When I got home Kit and I had a quiet dinner He had no questions about my previous night's outing, and I assumed he was unaware that I'd been gone.

I did not bring up his storming out, and he offered no explanation.

After dinner I decided to do laundry. Pul ing the basket from the bedroom closet, I added the clothing I'd worn the night before. I sorted, then loaded the washer, holding back items requiring special treatment. My stomach tightened when I lifted the shirt with the ketchup blotch, the scene stil vivid in my mind.

I spread the shirt and began spraying the stain, the product jingle for the spot remover bouncing through my head.

I'l shout you out, you sonovabitch. I squeezed the handle. Phhht!

I pictured the smirk on Ryan's face, remembered his finger jabbing my chest.

I squeezed again. Phhht!

Read that, Shakespeare! Phhht!

My hand froze and I stared at the pattern. The squiggles were not random, but formed two perfect sixes.

Read that, Shakespeare. Shakespeare. The sonnets were a passion with Ryan.

I recal ed something from a long time ago. High school. Mr. Tomlinson. Senior Honors English.

Was it possible?

I raced to the bedroom bookshelf and pul ed out a volume. The Complete Works of Wil iam Shakespeare. Hardly breathing, I opened to the sonnets and flipped to number sixty-six.

Come on, Bil , let it be there.

Tears wel ed when I read the line.

And right perfection wrongly disgraced ...

Wrongly disgraced.

It was a message. Ryan was saying that al was not as it seemed.

Right perfection.

Ryan was not a point man for the dark side! He had not gone over!

What then?

Undercover?

But why hadn't he contacted me?

He couldn't, Brennan. You know that.

It didn't matter. Suddenly I was certain that whatever Ryan was doing, the man I knew remained beneath. In time I would know the ful story.

And I was equal y certain I would never report the previous night's events. I would do nothing to compromise Ryan's cover I closed the book and went back to the laundry. Though I understood that covert operations could last months, or even years, at least now I knew A smile spread across my face as I bunched the shirt and tossed it into the washer. I can wait, Andrew Ryan. I can wait.

Feeling happier than I had in weeks, I shook off the vision of Pascal and Tank and went back to the photos I'd abandoned the night before. I'd just booted up the disc when Kit appeared in the doorway.

"I forgot to tel you that Isabel e phoned. She's going out of town and wanted to return your cal before she left."

"Where is she going?"

"I forget. Something to do with an award."

"When is she leaving?"

"I forget."

"Thanks."

His eyes shifted to the screen.

"What are you doing?"