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Marguerite came out of the treatment room shaken and spotted with her daughter’s blood, but obviously reassured. “They’ve got her cleaned up and sutured,” she told Chris. “She was actually very brave, once we saw the doctor. That story about your sister helped, I think.”

“I’m glad.”

“Thank you for your help. I could have driven her myself, but it would have been much trickier. Scarier for Tess, too.”

“You’re welcome.”

“They gave her a painkiller. The doctor said we can go home when it takes effect. She’ll have to keep the hand immobilized for a few days, though.”

“Have you called her father?”

Marguerite was instantly downcast. “No, but I guess I ought to. I just hope he doesn’t go ballistic. Ray is—” She stopped. “You don’t want to know my problems.”

Frankly, no, he didn’t. She said, “Excuse me,” and took her phone to a distant corner of the waiting room.

Despite his best intentions Chris overheard a little of the conversation. The way she talked to her ex-husband was instructive. Carefully casual at first. Explaining the accident gently, understating it, then cringing from his response. “At the clinic,” she said finally. “I—” A pause. “No. No.” Pause. “It isn’t necessary, Ray. No. You’re blowing this way out of proportion.” Long pause. “That isn’t true. You know that isn’t true.”

She clipped off without saying good-bye and took a moment to steady herself. Then she came across the waiting room between the rows of generic hospital furniture, her lips compressed, her hair askew, her clothing bloodstained. There was a stiff dignity in the way she carried herself, an implicit rejection of whatever it was Ray Scutter had said to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but would you please go out and start the car? I’ll fetch Tess. I think she’ll be better off at home.”

Another polite lie, but with an unspoken urgency under it. He nodded.

The walkway between the clinic and the parking lot was cold and windswept. He was glad enough to climb inside Marguerite’s little car and start the motor. Heat wafted up from the floor ducts. The street was empty, swept with sinuous lines of blowing snow. He looked at the lights of the Plaza, the shopping concourse. The stars were still bright, and on the southern horizon he could see the ru

Marguerite came out of the clinic with Tess some ten minutes later, but she had not reached the car when another vehicle roared into the lot and screeched to a stop.

Ray Scutter’s car. Marguerite watched with obvious apprehension as her ex-husband left the vehicle and came toward her with a rapid, aggressive stride.

Chris made sure the passenger door was unlocked. Better to avoid a confrontation. Ray had that mad-bull look about him. But Marguerite didn’t make it to the car before Ray got a hand on her shoulder.

Marguerite kept her eyes on her ex-husband but pushed Tess behind her, protecting her. Tess cradled her injured hand under her snow jacket. Chris couldn’t make out what Ray was saying. All he could hear over the whine of the motor was a few barked consonants.

Time to be brave. He hated being brave. That was what people used to say about his book, at least before Galliano’s suicide. How brave of you to write it. Bravery had never gotten him anywhere.

He stepped out of the car and opened the rear door for Tess to climb in.

Ray gave him a startled look. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Chris Carmody.”

“He helped drive Tess here,” Marguerite said hurriedly.

“Right now she needs to get back home,” Chris said. Tess had already scooted into the backseat, quick despite the clumsiness of her bandaged hand.

“Clearly,” Scutter said, his eyes narrow and fixed on Chris, “she’s not safe there.”

“Ray,” Marguerite said, “we have an agreement—”

“We have an agreement written before the siege by a divorce counselor I can’t contact.” Ray had mastered the vocal tones of bull-male impatience, equal parts whining and imperious. “There’s no way I can trust you with my daughter when you permit things like this to happen.”

“It was an accident. Accidents happen.”

“Accidents happen when children aren’t supervised. What were you doing, staring at the fucking Subject?”

Marguerite stumbled over an answer. Chris said, “It happened after Tess went to bed.” He motioned discreetly for Marguerite to get into the car.

“You’re that tabloid journalist — what do you know about it?”

“I was there.”





Marguerite took the hint and climbed in. Ray looked frustrated and doubly angry when he heard the door slam. “I’m taking my daughter with me,” he said.

“No, sir,” Chris said. “Not tonight, I’m afraid.”

He maintained eye contact with Ray as he slid behind the wheel. Tess began quietly crying in the backseat. Ray leaned against the car door, but whatever he was shouting was inaudible. Chris put the vehicle in drive and pulled away, not before Scutter aimed a kick at the rear bumper.

Marguerite soothed her daughter. Chris drove cautiously out of the clinic lot, wary of ice. Ray could have jumped in his own car and followed but apparently chose not to; last he saw of him in the rearview mirror, he was still standing in impotent rage.

“He hates for anyone to see him like that,” Marguerite said. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid you made an enemy tonight.”

No doubt. Chris understood the alchemy by which a man might be charming in public and brutal behind closed doors. Cruelty as the intimacy of last resort. Men generally didn’t like to be witnessed in the act.

She added, “I have to thank you again. I’m truly sorry about all this.”

“Not your fault.”

“If you want to find a new place to room, I understand.”

“The basement’s still warmer than the gym. If that’s okay with you.”

Tess snorted and coughed. Marguerite helped her blow her nose.

“I keep thinking,” Marguerite said, “what if it had been worse? What if we’d needed a real hospital? I’m so tired of this lockdown.”

Chris pulled into the driveway of the town house. “I expect we’ll survive,” he said. Clearly, Marguerite was a survivor.

Tess, exhausted, went to sleep on Marguerite’s bed. The house was cold, icy air rivering in through the broken window in Tessa’s room, the furnace struggling to keep up. Chris rummaged in the basement until he found a heavy plastic drop cloth and a wide piece of maplewood veneer. He duct-taped the plastic over the empty window frame in Tessa’s bedroom, then tacked up the veneer for good measure.

Marguerite was in the kitchen when he went downstairs. “Nightcap?” she said.

“Sure.”

She poured him fresh coffee laced with brandy. Chris checked his watch. After midnight. He didn’t feel remotely like sleeping.

“I guess you’re tired of hearing me apologize.”

“I grew up with a younger sister,” Chris said. “Things happen with kids. I know that.”

“Your sister. You mentioned Portia.”

“We all call her Porry.”

“Do you still see her? Before the siege, I mean.”

“Porry died a while back.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Now you do have to stop apologizing.”

“I’m — oh.”

“How much trouble do you expect Ray to make over this?”

She shrugged. “That’s a question and a half. As much as he can.”

“It’s none of my business. I’d just like some warning if you expect him to show up at the door with a shotgun.”

“It’s not like that. Ray is just… well, what can I say about Ray? He likes to be right. He hates to be contradicted. He’s eager to pick fights but he hates to lose them, and he’s been losing them most of his life. He doesn’t like sharing custody with me — he wouldn’t have signed the agreement, except his lawyer told him it was the best deal he was going to get — and he’s always threatening some new legal action to take Tess away. He’ll see tonight as more evidence that I’m an unfit parent. More ammunition.”