Hook thought of calling Rider and telling him what he had found out and that he expected to have it corroborated by Douglas or Liz before the day was out, but he knew what the sergeant would say—that all he could do was wait for such corroboration. Until he had it the case would remain unchanged. So Hook decided not to call him. And for the same reason he would not call home, not until the thing was over, and he had won.

He did want to talk with Liz, however, and dialed her number when he returned to the motel. He waited a long time but there was no answer. So he got in his car then and drove out to the beach house, through a gradually lifting coastal fog. Along the way he considered what might lie ahead of him, perhaps even a gathering of the clan, all the guilty assembled to discuss what they would do on this last day of reprieve. But when he reached the turnoff and followed the narrow blacktop to the first of the three houses, he found no cars in the driveway, just the Jaguar parked in the carport. He got out and rang the back doorbell. When there was no answer he knocked, hard, thinking Liz might still be in bed, drugged on wine or marijuana or whatever her last night’s pleasure might have been. But there was no response, no sound inside, nothing.

He went around to the front and looked through the deck windows. All he could see, however, was the living room in a state of casual disorder, a few empty glasses on the cocktail table, a green wine bottle on the floor with a pair of girl’s panties and the yellow sweater Liz had worn the day before. Then Hook noticed that the deck door—a sliding, patio-type door—was slightly ajar. For a moment he considered entering the house and looking around, but decided to try the cliff first, see if she might be down below, on the beach.

When he reached the cliff edge he felt a sudden weakness and nausea. But he remained there, looking up and down the beach, straining to see through the fog which drifted past like tattered flags of gauze, bleached pennants of some decimated ghost army stranded up the coast. Then he saw her, almost directly below, a tiny figure huddled in a cleft of rock which the surf kept reaching for, and then pulling back from, as if it were intimidated by her presence.

Hook set out along the top of the cliff, moving past the two other beach houses to the trail that led down to the beach. When he reached the bottom she did not see him at first, so he was able to observe her face unguarded for a few moments, and what he saw was sculpted grief. She was leaning back on the rock, hugging herself against the salt wind even though she was wearing her windbreaker, with chinos and old deck shoes. As she saw him her expression changed hardly at all.