replace them with fresh ones.'
'So you're telling me he's lying?'
She didn't seem to hear me. She was biting at her lip, her head turned toward the baby. Suddenly she gave me an excited look. 'Did he show you his badge?'
'Why would he show me his badge?'
She dropped her fork onto her plate, pushed back her chair, and ran from the room.
'Sarah?' I called after her, bewildered.
'Wait,' she yelled over her shoulder.
As soon as she left the room, the baby began to cry. I hardly even looked at her. I was trying to devise a way to get the money back into the plane without leaving any tracks. I scraped at my chicken with my knife, tearing strips of meat from the bone.
Amanda increased her volume, her body tightening like a fist, her face flooding a dark crimson.
'Shhh,' I whispered. I stared down at my slowly cooling food. I'd have to go during the night, I realized, right after dinner, before it stopped snowing. I'd have to do it in the dark. I'd keep three packets, just enough to cover what I'd lost on the condominium, and give everything else back.
Sarah returned a moment later, carrying a sheet of paper. She sat down with an exultant look on her face, her cheeks flushed with it, the paper held out toward me like a gift.
I took it from her, recognizing it immediately. It was the photocopy of the article about the kidnapping.
'What?' I said.
She grinned at me. 'It's him, isn't it?' She leaned down and touched Amanda's face with the back of her hand. The baby stopped crying.
I examined the piece of paper. It was the third article, the one with the photographs. I studied them left to right -- first the younger brother, then the older, then the freeze-frame of the younger one executing the security guard.
'He's looking for his brother,' Sarah said.
My eyes strayed back to the center picture and for one brief, intense instant, I was flooded with a sense of recognition. There was something familiar about the man's eyes, about the way his cheeks sloped down toward his mouth, the way he held his head on his shoulders. But then, just as quickly, it was gone, overwhelmed by his other features -- his beard and thick hair, the stockiness of his frame, the mug-shot frown on his face.
'You're saying it's Vernon,' I said. 'The older one.' I laid the piece of paper on the table between us.
She nodded, still smiling. Neither of us had eaten any of our food yet. It was cold now, the sauce on the chicken growing viscid. I scrutinized the photo, willing myself to recognize Agent Baxter in Vernon Bokovsky's features. I concentrated, squinting, and briefly managed to make him appear, but again it was only for a second. The photo was several years old. It was blurry, grainy, heavily shadowed.
'It's not him,' I said. 'The guy I met today was skinnier.' I pushed the article back across the table toward Sarah. 'He had a crew cut, and no beard.'
'Maybe he's lost weight, Hank. Maybe he cut his hair and shaved his beard.' She looked from me to the article, then back again. 'You can't tell me it's impossible.'
'I'm just saying that it doesn't seem like it's him.'
'It's got to be him. I know it.'
'He seemed like an FBI guy, Sarah. He had that professional look, like a movie star. Poised, perfectly groomed, a nice dark suit...'
'Anybody can do that,' she said impatiently. She slapped her hand at the article. 'He impersonated a cop to kidnap the girl. Why wouldn't he fake being an FBI agent to get back the ransom?'
'But it'd be such a risk. He'd have to go through every town from here to Cincinnati, show up in all these different police stations, each of which would probably have his face tacked up somewhere on a poster. It'd be like he was asking to get caught.'
'Put yourself in his shoes,' Sarah said. 'Your brother takes off in a plane with all that money and disappears. You think he's crashed, but you wait and wait, and nothing's reported. Wouldn't you go out and try to find him?'
I thought about it, staring across the table at the photos.
'You couldn't just give it up. You'd have to at least try and get it back.'
'He's thinner,' I said quietly.
'Think about what we've already done to keep the money. What he's doing is nothing compared to that.'
'You're wrong, Sarah. You're just making this up.'
'Would the real FBI try to find a plane like this? Send an agent in a car all the way across the state? Wouldn't they just issue some sort of announcement?'
'They don't want it leaked to the press.'
'Then they'd call on the phone. They wouldn't send an agent.'
'Why wouldn't the kidnapper call, then? It'd be safer. There'd be less chance of getting caught.'
She shook her head. 'He wants to be there. He wants to be able to control things, convince people with the way he's dressed, the way he acts. Like he convinced you. He can't do that on the phone.'
I thought back over my interview with Agent Baxter, searching for clues. I pictured him wiping his palm on his pant leg before he shook my hand, like it was clammy with sweat. I remembered how insistent he'd been about confidentiality, keeping the story away from the press.
'I don't know...'
'You have to use your imagination, Hank. You have to picture him with more hair, with a beard.'
'Sarah.' I sighed. 'Does it even matter?'
She picked up her fork and poked at her chicken. 'What do you mean?' Her voice was hesitant with suspicion.
'If we were to decide that he was really the kidnapper, would it change what I did tomorrow?'
She cut off a square of chicken and put it into her mouth. She chewed slowly, pausing between bites, as if she were afraid it might be poisoned. 'Of course,' she said.
'Let's say we agree that he's really an FBI agent.'
'But we don't.'
'Just hypothetically. For the sake of argument.'
'All right,' she said. Her fork was poised over her plate. I could tell that she was waiting to contradict me.
'What would I do?'
'You'd take him to the plane.'
'If I were going to take him to the plane, I'd have to go back tonight and return the money.'
She set her fork down on her plate. It made a clinking sound when it hit. 'Return the money?'
'They know it's on the plane. There's no excuse for any of it to be missing.'
She stared across the table at me, as if waiting for something more. 'You can't give it back,' she said.
'We'd have to, Sarah. I'd be the only one they'd suspect. As soon as we left town, they'd know.'
'But after all you've done? You'd just let it go?'
'After all we've done,' I corrected her.
She ignored me. 'You wouldn't have to put the money back, Hank. If you guided him to the plane, you'd be beyond suspicion. There'd be no tracks in the surrounding snow, so it'd look like no one had been there. He'd find the five hundred thousand and just assume that his informant was wrong, that the pilot had left the rest behind somewhere.'
I pondered that. It seemed to make sense. It was a risk, but no more of a risk than sneaking back to return the money would be.
'Okay,' I said. 'Let's say that if we decide he's really from the FBI, I'll brave it out and take him to the plane.'
She nodded.
'Now what'll I do if we decide he's actually the kidnapper?'
'You won't go.'
