I sat there for what my watch said was only fifty-five minutes. The watch lied. It was a lifetime.

Time and again, that blue door swung open. A black man came out the first time, then a white woman and a fat man who could never be mistaken for Hank Robins. Another woman. Two men. An endless stream, and they all wore the same badge of identification. Again and again the door swung wide, and each time it did, the spring of my body wound a little tighter. Hank had been found out. He wasn't coming.

Then I saw him, in the brief flash as the door swung shut behind an old man pushing a bucket. He was coming out, and the next time the door opened, it was for him. He did not smile, but in his eyes I saw a fierce satisfaction. He took me by the arm before I could say a word; then we were walking, our footsteps loud in the hard-tiled and resonant halls that were the arteries of this place.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" he asked in a voice so normal, it surprised me. I'd expected a whisper.

"Did you get it?" I asked, meaning the answer to our question.

The fierceness moved from his eyes to his mouth, and he smiled. "Oh yes. I got it."

I wanted to shake it out of him. "And?"

"And it's something."

We walked in a silence that just about killed me, but eventually we made it to the car. Hank slipped behind the wheel, started the engine, and hit the door-lock button. He still had not said a word. He backed out of the parking spot and navigated us through the inland sea of parked vehicles. Finally, he looked at me. "Buckle up," he said.

"Are you fucking with me?" I asked. "Because this is not a good time." He did not respond, and his eyes remained steady on the road.

"I'm just getting my thoughts together, Work. There's a lot to say and I'm trying to figure out the best way to do it. I don't want to freak you out."

"You're freaking me out right now."

But he would not be rushed, and he kept his mouth shut until we were on Interstate 40, driving west at exactly nine miles over the speed limit.

"Have you ever heard of East Bend?" he finally asked.

"Maybe. I think so."

"It's a little place. Pretty, with horses. It's on the Yadkin River, not far from Winston-Salem."

Headlights flashed on Hank's face from across the grassy divide, unidentified cars driven by nameless people. In the dark intervals, Hank's face was a blurred profile. Then he turned to look at me.

"You should go there sometime. There's this little vineyard there, right on the river. . . ."

"Is there some reason you're stalling?"

He looked at me again, and headlights filled the space around us. "Alex is from there. It's where she grew up. For the first fourteen years anyway."

"And?"

"Look, Work . . . the details are sketchy. All I've got is what the nursing assistant told me, and bought information isn't always reliable. I haven't verified any of this."

"Fine. You're absolved of the consequences of any misinformation. Just tell me what you heard."

"She killed her father, Work. She cuffed him to the bed and set it on fire."

"What?"

"She was fourteen. Her mother was in the bed, too, but she survived. It was Daddy she was after." He paused. "And she got him, too. Cooked him right to the bed."

I felt Hank's eyes on me, gauging my reaction, but there was none; then Hank continued, his voice a flat line.

"She waited for him to stop screaming, and then she called 911 and walked out of the house; she watched it burn. When the fire truck arrived, she met them at the curb, said her mother might still be alive. They found her under the bedroom window, burned over seventy percent of her body. She was cut up pretty bad, too, from diving through the glass. When the police showed up, the girl told them what she'd done. She didn't lie about it, but she didn't gloat, either. Rumor is, she didn't shed a single tear. The nursing assistant didn't know if she went to trial or not, but the state sent her to psychiatric lockup. She spent four years at Dorothea Dix, but she was a minor when she did the job. So when she turned eighteen, they released her to Charter Hills, where she met Jean."

"That was only three years ago," I said.

"She's young."

"She doesn't look it."

"She's led a hard life, no mistake there. It'll age a person."

"Are you sympathizing with her?" I asked.

"Not at all," Hank said. "But they couldn't tell me what went down before she killed him. She must have had a reason, and it's not too hard to guess what it was." I sensed him shrug. "I have a soft spot for hard-luck cases." He left the rest unspoken. I didn't have the details, but I knew that Hank's childhood had been no picnic.

The silence drew out. Cars passed us.

"That's it?" asked. "That's all we know?"

"I tried to buy a copy of her file, but the guy wouldn't go there. He said gossip was one thing, stealing documents was another; but he was pretty sure of what he told me. Said it was common knowledge among the staff."

Hank checked his mirror and passed a pickup truck. One of its headlights was out, so it seemed to wink at us as we passed. I saw the sign for Interstate 85, and we remained silent until we'd left I-40 and pointed south, toward Jean and the woman who guarded so well the secrets of her violent past.

Hank reached into his pocket and handed me back two of the hundred-dollar bills. "It only took one," he said.

"So that's it?"

"Basically."

I sensed Hank's hesitation. "What does 'basically' mean?" I asked.

Hank shrugged again. "The guy was scared of her."

"Of Alex?"

"Alex. Virginia. He said everybody was pretty much scared of her."

"Except Jean," I said.

I felt his eyes again, measuring me in the dark. "Except Jean," he finally said. "Jean loved her."

I nodded silently, then looked again at Hank. There had been something in his voice.

"Is there something you're not telling me?"

He shook his head. "Not really. Just something I heard at Charter Hills."

"What?"

A shrug. "Something a guy said. Another floor worker, one of the guys I talked to the other day. I asked him about Jean and Alex, and something he said stuck with me. He said that Jean loved her like a preacher loves his God." Hank took his eyes off the road. "His words, not mine."

I pictured them together.

A preacher and his God. Obedience. Subservience. Obedience. Subservience.

"Could she really love her that much?"

"Who the hell knows? I've never had anything like it." He sounded wistful. I said nothing for a long time, and Hank, too, seemed content with his own thoughts.

"Do you think Alex could have killed my father?"

"Assuming you didn't do it?"

"Very funny." I wasn't laughing.

"Do you know where she was the night Ezra went and got himself shot?"

"No."

"Did she have a reason to want him dead?"

I thought of Ezra, and of his persistent disdain for Alex. I saw the fight between him and Jean, the night that everything went to shit. The fight had been about Alex. Ezra had tried to force them apart.

"She had a reason," I said.

"And seven years ago, she cooked her father to his bed."

I nodded to myself. "I guess it's possible."

"There you go."

CHAPTER 29.

We rolled into Salisbury after midnight. The town was quiet, with few cars moving and fewer lights burning. I felt like a ghost as we whispered through the stillness. Even Hank was subdued, and I guessed that, like me, he could not shake the image of what Alex had done.

When Hank pulled into my driveway, I got out and walked around to his window. He rolled it down.

"Listen, Hank. I really appreciate what you've done; it means a lot."

"You'll get my bill," he replied.

"Better send it soon," I said.

"You're not going back to jail, Work. We both know how this is going to end. Alex is your man. Take what we learned to Mills and get her to check it out."

"Maybe. We'll see." I still had to talk to Jean. "Listen, about the bill"

"It's going to be a big one."

"Bigger than you think," I said.

He eyed me. "What do you mean?"

I put my hands on the frame of his window, leaned against the car. "I need you to find somebody for me. It's important."

"Your girlfriend?"

"Her name is Vanessa Stolen. You know where she lives. I need to find her. I need to talk to her. I need . . ." My voice trailed away, then came back. "I just need her."

An overwhelming conviction came over me that she was dead. "She never leaves like this." That's the last thing the big farmhand told me, there by the tractor at Stolen Farm. "Not without making provision for her animals. She'd never leave them unattended."

"What about you?" I'd asked.

"I just work here, mister. If she needs me to take care of things while she's gone, she always calls. I've got my own place to look after, too. She knows that."

In my mind I'd seen them together, her body alive under his heavy calloused hands. I'd thought she'd given herself to him, and that her gift had killed the last, best part of me.

"Just find her for me, Hank. There are things that need to be said."

"What else can you tell me about her? Anything that might help me find her. Family. Friends. Places she might go. That sort of thing."

"She has no family. She's the last. I don't know if she has any friends, and as far as I can tell, she rarely leaves the farm. The place is her life."

"When did you see her last?"

"Right before I was arrested."

"I hate to ask this," Hank said. "But is it possible that she doesn't want to be found? People get to that point, Work. Sometimes we just need to disappear for awhile." He looked away, as if he had to in order to finish his thought. "You're married. You were arrested for murder. Maybe the fling wasn't worth it anymore. Maybe the cost was too high."

"It wasn't like that," I said. "Don't try to make it like that."

"Take it easy, man. I see it all the time. I had to ask."

"It wasn't like that."

Hank just nodded, still not looking at me, and an awkward silence formed around us. He looked at his watch. "It's late. I'm going home. But I'll look for your missing friend tomorrow. Okay? I'll find her."

"You're a good man, Hank. I appreciate it."

"I'll call you later."