“Whatever you say,” Vaill replied, “but I do understand what you mean. We once took a class at Quantico about observation and selective attention. They played a video of six people whipping a basketball around randomly in a circle. We were told to count the number of times the ball changed hands. Afterward, some had the right answer, some didn’t. Then the instructor asked who saw the gorilla. Nobody raised a hand, but sure enough, when he played the video back, a guy in a gorilla suit had wandered into the middle of the circle while the ball was being passed, did a little dance, and then wandered off. The class was so focused on counting the tosses, that the ape never registered.”

“Terrific example. That’s exactly what happened with us, and probably to the Slugger as well. We were so focused on what Burke was doing and talking about, we never noticed the gorilla steaming along in the background. In medicine, when we read an x-ray, say, a chest x-ray in a patient with a big patch of pneumonia, we are taught to examine everything except the lungs first, because otherwise you lose yourself in the object of your interest. That’s how things get missed in, like, the ribs or the heart.”

After twenty minutes of relatively uninspired evasive driving, they picked up forty dollars’ worth of Chinese takeout and checked into the Wendover Suites, which was a notch or so below the Grand Southern.

As soon as they were in their room, they called Itsuki Sakura in his San Diego office, to give him instructions. For the next several hours, Lou and Vaill ate, rested, talked about their lives, and waited for the Slugger to get back to them, this time on Skype. Lou had picked up only snippets of Vaill’s conversation with the man, but it was enough to know the analyst was not at all pleased with his own performance.

The Chinese food was actually decent, but to Lou, his exchanges with Vaill were better. Not unexpectedly, much of what he had to say led back to Maria. Every time, Vaill’s eyes would grow distant and his heartache became a presence in the room. Lou found himself wondering if, after Renee, he’d ever feel like that toward another woman again. He talked about his enduring love for his now-remarried ex, his brief relationship with high-powered attorney Sarah Cooper, and even his growing attraction for Vicki Banks. Could he ever love a woman besides Renee the way Vaill treasured Maria? The jury, they concluded, was still very much out on that one.