost a husband," Angie said. "Just as you lost your first. Violently. You got a second chance, and yeah, you've f.u.c.ked it up."

Carrie Dawe's laugh was one of shock.

"But you still have it," Angie said. "You can still make it right. Make a third chance out of your second. Don't let him take that."

For a good two minutes, no one spoke. I watched the two women hold hands and stare hard into each other's faces, heard the clock tick on the mantel above the dark fireplace.

"You're going to hurt him?" Carrie Dawe said.

"Yes," Angie said.

"Really hurt him," she said.

"Bury him," Angie said.

She nodded. She shifted on the couch and leaned forward, placed her free hand over Angie's.

"How can I help?" she asked.

As we drove over toward Sleeper Street to relieve Nelson Ferrare on the roof, I said, "We've tailed his a.s.s for a week. Where's he vulnerable?"

"Women," Angie said. "His hatred sounds so pathological-"

"No," I said. "That's deeper than I'm looking for. What makes him vulnerable right now? Where are the c.h.i.n.ks in his armor?"

"The fact that Carrie Dawe knows he and Timothy McGoldrick are one and the same."

I nodded. "Flaw number one."

"What else?" she asked.

"He has no curtains on most of his windows."

"Okay."

"You've been following him during the day. Anything there?"

She thought about it. "Not really. Wait. Yeah."

"What?"

"He leaves the engine running."

"On the truck when he does his stops?"

She nodded, smiled. "And the keys in the ignition."

I looked out the windshield as we approached the end of the Ma.s.s Pike, and shifted lanes from the northbound to southbound exit.

"What are you doing?" Angie asked.

"Going to drop by Bubba's first."

She leaned forward, peered through the wash of a yellow light strip in the tunnel above us. "You've got a plan, don't you?"

"I have a plan."

"A good one?"

"A bit crude," I said. "Needs some polish. But effective, I think."