“Look, when we broke up years ago, I had to pound it into my head first. I had my adventures, too, but that’s all they were, for a long, long time. I finally healed. I want to stay that way.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Do you want yes or no, or the truth?”

“I want to suck your dick. And you want me to, too.” She laughed. “Look at you, scared to death I’m going to rape you. Remember all those times I sucked your dick? ‘Look, Ma, no hands!’ Remember that one?”

“Stop.”

“I have a list,” she said.

“What?”

“A list. Of all the men I’ve fucked. You’re number twenty-two.”

He didn’t answer.

“Twenty-two!” She leaned toward him again. “Do you know what the woman downstairs did?” she asked, her voice suddenly quick and bright again. “She fucked five different men on five consecutive nights!”

“What did you tell me that for?”

Maryellen looked down. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know what other people feel and think. I really don’t.”

“Don’t worry about it.” What Devlin was thinking was that there was something Ann Elizabeth didn’t know: Devlin was a key to Maryellen. He didn’t have to do anything to set her off—his presence was too much for her. Vittorio DiBennedetti knew this, too. Who could have communicated it to DiBennedetti? Someone in Jack Brennan’s office? DiBennedetti knew that Maryellen Brennan was nuts—incompetent, if properly provoked, whether the law said so or not.

“Do you know why it ended?”

“Why, Maryellen?”

“I told Daddy I was attracted to another man. I was just so tired of you and our fighting. I didn’t think he’d do what he did. I thought you would come back. It took me a long time to realize you weren’t coming back.”

“Your father said he’d maim me. He spat in my face.”

Her head snapped up, her eyes glaring. “You’re a liar!” she shouted. “My father is a great man!”

“I told the truth.”

She looked away. When she turned back again, she was crying. Tears streamed down her face. Her pain was real—it couldn’t be otherwise. Functional? Devlin could believe she was this way with everyone eventually. All it took was intimacy. A history together.

“I didn’t want our visit to be bad,” she cried. “I wanted it to be nice.”

“All right, it will be.” He hadn’t touched his pie. She watched him start to eat, and then she spoke his thoughts exactly.

“You’re looking at me as if I poisoned the pie.”

“That’s the way you’re looking at me.” He wanted to laugh. What he had said had made him seem childish. How had it happened?