Alex heard her; but Lucy’s attention had moved to the shadow from the clock. It was the spring equinox—within a day—when the balance of male and female, sun and moon, day and night, was equal. A celestial marriage. She was thinking what a perfect moment that was for them both here at the house—“a consummation devoutly to be wished.” It could be about this inaccurate time—around four o’clock—just before dawn, the last hour of the moon’s light, before the first breath of sunrise at the equinoxes. “Alex, look where the shadow happens to fall.”

The true time was only a shade after two, but the finger of shadow touched the star tile which Alex had said earlier needed repair. He leaned down and reexamined it; and this time its looseness attracted him. Lucy took her hair down and gave him her heavy clip to prize the edge. The tile came away from its lodging place with little effort, and they found a space underneath it, a deep hollow, with no object below it.

“Something was here, unquestionably.” Alex looked at Lucy in bafflement. Here was territory he had no map for. It suggested that for years his mother had created this secret place with a deeper agenda he’d known nothing of. Some object had nestled under the star, to a depth of roughly an old-fashioned English foot. It was enough to hide an upright box, or a bottle.

“Someone got here first,” he suggested.

Lucy reached across Alex’s right hand, his fingers still grasping the top of the tile. She closed her fingers over his and inverted it, the underside now faceup. They locked eyes, and smiled.

“Will.”

On the reverse of the tile was a second star—squared and petal-shaped—painted carefully, dotted with numbers, with some words below. It had been fired to preserve it.

Under the star were the Italian words: E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle. And in the very heart of the space, a key was taped. The spare to Will’s Ducati.

22

SIMON SCANNED THE REFLECTIONS COMING TOWARD HIM IN HIS REARVIEW mirror, but his mind was still on Calvin. He was absorbed by the oddities he had seen in Calvin’s rooms—the entire absence of anything personal, and the strange scarcity of academic books on his shelves. Hardly the lair of a dedicated postgrad student, he thought. And that disingenuous response about the books he worked with being too old and valuable to remove from the library. Did that add up? What was he up to? Simon kept hearing the echoing words of I ago: “I am not what I am.” How apt, he thought; and then he noticed three bobbing heads hurrying toward him, and started the engine.