JOHN HAD WAITED to return until Miriam was gone. It was the safest way. It was easy to defeat the electrostatic barrier. He came in through the disused tunnel he had used for his escape. He had a mission here. He went through the silent rooms. Scattered around the library were newspapers, all containing sensational stories about his crimes. He sneered at her caution. This was a big city. The police had a long way to go before they brought him to ground.

He paused, shut his eyes. Another hallucination was beginning. This time a healthy girl of about fourteen swam into view before him. John ignored the delicious figment, impatient with this latest side effect of his desperate hunger. She stepped forward, her smell filling his nostrils. It was maddening; he swiped angrily at the empty air. The hunger cloyed and strained within him. Soon he must take to the streets again.

He went upstairs, paused in the door of their bedroom. Although he was on his way to the attic he wasn’t in any hurry. There was something to be savored in how he intended to harm her.

Tom had coaxed Sarah out to a celebration after his conversation with Sam Rush. She had wanted to stay with her lab group, but he had managed to convince her that the project could go through its next phase without her in attendance. Her failure to get Miriam Blaylock to return to Riverside had stopped much of the work anyway. Without a subject, they couldn’t very well make observations.

“You’re celebrating a man’s destruction,” Sarah said as they sat down to a Mexican dinner at Las Palmas on Eighty-sixth Street.

“I’m celebrating nothing of the kind. Hutch still has his job.”

“The biggest discovery in history, and you took it right out of his lap. You.”

He winced. “OK, I’m an ogre.”

“Ambitious bastard.” She smiled. “I wish I could punish you, Tom. God knows you need it. But the truth is I’m so damn relieved, I can’t see straight. Knowing that we’re out from under Hutch is—well, it does deserve a celebration.”

“I’m only an ogre when it comes to protecting your work.”

“Wipe that sincere smirk off your face, my love. It makes you look like a card sharp.”

“I think I resent that.”

“You love it.” She lifted her glass of beer. “Here’s to you, you bastard.”

“And to you, bitch.”

“Don’t call me names. I don’t deserve it.”

He could see a real argument developing out of this, so he said no more. The waiter returned and they gave their orders. Tom was surprised to hear Sarah order the biggest dinner on the menu; she normally subsisted on nibbles and snacks. Sometimes he thought a handful of birdseed a day was all she really needed. “At least you’re really hungry for once. That’s a good sign.”