"Sor-ry."

"It was him, Tish. You know it could only be him."

She squinted out the curtains.

The parking lot led to the highway. Beyond was an industrial park, a series of low buildings, brown grass and intersecting roads, everything dusted with snow. Transmission towers stood in the distance below a gray scud of clouds.

Tish turned back, looking him in the eye. "Then it's a good thing you're leaving." She patted his ass to get him moving.

He put Pennsylvania in the rearview in under an hour, driving the Interstate to avoid city traffic in Allentown and Bethlehem, crossing the Delaware into Jersey.

Instinct took over as he drove, his conscious mind already miles ahead, eager to get back to his desk. Writing was a compulsion for him, as much as booze and sex. Likely more.

Another small town fell behind him in the rearview. Their Anglican church came up on his right, its white barnwood façade lit by the last dim glare of the sun. The sign out front quoted the famous line from the poet Alexander Pope: TO ERR IS HUMAN TO FORGIVE DIVINE.

Could they forgive Barclay? he wondered, his gaze returning to the darkening road before him, white lines bright against the winter sunset. Could they forgive me?

He often thought about the families of Jessica Renault, Tina Wozinski and Paula Danlon. During the trial, they were vocal in their hatred of James Barclay. They declined to be interviewed for Witch Hunter, but he wondered if they'd have something to say to him now.

Only Paula Danlon's mother had spoken out about the release of the book, calling it "salt on a wound," and "the Devil's book." He respected her for it and wanted to tell her, but she would never give him the chance. Not to the man who'd had her daughter's corpse "strung up on a flagpole and paraded" across North America on book tours and daytime talk shows.

And what would telling her accomplish besides clearing his own conscience?

His phone rang on the dash. He answered it hands-free: "Savage."

"Martin! My favorite fucking writer!"

The last person he wanted to hear from was his agent, Qurban Youssef. The man was damn good at his job, but he drove Martin crazy sometimes with his badgering and special requests.

"How did you make out, my friend?"

"Hey, Qurban. Made out okay. Got a trunkload of empty boxes and a nice fat wallet full of cash."

"That's good, that's good." Without a pause, he added, "Even Dead Weight?"

"Every copy." In truth he paid out of pocket for a stack of ten hardbacks and left them in a box outside a library in Reading. But Qurban didn't need to know that.

"Amazing!"

"Don't act like I made the Statue of Liberty disappear."

"Ha ha, yes, I knew you could do it, Martin. I knew it." He left a pregnant pause.

"What's on your mind, Qurban? I hear the gears turning."