"I'm scared," Caroline said, her voice small.

Catching his breath, Jack hit the gas.

"We can't drive around in circles all afternoon," Caroline said.

Jack stopped the car and kissed Caroline. Her lips were chapped. Her hair smelled of strawberry shampoo. And the rank sweat of fear.

"I want to go home," she said.

3.

Carrying an old, discolored straw boater with an equally ancient All The Way With Adlai campaign button pinned to the hat's frayed ribbon, Dixie sauntered out onto the terrace.

"I think we have time for a sail," he said to Jack.

"I don't think so, Dixie," Caroline said. "Look at the weather."

The clouds were boiling over the Catskills. Far off, a dog barked. A cat stopped stalking through the grass and laid its ears back.

From a house down the street, through an open window, the sound clear even from so far away, Jack heard a TV newscaster saying, "Flooding's going to be serious if these winds continue. Storm surge expected to be five to eight feet. Wind gusts up to one hundred twenty miles per hour...."

Caroline went into the house to prepare the salad. Dixie touched Jack's elbow.

"I woke up last night," Dixie said. "At two in the morning. I heard someone driving an all-terrain vehicle through the fields. The noise rattled the windows."

The wind was stronger.

"Some young man-or young woman-I assume they're young-out there alone, racing under the sky," Dixie said. "What makes someone do that? Drive at night? All alone."

The clouds were blacker. They swallowed the sun. A gust of rain spattered against Jack's face.

Abruptly, Dixie asked, "How did you cut your leg, Jack?"

More black clouds rolled in from the Catskills.

"My brother-Caroline and Nicole's father-and their mother died before I did," Dixie said. "Caroline and Nicole are what I have. I'm not afraid of death, not for me. But for them. And before they have children."

"I thought Caroline couldn't have kids," Jack said.

"She told you that?" Dixie said. "She's convinced herself. The doctors took a lot. She wants to believe they took everything."

Dixie looked through the kitchen window at Caroline chopping a green pepper.

Dixie waited for Jack to say something. Jack had nothing to say. The rain rattled on the water as if the river were sheet metal.

CHAPTER FORTY.

1.

Thunder and lightning came almost simultaneously over the river, which smelled like soured milk. Drenched, Jack and Dixie retreated to the kitchen, which was a pool of light in the surrounding darkness.

"You're bleeding," Caroline said.

Jack's pants leg was stained with washed-out blood. He'd barked his leg on the kitchen doorjamb.

Upstairs, Caroline, who had changed into dry clothes, washed Jack's wound and wrapped it with gauze. Jack sat on the edge of the tub. She crouched at his feet. Jack looked lovingly at her pale scalp, which showed through her damp hair.

Someone knocked on the bathroom door.

Jack, naked, stood-painfully-and wrapped a bath towel around his waist.

Caroline opened the door, revealing Nicole, who held out an armful of dry old clothes.

"I raided the dress-up trunk," Nicole said. "Blue-and-white striped slacks, a white silk shirt ... very retro. If you want socks, I can rustle up a pair of white gym socks or a pair of argyles. I don't think we have any shoes that will fit you."

Caroline took the slacks and shirt.

"We don't keep underwear in the dress-up trunk," Nicole said. "Dixie's got some cotton boxers, but I figured you'd rather go without."

"Clever girl," Jack said.

"Dinner in ten," Nicole said.

They sat around the near end of the dining room table, the breakfront and Caroline's great-great-uncle looming over them. They each had a bright-red, steaming-hot pound-and-a-half lobster. Caroline drank Heineken from a bottle. Nicole drank homemade lemonade. Jack bourbon neat. Dixie sipped a tall reddish drink on cracked ice.

"J&B," Dixie said, "vermouth, cherry juice.... My own concoction."

"It's Dixie's hobby," Caroline said, "inventing cocktails."

Caroline wore a white robe with a pattern of tiny blue flowers. She had rolled up the voluminous sleeves so they wouldn't drag in the lobster or melted butter.

As she ate, her eyes were wide. Her hair, which she had brushed forward, framed her face. Her left nostril quivered. Her cheeks were flushed.

"Don't stare, Jack," Nicole said. "No matter how smitten you are, it's not polite. Look, Caroline, he's blushing."

2.

After dinner, the four of them sat, Jack drinking bourbon; Caroline, beer, her third; Nicole, chamomile tea; and Dixie, coffee. Listening to Brahms' "In Stiller Nachte." And reading: Jack, the Albany Times Union; Caroline, the New York Times; Nicole, New York; and Dixie, a Thorne Smith novel.

"Night Life of the Gods," Dixie said, holding up the old, faded, buff-covered book. "A novel about a scientist who invents a ray that turns people into statues and a sexy lady leprechaun who can turn statues into people. She brings the Olympian gods to life, and they have a delightful time, but realize-the scientist and the leprechaun-they there is no place for them in this disenchanted, solemn world. At the end, when they turn the gods back into statues, they embrace and turn themselves into statues, too. Every year, I reread it, Jack. If you want, you can borrow it. Thorne Smith was the Cole Porter of American novelists."

"No thanks, Dixie," Jack said.

"You can stay the night," Dixie said.

"You can't go home," Caroline emphatically told Jack.

"The guest room's at the top of the stairs," Nicole said. "Caroline can get you a towel and washcloth and anything else you need." She smirked at Jack and said, "If you get bored with Ms. Appropriate, Jack, my biological clock just went off daylight saving time."

"Tomorrow, the fair starts," Dixie said.

"And you drive in the demolition derby," Caroline said, unhappily.

3.

Caroline led Jack up the stairs and steered him into her bedroom.

The rain had almost stopped.

Caroline's room had four large windows, two on each exterior wall. The curtains were dark blue and held back with blue sashes. The wallpaper was a lighter blue with pink-and-white blossoms. The wood trim-around the windows, the molding, the baseboards-was semigloss, eggshell.

A large framed reprint of a post-World War I French train ad dominated one wall. Smaller, framed photographs of Dixie and Nicole were scattered on the other walls. Pressed behind an antique oval glass was a large fern.

Instead of a closet-it was an old house-there was a large wardrobe with chipped veneer and, on one door, a clouded mirror. Between the two windows facing the river was a white-painted dressing table with another mirror. A quilted chair. A carved three-shelf cherry-wood bookcase filled with new novels and college editions of the classics. On the top shelf of the bookcase was an iPod in a docking station and two stacks of unsorted photographs. Between the other two windows was a small easy chair upholstered in a blue flowered pattern that matched the wallpaper. The polished, honey-colored wide-board floor was covered with small, old Oriental rugs, one with a repeating pre-Nazi, Sanskrit swastika pattern.

A double bed with a canopy the same material as the curtains stood in the middle of the room, the mattress so high you needed a two-step wooden stair to climb in. The quilt was light blue. The sheets and pillow cases were white. On one side of the bed was a side table with a parchment shaded lamp, an amber-colored plastic pill bottle, Zoloft, a tiny wooden sheep, and a hardback copy of a Stuart Woods mystery.

She closed the half-open drawer, which held safety pins, elastic bands, a purple scrunchy, coins, Band-Aids, a dozen loose blue Bicycle playing cards, and a small pink vibrator.

Caroline did not turn on the overhead light, but, starting with the bedside light, made a circuit of the room, turning on lamps with low-wattage bulbs, which gave the room a cozy glow.

Jack and Caroline took turns using the bathroom in the hall, Caroline first. When Jack returned to the bedroom, Caroline was already in bed, naked from the waist up, the sheet pulled up right below her breasts. Her nipples were pale.

Jack stripped and slid between the sheets, which smelled fresh and felt ironed. Caroline's skin smelled of soap. Her hair held a not-unpleasant trace of melted butter.

Caroline lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. Jack lay on his left side, staring at Caroline.

Caroline was silent.

"While you were in the bathroom," Jack said, "I took a quick walk around the house."

Caroline did not answer.

"As far as I can tell," Jack said, "no one's out there who shouldn't be."

Caroline stared at the ceiling.

"Sometime during the night," Jack said, "I'll check again."

Rain spattered against the windows.

"Caroline?" Jack asked.

She turned her head toward Jack and said, "I was praying. I pray every night. For Dixie, my mother, my father, Nicole, Robert-"

"Robert?" Jack asked.

"-you," Caroline said.

"Keating?" Jack asked.

Caroline nodded.

"The guy trying to kill me?" Jack asked.

Caroline nodded.

"That's promiscuous," Jack said.

"Every night," Caroline said, "the list gets longer."

"Where do you draw the line?" Jack asked.

"I don't," Caroline said.

"I never would have taken you for a believer," Jack said.

"Don't you believe in God?" Caroline asked.