All Gerry had to do was turn his head, and this whole mess would reach boiling point.

Gerry turned his hand, pivoted the baby back and forth.

“Used to hold my own son like this,” he said.

“Over ice?” I said.

He grinned. “Mmmm. No, Patrick. Just hold him in my arms and smell him and kiss the top of his head occasionally.”

“And he died.”

“Yes.” Gerry peered up at the child’s face, scrunched his own in imitation.

“So—what, Gerry—because of that everything makes some sort of sense?”

It was in my voice, I’m not sure why or how, but there it was—the barest hint of emotion.

Gerry heard it. “Toss your gun to your right.”

I looked at it like I didn’t care, like I hadn’t even known it was there.

“Now.” Gerry opened his palm and the baby dropped into space.

Danielle shrieked against the tape and banged her head into the shotgun.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

The baby’s head was plummeting toward the ice when Gerry closed his hand over the ankles.

I tossed my gun into the slushy sand pit under the jungle gym.

“Now your backup,” Gerry said and swung the baby like a pendulum in his hands.

“Fuck you,” I said and watched his perilous grip on the small ankles.

“Patrick,” he said and raised his eyebrows, “it sounds like you’re coming out of your stupor. The backup.”

I pulled the gun Phil had been grasping when Gerry slashed his throat, tossed it beside my own.

Oscar must have noticed his shadow, because it began to recede back behind the car and his legs appeared between the front and rear tires again.

“When my son died,” Gerry said and pulled Campbell Rawson in against his cheek, nuzzled his soft face, “there was no warning. He was out in the yard, four years old, making noise, and then…he wasn’t. A valve in his brain slipped.” He shrugged. “Just slipped. And his head filled with blood. And he died.”

“Tough way to go.”

He gave me his soft, kind smile. “Patronize me again, Patrick, and I smash the child’s skull.” He tilted his head and kissed Campbell’s cheek. “So, my son’s dead. And I find out there’s no way what happened to him could have been predicted or prevented. God decided Brendan Glynn dies today. And so it was.”

“And your wife?”

He smoothed Campbell’s hair against his head and the baby’s eyes remained shut.

“My wife,” he said. “Hmm. I killed her, yeah. Not God. Me. I don’t know what sort of plan God had for the woman, but I definitely fucked them up. I had plans for Brendan’s life, He fucked them up. He probably had plans for Kara Rider’s life, but He’s had to change them, hasn’t He?”

“And Hardiman,” I said, “how did he come into this?”

“Did he tell you about his childhood encounter with bees?”

“Yes.”

“Mmm. It wasn’t bees. Alec likes to embellish. I was there and it was mosquitos. He disappeared in a cloud of them, and when he came out, I could see the mark of conscience had been removed from him.” He smiled, and I could see the cloud of bugs and the dark lake in his eyes. “So, after that, Alec and I established a mentor-student relationship which later blossomed into so much more.”