“Oh, that doesn’t matter, Mrs. Basel. We don’t care how our young man here looks. External appearances are so unimportant.” He gave Dorian a wide, sickly smile. “Don’t you agree, Dorian? What matters is what’s on the inside.”

∗ ∗ ∗

After the first shock of Smitt’s arrival Dorian’s thoughts began to drift again. As he went through the motions of stuffing an overnight bag and layering on extra sweaters in place of his missing parka, he was thinking of Luce, imagining how he’d explain: I thought if I didn’t go along with it maybe they’d start following me or something. I had to throw them off . . . She was already worried about the police. She would understand that he had to act in a way that would keep them from getting suspicious. At least, she’d understand if she ever gave him a chance to explain. Maybe she’d get so angry at waiting around for him tonight that she’d never come back. The idea sat inside Dorian like something cold and gelatinous clogging his heart. Real life was wherever she was, in her face where every curve held a kind of shuddering brilliance, in her disarming bursts of honesty. I’m supposed to make sure you die tonight. And I just blew it completely. Maybe it was crazy, but Dorian couldn’t help grinning at the memory of those words.

Everything else in his life was just something other people expected from him. He kissed Lindy on the cheek, carried his bag to the car, and sat silent next to Smitt as they drove to the airfield. Whatever happened, Dorian thought, it shouldn’t be too hard to convince them he was totally ignorant. The FBI thought a criminal gang had brought down the Dear Melissa, Smitt had said. Dorian could truthfully claim he didn’t know anything about that. Once they’d boarded the small propeller plane Dorian stared out the window. Instead of the clouds he saw her face with its soft internal glow, her eyes shut tight, in the moment before he’d covered her mouth with his. Once again he’d known exactly what to do.

He’d outsmarted death a second time. It was impossible to repress the thrill of that, the sense it gave him of his own outrageous specialness. If he could make a mermaid like him too much to kill him, how ordinary could he be?

∗ ∗ ∗