"Sure," Jim said. "Sure it is." He pulled the blanket and the pillow off the bunk and gave them to Riley, who thanked him and proceeded to blow his nose on the blanket.

Jim stood up and left the cell, locking it behind him. He motioned to Kate, and the three of them padded silently down the hall, leaving the man beneath the bunk to crouch, shivering and terrified, waiting for the next attack.

"Poor bastard," Kate said.

"Yeah," Jim said. "But did he do it?"

"Poor fucker," Bobby said.

He was sitting in front of the computer, one of the many electronic components of the console that occupied the center of the A-frame. He had a satellite uplink now and was the only person in the Park, apart from Dan and the school, to have instant Internet access. He tapped some keys and a different site popped up—one with a Department of Defense logo—one Jim was not entirely certain Bobby should have been able to get on, but he held his peace.

"He was at Hue. Private Riley Higgins, Seventh Cav." He shook his head, exited, and sat back. "No wonder the poor fucker's crazy."

"I would remind you that this particular poor fucker killed Dina Willner, and may have killed Ruthe Bauman while he was at it," Kate said tartly.

"Poor pucker," Katya said sadly, trying to twist a Rubik's Cube on the floor at Bobby's feet.

"Listen to the girl, wouldja, she's talking good as her daddy!" Bobby roared, snatching up his daughter and cradling her in his arms. Katya blinked up at him, surprised, and then gave him a blinding smile and a smacking kiss.

Dinah sighed and looked at Jim and Kate. "Soup's on."

It wasn't soup; it was a big moose roast with the bone in, served with potatoes and carrots in a thick brown garlicky gravy and big hunks of fresh-baked brown bread. They dug in with a will.

After dinner, when Katya was tucked safely into bed and had fallen obligingly into a deep sleep—"Not to be heard from again until three A.M.," said her loving mother—the four of them gathered around the fireplace. Jim and Bobby drank coffee laced with Bobby's favorite Kentucky whiskey, and Dinah sat Kate down on a chair from the kitchen table, tucked a dishcloth around her neck, and proceeded to trim her hair.

"Is that normal behavior for posttraumatic stress syndrome, Bobby?" Kate asked him. "One minute, Riley Higgins was fine, conversing with me in a normal tone of voice. The next minute, he was screaming at the top of his lungs and hiding under the bed."

Bobby snorted. "There is no normal." He contemplated his mug and sighed. "You know one of the reasons I wound up in Alaska?"

"What?" Dinah bent Kate's head forward and to one side to trim the hair on the back of her neck. Snip, snip. Black hair whispered down to the cloth. Jim was mesmerized.