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away, this time with more determination in his step. Again, Lydia followed him.
    She wondered if Dennis had had time to beg for his life before his best friend shot him twice in the neck and once in the shoulder.
    The gun.
An insistent thought screamed inside Lydia’s skull.
Follow him. Wait for your moment. Then reach into your purse, pull out the gun, and kill him.
    Lydia kept her eyes on Eddie. She thought of Dennis Chait and his widow. She wondered what kind of man Dennis’s son, Billy, would grow into. How much had he suffered being raised by a grieving, overworked mother? How long would he carry the bitterness of having been robbed of a father?
    Settle this. Make it right. Follow him home. Take the gun and bring justice.
    Her hand trembled. She pressed her arm against her purse and felt the outline of the Beretta’s grip.
    Help them. Spare Ann Louise and Billy the pain of justice denied.
    Lydia watched Eddie unload his selections onto the checkout conveyor belt and breathed in her sovereignty. Her back straightened. Her shoulders squared.
    She watched him leave, balancing two heavy paper bags in his arms. Lydia walked away from her cart and out the door. She saw him load his purchases into the back of his Subaru as she walked toward her car. She tracked his taillights as he pulled out of the lot, making the turn that would take him back to the sanctuary he’d created for himself. She got in her car, started the ignition, and gripped the steering wheel.
    I will end this all tonight. I will make this right.
    She sat in the parking lot of Shaw’s grocery for a full minute, allowing the images of Ann Louise and her son to flood her with authority. Her pulse quickened and an appealing strength settled in her limbs.
    Lydia Corriger would never be the victim again.
    The Fixer would be her champion.
    A vision of Mort intruded, only to be replaced by a flash of her own backyard. She saw the wide expanse of lawn dotted with bird feeders and lined on either side with giant Douglas firs. The Olympic Mountains in the distance across the deep green waters of Dana Passage.
    Then she saw her patients. The blessed refuge of her office. She lifted a hand to touch her cheek, but instead felt the warm fingertips of Paul Bauer, her occasional lover who stood ready to be so much more if she’d only let him.
    Her eyes filled with tears of rage. She pushed the images of her new life to the recesses of her awareness. No melancholy of hearth and home would serve her now. She bowed her head and willed the supremacy of justice to fill her again.
    Then she reached into her purse, pushed the Beretta aside, and pulled out her phone. Her hand wavered in rebuttal as she attached a small digitizing microphone and punched in three numbers. The response was immediate.
    “Nine-one-one. What is the location of your emergency?”
    Lydia gave them Eddie’s address. The technology of her digitizer allowed the dispatcher to hear a husky male voice.
    “And what is the nature of your emergency?” the dispatcher asked.
    “You’ll find Edward Dirkin there. He’s a fugitive wanted for homicide in Minnesota. Killed his best friend and walked away from the courtroom four years ago.”
    Lydia ended the call before the dispatcher could ask another question. She fumbled as she shoved her phone back into her purse. She shifted the Accord into gear, turned left onto the road that would take her back to Boston, and tried to quiet the damning thoughts inside her own mind.

Chapter 6
    Mort called out to the kayaker approaching off his starboard side. “I’ve got an extra Guinness here if you’re interested.”
    Agatha Skurnik, his eighty-three-year old neighbor in Mort’s Lake Union floating enclave, gave two hard pulls on her oar, twisted her hips, and glided to a stop parallel with her own houseboat. “I just finished a two-hour paddle. A beer sounds about as perfect as those guys in the commercials want me to believe.” She tied her kayak to her back dock