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“Shut up! Shut up! You’re an ignorant know-nothing!”

He takes a step toward her. This is exactly what Holly was hoping for when she asked him to share one of his horrid brown balls of flesh, but now she barely notices. In her rage—at him, at his wife, at her current hopeless situation—she has even forgotten her thirst.

“You think you’re better. Your wife thinks she’s better. Maybe for awhile you even were better. It happens. You’re not the only one who reads the science magazines. It’s called—”

“Stop! It’s a lie! It’s a FILTHY FUCKING LIE!”

He doesn’t want her to say what he knows might be true, but she intends to. She’ll have to be quiet when she’s dead, but she’s not dead yet.

14

As Holly is informing Rodney Harris that he’s not the only one who reads the science magazines, Emily is entering the Frederick Building. She finds the idea of masks ridiculous but she’s happy to be wearing one now, and Holly’s gimme cap is pulled down so the visor shades her eyes. She goes to the building directory and checks it. Finders Keepers is on the fifth floor, along with the offices of Furniture Imports, Inc., and David & Daughter, Forensic Accountants.

Emily steps into the elevator and pushes 5. When she gets out, she makes sure the hall is empty and limps down to the door with FINDERS KEEPERS INVESTIGATIVE AGENCY on it. Since she has Holly’s keys, she’s happy to find the door locked. It means no receptionist on duty. If there had been, she would have put on a vague old woman act and said she must have gotten off on the wrong floor, so sorry. She begins going through Holly’s keys, trying ones that look like they might fit, hoping no one comes out of Furniture Imports or David & Daughter to use the loo.

The third key fits. She lets herself into a waiting area. Air conditioning whooshes softly. She checks the computer on the small desk, hoping it’s only asleep, but no joy. She opens the door to the right and peeps into what must be the male partner’s office, judging by the framed sports pages on the wall. The one headlined CLEVELAND WINS WORLD’S SERIES (bad grammar there, she thinks) is probably real, but not BROWNS WIN SUPERBOWL!

The other office is Gibney’s. She hurries to Holly’s computer and pushes a random key, hoping to wake it up if it’s asleep. This one is, but it wants a password to unlock any possible treasures within. She tries several, including HollyGibney, hollygibney, FindersKeepers, finderskeepers, LaurenBacallFan, and password. None of them work. She looks on the desk, which is neat, orderly, and bare except for a notepad. On the top sheet are doodles of flowers and a few jottings. There is the name Imani, which means nothing to Emily, but Elm Grove Trailer Park does; Emily went there to clear out enough things from the Craslow bitch’s trailer to make it appear she was gone. Em doesn’t like that, but what’s printed below it she likes even less: BellRinger and J. Castro and 2012.

How can the bitch have found out so much?

Em tears this sheet off, and the one beneath it for good measure. She balls them up and puts them in her pocket. She checks the desk drawers one by one, hoping for a written report. She doesn’t find one, and admits that even finding one wouldn’t have eased her mind unless it was written in longhand. Nor does she find a slip of paper with Holly’s password written on it, and a wave of angry despair rolls through her.

We should have had an exit plan beyond cyanide pills, she thinks. Why didn’t we?

The answer seems obvious: because they’re old, and old people can’t run very far or very fast.

Maybe there’s no report. Maybe the stupid woman was too unsure of her conclusions to write one or tell anyone.

Emily decides it’s the best she can hope for. She’ll go home. Roddy will shoot the Gibney bitch as he did the Craslow bitch. They’ll run her through the Morbark, pulverizing her bones and liquifying the rest of her, including her nicotine-poisoned liver. Then out into the lake in the Marie Cather, where they’ll stop above the deepest part and drop the remains of Holly Gibney over the side in a plastic disposal bag. After that they will continue hoping for the best. What else is there? Suicide, of course, but Emily still hopes it won’t come to that.

She finds the wall safe, predictably hidden behind a picture of a mountain meadow. She tries the handle, expecting nothing, and nothing is what she gets. She gives the combo a disgusted spin, rehangs the picture, and turns off the computer. She decides the notepad is a little out of place, so she squares it up. Then she retreats the way she came, wiping everything she touched, starting with the computer keyboard. She finishes with the knob of the office door, after putting on her mask and peering through the spyhole to make sure the coast is clear. She is halfway down the hall before she remembers she forgot to re-lock the door. She goes back and does it, once more taking care to wipe away her fingerprints.

In the elevator she pulls the brim of the gimme cap down. She encounters only one person in the lobby and with her head lowered sees only jeans and sneakers as Barbara Robinson passes her on her way to the elevator. It’s time to go home and tie up at least one troublesome loose end.

As she pushes open the door to the street, a particularly vicious bolt of pain strikes the small of her back. Emily stands on the sidewalk, grimacing, waiting for it to let up. It does, at least a little, and she thanks God (who of course doesn’t exist) for the Elf Parfait she ate before leaving the house. She crosses Frederick Street to her car, limping more severely than ever.

The phrase that Holly is screaming at her husband at that very moment comes into her mind and she rejects it.

15

“IT’S CALLED THE PLACEBO EFFECT, you half brain-dead idi—”

He rushes at her, screaming at her to shut up, the placebo effect doesn’t exist, it’s nothing but the manipulation of statistics by a cadre of lazy, pseudoscientific—

She grabs him the second he comes within reach. Again, there’s no thought, not even a shred of advance planning; she simply shoots her right arm through the bars and curls it around his neck. It hurts her bruised ribs, but in her adrenaline-fired state she barely notices.

He tries to jerk free and almost makes it. Holly redoubles her grip and yanks him against the bars. His bathrobe is sliding off, revealing his ridiculous firetruck pajamas.

“Let me go!” Choking, almost gurgling the words. “Let me go!”

Holly remembers what she has in her left hand. What she’s been squeezing so tightly it’s cut into her palm. It’s a triangular earring, the mate of the one she found in the weeds next to the abandoned auto body shop. She shoves that hand through the bars and, holding the earring tightly between her thumb and forefinger, runs one of its three golden points across Harris’s scrawny throat in a semicircle from one jaw to the other. She expects nothing, just does it. For most of that ten-inch semicircle, the point barely cuts the skin; a paper cut might go deeper and draw more blood. Then it catches on a bulging tendon and digs deeper. Roddy helps by jerking his head to the side, trying to get clear of whatever she’s cutting him with. The earring slices through his jugular vein and Holly takes first one faceful of warm blood and then another as his heart pumps it at her. It’s in her eyes and it burns.

Roddy gives a convulsive jerk and breaks her grip. He staggers toward the stairs with the back of his bathrobe hanging almost to his waist and the rest of it dragging on the floor. He puts his hand to his neck. Blood jets through his fingers. He blunders into the broom that’s propped there and stumbles over it. His head hits the stair-rail and he goes to his knees. The spurts of blood continue, but they’re starting to weaken. He uses the rail to gain his feet and turns to her. His eyes are wide. He reaches out and makes a guttural sound that could be anything, but Holly thinks it might be his wife’s name. The bathrobe slips all the way off. It makes her think of a snake shedding its skin. He takes two steps toward her, waving his arms, then goes down on his face. The front of his skull thuds on the concrete. His fingers twitch. He tries to raise his head and can’t. Blood trickles across the concrete.

Holly is frozen with shock and amazement. Her arms are still sticking out through two of the squares made by the crisscrossing bars. The earring is still in her left hand, which is now wearing a wet red glove. At first the only thought in her mind is Lady Macbeth’s question: who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him?

Then another one surfaces: Where is his wife?