“But not a ‘If you come to my pahty don’t fahget the beah’ type of accent.”

“Exactly.”

“But Moira did?”

She nodded. “It didn’t register at the time, but now, yes, it does seem a bit odd. It wasn’t a Belmont accent, it was Revere or East Boston or…” She looked at me.

“Or Dorchester,” I said.

“Yes.”

“A neighborhood accent.” I closed my notebook.

“Yes. What will you do from here, Mr. Kenzie?”

“I’m going to watch Jason. The threat’s to him. He’s the one who feels ‘stalked,’ it was his picture you received.”

“Yes.”

“I want you to limit your activities.”

“I can’t—”

“Keep your office hours and appointments,” I said, “but take some time off from Bryce until I have some answers.”

She nodded.

“Eric?” I said.

He looked at me.

“That gun you’re carrying, you know how to use it?”

“I practice once a week. I’m a good shot.”

“It’s a little different shooting at flesh, Eric.”

“I know that.”

“I need you to stick as close as you can to Doctor Warren for a few days. You can do that?”

“Certainly.”

“If anything happens, don’t waste time trying to get a head shot or put one in some attacker’s heart.”

“What should I do, then?”

“Empty the gun into the body, Eric. Six shots should put down anything smaller than a rhino.”

He looked deflated, as if his time spent at the gun club had just been revealed for the futile exercise it usually was. And maybe he really was a good shot, but I doubted anyone who attacked Diandra would be wearing a bull’s-eye in the center of his forehead.

“Eric,” I said, “would you walk me out?”

He nodded and we left the loft, walked down a short hall to the elevator.

“Our friendship can’t get in the way of how I do my job. You understand that, don’t you?”

He looked at his shoes, nodded.

“What’s your relationship with her?”

He met my eyes and his were hard. “Why?”

“No privacy, Eric. Remember that. I have to know what your stake is here.”

He shrugged. “We’re friends.”

“Sleep-over friends?”

He shook his head and smiled bitterly. “Sometimes, Patrick, I think you need a little polish.”

I shrugged. “I’m not paid for my table manners, Eric.”

“Diandra and I met when I was at Brown working on my doctorate and she was just entering the graduate program.”

I cleared my throat. “Again—are you two intimate?”

“No,” he said. “We’re just very good friends. Like you and Angie.”

“You understand why I made the assumption.”

He nodded.

“Is she intimate with anyone?”

He shook his head. “She’s…” He looked up at the ceiling, then back at his feet.

“She’s what?”

“She’s not sexually active, Patrick. By philosophical choice. She’s been celibate for at least ten years.”

“Why?”

His face darkened. “I told you—choice. Some people aren’t ruled by their libidos, Patrick, hard as that concept may be for someone such as yourself to understand.”