I turned and Mae was standing behind me, her face bright red, her arms jerking spasmodically by her sides as if she’d been electrified.

“No, no, no!” She screamed it through tears of horror and pushed past me and jumped on her mother and clung to her with ferocity.

Grace looked past her daughter as she held her to her breast, looked at me with a naked and total hatred.

“Leave my house,” she said.

“Grace.”

“Now,” she said.

“Doctor Cole,” Bolton said, “I’d like you to—”

“I’ll go with you,” she said.

“What?”

Her eyes were still fixed on me. “I’ll go into protective custody with you, Agent Bolton. I won’t leave my daughter. I’ll go,” she said softly.

I said, “Look, Grace—”

She placed her hands over her daughter’s ears.

“I thought I told you to get the fuck out of my home.”

The phone rang and she reached for it, her eyes never leaving me. “Hello.” She frowned. “I thought I told you this afternoon not to call back. If you want to talk to Patrick—”

“Who is it?” I said.

She tossed the receiver on the floor by my feet. “You gave my number to that psycho friend of yours, Patrick?”

“Bubba?” I picked up the phone as she brushed past me, carried Mae into the bedroom.

“Hello, Patrick.”

“Who’s this?” I said.

“How’d you like all those pictures I took of your friends?”

I looked at Bolton, mouthed “Evandro.”

He ran from the house, Devin a step behind him.

“They didn’t do much for me, Evandro.”

“Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve been working on my technique, trying to play with light and space, respect the spatial tableau, that sort of thing. I think I’m developing artistically. Don’t you?”

Outside the window, an agent scaled the telephone pole in Grace’s side yard.

“I don’t know, Evandro. I doubt you got Annie Leibovitz looking over her shoulder or anything.”

Evandro chuckled. “But I’ve got you looking over yours, don’t I, Patrick?”

Devin came back in holding a piece of paper with the words “Keep him on for two minutes” written on it.

“Yes, you do. Where are you, Evandro?”

“Watching you.”

“Really?” I resisted the urge to turn and look out the windows fronting the street.

“Watching you and your girlfriend and all those nice policemen tramping around the house.”

“Well, since you’re in the neighborhood, drop on by.”

Another soft chuckle. “I’d rather wait. You look very handsome at the moment, Patrick—the phone clenched tightly against your ear, brow furrowed with concern, hair disheveled from the rain. Very handsome.”

Grace came back into the living room, dropped a suitcase on the floor by the door.

“Thanks for the compliment, Evandro.”

Grace blinked when she heard the name, looked over at Angie.

“My pleasure,” Evandro said.

“What am I wearing?”

“What’s that?” he said.

“What am I wearing?”

“Patrick, when I took the pictures of your girlfriend and her—”

“What am I wearing, Evandro?”