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Kelley had turned around again and begun to pretend to be working on her essay. “I don’t know what’s got into you this morning. You were just the way you usually are at breakfast.”
    “I’m just the way I usually am now. You aren’t used to paying attention. I wish you’d go take the phones off the hook or something and leave me alone. I really do have a lot of work to do.”
    “I don’t believe that’s true,” Gemma said tightly. “I think you’re playing games with my mind. I think you’re trying to punish me.”
    “For what?”
    “How should I know? In spite of the way you’re behaving, I can’t believe it’s over Tisha Verek and her silly lawsuit.”
    “Of course you can’t.”
    “Tisha Verek isn’t important. She’s just—God’s chosen instrument, that’s all. She’s just a vessel.”
    “You should know,” Kelley said. “You’re the one who’s sleeping with her husband.”
    And with that, Kelley Grey picked up her much-battered Sony Walkman, jammed the earphones in her ears, shoved the switch to “on” and closed her eyes. She had the music up so loud, Gemma could hear faint strains of “Silent Night.” Gemma stared at the back of Kelley’s head and then at the window and then at the back of Kelley’s head again. She wanted to break some furniture or smash the Walkman into fragments. She did neither.
    She sat right back down in Kelley’s metal folding chair and gave due consideration to just how many people had known for just how long that she was having an affair with Jan-Mark Verek.
8
    Exactly twenty-one minutes later, at nine forty-one, Jan-Mark Verek himself rose from the tangled torture of his bed, walked around his bookcase headboard, and went to stand at the rail that looked out over the living room of his house. His mouth was full of cotton and his head was full of cotton candy. He had aches in places he was sure aches ought to be fatal and that sour taste in his mouth that meant he had drunk just enough to be hung over without ever having had the pleasure of being first-class drunk. He was wearing a pair of Jockey shorts and nothing else. If he had been entirely sober the night before, he wouldn’t have been wearing the Jockey shorts. The balcony looked out not only on the living room but on a wall of windows. Through those windows he could see his driveway with its detached garage and circular sweep of gravel. It was definitely the case that he was sick of that circular sweep of gravel, as he was sick of his house and his trees and the deer that came down out of the hills when the mornings were especially cold. He’d started talking to anybody who would listen about how much he appreciated forest fires. Down in the driveway, a rust-red Cadillac Seville was pulling in, maneuvering gingerly along the curve, trying not to scratch itself on the rocks and trees that jutted out of everywhere in a random hash the landscape designer had assured them was “ecologically aesthetic.” Jan-Mark identified the car as the one belonging to Camber Hartnell just seconds before he saw Tish come out on the gravel, dressed in her most constipated New York lunch clothes and actually holding a handbag. Tish never carried handbags unless she was meeting with an editor from The New York Times . She came hurrying across the gravel, seemed to trip, and stopped to bend over and fuss with her shoes. She was just standing up straight again when it happened.
    At first, Jan-Mark wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. It was all so fast and so neat. It was all so simple. First there was that odd popping sound, nothing too loud, nothing ominous. Then Tish seemed to rise a little in the air. Then she jerked backward at the neck and spun around. Then she fell. Jan-Mark stood at the balcony railing with his mouth open, staring. Tish was lying on the ground, seeping the smallest threads of blood onto the stones. The blood had to be coming from holes, but they were holes too small for Jan-Mark to