"It looks so new," I said.

"I can answer that," said Bill, his manhood slowly returning. "I doubt if anybody in my family ever read it. We certainly didn't. I have a vague memory of my grandfather—Preston's son—calling it a piece of crap." He hesitated. "I think he was also ashamed of his father. You know, having a criminal in the family.

"May we borrow it?" asked Sabrina, all memory of the previous incident already vanished.

"You can have it, for all I care. If it will help end all of this, then you're welcome to it."

"If you turn in the paintings," I reassured him, "I think you will finally be free of it all. They were stolen from the Brooklyn Museum. I'm sure they'd be mighty happy to get them back."

We left them with smiles of relief on their faces.

As we were walking out to my car Sabrina said, "So Mario—at least we have to assume it was him—has known about this for a long time."

"Well, unlike the Flynns, the Guidrys probably kept the story alive. My guess is that each generation of that family has been as greedy as the one before it."

"No doubt. And four years ago he probably came across some information on Mikey he didn't have before, looked up the Flynns, and then went away disappointed. Then when Izzy showed up, the door was once again opened."

We started on our way. Dusk had fallen and a light rain was falling. The highway was shiny in the headlights. I said, "You read, I'll drive."

Sabrina spent a few minutes flipping through it, getting a feeling for the book.

"Well, I can tell you right away that the book isn't any better than the painting in terms of quality. Simply stated …"

"… It sucks, right?"

"Right. He wasn't a very educated man, but he had a story to tell. And he's telling it in the form of a novel."

"Let's just hope it's the story we're look…"

We were hit from behind … hard. The car swerved across the lanes as I frantically tried to regain control. I avoided going off the highway and finally pulled over to the side. The car stalled. Because of the rain and the darkness, the road was fairly empty of traffic. I wasn't sure anyone else had even seen the accident.

"You okay?"

"I think so." She rolled her neck. "Yes, it just caught me by surprise. You?"

I didn't answer. I was looking at the side mirror, then the rear-view mirror.

"What's wrong?"

"Can you get my gun out of the glove compartment?" Before we left, I had looked up the gun laws in Vermont—basically there were none—and found that I'd be perfectly legal bringing my gun into the state from Massachusetts.

This was real, and in response, my hands were shaking. I think Sabrina saw that. She retrieved the gun, but didn't hand it to me. Instead, she hid it under the jacket on her lap. "They'll never expect me to have it," she said by way of explanation.