I take another gulp of Scotch. The whites of Kate’s eyes are completely visible around the green irises, giving her a hyperthyroid look. I reach down and lay a hand on Annie’s shoulder. Parts of this story I still cannot voice. When I saw those teeth, I sensed the giddy superiority the kidnapper felt over me, the triumph of the predator. Nothing in my life ever hit me the way that fear did.

“He was halfway through the door when I pulled the trigger. The bullet knocked him onto the patio. When I got outside, Annie was lying on the cement, covered in blood. I snatched her up even before I looked at the guy, held her up in the moonlight and ripped off her pajamas, looking for a bullet wound. She didn’t make a sound. Then she screamed like a banshee. An anger scream, you know? Not pain. I knew then that she was probably okay. Hanratty . . . the bullet had hit him in the eye. He was dying. And I didn’t do a goddamn thing to help him.”

Kate finally blinks, a series of rapid-fire clicks, like someone coming out of a trance. She points down at Annie. “She’s that baby? She’s Annie?”

“Yes.”

“God.” She taps the book in her lap. “I see why you quit.”

“There’s still one out there.”

“What do you mean?”

“We never caught the third brother. I get postcards from him now and then. He says he’s looking forward to spending some time with our family.”

She shakes her head. “How do you live with that?”

I shrug and return to my drink.

“Your wife isn’t traveling with you?” Kate asks.

They always have to ask. “No. She passed away recently.”

Kate’s face begins the subtle sequence of expressions I’ve seen a thousand times in the last seven months. Shock, embarrassment, sympathy, and just the slightest satisfaction that a seemingly perfect life is not so perfect after all.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “The wedding ring. I just assumed—”

“It’s okay. You couldn’t know.”

She looks down and takes a sip of her soft drink. When she looks up, her face is composed again. She asks what my next book is about, and I give her the usual fluff, but she isn’t listening. I know this reaction too. The response of most women to a young widower, particularly one who is clearly solvent and not appallingly ugly, is as natural and predictable as the rising of the sun. The subtle glow of flirtation emanates from Kate like a medieval spell, but it is a spell to which I am presently immune.