Every possibility runs through my mind now. Full-body search. Anonymous hands—only obeying orders, ma’am—roaming over me, sliding into places they don’t belong, finding the latex-wrapped vial. What’s this, Jean? Morgan will say. I see myself on a thousand television screens, a surprise performance interrupting a news segment, a documentary on Bengal tigers, a cartoon. Me, next to Reverend Carl as he reads off another chapter and verse, as camera flashes blind me, as my scalp burns from the sting of a sloppy razor job. I see the horror in Patrick’s eyes as he’s bused to Fort Meade and forced to stand at attention while my blood mixes with the remains of Jimbo and Del and Sharon and god knows who else. Maybe my own son.

Instead, we’re shown the door.

“Nothing like a little Here’s your hat—what’s your hurry?” I say when we’re out in the late-afternoon light.

Poe watches us walk toward our cars. If he hears what I’ve said, I don’t know, but he calls out after us. “Leave. And don’t come back here.” He disappears inside the building, hands stuffed into his pockets. I think I see him sigh.

Chapter Sixty-three

SIXTY-THREE

I use Lorenzo’s phone to call Patrick and tell him I’m on my way home. Lorenzo, of course, still has a cell phone; I don’t.

You would if you were in Italy, kiddo, I tell myself, but push the thought out of my head. I can’t think about that right now. I can’t think about anything except getting into my car and getting this poison out of my body.

“So,” Lorenzo says, taking hold of my left wrist, stroking the old burn with his thumb. “I have to get out, you know. While there’s still time.”

“I know.”

He breaks away and opens the passenger door of his car. From the glove compartment, he removes a slim envelope and hands it to me. “This is for you.”

It feels like a passport, and something else, something flat and hard. A smartphone is my best guess.

“Give me a second,” I say.

I pull the door closed and hitch up my skirt, ridding myself of the latex-wrapped package and stowing it in one of Sonia’s pastel sippy cups. She’s outgrown them, but juice in a plastic cup has always been a happy alternative to juice all over the Honda’s windshield. The lid snaps closed and I breathe easily again.