“Lets just say, it would be a bad idea for you to phone my house, visit it in person, talk to or visit my mother, or do anything that is in any way out of character for a dumb out-of-work research geek who vaguely knows me from work. At least, where they can see you. Which is why I’m phoning on a number you’ve never seen and probably won’t ever see again. Meet me at noon inside the station, near the south entrance?”

“Okay, I’ll be there. Better have a good story!”

Paulette hung up, and Miriam settled back to watch the countryside roll by.

When she hit the station, Miriam immediately left it. There was an ATM in the mall across the street, and she pulled another two thousand in cash out of it. There seemed to be no end to the amount she could draw, as long as she didn’t mind leaving an audit trail. This time she wanted to. Putting a time stamp on Boston would tell Duke Angbard where she’d been. She planned on telling him first. Let him think she was being open and truthful about everything.

She headed back into the station in the same state she’d been in in the taxi. This was home, a place she’d been before, intimately familiar at the same time that it was anonymous and impersonal. She was shaken by how relieved she was to be back. Suddenly being jobless in a recession with her former employer threatening to blacken her name didn’t seem so bad, all things considered. She almost walked right past Paulette, as unnoticed as any other commuter in a raincoat, but she swerved at the last moment, blinking the daze away.

“Paulie!”

“Miriam!” Paulette grabbed her in a hug, then held her at arm’s length, inspecting her face anxiously. “You look thinner. Was it bad, babe?”

“Was it bad?” Miriam shook her head, unsure where to begin. “Jesus, it was weird, and bits of it were very bad and bits of it were, um, less bad. Not bad at all. But it’s not over. Listen, let’s go find something to eat—I haven’t had any breakfast—and I’ll tell you all about it.”