“The usual dull, detailed diplomatic stuff, he always said.”

“He speaks other languages?”

Jeremy looked surprised. “Why do you ask?”

Ashley hesitated. “He was slightly disoriented when we found him.” That, she thought, wasn’t being tactful, it was lying. And lying glibly. She was suddenly disgusted with herself. What was this affair doing to her? “He...he said something in another language. I asked him later what it meant, and he said ‘mad monk’ or ‘crazy friar.’ I wondered if that means anything to you.”

Tucking one arm around her own waist and rubbing her mouth, Elaine began to pace across the gleaming tile floor. She looked increasingly shaken. “Orült szerzetes.”

“That’s it!”

Jeremy moved away from the counter. “What the hell are you two talking about?”

“Mac’s been mumbling those words in his sleep for years,” Elaine said. “They’re Hungarian. I think they’re the only Hungarian he knows.”

From what Ashley had heard while Mac Stevens had dreamed under the tattered afghans, she didn’t think so. But she said nothing.

“He told me what they meant,” Elaine said. “A literal translation, at least. He’s never told me what they mean—to him personally, why he breaks out in a sweat sometimes and says those words over and over, until I wake him up and...and tell him it’s all right, he’s not crazy. Oh, God!”

Jeremy grabbed her and spun her around to him. “It’s all right, Elaine. Mac was hurt. Maybe this doesn’t have anything to do with a mad monk or whatever the hell he was mumbling about.” He dug his fingers into her shoulders in an obvious attempt to force her to regain her composure. “It was an old nightmare, Elaine. That’s all.”

She sank her head onto Jeremy’s chest. “Please don’t let my husband be crazy. Oh, God, let him come home to me! Doesn’t he know what he’s doing? Doesn’t he care about me? About the kids?”

Jeremy put his arms around her and let her cry, and Ashley felt terrible for having badgered the woman. But now she had to think. She had let the cab go—not very bright. Now she was stuck up in the hills of Point Loma with a near-hysterical woman and a man who probably would like to stuff tacos with her. Both would want further words with her. More specifics, more explanations. But she felt they’d already told her all they were going to—perhaps even all they knew about Mac Stevens and Bartholomew Wakefield.

She had one chance. While the other two were preoccupied, neither looking in her direction, Ashley rose and tiptoed silently out of the kitchen. In the living room she picked up her pace, moving noiselessly over the thick slate-blue carpet.

Then she was running through the foyer, not caring if she made any noise. She pushed open the door, leaped down the steps and across the lawn.

In his hurry to get to her, Jeremy Carruthers had left his keys in his car. Mac was his friend, Ashley reasoned, and had stolen her Jaguar and—what the hell, turnabout is fair play. She hopped in.