lives by them. Before a window can open for second thoughts I take a step toward her.
She holds up her hands. “Harper, I love you. With all the joy and pain that entails. And right now the pain outweighs the joy. We have a long way to go.”
With two strides she is past me, turning me with one hand, until we stand at the foot of Erin’s open grave.
“I loved my sister,” she says softly, looking down into the hole. “We were more competitive than either of us ever admitted. Erin felt resentments I never let myself see. I was jealous of her sometimes too. Not so much her beauty, but… I wanted to be as free as she was. To be able to live without second-guessing myself all the time.”
“She paid a price for that freedom.”
“Yes. But this wasn’t the price. This is obscene. And there’s nothing we can do about it. I blame myself too, for not stopping you and Miles. Erin too. You and Miles led that animal to our house, but it was Erin’s secret that put her within his grasp, wasn’t it?”
I say nothing.
“We weren’t married when you slept with her,” Drewe goes on, still looking down. “That makes a difference to me. Erin could have told you she was pregnant before you married me, even before she married Patrick. She chose not to.”
At last she looks up from the grave and focuses on the granite headstone. “You remember the day we got married? What you promised? Forsaking all others? From this day forward? Till death do us part? Did you really think about what you were saying then?”
“I remember, Drewe. I meant every word.” I try to pull her to my side, but she keeps a stiff elbow between us.
She turns to me, her green eyes bright. “Promises are easy, Harper. Think hard. Love is a terrible compromise if you choose to see it as one. If you’re faithful, I’m the only comfort you’ll ever have.” Her jaw muscles flex with determination. “But I’m special. I’m smart and I’m beautiful and I’m enough for you to live inside forever, if you know how to open me up.”
“I know that. I’ve always known it.”
She looks up and scans the wide expanse of the cemetery. I watch her from the side, her profile regal, her thick auburn hair rippling from beneath the black hat, catching a wisp of breeze. She has never looked stronger or more unattainable than at this moment. As she turns to me, I look down, not wanting to be caught staring. My eyes register a dark glint against the sheen of the coffin.
“You dropped your sunglasses,” I tell her.
“What? Where?”
“Down there.” I point into the grave. “I don’t want to sound superstitious, but maybe we should just leave them.”
“Those aren’t mine.”
“What?”
She points to her throat. Her Ray-Bans lie flat against her black dress, suspended from the high neckline by one earpiece.
The wraparound glasses in the grave lie at the very foot of the coffin. That’s why I didn’t see them while I was playing the guitar. They almost look positioned there, rather than dropped from some distraught mourner’s hand. They stare up out of the hole like a pair of sightless eyes.
“Drewe?”
“I wonder if they’re Mother’s,” she says, stepping to the edge of the grave and bending over.
I catch her arm. “Stop.”
“Ow! That hurts.”
“Stand up, Drewe. Stand up straight.”
“What?”
“He’s here.”
“What?”
“Who?”
Then she is looking up into my face with horror.
“Don’t look around,” I tell her, even as I do myself. Every headstone in the field now seems capable of concealing a killer. My eye inventories mausoleums at the speed of light, prioritizing the most dangerous areas.
“He didn’t do the killings,” I hear myself whisper.
“What?”
“He didn’t kill the EROS women. The Indian woman did. He only fired the tranquilizer gun. We’ve got a chance.”
“Harper, he’s dead. How can he be here?”
I’m trying to appear calm, but if Berkmann is watching me, he must see me scanning the headstones with the controlled panic of a soldier walking point in the jungle. “We’re going to have to run.”
“Where?” Drewe asks, her voice thin.
“The Explorer’s parked behind the superintendent’s office.”
“That’s a hundred yards away.”
“I’m going to leave my guitar here.”
She squeezes my hand, hard. “Shouldn’t we take it with us? Try to act casual and get as far as we can? You can drop it if we have to run.”
“We have to run
“Should I hold your hand?”
“No. If he chases us, I’ll stay behind you. Don’t look back. If he jumps up in front of us, I’ll have to try to kill him. You keep running.”
“Harper-”
“
“Oh.”
“Take them. God, I wish your father was still here. We’d kill that son of a bitch right now. Okay, get ready. One, two-”
We’re off without ever saying “go,” flying across the grass like locust shells blasted before a prairie wind. With every step I see Berkmann’s powerful body rising from behind a gravestone, scalpel in hand, moving with the speed and inevitability of nightmares. I pump my legs furiously, willing Drewe faster as in my mind Berkmann angles toward her, me running to get between them but not making it as he plunges the scalpel into her stomach-
The superintendent’s office is closer, maybe fifty yards. I hold back, giving Drewe the lead, pivoting my head as I try to scan 360 degrees of threat, knowing he can see me, that he can pick his moment-
Drewe is down. Something tripped her and laid her out hard on a flat stone the length of a coffin. I yank her up, still looking frantically around us. She cradles one elbow as if it’s broken.
“Can you run?”
“Go!” she gasps.
I start to run, but she jerks me to a stop. “The keys!”
She darts back to the gravestone and begins scouring its surface like someone searching for a contact lens.
“I’ve got them! Go!”
Even as the ranks of stones tighten around us, we pick a sure path through them, dodging the little bronze- roofed markers that read “Perpetual Care.” They might as well be land mines. We’re five yards from the office when a dark-haired man in a tan jacket steps out from behind it.
