“Didn’t what?”

“Kill yourself.”

She laughed softly and looked uneasy. “But I thought about it. The only problem was you wouldn’t be there to read my suicide note. You wouldn’t know how bad I felt about what happened. My death would be wasted.”

He searched her eyes. “And you were pregnant.”

She nodded, her grief near. “Yeah. I didn’t want to kill my baby.”

“Amy,” he began.

“They took him, you know. My Jimmy, he’s gone. You must have read about it in the papers.”

He sighed. “I read about it.”

She went on in her little girl’s voice. “I wanted to take a nap. I put him down for a few minutes. And when I woke up he was gone and there was nothing I could do. I called the cops and the FBI came, but they didn’t know what they were doing. We never heard from the kidnapper until a couple of weeks ago. He wanted money and diamonds. We gave it to him, but he didn’t give us Jimmy back. Oh, God, Matt.”

More tears, he had to hold her to keep her from shaking. Time went by but there was not enough of it to bring healing or illumination. Her tears began to dry and he knew it was time to face the monster in the mirror. But he did not want the finger to point at him alone. He continued to feel so much love for her he thought he would burst. And yet he hated her in that moment as well.

“I wanted to hurt you,” he repeated.

“Matt?” She raised her dazed head. “What are you saying?”

“Did you know Jimmy was mine?”

Her eyes blinked, the spell faltered. “What are you talking about?”

“Did you know Jimmy was my son?”

The realization dawned in an instant. “You. It was you.”

“Yes. It was me. Did you know?”

Suddenly there was something wrong with the picture. She should have stood and screamed. She should have run from the park crying for help. He had kidnapped her son. He was the target behind one of the most massive FBI manhunts in history. But she was an emotional smoothie: ice and sweetness.

He saw why. Because she was herself a master of schemes, she understood his plan and all its implications in a moment. She understood him—a subtle distinction. That was the one advantage to having a corrupt girlfriend. His depraved deed did not deeply shake her. To her, there was no conflict in him being both villain and savior. It was all there in her flawless face. She accepted his confession as something normal, when Matt knew even a priest would have had a breakdown if he had told him the truth.

Still, it was weird, too weird.

She should have screamed at him.

He noticed she had not answered his question.

“You have Jimmy?” she demanded.

“Yes.”

“Is he all right?”

“Yes.”