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help it,” I explained. “That’s the time Finn and I agreed on last week.”
    Carter stared at me. “Last week?” he said. “Last week?”
    I cleared my throat, I shifted my position on the mattress. “That’s when I first met him,” I admitted.
    â€œYou’ve known all this time?” Carter said.
    â€œListen to me,” I said, “we’re talking about an extreme paranoiac. I worked hard to convince him to meet with you.”
    â€œAll right, all right,” Carter said. He sat down on the mattress and put his arm around me. “I know you wouldn’t intentionally keep anything from me.”
    I looked the other way; the truth was I didn’t want to share Finn with Carter.
    â€œWhere can we meet?” Carter asked.
    â€œOutreach,” I suggested.
    â€œYou’ve got to be kidding,” Carter said. “We’ve got to find a place where nobody knows us. Down by the harbor?”
    â€œNot there,” I said. Our words would get lost beneath the gulls’ cries and the waves; there was too much open space there, Michael Finn could run away.
    â€œThe Cove Theater,” Carter smiled. “That’s it. Perfect.”
    â€œA theater?” I asked.
    Carter got up and leafed through an issue of the Fishers Cove Herald. “The early show,” he said. “It begins at four-thirty-five.” He came back to me and held both my hands. “I can’t believe this,” he said. “You’re wonderful. I don’t know how you set this all up.”
    â€œI just want to warn you,” I said, “before you get too excited. He’s not political.”
    Carter smiled sweetly. “Of course he’s political. How can he not be? Bombing a power plant is a political act.”
    â€œAll right,” I said, “but let’s just say it wasn’t political, let’s say it was a personal act, would you still help him?”
    â€œI consider him my brother,” Carter said. “Whatever his reasons were.”
    â€œThen I’d better tell you what he wants,” I said. “He wants an attorney. A good one.”
    â€œI’ll set it up,” Carter said.
    I got up from the mattress and straightened my clothes. “I’ll see you at the theater,” I smiled.
    â€œNow, I know what he wants,” Carter said to me, “a good lawyer. But does he know what I want, Nat?”
    I stopped at the door. “What could you possibly want from him?” I asked.
    â€œI want to use him,” Carter said simply.
    â€œFor what?” I asked.
    â€œThe cause,” Carter answered.
    â€œI told you he’s not political,” I said.
    â€œI don’t care.” Carter shrugged.
    â€œCharming,” I said.
    â€œI’m just being honest,” Carter said. “This bomber of yours can be instrumental in closing down Angel Landing Three, and he has to realize that if he takes help from Soft Skies he’s automatically one of us. He just is.”
    â€œI’ll tell him” I said as I walked to the door. “But he may not agree.”
    When I kissed Carter goodbye I felt as though I’d just betrayed him. I left him wrapped in delight, overjoyed at the prospect of meeting the Fishers Cove bomber, unaware that I had somehow been unfaithful, that my loyalties had shifted.
    Now I felt as removed from Carter as I did from Minnie. Since the night I had met Finn, that night when I had found Minnie crying in the parlor, my aunt and I had avoided each other. We still had breakfast and dinner together, but we were polite, our conversation was no more than small talk. It had been six days since that meeting in the field and nothing that had happened since seemed real, time moved differently now, as if the second hand on every clock was stuck in honey. I was conscious of waiting, aware of every hour that passed.
    On that Tuesday we were to meet again I watched the