“I don’t think I could ever give myself a shot,” I said, shuddering. “I’d probably have to have other people do it for me.”

We were on dangerous ground here, but if Alan had reason to change the course of this conversation, he didn’t show it.

“Wendell was the same way,” he said, nodding. “He wanted all of us to learn how to give shots. We had to practice on oranges until we got it right.”

“Oranges?”

“Yeah, Sidra taught us—the family and staff, Gwen, and me. We sat around the table one day, injecting water into oranges. It seemed funny at the time, but then that was Wendell’s way, turning his tragedy into a big laugh.”

“I see.”

“And I didn’t mind giving the shots. Hey, if it made his life a little easier, what the heck?”

What the heck, I thought, studying the man in front of me. He looked back at me with handsome, piercing eyes, and I knew: If it were he who had administered that final, fatal injection, he certainly was one cool character about it right now.

Ten

Alan was the last guest to remain, but he turned down Marion’s offer to join us for dinner, citing other plans. Once he was gone, Marion took my arm as we turned from the door. I didn’t think I would be very hungry after that late bowl of soup, but delicious smells from the kitchen began to whet my appetite.

“We’ll have a drink in here before dinner,” Marion said as we walked, and before I could reply we were standing in the doorway of the den, looking in at Derek, who knelt in front of the fireplace, poking at the burning logs.

He glanced our way, and I could see that he was wearing the same dark slacks and white shirt as before, his tie now loosened around his neck. Derek seemed to be in his early 40s with short grayish-blond hair and wire-rimmed glasses. Though I wouldn’t exactly have called him handsome, there was something fairly engaging about his face and demeanor. He stood as we approached.

Our eyes met, and though I feared some glint of recognition or even scorn, he merely smiled and extended a hand, oblivious to the fact that less than two hours before I had clung to a tree over his head and eavesdropped on his private grief. I studied his face for a moment, not surprised to see his eyes looking puffy and tired.

“Derek Smythe,” he said, giving my hand a firm shake. “How do you do?”

His mother began to explain that I was “the one from the foundation” and he immediately looked at me with a painful grimace.

“You’re the one who found him, then,” he said sympathetically. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. How traumatic for you.”

I didn’t reply that I had long ago learned to deal with dead bodies. In fact, I had seen plenty during the years I spent in investigations, encountering my first dead body at the age of 19 when I tagged along with Eli to take notes on a missing persons case. The woman, a heroin addict, had tried to fly off of her second-story balcony and ended up impaling herself on a decorative wrought iron fence post. Compared to that—as well as plenty of other grisly scenes we had worked on—today had been a walk in the park.