"From your second-floor balcony. Apparently in full view of your child and his nanny."

Thorn merely stared at him. Then he turned his face to the wall. From the tensing of his shoulders the doctor could tell he was crying.

"In a fall like this," added the doctor, "it's usually the head that hits first. So in a sense you can consider yourself lucky."

Thorn nodded, trying to stop his tears.

"There's no need for that," said the doctor. "There's a lot to be grateful for. She's still alive, and with the proper care she probably won't ever try it again. My own sister-in-law was suicidal. Took a bath and brought the toaster into it. When she pushed down the handle, she electrocuted herself."

Thorn turned and gazed at him.

"Point is, she lived through it and never tried it again. It's been four years now and no trouble at all."

"Where is she?" asked Thorn.

"She lives in Switzerland."

"My wife."

"Room 4A. She should be coming around soon."

Katherine's room was quiet and dark; a nurse was seated in the corner with a magazine as Thorn entered and stopped, his face filled with shock. The sight of Katherine was awesome. Her face was swollen and discolored; a tube from her arm led upward to a bottle of plasma. Her arm was in a cast, grotesquely crooked; she seemed unconscious, her face devoid of life.

"She's sleeping," the nurse said. Thorn moved stiffly forward to her bed. As though sensing his presence, Katherine moaned and slowly moved her head.

"Is she in pain?" Thorn asked in a shaking voice.

"She's on cloud nine," answered the nurse. "Sodium pentothal."

Thorn sat beside her, leaned his forehead on her bed, and wept. After a time he was aware that Kather-ine's hand had touched his head.

"Jerry ..." she whispered.

He looked up to see her struggling to open her eyes.

"Kathy . .." he moaned through his tears.

"Don't let him kill me."

And then she closed her eyes and slept.

Thorn arrived home after midnight and stood for a long time in the darkness of the downstairs foyer, gazing at the spot on the tile floor where Katherine had landed. He felt numb, his body racked with exhaustion, and he longed for sleep, anything to wipe out the tragedy of what had occurred. Their life had changed now, unalterably; it was as though they were under a curse.

Thorn flicked out the downstairs lights and stood for a time in the darkness, his eyes finding their way to the landing at the top of the stairs. He tried to imagine Katherine there, contemplating the jump. Why, if she were serious about ending her life, had she not chosen the roof? There were pills in the house, there were razor blades, a dozen other likely implements or ways to end it. Why this? And why in front of Damien and Mrs. Baylock?