“Have you spoken to John Lee since we last talked?”

  “No,” she said immediately. “No, I haven’t.”

  He smiled warmly. “And would you like to tell me who it is you did talk to? Was it Mrs. Jordan or Terry Bollinger?”

  “Terry,” she said, and looked away. “I went with him to talk to Custer Grady. He just got out of prison.”

  Dr. Urdiales leaned forward and touched her hands lightly, just enough to drag her gaze back to him.

  “How did it feel to see him?”

  “Frightening,” she whispered. “Familiar. Exciting. I knew him.”

  “Did you?”

  “I … felt that I did. I thought he recognized me, too.”

  His expression didn’t change from its usual mixture of concern and interest, but she thought she knew what he was thinking, and it scared her. She flinched away from it and groped on the floor for the soft leather of her purse. When she’d found it she pulled it into her lap like a shield.

  “I know I’ve asked you this before, but I want you to think about the answer, please. Is it possible that you might be wrong about all this? About Pearl, about the cellar?”

  If she said yes, she’d reassure him that she wasn’t going crazy, that he wasn’t watching her disintegrate before his eyes. If she said yes, he’d give her more room.

  If she said yes, she’d be lying. Without question, lying.

  “I suppose I could be wrong,” she said.

  Lying was better.

  A truck followed her home from Dr. Urdiales’ office. She drove slowly, careful of the ice-slick roads, and kept a nervous eye on the steady glare of headlights behind her. She didn’t go home, not directly, and after four turns the truck peeled away and left her alone in the cold December night.

  She pulled into her apartments and parked, her mind only half on the process of retrieving her belongings and separating keys to find the right one for the deadbolt. As she slipped it into the lock she heard the scrape of footsteps behind her and cold slid down her throat and puddled in her stomach, squeezed her lungs hard as she gasped and turned to face what was coming.

  The lights behind him cast him into a dark outline in a cowboy hat. For a thrilled fraction of a second she thought it was John Lee before she remembered he didn’t drive a truck.

  Terry did.

  Terry stepped forward into the light, blue eyes narrowed and teeth showing in a grin.

  “Not too careful, are you?” he asked. She tried to catch her breath to tell him off, but he nodded toward the keys in her hand. “Let’s talk inside.”

  “I don’t have to talk to you. Get the hell away from me.” She turned back to the door and fit the key in the lock with trembling fingers. The cold made it difficult to turn. She shouldered the door open and faced him again.

  He hadn’t moved except to cross his arms across his chest.

  “You cut me off pretty fast, Miss Abby. I sure do want to know what Custer Grady said to you.”

  “Fuck off, Terry.” She tried to slam the door in his face but he was fast, very fast, and caught it with the palm of one hand. She pushed harder, but it was like pushing against a block of wood. “I’ll scream!”

  “Goddamn, you watch too much TV. Go ahead if it’ll make you feel better; you know damn well I’m not gonna hurt you. I just want to know what Grady told you.”

  She let go of the door. He wasn’t fast enough to stop the door from crashing back against the wall, and Carlton came charging out of the bedroom, snarling and barking. Abby caught his collar and held on to him with difficulty as he scrabbled for purchase on the wood floor, jaws parted and lips drawn back. He was so strong he dragged her forward almost within biting range before she braced her foot against the wall.

  Terry didn’t retreat, but his hand had moved close to his coat.

  “I’ll shoot that fucking thing if I have to,” he said. Looking at his eyes—god, blue eyes, the same shade as Custer Grady’s—she had no doubt he meant it. She hauled on Carlton’s collar and dragged him back to the bedroom, shoved him in and slammed the door a second before his weight hit it.

  Terry had quietly shut the front door behind him, and waited in the living room, at home on the couch, feet on the coffee table. He had the remote in his hand as he flipped channels.

  “You need cable,” he said, and tossed her the control. Behind them, Carlton kept up a furious assault of barking and door-banging. “Make this easy on us both. The faster you talk, the faster you see my ass out that door.”

  Most people had to work to get under her skin; everything Terry said seemed to inject itself directly into muscle. She felt her spine stiffen. “I hope you’re comfortable. Can I get you something? Coffee? Tea? Gosh, I’m sorry I don’t have any wine.”

  He had perfected Custer Grady’s blank stare, and if he noticed her humor it didn’t crack his face. His stare was hard enough to drill diamonds.

  And he waited. Damned if she was going to let him panic her. She stripped off her coat and hung it up in the closet, went into the kitchen and filled the kettle with water, then set it on to boil. She turned on the radio and played it loud, humming along with Aerosmith even though she didn’t really care for the song, because it helped her ignore the man sitting on her couch, waiting.

  And the phone rang. She turned down the volume on the radio, grabbed the phone off the wall, and said, “Hello.” Even before she heard his voice she knew who it was, who it had to be.

  “Hi. Are you busy?” John Lee’s voice had the power to tilt the world; she reached out for the counter to pull it back. Now that she heard him she felt the loss of him like an open wound.

  She turned her back on Terry’s stare, fought to keep her voice steady as she said, “I’m afraid so. Can I call you back in a little while?”

  He sounded so far away, so fragile. “Sure, if you want. I’m on the car phone.”

  From the living room, Terry said loudly, “Hey, honey, what’re you doing in there?” She whipped around to glare at him in panic and instinctively tucked the phone closer to her neck.

  “What?” John Lee asked. “Sorry, what’d you say?”

  “Nothing. It’s the TV. Listen, I’ve got to get going, but I’ll call you back, okay?” How to tell him that she cared, that she hadn’t forgotten him? She hesitated, indecisive, and felt heat at her back an instant before she heard Terry’s voice near her ear.

  “Tell him I said hello.”

  She hit the disconnect button fast—fast enough?—and stepped forward out of Terry’s warmth before she turned on him. He was smiling, blue eyes mild with pleasure.

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “Couldn’t resist. You think he heard me?”

  “You want to know what Grady said to me? Nothing! Grady thought I was a goddamn jailhouse groupie, does that help you? He’s just like you, like father like son, so get the hell out of my house right now or I’ll call some real cops!”

  Behind her, the kettle rose to a scream. She reached out to turn it off but Terry’s hand got to hers first and grabbed, crushingly hard.

  “You better get something straight,” he said. He was close enough that his warm breath felt like a touch on her cheek. “I’m not fucking playing with you, Abby. Your boyfriend killed Marlene and I’m gonna see him pay for it, one way or another, and you had better get the hell out of the way ’cause there ain’t no neutral territory, not here. You had a nice little chat with Custer Grady and I can’t help but think about Custer killing those women in the fifties and his son killing Marlene. You have a talk about that, did you?”

  “No,” she said, breathing hard. “I asked him about Pearl Jordan.”

  “Jesus Christ.” His grip on her loosened enough that she pulled free and turned off the burner. The kettle died to a moan, then to silence. “Now, why would you want to do that? Pearl Jordan never done anything illegal in her life I know about, except having a son like John Lee.”

  He sounded almost defensive. She remembered the sweet, vulnerable smile on Pearl’s scarred face. She might seem that way, to anyone who hadn’t been in that blood-soaked basement, seen the damaged face twisted up with hate.

  “If you’re going to try to tell me Pearl killed Marlene—” he began derisively.

  “No. But I think maybe she knows something. Something about Custer Grady and maybe about Marlene’s death, too.” She forced a smile. “Maybe I should ask Pearl about Marlene. Maybe nobody ever did that.”

  For a long moment he just looked at her. She became aware of the small kitchen, the blank wall behind her, the kettle full of boiling water on the stove between them. There was some of that awareness in his eyes, too.

  In the bedroom, Carlton stopped barking. He whined, thumped against the door, and went silent.

  “If you like,” he said. “Go right ahead.”

  She turned away and opened a cabinet and took down a mug, lifted a second and raised her eyebrows at him. He hesitated and nodded.

  An ironic smile flashed over his lips when she took hold of the teakettle. She poured two cups and watched the white steam breathe.

  “Hot tea okay?”

  “Fine.” He leaned an elbow on the stove and watched as she hunted down teabags. She set out a honey jar and went to the refrigerator for lemon. “You know something? Something about Marlene?”

  She let the tea bags stew. They bled brown strips into the hot water. She squeezed them with a spoon and stirred. The crushed wet hulks went into the trash. When she turned back to the tea Terry was stirring honey into his mug, thick golden spirals. Without looking at her, he said, “Well?”

  She reached past him for her mug and drank it without flavoring, hot enough to leave a warning tingle on the roof of her mouth. She missed the strong clean taste of Miklos’ tea back in Dallas. Hers tasted dry and musty.

  “I need to get into Pearl’s house.”

  He put the mug down on the counter with a wet thump. “What do you mean?”

  “All we have to do is get inside—”

  “Whoa.” When she opened her mouth to reply, he held out a hand to stop her. Big hands, she remembered. Capable hands. She closed her mouth. “Stop right there. I ain’t going down that road with you. I’m an officer of the law.”

  “When it suits you.” She sipped tea and looked longingly at the honey jar by his side. “All I’m saying is that we pick a time when we know she’s not home—”

  “She’s always home.”

  “—and we disable the alarm. I’m sure you know how to do that—”

  “Listen, Abby—”

  “—and we look, we just take a look!. Isn’t that what you want? To prove she’s guilty?”

  She stopped, breathing hard, and saw that he was frowning. He said, “She?”

  She turned away to pick up a dishrag and wipe at the tea he’d spilled on the counter.

  “I thought you said you weren’t gonna tell me Pearl Jordan killed Marlene.”

  “I’m not,” she said. The dishrag was stiff and unabsorbent. The tea ran stubbornly away. “I think she killed somebody else.”

  He could have called her a fool, could have laughed. Instead, he asked, “Who?”

  A reasonable question. Me didn’t seem to be a very reasonable answer.

  “I think the woman living in that house isn’t the real Pearl Jordan. I think she killed Pearl and buried the body in the cellar and took her place.”

  “Oh, and none of us noticed that. She may be a stay-at-home but she ain’t exactly a hermit, either. Plenty of people know her.”

  “Now,” Abby said, and swiped the rag over the tea until it softened. “How many people knew her before Custer Grady beat her so badly she almost died?”

  Dead silence. She finished wiping up the mess, picked up the mug, and handed it to him. His fingers wrapped around it but he didn’t seem to notice its weight; he was still frowning, shaking his head.

  “That was back in … what? In ’58? Something like that. Hell, I guess just about everybody knew her back then. Small town, nothing to do.”

  “Fact is, Pearl Jordan’s mother ended up in a mental institution and her father was just about as crazy. Pearl never went out of the house after her mother was committed until her father died, and then only to go to the funeral. She never let anybody inside, either. All of a sudden she ends up beaten badly enough to have her face reconstructed. Everybody knows her then, don’t they?” She watched his face as he nodded. “But maybe that one, the one that was beaten, that wasn’t Pearl Jordan at all. Pearl Jordan was already dead in the cellar.”

  He thought about it a full minute before he asked, reasonably enough, “Then who is she if she’s not Pearl Jordan?”

  “I don’t know,” Abby said, and saw the flash in his eyes as he dismissed the whole idea. “No, wait, just because I don’t know doesn’t mean it’s not true!”

  “Where’d you get this story, out of some damn detective magazine? You buy it off some burn at the bus station?” His eyes narrowed. “Custer Grady tell you that fairy tale?”

  I saw it in a vision.

  “Yes,” she said. “Custer Grady told me.”

  “Then it’s total goddamn bullshit. Custer Grady was full of stories when they put him away, the crazier the better. He told the judge that the cotton plants used to come up out of the ground and talk to him. He told his lawyer that the Nazis killed those people and framed him.” He swiped his hand in the air, wiping the whole idea away. “You oughta get some professional help for that gullibility problem.”

  “I am. You know it. You followed me from Dr. Urdiales’ office, didn’t you?”

  He seemed surprised that she’d noticed. “I saw you there last week when I came to pick up my mother.”

  “Your mother?” She thought, absurdly, of the elegant receptionist, her professional smile.

  “Evvy Bollinger.”

  I’m Evvy, she’d cooed in the waiting room, honeysweet. She’d never said her last name but then strangers didn’t, did they, when they met in a psychologist’s waiting room? Something had rung a bell but it had been a distant ringing, far as the horizon.

  She’d thought it had been a Pearl-memory. Instead it had been the shape of Evvy’s face, the mouth, because those showed plainly on Terry’s face, carved heavier.

  He was still watching her. Waiting for something.

  “What?” she demanded. He leaned against the kitchen counter and let his eyelids slip half closed.

  “You want your tape back?”

  The words stuck somewhere down around her heart in a painful lump. She cleared her throat and nodded. He had that lazy, predatory look again. She remembered his hands sliding hot up her legs while John Lee watched, helpless.

  “Say please,” he said. She clenched her teeth hard enough to make her jaw muscles ache, relaxed them, and smiled.

  “Please.”

  He moved a step closer. She put her hand on the teakettle, still half full; it made a protesting whisper and breathed steam. She saw Terry’s eyes flick to it.

  He leaned forward, face so close to hers he filled the world, and said, “Custer Grady ain’t my goddamn father, Abby. Don’t you ever say he is again.”

  Her hand flinched around the handle of the teakettle but then he was gone, stepping away. Her lungs hurt as if he’d sucked all the air from the room.

  He opened the front door and walked out, leaving it swinging open behind him. She let go of the kettle with an effort and went to push the door shut. He was walking down the sidewalk, careful of the thin, slippery coating of ice. His down parka made him look even broader in the shoulders than he really was.

  As he got in his pickup she caught sight of a car parked in the row behind, lights off but motor running, exhaust rising like a ghost-trail into the cold. She couldn’t see it clearly, couldn’t see if anybody was sitting in the driver’s seat, but she knew the car.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered.

  John Lee had just seen Terry leave her apartment.

  The next morning dawned with an odd sense of normality—Christmas was coming, she had things to do, presents to buy, had to clean the house and get everything straightened up before Maria came back from her latest trip and threw a fit over the state of the floors. Carlton was a big, fluffy dog, and he left guilty, hairy evidence everywhere he went. She set about vacuuming the living room, kicking furniture out of her way when she could and ignoring it when she couldn’t. Carlton hid in the bedroom near the bed, ready to dive for even more cover if she brought the roaring metal monster near him. She filled up one bag with disgusting-looking crap and started a new one for the second half of the room.

  She hadn’t had the courage to call back John Lee. What could she have said? If that had been him in the parking lot—and she knew in her heart that it was—there was really nothing to say. On the other hand, she felt she had made inroads toward getting Terry’s help. He didn’t believe her story, but he wanted to hurt John Lee, and she’d offered him a golden opportunity to do it through Pearl Jordan.

  All she had to do was wait.

  She hummed as she cut green foil paper and wrapped a thick sweater for her father. She’d hunted for days for something for her brother but he was difficult to buy for, very picky about his clothes and anything he liked. He didn’t like gadgets. She might be able to find him an interesting tie, but that was about it.

  Benny. She felt so mixed about Benny at the moment that she’d put off buying her gift for last. Usually Benny was the bright light at the end of the tunnel, a joy to shop for because all she had to do was look for the coolest, most outrageous thing she could find, match it with the tackiest thing she could find, and Benny would drool like a Saint Bernard. But right now Benny was mixed up with the dark place in her head, with Pearl and blood and the taste of Miklos’ honey tea. Nothing seemed very funny about it.

  God, she wanted all of this over with, finished. She wrapped her father’s present grimly now, matching ribbon and choosing a flat bow that wouldn’t crush too much in mailing. She wrapped it in brown paper and parcel tape and wrote his address on it.

  Carlton whined from the corner. He was looking out the window at falling snow.

  “Yeah, I know, baby, you need a walk. Give me a minute.” She dumped all the wrapping accessories into the box and set the package on the table, went back to gather up boots and gloves and coat and hat. She bundled herself up and found the leash. Carlton immediately went into ecstatic leaps and turns, bouncing up and down like a furry rubber ball. She grabbed his collar and hooked him up, then opened the door onto winter.