“It was all there the first time,” Thackrey said. “Everything that was to come—the art spilling out of her like a lunatic savant, the daddy thing, the step ahead of me, the crazy risks, the part of her always wanting to leave. She said, ‘You seem like someone who’s used to getting his way. Why don’t you tell me one thing a guy’s never said to me before? I’ll give you three chances.’ Then she smiled, and right there, if I’d only seen it, was all the misery we were going to make for each other.”

Suddenly Victor’s screen changed. The lines of white type on a black screen gave way to a website. Across the top were the words “Violent Crime Investigations.” Russell laughed. “I don’t fucking believe it.”

Victor read the screen for a moment. “Hey, Ben,” he called across the room. “Good news—I hacked into the VCI website and I’m planting the keystroke logger. Bad news—they got a video of my car entering the park, and they’re running a database search on it right now. Russ and I need to get on a plane this morning. Remember our agreement. We help you with this, and we leave.”

Thackrey drank the rest of his wine and lay down on his back. “Calm down. One more thing to clean up first. Then you can leave.”

Chapter Eleven

(i)

(WEDNESDAY, 2:30 A.M.)

Mahler parked on the road’s gravel shoulder. Above him lay the earthen dam that marked the northern perimeter of Spring Lake Park. The parking spot, in the shadows of an oak grove, would not be visible to Officer Hadley’s patrol along the top of the dam. After chewing out the young guard a day earlier, Mahler didn’t want to see the kid again.

Mahler lifted himself over a four-foot chain-link fence and climbed the steep hill to the rim of the dam. He stood for a moment on this high ground. Below him lay the valley and the lake, black and smooth in the new-moon darkness. Even without light, Mahler could see where he was headed, the footpath that descended into the trees.

He jogged down the paved trail. For the first hundred yards, he would be vulnerable to the park’s patrol. But the sound of their truck could be heard across the valley, in enough time for him to duck into the brush.

Reaching a meadow, he found the route called Fisherman’s Trail. It forked through the trees along the lake and led to the boat dock and the lower parking lot.

The path was muddy after several days of rain. Mahler walked slowly, picking through the mud and the dark, uneven surfaces. Several times he slipped but kept his balance. Suddenly, where the trail turned sharply, his left foot caught on something, and he fell forward into the darkness.