He passed bags of fertilizer, boxes of grass seed, cans of insecticide and fungicide. Eased open the second door. An office. Maybe that of the head groundskeeper. Nobody. A door to a bathroom was open wide. No one in there.

When David turned from the threshold to leave, he came face-to-face with Patrick Corley, who crowded him backward into the office. “Stay away from her.”

“Hey, hey, back off,” David warned.

Estella Rosewater had described Corley as gentle, kind; but the contractor’s face was wrenched by demonic anger, his teeth bared as though to bite. If he’d died in that supermarket, which he obviously had not, he was alive now, energized by rage, his eyes glinting like eviscerating blades. “You don’t know who she is, what she is. You don’t know anything.”

“And you don’t own her. My God, you’re old enough to be her grandfather.”

Corley shoved hard, and David staggered backward, almost fell, grabbed at the desk to steady himself. The guy was strong.

“This isn’t about sex, shithead. This isn’t about that at all. This is something bigger than you’ll ever understand, Thorne. Stay away from her or you’re finished, I’m finished, she’s finished. If she doesn’t stay focused on her work, we’re all dead.”

As he loomed closer, Corley withdrew something from beneath his jacket and thrust it at David.

Knife!

No. Evidently it was some kind of Taser. Every nerve fascicle in David’s body short-circuited. Bright pain scissored through him, and he collapsed. As he thought, The sonofabitch isn’t wearing a watch, darkness washed over him.

When he woke, he tasted blood. He had bitten his tongue.

He was alone in the office.

His strength returned. He got onto his hands and knees, rose to his feet, and stood swaying until a brief dizziness passed.

Warily, he made his way out of the office, through the storage room, outside. He went to the chain-link fence. No sign of Corley.

He passed through the gate, into the cemetery, and descended the long green slope. Whatever Patrick Corley might be to Maddison Sutton, he was not an inspiring example to the residents of the cemetery, who did not rise in imitation of his resurrection.

| 57 |

When David pulled into the garage at forty minutes past noon, Maddison’s Mercedes sports car was not in the second stall. After getting out of the shower and finding his note about an appointment with his attorney, she must have gone off on errands of her own.

After the events of the day, David felt disoriented, no nearer clarity than he’d been when his investigation had begun with a call to Isaac Eisenstein the previous Friday. No matter what Corley might insist, David belonged to Maddison, and she had given herself to him, not just physically but emotionally, and he feared both losing what he had won and somehow failing her. Yet again he would delay bracing her face-to-face with what he had thus far discovered. He hoped that further inquiries might bring a resolution of these mysteries, proof of her innocence in all things, and peace of mind.