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what she sketched on paper.
    She pushed him back onto the stage, gestured that he should spread his arms again. I fired up the camera, anticipating her next move by the one remaining blank on her drawing paper. Sure enough, slowly unbuttoning her blouse, she let it slither off her shoulders. There are fashion-model square clotheshorse shoulders, and there are courtesan shoulders like Rubens painted. Mrs. Long had round, white courtesan shoulders. How she looked in front could be assumed by her boyfriend’s eager “Yes, yes, yes,” clearly audible through the open casement window.
    She laughed and did a little shimmy that could have gotten her a job dancing hiphop for Madonna. Her shirt slid off her back, a smooth, white, very beautiful back with twin rounds of muscle softly rimming her spine.
    â€œYes! Yes! Yes!”
    â€œDon’t move!”
    She stepped closer, bent her head.
    Her hair blocked the camera, but there wasn’t a divorce court in the nation that wouldn’t get the picture. Her boyfriend cried out. He reached for her. She pushed his hands back in position. He laughed. Mrs. Long stepped back, leaving him rigid and glistening, and whirled to the easel.
    It was my turn to cry out—an up-from-the-gut gasp of astonishment at my first glimpse of her face. I had never seen a woman so beautiful or so happy. She had a heart-shaped feminine face with a high brow, wide-set cheekbones, a strong nose, and enormous blue eyes. There was a fine quality to her bone structure that made me think of Norwegian blood, despite her jet-black hair. Blue eyes, black hair, maybe Irish, maybe Scots, who knew? Who cared? Her lips were full and wet, and when she laughed she radiated joy.
    I ripped the video cartridge from the camera and threw it into the woods.
    I felt redeemed, for a fraction of a second: I had come too close to doing a terrible thing to a couple of happy people—a far worse sin than sacrificing little Alison’s braces—and I saw Rose’s spy job for the dirty job it had been all along.
    Then the damned tape hit a tree—with a surprisingly loud bonk —and bounced onto the lawn. The cartridge was made of black plastic, except for the white label on the face, and sure enough it landed face up, gleaming in the light from the window. If they didn’t find it, the lawn-mowing guys would hand it to the husband.
    Mrs. Long had apparently caught the bonk through the open window. I heard her say, “What was that?”
    I scrambled after the cartridge, hugging the woods. I was nearly to it, crouching across the cut grass, when she cried, “Raccoons! Raccoons. Turn on the light.”
    Fortunately, he didn’t know his way around the house that well, and it took him an extra moment to find the switch, during which time I slid down the slope, grabbed the videotape, and started scrambling for cover. I almost made it. In fact my head and shoulders were in the dark space between two bushes. Then he found the outside floodlights switch, and suddenly the back yard was bright enough to land helicopters.
    â€œLook! It’s a bear .”
    â€œThat’s no bear. It’s some son of a bitch hiding in your woods. Hey!”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYes.”
    Deep in shadow, at last, I glanced back. He was leaning out the window. She was pulling him back. “What if he has a gun?” Then she acted like a smart city girl. Instead of hauling out her own gun, or setting a dog on me, she ran to a security keypad embedded in the wall and pushed the panic button on her burglar alarm.
    More lights. They blazed down from the roof and lit three acres, some flashing, while a siren began whooping loud enough to alert the next county. It was one of those ah-whooo, ah-whooo klaxons straight out of The Hunt for Red October , and I would not have been surprised to see Sean Connery submerge the Castle to a hundred fathoms. Nor would I doubt that the burglar alarm also sounded in