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Danvers leaned close to her. Her voice was low, almost a whisper, but the words stung. “I know why. You saved your own hide. My husband stayed to help, and he’s dead. That man who helped you down the stairs, he’s dead too. What makes you better than them? How come you’re here and they’re not?”
    Jennifer turned and ran, not caring where. She ran until she found herself on a downtown street blocks away from the bombing site. She leaned against a phone pole, lungs burning, a stitch jabbing into her side. For a moment she feared she would throw up, then the feeling passed. A cab drew near and she hailed it, got in.
    * * *
    “J en?” Cindy’s voice at the bathroom door. “You have an OK day?”
    Jennifer took her face out of the towel she had been crying into. It was wet with tears and mucus. “Yeah,” she replied, praying that her voice sounded normal. “Not bad.”
    “It’s my last night, you know? Want to go get some dinner?”
    “Sure.”
    “You sure you’re all right? Did something happen today?”
    “No, no. Everything’s fine. I’ll be out in a minute.”
    In the bathroom, shower curtain pulled around the tub, blinds pulled against the light. Jennifer dropped the towel to the floor, turned over, immersed her face in the water and screamed, the sound rushing past her ears in muted bubbles. She raised her head, took a breath, and howled into the water again. And again.
    It was not what Madeline Danvers said that made her scream.
    She screamed because she had been saying the same things to herself ever since the bombing.

Chapter Four
    T hursday mornings were slow at the Gulf Coast Gun Range. The owner, last name of Peake, was playing solitaire when the first customer came in. Peake swept the cards into a pile — he was losing, anyway — and sighed inwardly. The customer was no doubt some accountant on his day off, deep in the throes of mid-life crisis. Peake’s least favorite type. They never knew the rules and regulations, never knew how to properly store their guns, usually had to be shown how to load, and couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. They always walked out arrogantly, as though a half hour on the range had given them a fresh jolt of manhood; Peake thought that you didn’t have to be Freud to figure that one out.
    Worst of all, they were rude.
    He was surprised when the accountant type gave him a quiet but perfectly sincere, “Good morning. Have any lanes open?”
    “Take your pick. You’re the first one in today.”
    Without Peake asking, the customer laid the case containing his weapon on the table for Peake’s inspection. Inside the case was a nine-millimeter Sig Sauer P210, and Peake felt both admiration and mild dread. It was an excellent gun, but not cheap, and Peake had seen more than his share of people who owned the P210 just because it was expensive and hadn’t realized that it was a European design, one you couldn’t learn how to load and take down from watching the movies. But maybe this fellow was different; he had four magazines, so he was primed to do some serious shooting.
    “Looks in good shape,” said Peake. “Need anything?”
    “Three boxes of rounds and some targets.”
    “Getting serious this morning?”
    “You could say so.” The accountant type smiled. It was a mild smile, nothing unusual about it, but Peake felt something strange. A vibe, he would have said back in his college days, that this man was not getting serious. He was serious, through and through.
    Peake watched while the customer, who was most certainly not an accountant, walked to a nearby lane and began preparations. He worked swiftly, smoothly, without any hesitation or need to get his bearings. He had all four magazines loaded and the gun ready to go in half the time it would have taken Peake to do it himself, stood with safety glasses and hearing protectors on, the target at twenty yards.
    He began firing.
    Peake thought that if any of his usual Thursday morning customers could