True Evil

'You're lying. You thought about her while you were inside me, didn't you?'

'I did. You know me, Janice.'

She gave him a pouting glance.

'You don't have to be jealous of her,' Rusk said.

'Why not?'

'She's dead.'

'Oh.' Janice smiled with satisfaction.

After Janice flattened her skirt and carried her shoes back to her desk, Rusk walked over to a credenza and removed a box of Reynolds Wrap from a drawer. It had lain there for five years, but he'd never had to use it. Opening the long box, he tore off two squares of aluminum foil, then laid them on a table by the northeast window of his office. There was packaging tape in the bottom drawer of his desk. He cut off several short lengths and stuck a line of dangling pieces to the edge of the credenza. With these he taped the foil to the eastward-facing window, shiny side out. In sunlight, the squares would be visible from Interstate 55, which was elevated for most of its length where it passed through the city.

The aluminum foil was another of Glykon's ideas. Those two goddamn squares of Reynolds Wrap would bring about a meeting that Rusk dreaded like no other in his life, one that would require all his powers of persuasion to survive. His hand shook as he drained another tumbler of bourbon.

He felt as though he had carried out a ritual to summon the devil.

CHAPTER 4

Chris Shepard dropped a baseball in midair and swung the bat in a fast arc, smacking a ground ball at his four-foot-tall shortstop. The shortstop scooped up the ball and hummed it to the first baseman, Chris's adopted son, Ben. The throw went wide, but Ben stretched out and sucked the ball into his glove as though by magic.

'Great catch!' Chris shouted. 'Throw at his chest, Mike! He's wearing a glove, he can catch it.'

The shortstop nodded and crouched for the next ball. Ben's eyes glowed with pride, but he maintained as stern a countenance as a nine-year-old could muster.

Chris pretended to aim another ball at the shortstop, then popped a fly over Ben to his daydreaming right fielder. The kid woke up just in time to dart out of the ball's path, but it took him several seconds to start chasing it toward the back of the lot.

Chris glanced covertly to his right as he waited for the throw. Two minutes ago, Thora's silver Mercedes had pulled onto the grassy bank behind the vacant lot where they practiced. She didn't get out, but sat watching from behind the smoky windshield. Maybe she's talking on her cell phone, he thought. It struck him how rarely Thora came to practice anymore. Last year, she had been one of the team's biggest supporters, always bringing the watercooler or even an ice chest filled with POWERade for every kid. But this year she was the rarest visitor. Curiosity had brought her out today, he knew. Instead of making his evening hospital rounds early, as was his habit during the season, Chris had picked Ben up from home right after his office closed. Thora had been out running, of course, so they'd missed each other. As a result, they hadn't spoken since his visit from Alex Morse.

Chris waved at the Mercedes, then started working ground balls around the infield. He'd avoided talking to Thora because he needed time to process what Agent Morse had told him, and a busy medical office was no place to reflect on personal problems. Running a baseball practice for nine- and ten-year-olds wasn't exactly Zen meditation, but he could steal a little time to work through the few factual details Morse had given him during their meeting.

He wished he had asked more questions. About the supposed murders, for example. Had the cause of death been stroke in every case? He doubted that Morse had forensic evidence to back up her extraordinary theory. If she did, she wouldn't need him to try to set up a trap; she would already have arrested the murderer. And yet…if he was completely honest with himself, he couldn't deny that in the past few hours he'd been turning over certain realities that had been bothering him on a deep level for some time.

Foremost was the baby issue. During their courtship, he and Thora had agreed that they wanted to start having children of their own as soon as they married. At least one, and maybe two. Chris was thirty-six, Thora thirty. The sooner they started having babies, the healthier those children would be, and the better they would know their adopted brother. But after the wedding, Thora had seemed reluctant to get off the pill. Twice she'd claimed that she'd started taking the next month's pack by mistake. When he remarked on this rare absentmindedness, she admitted that she'd been wondering whether they should move so quickly. Chris had tried to hide his disappointment, but it obviously showed through, because Thora had stopped taking the pill, and they'd begun waiting the obligatory three months required before conception could safely occur. Their sex remained good, but the frequency dropped precipitously. Thora complained that having to use other forms of birth control was a drag after the convenience of the pill. Before long, Chris felt lucky if they made love once a week. After the three months passed, they had abandoned all forms of birth control, but so far, Thora had not conceived. Not even a missed period. Whenever Chris brought up the subject, she subtly suggested that he should get himself checked out, since Ben's existence proved that she could bear children. Chris never responded verbally to these hints, but he had gotten himself 'checked out,' using his own office's laboratory-service provider. And the answer was unequivocal: high sperm count, high motility.

He wished Thora would get out of her Mercedes. Several other parents were sitting on blankets or lawn chairs on the hill beside the field; only Thora remained in her vehicle. It was this kind of behavior that earned you the reputation of snob in a small town: uppity doctor's wife. Last year, Chris couldn't have imagined Thora remaining aloof like this. She would have visited each parent in turn, all the while shouting encouragement to the boys from the sidelines. But maybe he was making a big deal out of nothing. If she felt like sitting in her car, where was the harm? The sun was burning down with unusual ferocity for May, and she might just be enjoying the air-conditioning. He couldn't tell whether her engine was running; the rumble of the generator in the batting cage was too loud.

'Alex Morse is nuts,' he muttered, cracking a ball toward third base. His marriage might not be in a perfect state-if any such marriage existed on earth-but the idea that his wife was planning to murder him was so ludicrous that Chris hadn't even known how to respond. It was almost like someone telling you that your mother was planning to kill you. And yet…it wasn't, quite. There was no blood tie between husbands and wives-not without biological children. And for some reason, Chris couldn't get Morse's deadly earnest eyes out of his mind.

She clearly wasn't the kind of person who would waste time playing games with people's lives. The answer had to be something else. Like emotional instability. Maybe Morse believed absolutely in the absurd scenario she had outlined today. Given the recent death of her sister, that wasn't hard to imagine. Chris had seen many extreme grief reactions during his medical career.

But what should he do about it? Call the FBI field office in Jackson and report Morse's visit? Call his lawyer? Call FBI headquarters in Washington? Or discreetly try to get more information on his own? His receptionist had finally found a phone number for Darryl Foster, and Chris had tried to call his old fraternity brother, but he'd only reached an answering machine. He'd hoped that Foster-an active FBI field agent- would shed some light on the mysterious Agent Morse before he had to face Thora, but the cell phone in Chris's pocket had not rung. Until he knew more, he wasn't going to let Thora know anything was amiss. It wasn't that he believed anything Morse had told him, but if he related the afternoon's events to Thora, her first question would be Who did you report her to? And what would he say then? Why hadn't he reported her?

'You gonna hit the ball or what, Coach?'

Chris blinked himself back to reality. His catcher was staring up at him with confusion. Chris laughed to cover, then hit a high fly ball to center field. As he watched its arc, he caught a movement to his right. Thora was standing in the open door of her Mercedes now, her blond hair flashing in the afternoon sun. She was staring directly at him. Had she noticed his little zone-out at home plate?

She gave him a small wave and smiled beneath her sunglasses, dark avian things that gave her the look of an