"She felt guilty about what her brother had done?"

"Unjustified guilt, but yes, that's the way Harry saw it, and his insights were almost always correct. He saw neuropsy-chology as an escape for Claire. Testing, numbers, lab work, no need to get into feelings. He wondered if she'd ever leave the field, and now you tell me she did."

"Her brother died of a seizure," I said. "Did your husband wonder if Claire's career choice might have been related to her seeking an organic basis for Denton's crimes?"

"That, too. But he worried that someday that defense would crumble. Because she wouldn't find any simple answers, might grow disillusioned. Harry was a neuropsycholo-gist himself, but he was also a master psychotherapist. Along with his alcoholism research, he worked with MADD, treating the families of drunk-driving victims. He tried to teach his students the value of maintaining emotional balance."

"Claire didn't get the message."

"The Claire we knew didn't. She was such a... distant girl. Seemed to be punishing herself."

"In what way?"

"All work, no play, never attending department functions, no friendships with the other students. I'd bet the dinners at our home were her main social contacts. Even the way she furnished her room, Dr. Delaware. Student housing's never gorgeous, but most students try to do something with what the university gives them. One night it was especially cold, and Harry and I drove her home. The way she lived shocked us. All she had was a bed, a desk, and a chair. I told Harry it looked like a jail cell. He wondered if she might be trying, symbolically, to share her brother's fate."

Now I knew why Claire had refused to talk about her family to Joe Stargill.

Now I understood Rob Ray and Ernestine's willingness to let Claire shut them out of her life: monumental shame.

No matter what was happening around her.. .

I'd wondered about family chaos, but my imagination hadn't stretched far enough.

Like so many people who enter the helping fields, Claire had been trying to heal herself. Approaching it from a distance, at first, as she hid behind hard data and lab work. Working for Myron Theobold, a man who'd abandoned psychoanalysis for a Ph.D. in biochemistry. I see myself as a humane administrator. . .. I don't get involved in their personal lives. I'm not out to parent anyone.

Staying with Theobold all those years because he allowed her to remain a stranger.

Then something changed.

Professor Racano had suspected professional escape wouldn't work forever, and he'd been right. Last year, Claire had gone looking for answers-going about it with characteristic academic detachment, scanning library files for rampages similar to her brother's.

Why at that point in her life? Perhaps something had weakened her defenses.... The only thing that came to mind was the divorce. Because marrying Joe Stargill had been another sad stab at normalcy, and it had failed.