He would never claim to be a hero. However, there were moments when you had to show up, be there, assume risks, take bold action, if you still wanted to call yourself a man.

But what in God’s name was waiting for him on Rock Point Lane?

| 87 |

Beyond the viewpoint railing, the sloping meadow lay barely discernible, like a scratchboard work so lightly etched by the artist that the white clay beneath the black ink was revealed only as pale gray lines that didn’t portray gentle folds of descending land as much as suggest them. The sea was as black as blindness until lightning flared, whereupon twelve-foot dark breakers leaped out of the void and attacked the shore, as if they were ancient monsters of the deep returning millennia after their extinction.

David’s car was the only one in the viewpoint parking area, as Emily’s would have been on that night. Infinite beaded curtains of driving rain reduced visibility, and the lights of traffic passing behind him on 101 seemed more distant than they really were, like the running lights of submersible vehicles motoring on some mission into an oceanic abyss.

From the footwell in front of the passenger seat, he extracted the leather tote bag that he had bought in Santa Barbara earlier in the day and on which he had worked in his motel room. He powered his seat back as far as it would go and put the bag between his legs. He placed the two kilos of explosives in the bag, next to the travel clock, from which he had removed the plastic casing. The clock was powered by two rectangular Duracell D batteries.

A length of insulated wire trailed from the exposed guts of the clock. The rubber coating had been stripped from the end of it to reveal braided copper wires, which he now pressed deeply into one of the bricks of explosive.

He zippered shut the tote bag and returned it to the passenger seat.

He had no rain gear, only the damp sport coat. Even if he’d been attired for the weather, he wouldn’t have walked to the end of Rock Point Lane, as before. The strangeness of the house convinced him that no matter how stealthily he approached, Maddison’s keepers would know that he had come.

He drove south on 101, crossed over, drove north, crossed to the southbound lanes once more, and turned right onto Rock Point Lane. At the gate between the stacked-stone posts, he put down his window and pressed the button to announce himself.

Expecting to be asked his name and purpose, he intended to say that he had come to see Maddison. But no voice issued from the call-box speaker, and the gate swung open before him.