army blankets on the floor and spent half an hour stretching out my legs and arms. I must have torn a muscle in my left trapezius, from the knife stabs it gave me when I extended my arms, but when I finished I thought my legs would carry me along.

I couldn’t bear the thought of last night’s torn and filthy clothes, but my suit was in the trunk of my own car out in New Solway. I put on the stained, rank sweatshirt and tried not to think about it.

On my way downstairs, I looked in on Benjamin. He was still asleep.

I found Father Lou in his study, working on his Sunday homily. He grunted when he heard me come in, but kept typing until he finished a passage. He used an old Royal electric, banging away with two fingers. I did leg lifts while I waited to keep the circulation going.

“Kid still sleeping?” Father Lou said, when he finally looked up. “Listened to the noon news. Guess he’s the Arab they lost out in DuPage. You think he’s a terrorist?”

I made a face. “I don’t think so, but I can’t say I know what signs to look for.”

The priest wheezed hoarsely-his idea of laughter. “Neither does the FBI. Don’t imagine a county sheriff is any smarter than the Bureau. What’s the boy’s story?”

“I don’t know how or why, but Catherine Bayard-the young woman who got shot last night-scooped him up and took him out to this deserted mansion near her grandparents’ country estate.” I explained who the Bayards were, and how I’d come to be involved in the situation.

“Romeo and Juliet,” Father Lou echoed my own image. “They in love? They making love?”

I shrugged. “Benjamin has pretty strong feelings for her, but she-1 think with her it was quixotism-wanting to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps. Catherine lives in a larger milieu than Benjamin, with school and horses and an important family; he had only her to think about for three weeks or however long it’s been. But-she didn’t tell her grandmother what she was doing, and I’ve seen her with her granny-they’re pretty close. So I don’t know what she feels for him personally. Maybe he’s exotic, Egyptian, a bluecollar youth. For some rich kids, crossing so many boundaries of race and class can seem daring, even exalting.”

“Teenagers. Everything too intense all the time. Probably gave her word not to tell a soul and felt that included the whole world. Girl’s at Northwestern Hospital-they medevacked her into the city. Know the chaplain there. He says a bullet nicked the humerus, cracked it, not life-threatening. You going to see her?”

“Probably. But I don’t think I should tell her Benjamin’s here. When she was protecting him, she didn’t have all the law enforcement agencies in the country breathing down her neck. I’ll let her know he’s safe, but I don’t think she should have to worry about standing up to interrogation on his safety.” I picked at a hole in the chair I was sitting in. “I don’t know how serious the Feds and the rest of them are going to be about wanting to find Benjamin. They may talk to me and let me go after that, or they may try a trace on everything I do. To be on the safe side, I think I need to assume that all my phones-home, office, mobile-and possibly even my e-mail will be monitored.”