“I dated a cop once. It didn’t work out.”

“Yeah?”

“I wouldn’t let him bring his gun to bed.”

The cop said, “You serious?” and Jolie started saying something about handcuffs, as Mike glanced around the scan room, taking stock of the remaining equipment. Sitting out on the table next to the console was a foil-wrapped bottle and two plastic champagne flutes. It was just odd enough to jar him back into the flow of Jolie’s one-woman show, the kind of “here I am, boys” performance piece she could carry on almost indefinitely, given a willing audience of men.

“Hey, Jo?” He nodded at the champagne. “What’s that?”

A twinge of secrecy shadowed the corners of her lips. “Didn’t you get my note?”

“I got it,” Mike said and felt a prodding finger of unease whose source he couldn’t quite pinpoint. “What’s with the snapshots?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other cops once again pushing the stretcher toward the MRI door.

“I’m going to sell them on eBay. Candid photos of serial killers go for a lot of money.”

“Serial killers?” He looked at her more closely, wanting to see teasing in her face but not spotting any. “Who ordered this?”

“Dr. Walker.” Jolie turned to where the cops had stopped with the stretcher and pointed at the door. “Guys, hold up.”

A red sign there read:

WARNING—THIS MAGNET IS ALWAYS ON!

ABSOLUTELY NO LOOSE METAL OBJECTS!

“DO WE HAVE YOUR KEYS?”

“All those metal restraints are going to have to come off Mr. Snow before we put him into the magnet,” Jolie said. “You big strong men might as well get started stripping him down.”

3.

“Mommy, where are we going?”

“To the hospital to see Daddy.” Sarah had answered this question three times already since they’d left the house twenty minutes ago, and it was part of a routine so familiar that it hardly registered. In any case, her mind was preoccupied with more pressing matters.

They were on Route 72, having finally cut away from the herd of holiday traffic coming off the turnpike, deep into soybean fields and grain silos that gave this landscape its texture. Some of the silos had Bible verses painted on the side, most had American flags. On the Outback’s passenger seat, an empty cardboard box rode shotgun. Sarah told herself that she was dropping by to pick up whatever Mike had stored in his locker—books, clothes, coffee cups, the menagerie of personal items he’d accumulated after working three years at Tanglewood. But if she was going to be even remotely honest with herself, that wasn’t the real reason for her visit tonight.

Faintly, she heard her mother’s voice ringing through her head: Once a cheater, always a cheater. Because they know they can. The smug confidence of that voice always made her cringe. Once a cheater, always a cheater. Because they know they can. Because they—

“Stop it,” she said, under her breath, but still loud enough that Eli picked it up from the backseat. He’d always had her sense of hearing.