'Who didn't?' Mia replied. 'Why do you ask?'

'All the girls at Princeton were ga-ga over Neil because they thought he looked like him.'

Always getting laid, weren't you, Neil?

Mia hesitated, reluctant to stray into potentially painful territory—or so Thomas imagined.

'I hate to say it, but old Fox doesn't hold a candle to Neil. Remember how Bill and I would always ask you to bring him over for a swim?'

Thomas smiled. 'You don't have a pool.'

'That was the point. Something Olympian about that man…'

Mia paused, then hastily added: 'Which of course is why he's a fucking raving lunatic. The perfect ones always are.'

It was painful territory, Thomas realized. He looked away, at a loss for words.

As always, Mia took up the slack. 'So Sam is hot,' he said, pretending to itemize the proceeds of their discussion.

'You're both covered in pubic-hair burns… I hate for you to think I'm nosy, but her car seems to be parked in your driveway more often than not. You guys getting serious?'

Thomas studied the pup-tent in the darkness, imagined his kids bundled like little larva inside. Warm. Safe. According to Sam, information passed on from the NSA indicated that Neil was somewhere in Florida. Ironclad intelligence—something about purchase patterns and several CCTV images. Atta and Gerard were in Florida now, following up with the local authorities, while Sam continued to comb New England for leads, interviewing family, old friends, that sort of thing. Neil's biometric data had been uploaded into almost every realtime digital video network in the country: airports, train stations, subways, even toll-roads and urban intersection surveillance systems. What the FBI lacked in terms of feet on the ground, it more than compensated for with eyes in the sky—or the ceiling, as the case might be. There was nothing to worry about, Sam had assured him.

Not that he could imagine Neil doing anything. Even if Neil was doing all of this for his benefit, it meant that Thomas was the audience…

And the audience always got to hide in the dark. Didn't it?

Relax.

It dawned on him that he had caved to the kids more to prove that everything was back to normal than anything else.

'Nah,' he said, suddenly uncomfortable. 'Nothing serious.'

Mia stared at him thoughtfully. 'Why so coy, Tom? I know it's not because it's me. After all the years talking relationship shop, what haven't we discussed?'

Mia was right. What was the problem?

'It's just that…' Thomas hesitated. 'It's just that everything seems so… so fucking fragile, you know?'

Mia nodded. 'Like if you talk about it, you make it real, and if you make it real Thomas smiled, recognizing his own advice.