mountain amid the trees, smelling the trails of the other animals, hearing them scurry off at his approach. It pleased him to think of finding a cave high up the mountain, one known to other bears before him but never seen by man, where he could live on berries and fish and water from the high country streams. Dee could find him, of course-an eagle could go anywhere-but his lair would be too high and too steep for anyone else to dare. When winter came he would curl up amongst the leaves and sleep for months. No one would suffer because he slept because none would be within his reach.
Ash looked at the distant mountain with simple longing. Perhaps, if Dee brought no one home, she would let him seek the woods and mountains one night soon. But he knew she would bring someone home. And soon. She had taken no pills since Tommy left but had not crashed into her abyss of depression. There was a difference in her mood, however. It was no longer wide-ranging ebullience but seemed tempered and directed by a strain of hostility. Dee appeared to have found a target for her energies and was focusing on it in a way Ash had never seen before. When she got work, which never took her long, Ash expected her to bring someone home again. His chances to get into the woods were fading quickly.
Dee was successful at the third nursing home she tried. As usual the manager looked at her as if she were a gift from heaven. In a business with a chronic shortage of qualified personnel, a young, attractive, white registered nurse with experience and the willingness to work in less than glamorous conditions on any shift and for low pay was even too much to pray for. And, of course, too good to be true. The manager understood that the woman was recently divorced and relocated, along with the implicit suggestion that this job would be temporary. How long could it be before someone like this found a better job or remarried or moved to a big city? Not very long, the manager thought, but however long it was, it was worth it. As usual, she asked Dee as few questions as possible and hired her on the spot.
Driving back to the motel. Dee formulated her plans. The situation was new for her. She had never had a specific target before, and thus had never really had a plan. Just a method. She had employed it when the circumstances seemed right and the need was overwhelming, but always with a strong element of randomness in the process. This time was different.
She felt a swelling sense of excitement. This time she would not only fulfill her irresistible need, she would also be performing an act of retribution. Take and it shall be taken from you, she thought triumphantly. There was a Biblical ring to it, and a Biblical fitness to what she would do as well. She would have her son back at long last, and those who had taken him away would suffer. Dee felt exceptionally good. The laughter bubbled in her chest and burst from her throat as she approached the motel. She was quickly laughing so hard she had to slow down to avoid swerving into the wrong lane.
She could see Ash’s finger stuck between the slots of the room’s Venetian blind. He was gazing out at the mountains again, and exposing himself to discovery in the process, but Dee could not be angry with him, she felt too good.
“Put on your hiking boots,” she said as she opened the motel door. Ash sprang guiltily away from the window.
“Where are we going?”
“To the mountains, of course,” Dee said. “I tried, but they won’t come to us.”
She was smiling so broadly that Ash’s heart sank.
Becker wished he were a drinker. Rejection and sorrow seemed to call for burying one’s nose in a glass of sour mash, but Becker only found himself getting sleepy after the first drink and downright stupid if he forced himself to have the second. The sense of being out of control that alcohol caused frightened him far worse than being unhappy, so he took his mourning sober.
“A little nip couldn’t hurt,” said Tee, tipping up a beer to prove his point. The police chief had brought over a cold six-pack on a mission of commiseration. Receiving no cooperation from his friend. Tee had undertaken the six-pack on his own. He was making impressive progress.
“It heartens the disconsolate,” Tee said. “I read that somewhere. On a cereal box. I think.”
“What heartens the disconsolate?” Becker asked.
Tee lifted the beer can. “Getting shit-faced.”
“Are you disconsolate. Tee?”
“No, you are, but if you’re not going to do it, somebody has to.”
“That’s what friends are for,” Becker said.
“Is that what they’re for? I always wondered. Well, it’s a small sacrifice to make for a buddy. I know you’d do the same for me if I got dumped.”
“What I will do is drive you home after you finish your sacrifice. It wouldn’t look good if the chief got arrested for DWI.”
Tee belched loudly, then tapped his chest with his fist, looking immensely pleased with himself.
“So why are these fine women dumping you all over the place?” he asked. “What do you do to them?”
Becker studied empty space for a moment before answering. “I think I make the mistake of falling in love with them,” he said at last.
Becker’s distress and confusion were so obvious that Tee shifted uncomfortably in his chair and examined the top of his beer can.
“I think in the beginning I’m a mystery to them and they find that intriguing and challenging. But once I fall in love with them. I’m not a mystery anymore because I make an effort for them to really get to know me.”
Tee wished Becker would not be quite so open about the whole business. He was not accustomed to being spoken to like this by another man. He didn’t know how to respond. If Becker were a woman, there would be no problem, of course. Tee would already be on the sofa beside her, a comforting arm on her shoulder. A comforting arm on Becker’s shoulder would make them both so uncomfortable that Tee could not imagine placing his there.
“Once they get to know the real me, it scares them,” Becker continued.
“You’re not so scary,” Tee said.
Becker looked at him directly.
“You don’t know the real me,” Becker said in a tone that implied that Tee was much better off in ignorance. Tee drank again, then broached a new subject.
“So, you’re retired again, or what?”
“She didn’t think she could continue to work with me, under the circumstances.”
Tee did not inquire what the circumstances were for fear of setting off further confessionals.
“Must be nice, sitting around, doing nothing.”
“It sucks,” Becker said.
“Well, except for that part it must be nice. You get awful broody when you’re on a case, you know. On the other hand, look how bright and cheery you are now that you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“I haven’t stopped thinking about it just because I’m not officially on the case,” said Becker.
“Could have fooled me. You’re just so carefree…”
“A kid is going to be killed. Tee. We’re going to find the body of Bobby Reynolds and then another kid will be taken and I know it as sure as I know you’re sitting here, and there’s not a god damned thing I can do about it- except think.”
“You ought to cultivate some bad habits…”
“And every kid from here on is on my head. It’s going to keep happening because I couldn’t stop it from happening.”
“It’s not your fault, for Christ’s sake…”
“I fucked it. Tee. I just plain fucked it. I got off on the wrong foot because I was so sure it had to be a certain very specific kind of person. I thought I understood exactly who that person was and everything I did after that was wrong, and everything everyone else did was wrong, too, as a result of my being wrong and being sure I was right.”
“What are you. Sherlock Holmes? You never fucked up before?”
Becker paused for a moment.
“I always understood them before,” he said.
