They lay limp in each other’s arms for a few minutes, then Cary found a toilet off the office, and Stone tried to make himself presentable again. She was a long time in the john, and, when she came out, Stone was reading the lab report.

“What’s that?” she asked, putting a hand at the back of his neck and reading over his shoulder.

Stone handed her the letter without comment.

She read it, and her eyes went wide. “Sasha’s alive?” she asked, stunned.

“It would seem so,” Stone said, reading the report. “An expert says it’s almost certainly her handwriting, and her fingerprints are on the letter.” He read on. “They were very clear, because she had olive oil on her fingers—extra virgin olive oil, according to this.”

“It doesn’t seem possible,” she said, incredulously.

“No, it doesn’t,” he replied. “Nevertheless…”

She walked over to the sofa and retrieved her coat, seemingly lost in thought. “That means she’s going to be able to identify whoever pushed her off that balcony, doesn’t it?”

“I hope so. I wonder why she hasn’t done it already.”

Cary slipped into her coat and walked to the door, unlocking it.

“You’re leaving? When can I see you?”

“I’ll call you,” she said. “I’ve left my job, and I’m staying with a friend. Don’t worry, we’ll see each other. You’ll see me sooner than you think. Pay no attention to what you hear.”

“What am I going to hear?” he asked.

She ignored his question; her brow was furrowed. “There’s something I never told you,” she said. “I should have told you a long time ago.” She seemed to be wrestling with whether to tell him now.

“What is it?”

She looked at the floor. “Barron wasn’t on that airplane from Rome.”

Stone stared at her. “But Dino saw him…”

She looked up at him, then slipped through the door. “Dino didn’t do his job,” she said, then closed the door behind her, leaving him alone in the room.

Stone went to the bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face, his mind racing. Then he rejoined the crowd and found Dino, who was making his way out of the party with Mary Ann. He could see the car outside, festooned with tin cans and old shoes.

“Dino, when you went to the airport to meet Barron Hark-ness’s plane, did you actually see him get off?”

“Stone, c’mon, okay?” He kissed an old lady on the lips.

Stone managed to stay alongside him. “You didn’t actually see him, did you?”

“I checked the manifest, all right? Hey, Cheech, how you doin’?”

Stone bodily prevented a fat woman from squeezing between them. “Dino, you didn’t see him.”

“Stone, I’m leaving on my honeymoon; gimme a major fucking break, will you?”