'Because?'
'Because he's a murderer. He killed all those people -- the guards and the chauffeur and the maid and the girl. You'll call Carl and make up an excuse. You'll say that the baby's sick and you have to take her to a doctor.'
'I'm a murderer, too, Sarah. Being a murderer doesn't necessarily mean anything.'
'As soon as he sees the plane, he'll shoot you both. That's why he wants you to go, so he can get rid of all the witnesses.'
'If I don't go, Carl'll take him by himself.'
'And?'
'And, by your logic, if they find the plane, this guy'll shoot him.'
She thought about that. When she spoke, her voice was low and ashamed sounding. 'That wouldn't be such a bad thing for us,' she said. 'Any violence he does will only help cover up our involvement with the plane. It'll push us off to the edge.'
'But if we were sure it was Vernon, it'd be like we were setting Carl up. It'd be just as bad as shooting him ourselves.'
'They're the only two people who can threaten us. They're the only ones who can tie you to the plane.'
'Wouldn't you feel bad, though? If Carl were killed like that?'
'It's not like I'm asking you to shoot him, Hank. I just want you to stay away.'
'But if we know...'
'What do you want to do? You want to warn Carl?'
'Doesn't it seem like we ought to?'
'And what would you say to him? How would you explain your suspicions?'
I frowned down at my plate. She was right: there was no way I could warn him without revealing my knowledge of the plane's cargo.
'He might not even shoot him,' Sarah said. 'We're just guessing about that. He might just take the money and disappear.'
I didn't really believe this, and I don't think she did either. We both picked at our food.
'You don't have a choice, Hank.'
I sighed. It had come down to that again -- our telling ourselves that we didn't have a choice. 'It's a moot point anyway,' I said.
'What do you mean?'
'I mean we won't know if it's him until after it's over.'
Sarah stared down at Amanda, thinking this through. The baby's arms were extended stiffly into the air, one pointing toward me, the other toward her mother. It looked as if she were trying to hold our hands, and, for a moment, I was tempted to reach out and touch her. I resisted, though; I knew it would only make her cry.
'We can call the FBI office in Detroit,' Sarah said. 'We can ask for an Agent Baxter.'
'It's too late; they'll be closed by now.'
'We can call in the morning.'
'I'm meeting them at nine. They won't be open before that.'
'You can stall them for a bit. I'll call from here, and then you can run over to your office and call me to find out.'
'And if there's no Agent Baxter?'
'Then you won't go. You'll tell Carl that I just called, that the baby's sick and you have to go home.'
'And if there is one?'
'Then you'll go. You'll take them to the plane.'
I frowned. 'It's a risk either way, isn't it?'
'But at least something's going to happen. The waiting's over; it's all going to come out now.'
The baby let out a short yelp, an exploratory sound. Sarah reached down and touched her hand. My dinner sat before me, cold and uneaten.
'We'll leave soon,' Sarah said, as if she were comforting Amanda rather than me. 'We'll leave and everything'll be all right. We'll take our money and change our names and disappear, and everything'll be all right.'
SOMETIME after midnight, I opened my eyes to the sound of Amanda waking up. She always signaled the onset of a nocturnal crying spell with several minutes of quiet gurgling -- a choking babbling mixed with little hiccoughs. She was doing it now, building up from a soft undertone, something close to the idling of a car's engine, toward what I knew would momentarily be a sudden, window-rattling shriek of distress.
I slipped from beneath the covers, padded barefoot across the room, and scooped her out of her crib. Sarah was lying on her stomach in the bed, and as I snuck away, she reached out her hand, pulling my empty pillow toward her chest.
I rocked the baby in my arms.
'Shhh,' I whispered.
She was too far along to be comforted so easily, though; she let me know this with a single avian squawk, like an extended burp, and I took her quickly across the hall into the guest room, to keep her from waking her mother. I climbed onto the bed there, pulling the comforter around us.
I'd come to enjoy these late-night sessions with Amanda. They were our sole form of bodily contact; during the day she'd begin to shriek as soon as I touched her. Only at night could I hold her in my arms, or stroke her face, or kiss her softly on the forehead. Only at night could I soothe her, quiet her, make her fall asleep.
I was pained by her constant crying; it weighed on me like a feeling of guilt. Whenever she was left alone with me, she immediately started to weep. Our pediatrician, though he seemed hesitant to say when it might end, claimed that it was just a phase, a brief period of increased sensitivity to her environment. I understood this and trusted his opinion, but still -- despite my efforts not to -- I couldn't help letting it affect my feelings for her. I was developing a cruel ambivalence around her, so that while I was filled with both warmth and pity in her presence, I was also faintly repulsed, as if her crying were symbolic of some budding character flaw, an innate pettiness and irritability, a judgment of me, a refusal to accept my love.
At night, for some reason, all this disappeared. She accepted me, and I was flooded with love for her. I'd tuck my head down close to her face and inhale the soft, soapy fragrance of her body. I'd cuddle her against my chest, let her hands grip at my skin, explore my nose, my eyes, my ears.
'Shhh,' I said now, and whispered her name.
The room was cold, its corners sunk in shadow. I'd left the door open, and through it I could see the hallway. Its bare white wall seemed to glow in the darkness.
Very slowly, Amanda began to quiet. She twisted her head back and forth on her neck, her hands opening and closing in rhythm with her breathing. She pressed her feet up against my ribs.
Twice now, I'd dreamed that she could talk. Both times she was in her Portacrib by the kitchen table, eating with a fork and knife. She babbled nonsense, her voice surprisingly deep and throaty, her eyes staring straight in front of her, as if she were talking into a TV camera. She made lists: lists of colors -- blue, yellow, orange, purple, green, black; lists of cars -- Pontiac, Mercedes, Chevrolet, Jaguar, Toyota, Volkswagen; lists of trees -- sycamore, plum, willow, oak, buckeye, myrtle. Sarah and I listened in stunned silence while she lay there before us, smiling, the words literally tumbling from her lips. Then she listed names -- Pederson, Sonny, Nancy, Lou, Jacob...When she got to Jacob, I stood up and slapped her in the face. Both times that's how the dream ended -- I woke up with the slap -- and each time I was left with the inescapable feeling that if I hadn't struck her, she would've kept reciting names, spitting them out, one after the other. The list would never have ended.
As she quieted down, I began to hear the house. The snow had passed, and a wind had come up. The walls creaked with it, a boatlike sound. When it gusted, it made the windows shake. Shivering, I pulled the comforter more tightly around us, supporting Amanda's weight within its folds.
I knew that I could take her back into the bedroom now, that she was about to fall asleep, but for some reason I didn't want to. I wanted to stay there for a while yet, with her quiet in my arms.
This was Jacob's bed. The thought came unbidden, a surprise, and following right behind it was an image of
