“Confusion, cameras, a lot of traffic…and a pretty unexpected outcome, you’ve got to admit. We weren’t totally prepared for it, I guess…”

Detective Lopez does not like this.

He brings his bulk up out of the porch chair. Looks across the field.

Looks down at his protruding stomach. Which he has a lousy feeling in the pit of. A reliable barometer, he’s found.

Another reason he’d resisted the procedure.

38.

38.

Joey Richter, walking around, thinks Zack.

Wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, he’s somewhere; he’s doing something.

It puts a sudden new stress on Zack, on Emily—to say nothing of Steve. And extra stress on Zack and Emily as a couple.

“He’s just walking around out here,” says Emily. “He could be waiting downstairs, on the sidewalk outside, across the street, watching.”

“Look, we have to just try to go on with our lives.”

“But we can’t, Zack. That’s the point! We can’t just go on with our lives if he’s out there, lurking around a corner.”

It’s taking its toll. They’re on edge. Snapping at each other. Which shocks them both since they haven’t snapped at each other before.

“Where is he this morning, do you think?” says Emily sarcastically, irritably. “What’s he up to today?” Speaking of Joey as if he’s a friend. As if he’s a casual but inevitable part of their lives.

Joey walking around. It occupies them. It consumes them. They can’t think about themselves because they’re thinking about Joey. Emily talks about it incessantly but it’s working silently inside Zack constantly as well.

“Look, Em, think about what the cops told us. They’re watching him all the time. The state’s putting together its case as fast as possible. And the cops heard there’s a wrongful death case by a victim’s family, as well as the criminal case on lesser charges. Two approaches. The state’s embarrassed by what happened; they got caught flat-footed. They’re not going to let it happen again.”

“Yeah, well, if we know the state’s putting together its case again as quickly as they can, Joey knows it too, right?” says Emily. “He’s got to figure this time he’ll be convicted. So Joey has to assume that this couple of weeks might be the last freedom of his lifetime.”

His last chance to do whatever he wants, whatever he needs.

His last chance to tie up loose ends.

“And if he does something horrible, what are they going to do to him, put him in jail?” says Emily. “Lock him up forever? That’s happening either way.”

Would someone in that position choose to go out in a blaze of glory?