They gathered briefly in the kitchen, standing around nibbling a cucumber (Rosemary), a roast beef sandwich (Dick) and yogurt (Melissa), then wandering off. Her parents had spent the morning in their bathrobes, but just before what passed for lunch, they dressed. She guessed it was in case someone should unexpectedly drop in-as was going to happen, if all went well. Dick was in cashmere sweats. Not that Rosemary was wearing jeans or sweats; her casual was a wool jumper over a silk shirt, with only stud earrings, a designer scarf at her throat. The girls she had gone to Miss Porter's with would have identified the designer in thirty seconds, but she had never cared. If Alison did not take her shopping and buy her straight preppy gear, then she went with Emily, who always knew what was cool. Oddly enough, Rosemary, who cared passionately about the impression she presented, never did her own shopping-unless she was hanging around a boutique to meet some senator's wife she wanted to befriend.

Rosemary and Dick had retired, presumably to make love, right after lunch. Melissa became increasingly worried that Blake would come and they would still be closeted. Fortunately, Dick wanted to watch the Eagles. By one thirty, he was lying on the sofa facing the TV and Rosemary curled up in a facing chair. She was reading an apologia on Kissinger, a thick tome she had been carting around the house. Rosemary had the ability to read through anything. Her grandma had told her, not in admiring tones, that Rosemary could be reading and her baby crying right at her elbow, and she would not hear. Whenever she turned a page, she glanced at the TV so that she could partake of enough of the game to be able to answer Dick's comments on the loutishness of the opposing quarterback, the stupidity of the coach, the ineptness of the wide receiver. Melissa had never been able to figure out if her mother liked sports or simply endured televised games as she would a society function with people who bored her.

Melissa had put on a blouse she felt sure her mother would approve of, a plaid skirt, nylons, flats. She was creating the image of the proper schoolgirl, although once the revelations commenced, that wasn't going to help. She had brushed her hair until it glinted. She put on lipstick and light makeup. She examined her teeth and gave them a brush. Then she went downstairs and took a seat as if to watch the game. She observed the score and thirty seconds later could not remember it. Her brain felt scrambled. Her hands were clammy. Her stomach ached with apprehension. She stared into her own lap. How many colors were actually in the plaid? Navy, dark green, a skinny thread of yellow...

Alison appeared in the hall shedding her coat, looking in on her parents. Damn it! Why did she have to come back so soon? Didn't she have any friends? Alison did not bother to pretend interest in the game but asked Rosemary how she was finding the biography. Rosemary said it was fascinating and she would lend it to Alison as soon as she finished it, for there was much to learn from the career of a great man. She compared him to Richelieu. Alison nodded. Melissa wondered if Alison knew who Richelieu was; she certainly didn't. Finally Alison climbed the steps to her office-bedroom. Melissa heard the door shut. Good. Now if Alison would only stay out of the way.

At five to two, Melissa got to her feet and slipped out of the room. Dick's gaze was fixed on the TV. Rosemary was deep in her book. Neither of them glanced at her as she went into the kitchen. As silently as she could, she crept down the narrow back staircase. Below was the small dank basement she liked to imagine held a corpse buried under the floor. A skeleton from 1812, say. She unlocked the door and carefully, an inch at a time so they would not overhear, opened it and then the storm door. Blake was not in the yard. Her precautions were silly, since the roar of the crowd and the excited monologue of the announcer would have drowned out almost anything she did, short of clog dancing. She was almost relieved the yard was empty. She hoped Blake had abandoned his feeble scheme. Still, she slipped the bolt of the lock so it would not shut her out and walked into the small yard, paved over for parking, and glanced up and down the alley. She clutched her elbows against the cold. The row houses were similar, almost matching on the street out front, but in back they were eccentric and individual. One had a tiny backyard where a dog was chained. Another had a makeshift garage. Some yards, like this one, were paved over. One house had a funny sort of caboose sticking out to the alley. A couple of yards, had been turned into miniature gardens or play areas.

She stood in the cold, almost enjoying it. It was above freezing today, barely. The ice against the house had not melted, but on the two cars it evaporated in the faint sun that trickled over the high slanted rooftops of the town houses in the block behind them. The sun was pale and watery, reminding her of food service custard. She wished Blake would call her. Her cell phone was turned on in her pocket. She was pecking out his number when she heard a motorcycle in the alley. She took a few uncertain steps forward. She did not see anyone until Blake climbed the alley fence and dropped into the yard.

"I thought maybe you weren't coming."

"Why? I'm on time."

She looked at her stupid watch again. He wasn't late enough to make an issue of; she was just nervous. "I'm scared. What should I say?"

"Just let me do the talking."

Slowly she walked up the steps to the kitchen. In her mind was an image from some movie, maybe a Western, of some guy mounting a platform to be hanged by the neck until dead. Why couldn't she just turn and run? Why couldn't she get on the back of his motorcycle and they would take off for parts unknown? Who would finally care? She would disappear. In a few years, she'd get in touch. They could make a living, somehow. Probably Si and Nadine would forgive them and send money. She turned back toward him at the head of the steps, but he was already looking past her. His face was set, a grim mask of hardened intent. Maybe if it didn't work, and it wouldn't, they could take off at once while her parents were still stunned. But was Rosemary ever stunned into inaction?

In a tiny pocket of old unresolved anger and misery, she realized, she nurtured the ridiculous wish that what was going to happen, whatever it was, would show Rosemary and Dick that they had always underestimated her, always considered her far less than she was capable of being. Even if they hated her, at least they might respect her, might admit surprise at what she had done. Perhaps that was the best that could be hoped for. To astonish them.

Blake gave her a prod forward. "Move," he whispered in her ear. "Someone could come in. Let's do it."

She saw herself walking forever toward the livingroom of the narrow row house, moving in ever slower motion and never arriving, like Zeno's paradox from philosophy class. But she did not live in Zenoland; she lived here and now. Time would not stop for her or linger in ever smaller fractions. She must arrive in the doorway, and she did, pausing there and imagining herself suddenly transported away, teleported into some other, more friendly dimension. Blake moved into the doorway slightly behind and to the side. Nothing happened for a couple of minutes. Rosemary turned a page of her tome. Dick groaned and cursed mildly as the Eagles' quarterback was sacked. Then somehow their presence registered. Rosemary looked up first and stared, freezing. Her response caused Dick to turn his head.

He got to his feet, hitting the mute button on the remote so that the house was suddenly still. She could hear the refrigerator running and Alison walking around upstairs. No one said anything for what felt like an hour but was, she guessed, perhaps one minute, perhaps two.

Blake broke the silence. "Mr. Dickinson, Mrs. Dickinson, we've met before in Washington, in your house there, when I was visiting your daughter."

"What are you doing here? How did you get in?" Dick was drawing himself up to a dignified stance, smoothing down his cashmere sweats.

"Melissa let me in." Blake stepped past her. He stood just in front of her and to the side, his hands loosely balled at his sides, his head slightly lowered. She guessed he was trying not to look confrontational but failing.

"Melissa, are you crazy? Why did you let him in?"

"I asked her to," Blake said simply. "She knew I wanted to talk with both of you."

"You've been stalking our daughter." Rosemary sat upright now, her eyes glittering. "I know you hacked into her e-mail and you've been reading it."

"I have a right to read her mail," Blake said. "She's my wife."

"We're married." Melissa's voice emerged almost as a squeak. She tried to regain control, lowering it into her throat so she would sound less of a ninny. "We've been married for a couple of months. We love each other."

"Married?" Rosemary shook her head in disgust. "We'll have it annulled."

"You're going to prison," Dick said. "Don't imagine manipulating Melissa into believing herself bound to you is going to change that."

"We're bound up regardless. That's how it is. We got married because we wanted to be together. We've been keeping it a secret from you because Melissa was waiting for a good time to tell you-"

"For instance, after you finished feeding all those lies to that scandal-monger on the Inquirer? Was that when you planned to tell us?" Dick rolled his eyes. "Or when you decided to confess to hacking into our e-mail?"

"I wanted to tell you," Melissa began, but Blake overrode her.

"Those weren't lies. Yes, I tried to damage you. I couldn't forgive you for my father's death. I was with him that night and I know he was innocent, and I suspect you do too. But it was politically useful to you to kill my father, and you think it would be politically useful to put me in prison."

"If he goes, I go," Melissa said. "We were both involved."

"You don't know what you're saying." Rosemary rose neatly unfolding herself. "You're mesmerized by him. But we'll protect you. You've been a foolish and willful girl, but we'll take care of you, no matter what. You, however, are in real trouble." She nodded at Blake.

"Judge, jury and executioner, the two of you." Blake took a step forward, his hands clenched now to fists. "Nothing we gave the Inquirer was a lie. But we'll shut up. We just want to live in peace together. We'll go off to California or Ireland or Mexico or anyplace. You won't have to see us. You won't have to have anything to do with us. We'll just vanish."

"I wouldn't let my daughter go off with scum like you," Dick said. "She may be foolish, she may be stupid, but she's still my daughter. Get out of here and leave her alone, now!"

"I love him." Melissa wrung her hands. "He's my husband and I love him."

"Oh, shut up," Rosemary said. "You're an idiot. He was using you to get at us. I told you what he was up to, but you were too silly to pay attention-"

"Melissa is mine, not yours. You can't just take her back like an umbrella you left in a restaurant. We're legally married, the marriage has been consummated, and other people know we're married. You can't make it go away."

"Oh, can't we?" Rosemary smiled tightly. "We could offer to buy you off, of course, and I think you'd leap at the chance. But we can't trust you. I'm afraid we can't trust Melissa right now, either. She's besotted. But she'll be helped to grow out of it."

Dick said, "She'll come to her senses once we've got her away from you. We can still help her. I don't think any help would rescue you from your doomed obsession with your father. A criminal found guilty by a jury, remember, who went through seven years of appeals refused by every court he pestered. He was guilty and he was properly sentenced and properly executed. I had no contact with him and no personal grudge."

"You used him politically, to get elected and reelected."

Dick shook his finger, taking two steps toward Blake. "You had little to complain of. You were adopted by rich lawyers and spoiled rotten. If you insist on destroying your life, you have only yourself to blame." Dick was no taller than Blake, but he seemed much, much larger. "I'll protect my daughter from you. You've tried to ruin her and you've tried to ruin my family, but I want you to know you've failed. You've ruined only yourself."

Blake took another step forward. "If you think you could ever, ever buy me off so that I'd leave Melissa, you're the crazy ones. You don't understand her. You have no idea who I am. We belong together. We're one. She is my wife and she'll stay my wife, no matter what happens to me."

"Anyone can talk a good game." Rosemary shook her head gently. "Where you're going is prison. Unless you flee, of course, you'll be picked up before the week is out." She crossed her legs and waited, head cocked, as if eager to hear what Blake would say next.

"Mother, Father, do you want this scandal?" Melissa moved to stand beside Blake. "Think how it's going to look. It's not as if you could keep our marriage a secret. Won't it look as if you're putting him in prison because he's African-American and I married him? Listen to me. You've been making a place for yourself in Washington. This won't help. I love Blake. If you let him go, I'll agree to an annulment and you can keep me at home for a year or until you're satisfied. I'll do whatever you want, if you let him go."

"That's sweet, dear, but unnecessary. We will get you an annulment and we will keep you out of trouble. But this young man is dangerous. He has an obsession." Rosemary wagged a long elegant purple-tipped finger. "He wants to get us. He's obsessed by visions of revenge. We can't afford to let him go. Frankly, he causes too much trouble."

Blake was standing more loosely now, smiling slightly. "Melissa, are you ready to walk out of here with me?" They had overridden him, they had almost vanquished him, but he wasn't ready to give up, she thought.

"Of course." She moved closer to him. She could almost feel herself on the bike behind him, holding on. "Let's go!"

"You don't care about her," Blake said as Alison appeared in the doorway behind Rosemary. She stood there a moment and then drew back into Rosemary's office. Good. She had decided not to get involved. Blake was saying, "You never loved her. You made her feel inferior. She wasn't up to your perverted standards. But I love her the way she is, and she loves me, and that doesn't mean a thing to you-that for the first time in her life she feels secure. She feels cared for."

"You attached yourself to her as a way to get to us. Let's be a trifle honest here," Rosemary said.

"I was curious about her because she's your daughter. But she's a woman in her own right, and it's her I love and it's her I married-not you people. I don't want her family. I have a better one of my own. One she likes being a part of."

"Oh, so your adopted parents were in on this," Dick said with a sense of aha.

"My sister let it slip we're married, so we had a scene with them. But they accepted Melissa. They do that."

"I'm sure they do," Rosemary said.

"I'm taking Melissa out of here. Now! If you ever want to see her again, you'll call off your dogs and let us be." He took Melissa's arm and started to turn toward the kitchen.

"You will not. Alison!" Rosemary spun around. "Time for a little help here."

Alison came out of Rosemary's office carrying their Smith & Wesson nine-millimeter semiautomatic, one of her favorites, held before her in both hands, properly fixed against her body. Her face was grim. "Stand perfectly still. Don't move," she said. "Step away from Melissa now or I will shoot."

Dick picked up the phone. "Sixty seconds and you're out of here, or I call the police. Alison..."

"What, you're going to shoot us? Father, Mother, are you crazy?"

"You can't do this!" Blake was sputtering with anger. "She's my wife. You have no right! Stop trying to push me around."

"Get out of my house!" Dick yelled, openly furious now, phone still gripped in his hand. "I want him out of here. Now, Alison!"

"Don't threaten us! You think I came empty-handed?" Blake let go of her and pulled something from his jacket pocket. "Did you think I was stupid enough to trust you? You killed my father and now you want to kill me." It was the gun she had found under his bed in November, she knew it was.

"Blake, no!" She grabbed at his arm. A noise filled her head and deafened her for a moment so that she saw Dick's mouth open but could not tell what he was saying. Then he was clutching his chest. "Daddy, no!" she screamed, and turned and struck at Blake, grabbing him. She could see Blake firing again and again, but because she was holding on to his arm, the shots went wildly around the room, hitting a vase, the wall, the couch where her father had been sprawled watching the football game.

Alison came forward with the semiautomatic in front of her, both hands steadying the gun propped against her body as she was always showing Rosemary how to pose. She moved deliberately, ignoring the wild bullets careening around the room. Then Blake fell and there was blood all over his head. Melissa knelt over Blake calling his name, and she saw her mother flinging herself on her father. She stared from one to the other and the minutes gelled into something heavy and thick and she knew suddenly that they were dead, Blake and her father, both. Everybody was dead. She could hear again now. Her mother was weeping hysterically, yelling for Alison to call an ambulance.

Alison leaned over her. "I'd love to shoot you too, you murderous traitor, you stupid little bitch! But it would kill your mother." She turned and picked up the phone where it had dropped. "I'll call an ambulance."

"Yes, hurry! I can still feel a pulse." Rosemary looked up at Alison, her face streaked with tears. She was incredibly pale, her shoulders shaking. Blood had spattered all over her silk blouse and jumper, Dick's blood. There was so much blood every place, so much.

Melissa knelt over Blake's body. She could not cry yet. She was too frozen. She was stunned. What did Blake think he was doing? Now everyone would say he was a murderer, son of a murderer. Why had he done that? He was supposed to help her reach her father, that was what he was supposed to do. She wanted to shake sense into him. But his head was all smashed and she could not even hold him. He was gone from her. He had vanished and left her with bits of bone and brain and blood, with the mess of her splattered life and a mother who would hate her always. No one would ever understand them now. Never. She knelt there, dead herself over his broken body.

* CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE *.

Melissa put her hand over Karen's on the table, among the plain white crockery and stainless steel cutlery of the little restaurant where Karen had taken her for lunch. The food was better than Mountain View Rehabilitation Center's bland cuisine, but the thrill was getting out for a few hours. "I know you hate coming near the place, but I really appreciate it. And eating real food."

"Oh, the cooking in the bin-right. They feel that any flavor-herbs or spices-might excite the residents, cause a riot."

"I wonder if Dr. Baines or Dr. Hildebrand has ever failed to diagnose anybody as being whatever their families were willing to pay to have them described as. I mean, do they ever turn anybody away and say, But this kid is normal? Or, There's nothing whatsoever wrong with Mrs. Zilch?"

"They wouldn't get paid then, would they? But they do turn people away-if they think they're too much trouble. Too violent. Uncontrollable." Karen frowned. "Do you know your diagnosis?"

"Borderline."

Karen waved her hand. "BPD-Borderline Personality Disorder."

"You know about it?"

"A Dr. Krotkey originally defined borderline for the DSM-the bible of psychiatry, but they keep revising it. They mostly apply borderline to women and young people-impulsive, unstable, bad self-image. Standard adolescence, in other words."

"How do you know all this?"

"I studied up. I wanted to know what I was dealing with. A friend smuggled photocopies in for me-patients aren't supposed to know about illnesses." She nodded at Melissa's empty plate. "Would you like something more?"

"Maybe dessert?"

"How are you bearing up?"

"I scrape along the bottom. I hate Dr. Hildebrand. He tries to manipulate me."

"You didn't hate Blake for that."

"Blake didn't manipulate me. He loved me. He was pursuing justice."

"Through you, Melissa. You have to see that."

"Are you on their side now?"

"Of course not." Karen sighed. "I just thought you might have a few ideas about responsibility and taking control of your choices by now."

"How can I take control of anything while I'm locked up?"

"Don't get upset. Let's have dessert."

She was especially grateful for Karen's visits, because she knew how her aunt dreaded entering the gates and sitting in the waiting room with its air of stodgy disuse, chairs never sat in, couches never sprawled upon. It was in the main house, where the alcoholics and addicts were, upstairs. Karen always sat by the floor-length windows as if to provide herself an escape. The residents never entered that room unless summoned by an approved guest. Karen had only gotten on the list by managing to persuade Rosemary it would be more of a nuisance to keep her off than to put her on. An attendant would escort Melissa from Ryder, the young people's house, to the main house, the old robber baron's mansion, called a camp.

The facility was in the Adirondacks, occupying what had once been an estate, then a school for rich girls whom their families did not wish to send to a normal college, and now storage of those over fourteen who had caused or threatened to cause their wealthy and powerful families some kind of annoyance. The view from the windows was beautiful, mountains all around their cloistered valley, blue today with autumn haze, patches of brilliant red and gold. But the mountains might as well have been painted on a wall. Her friend Boo, daughter of a tire family, called it the Mountain View but Don't Touch. Boo had an affair with her gym teacher. The teacher was fired and Boo was shipped here.

Melissa had been in Mountain View for over three months before Karen was allowed to see her. Very hard time. Now she was on milder tranquilizers than the heavy stuff they had first given her, that kept her woozy and detached, as if her head had floated loose of everything down below. She still felt lethargic, but at least her head was back on her shoulders and she could manage two consecutive thoughts without losing her way in a drug-induced soggy haze. She was slow, but she no longer shuffled.

All she had wanted was to weep, to be unconscious, to die, but she could not even manage that. She had tried and failed in Philadelphia, with a combination of sleeping pills and antihistamines. Then she had tried a razor blade. While she was heavily drugged, her emotions had sunk deep below. In between was a thick layer of smog that choked her so she could not cry and scream, so words were fish shapes that escaped into the greyness and she was left groping for herself. Now she felt empty, but she knew how and why she hurt. She knew.

"Have you heard from Merilee lately?" Karen was motioning for the waitress. Karen drove from Vermont to the Adirondacks to see her every two weeks. They had, after experimenting, decided on the Bear Trap as a place with big portions, comfort food and waitresses who let them sit at the table for a couple of hours without hassle. This waitress was called Freddie, short for Winifred, a name she told them she detested. She had blonded hair worn in straggle curls, a great gap-toothed grin, a sandpapery voice and an infectious giggle that Melissa could never resist no matter how depressed she was. Freddie was bringing black coffee for Karen, who would have to drive back to Vermont, and a big slice of blueberry pie for Melissa, who would be returned to Ryder House.

"She's not good at writing, but she tries. She's the only family besides you I have contact with. If only they'd let me have e-mail, I could really communicate with her. They let me have a laptop now to do my homework, but I have to send everything by snail mail." Merilee was working for a firm out in L.A. that specialized in environmental law. Rosemary did not approve. Rosemary had visited Melissa twice, the second time on the occasion of her marriage to Senator Frank Dawes, the senior senator from North Dakota. He was hardly dashing, older than Dick had been, but a force in the Senate. He had both money and power. Rosemary would never forgive Melissa but was too busy to bother with her. Alison had waited in the car. Emily was not allowed to visit Mountain View.

When Karen arrived, Melissa always gave her letters for Emily and received at least one she could hide away, read, reread.

When Karen had to return her, her suicidal friend Jon was waiting. "So, she fed you up?"

"Stuffed. Almost happy."

"Don't ever get happy here. Keep fighting." He put his arm around her waist. She shied away. He might be interested, but she wasn't. She didn't think she'd ever be interested in a guy again. There were quite a few young people stored here-in residence, as they said-and they hung out in little gangs, the ones who were fairly functional and not in lockup for some rebellion or infringement of the Byzantine rules. Many residents in the other houses were middle-aged, and some were quite old. Families had diverse reasons for wishing to stow members safely and silently away. There were addicts, alcoholics, kleptomaniacs, those whose sexuality had represented a problem-they liked the wrong sex or those too young to be legal. There were some genuine crazies too, stored in Clifton. Schizophrenics, mostly.