

FOOLS CLUB

by

Craig Mallery

First Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2010 by Craig Mallery

<https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/33668>
All things truly wicked start from an innocence.

—Ernest Hemingway, _A Moveable Feast_

Chapter — Prologue (1985)

Jacob Miller knew there were faster ways to walk home from school. Sixty-eight to be exact. Because Phoenix's street system was laid out on a grid, the number of direct routes was simple to calculate. Last week during Ms. Holly's fourth grade math class, he had drawn the streets in his notebook and then systematically traced his pencil over the lines until he had counted all the possibilities. But none of these direct routes would have taken him through the Sunderland Citrus Orchard. It added another three blocks to his walk, but it was worth it. The smell of the oranges reminded him of his mother.

When he was six, his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Every day for the next five months, until the day she died, Jacob and his father made her breakfast. His father would slice the oranges while Jacob, standing on a step stool beside him, would press the orange halves against the juicer, quickly soaking his hands in juice and pulp. Once the glass was full, he would carry it to her room. Because the medications made her eyes sensitive to light, the blinds were left down. Breakfast was served in darkness. After placing the glass on her bedside table, he would let his hand linger beside it, his heart racing with anticipation. On the good days, before taking the glass, she would pat him on the wrist, her weak smile and fragile touch making his heart sing. By her last month she was taking all her fluids through an IV drip, but he still brought her the juice because its scent reminded him of her touch.

But today the scent of oranges was suffocating him.

Reed Higgins was mashing an orange against his face. Seconds before he had jumped out from behind a tree and shoved him to the ground. Behind him a group of boys swarmed in the shade of an orange tree, yipping and giggling with delight.

"Beats eating shit," Reed grunted.

Jacob jerked his head away and sucked in a breath of air. The scent of oranges made him think of his mother and he waited to feel her touch on his wrist. Reed gripped his face and the image vanished. Jacob screamed for her to come back, but when he opened his mouth, Reed hawked a snot ball onto his tongue.

"Yummy, yummy in your tummy," Reed laughed as he held Jacob's mouth shut.

The other boys squealed and chanted, _"Eat it! Eat it! Eat it!"_

"Swallow it, doofus," Reed giggled.

Jacob gulped and the warm phlegm slid down his throat. With his mouth pinned shut, he had to breathe through his nose. Again the scent of oranges assaulted him. Memories of his mother rushed toward him—

This time he willed his mind to stop thinking about her. Rather than lose her again, it was easier not to let her in at all. Hadn't he learned that the day she died? The day he discovered he could always just think about other things — like the clouds.

Jacob looked past the dark green leaves of the orange tree swaying behind Reed's hideous face and peered deep into the _cumulus mediocris_ cloud billowing in the sky. Within the cloud, droplets of moisture were rising higher and higher, approaching the stratosphere. Soon the cloud would blossom into _cumulonimbus calvus_ and the rain would come.

A gust of wind whipped through the orchard, rustling the leaves. But Jacob — his mind aglow with the imagined light of the sun's rays striking the droplets of moisture — did not hear the sound. Nor did he hear Reed as he unzipped his pants and snickered, "Hey, dork, you want something to wash that snot down? How about some lemonade?"

**

When Colin Schaefer was five, his mother took him to the Goldwater's Department Store at the Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall where she worked as a sales clerk in women's apparel. They rode the escalator to the top floor, walked through the changing rooms, past a door marked "employees only" and stopped outside the store manager's office. Beside the door hung a bulletin board that ranked all the sales associates. His mother's name was at the top of the list. His heart boomed with pride.

" _That_ ," she said jamming her finger at her name, "is the secret to life: stay on top." She kneeled in front of him, so close he could smell her Chanel No. 5 — the perfume of choice for her wealthiest customers — and said, "Anything else is a _loser move_." In his mother's universe, there was nothing worse than a LOSER MOVE.

B-plus on a spelling test: LOSER MOVE.

Striking out to Michael Pederson: LOSER MOVE.

Not being the most popular kid at school: LOSER MOVE.

Not wearing the coolest clothes: LOSER MOVE.

And that morning she had made it crystal clear that anything short of Jacob Miller having an awesome time with him at recess would be considered a LOSER MOVE.

But recess had ended with Jacob running off the playground in terror after spastically colliding with Reed Higgins during a flag football game. Colin had spent the rest of the day with his stomach in knots. Jacob Miller hadn't messed with just any kid, he had humiliated Reed Higgins, the fourth grade's resident psycho. While Mrs. Foley droned on about the state capitals, Colin could only think about all the nutty shit Reed had ever done — like putting Pete Merkel in a head lock and pounding his face for saying his shorts looked kind of Daisy Duke, or kicking Joey Peters in the balls for cutting in line, or chucking a dirt clod at Sarah Gelson and giving her a black eye because she called him her little Simon Le Bon. If Colin didn't do something, Jacob was toast and his mother would never forgive him for screwing up her chances with Jacob's dad. Talk about a LOSER MOVE. His face burned with shame.

He should have told his mother the truth about Jacob: that any kid who wore a puke green Le Tigre shirt tucked into yellow running shorts didn't belong on the football field. Hell, the kid didn't even eat with the other weirdos in the gifted class; instead he sat alone in the corner of the cafeteria looking out the window taking notes in a book. Couldn't she just find another guy to date?

Colin watched the clock's second hand come around. He reached for his backpack and was out the door as the bell rang. After retrieving his bike, he tried to figure out where to start looking. His mom had mentioned that Jacob lived near Squaw Peak Mountain. There were a dozen different ways he might have walked home, but Missouri Avenue was the most likely. He hopped on his bike and pedaled fast down the street.

When he reached 20th Street, he turned and headed north toward Squaw Peak, checking each side street he passed. No Jacob. His sweaty palms started to stick to the rubber grips of his handlebars. He pedaled faster and faster, panic now setting in. Three blocks ahead, the street dead-ended at the Sunderland Citrus Orchard. There he saw Michael Carmichael and another kid race their BMX bikes into the orchard.

Colin stomped his pedals and his bike lunged forward. He reached the towering bougainvillea plant at the orchard entrance and jumped his bike onto the dirt path. In the shade of the trees, the temperature dropped and his skin cooled. He rounded a bend. Twenty yards ahead, a group of boys had gathered. Through the gaps in their legs he could make out Reed kneeling on the ground. Sticking out beneath him were Jacob's scrawny legs.

Colin skidded to a stop, dropped his bike, and charged through a break in the pack of boys. He lowered his shoulder, dove into Reed's back, and tackled him to the dirt. Before Reed could fight back, Colin punched him in the cheek and in his hand he felt something break. Ignoring the pain, he snapped back his fist and drilled Reed in the nose, which went mushy against his hand. Blood gushed from Reed's nostrils and he tried to squirm away, but Colin grabbed his hair and yanked his head back.

"This is what you get!" he screamed as he rammed Reed's head into the ground. "This is what you get for fucking with me!" Again and again he slammed Reed's face into the dirt until his moans grew faint and his body went limp. But even then, Colin could not stop himself. Harder and harder he smashed Reed's bloody face into the ground, until a dozen pairs of hands dragged him away.

Colin collapsed back against the tree trunk and looked up for the first time. Jeffrey Carmichael was standing in front of him, his face drained of color.

"Jesus Christ, Colin," Jeffrey said. "Reed was only messing with him."

Colin looked at Reed. He was curled into a ball, clutching his face and moaning. Then he looked at the other boys standing around staring at him. Someone whispered the words _total freak-out_ and he realized that they were afraid of him.

No, he wanted to scream, I'm not the kid who did that. I'm still Colin Schaefer, the coolest kid in 4th grade, your buddy that can throw the long bomb like nobody else. Little Dan Marino you guys call me.

Jeffrey Carmichael offered Reed a hand and as he reached out to take it, Colin caught a glimpse of Reed's bloody and beaten face. His stomach churned at the sight: Reed's front tooth was missing and his nose was broken, smashed to the side of his face. Colin wanted to tell Reed that he was sorry, that tomorrow at recess he could be on his team and he would pass the ball to him on every down.

Without saying a word, Reed wiped the blood from his face, picked his bike off the ground, and, along with the other boys, he retreated into the shadows of the orchard.

A breeze rustled the leaves and then it was quiet except for the sound of water flowing through the irrigation canal a few yards away. Colin looked over at Jacob. Blood dripped from a nasty cut on his chin. A mixture of snot, tears, dirt, and orange pulp covered his face, which was scrunched up like he didn't want to cry.

"I'm sorry," Jacob said, choking on his words.

_You should be sorry!_ Colin wanted to shout. _My friends hate me and my mom's gonna kill me and it's all because you don't have a clue._ Instead he tore a piece of fabric from his shirt and handed it to Jacob. "Press that against your cheek," he said. "It'll stop the bleeding."

**

Jacob knew the cut wasn't a big deal — the pressure had already stopped the bleeding — but he accepted Colin's offer to have his mom look at it because he was afraid of walking home with Reed and the other boys still lurking out there.

Colin's bike had a pair of bunny pegs screwed to the back axle. At first it was difficult to balance while holding onto Colin's shoulders, but after awhile he got the hang of it. Colin turned onto 18th Street and pedaled hard up the hill. The bike slowed and started to sway. Jacob loosened his grip on Colin's shoulders and was about to jump off.

"I got it," Colin said through clenched teeth as he drove his legs down, forcing the bike up the slope. When they reached the top of the hill the bike steadied and Jacob could see the massive black and gray _cumulonimbus_ thundercloud approaching from the south. Colin coasted forward and the bike rolled down the hill, quickly gaining speed. Jacob dug his hands into Colin's shoulders and was about to ask him to slow down. And then a funny thing happened: Jacob giggled. Speeding down the hill was kind of — no, it was _really_ fun.

He liked the feel of the wind on his face, especially now that the air smelled of the coming storm. He liked moving fast. He liked the sound of the tires humming over the asphalt. He liked how it made him forget what happened in the orchard. And he liked not being alone. With this thought, he grew nervous. He had always thought he preferred to be alone. Weren't books more interesting than other kids? If so, why did he like being with Colin?

Jacob stopped smiling. Best not to get carried away. Tomorrow at school he would be alone again, which was fine by him. If the weather wasn't interesting, he would start work on his map of the school. Or, better yet, he could fake a stomach ache so he could stay home and take apart the washing machine. That would be fun.

**

With his swollen right hand, Colin could barely grip the handlebars. Somehow he managed to keep his bike stable and pedal forward even with Jacob's extra weight. It was hard work, but it kept him from thinking about how his mom would react.

He turned onto his street. His mother's silver Mercedes 280SE was parked in the carport. An old boyfriend of hers had been a salesman at the Mercedes dealership and had given her a sweet deal on it. It was her favorite possession in the world. Every Sunday afternoon, Colin cleaned and waxed the exterior and then rubbed conditioner into the beige leather seats. All the other houses on the block had to suffer the embarrassment of butt-ugly Fords and Chevrolets parked in their garages, but not his. He pedaled up the driveway and stopped alongside the Benz. Jacob stumbled off the bunny pegs.

Colin gestured at the car. "Power everything, even the sunroof."

Jacob looked nervously at the car, but did not say anything. Apparently, in addition to sucking at football, the kid didn't know crap about luxury automobiles. He probably was a big fan of Duran Duran too. Hopelessly lame.

Colin's right hand was killing him so he had to use his left to open the back door. "Come on," he said leading Jacob down the hall to his mother's room. "She's probably getting ready for work." He knew this was true because the sharp scent of hair spray mixed with Chanel No. 5 filled the house.

He stopped at the doorway to her room. His mother was seated at her vanity, putting on her makeup. She was wearing an Yves Saint Laurent trouser suit and her long blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail because that's how the models in _Town and Country_ magazine wore it.

"Mom..."

"Your dinner's in the fridge," she said, applying her eyeliner with the precision of a surgeon.

"Mom."

She slapped down the eyeliner and faced him. Colin moved his right arm, hoping she would notice the injury to his swollen hand. Her eyes shifted to Jacob.

"Jacob, sweetheart," she said rushing up to him. "Are you all right?" He nodded and then she whirled around. "What happened?"

"Reed Higgins jumped him after school. By the time I got there—"

His mother huffed and then took Jacob by the arm and led him into her bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

For at least a minute he stared at the closed bathroom door. He knew he should walk away but he couldn't bear the thought of his mother's disappointment a moment longer. Desperate to tell her of his bravery, he walked up to the door and opened it. The sight was like a punch to his gut. Jacob was seated on the toilet, his mother kneeling in front of him, gently wiping his face clean with a washcloth. He should have let Reed piss in the douchebag's mouth.

Her eyes shot over to him and noticed how he was cradling his swollen hand. "Get some ice on that and fetch me a glass of water for your friend."

Colin found his way to the kitchen. He got out a plastic cup, yanked the ice tray from the freezer, and banged it against the counter until the cubes tumbled out, half of them falling to the floor. Tears dripped down his cheeks and he squatted to pick up the ice. His mother stormed into the kitchen.

"What's taking so long?" she asked. "Your friend's face is starting to swell."

He tried to put the ice cubes in his swollen hand but they kept slipping out, which made him cry harder. He kept his head down to hide his loser tears.

"Oh, for Godsake," she said, her angry breaths filling the room.

He wanted to wrap himself around her legs. He wanted her to hug him. He wanted to cry in her arms. He wanted to tell her that they were a good team and didn't need Jacob's father. He wanted to tell her about what he had done to Reed. He wanted to tell her how scared he was about how good it had felt to hurt him. And he wanted her to say that he wasn't that kid who smashed in Reed's face, that he would never hurt anyone, that he was a good kid, and that everybody loved him.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her pick up the cup he had taken out. "Plastic for a guest?" she said. "Honestly, Colin." She tossed the cup in the sink, found a crystal glass in the cabinet and filled it with water from the tap. Then she opened the refrigerator and took out the lemon-cream pie. Every Sunday she baked a different pie. Because she had to watch her figure, she only ate one slice, which left the remaining seven slices for him — one for every night of the week. She placed a slice on a plate and returned the pie to the refrigerator. Her heels clicked on the tile floor as she stepped up to his side. He kept his head down.

"Did you win the fight?"

He nodded.

"At least you did something right. Now get yourself together and come ask your friend to play. No more loser moves for the day. Okay?"

He nodded and she squatted down beside him. When she spoke again, her voice was hushed and sweet, exactly how he liked it. "You know Jacob's dad takes him to San Diego for a week every summer. Wouldn't that be a blast?"

"I guess so."

"You could learn to ride that board thing. What did you call it?"

"Boogie board."

"Right, boogie board. You should ask for one for your birthday." She kissed the top of his head. "You can help yourself to some pie when he leaves." She smiled and walked out of the room with the glass of water and the slice of pie for Jacob.

Now she was taking care of _him,_ cleaning _his_ face _,_ making _him_ feel better, feeding _him_ his slice of pie. No, he did not want to ask Jacob to play. He wanted to sock the Le Tigre wearing geek loser in the face.

His hand throbbed and he rested it on the ice. The refrigerator clicked on, rattling beside him. He looked up and caught his reflection on the oven's glass window. His eyes were red and puffy and his cheeks were wet. He looked like a baby. No wonder his father left him. And no wonder his mother hated him. He hated that baby, too.

He closed his eyes and pictured the Colin he wanted his mother to see. That Colin was not a crybaby. That Colin didn't whine about a hurt finger. That Colin would put a smile on his face. That Colin would ask Jacob to play catch. That Colin would spend a week riding the waves in California. That Colin his mother would adore.

**

Jacob sat on the couch eating the slice of pie and watching a _Little Rascals_ rerun. It was the one with the He-Man Woman-Haters Club. Ms. Schaefer sat beside him laughing a little too hard at the funny parts, touching his leg each time, which made him uncomfortable. He checked his watch. It was 4:32. Ms. Schaefer had said his dad would be there by five.

Colin walked into the room and smiled. This made Jacob feel better because he was worried that Colin might have hurt his hand.

"You want to play catch?" Colin asked.

_No_ was the smart thing to say and not just because he sucked at throwing any kind of spherical object, but because tomorrow at school Colin would be back with his friends, pretending he didn't exist.

"We better hurry," Colin said. "Storm's coming."

Through the living room window, Jacob studied the darkening sky and the eucalyptus trees bending in the rising wind. His weather journal was in his backpack. Had he been home, he would have been perched on his front step, his wind gauge and barometer beside him, jotting down observations. A part of him wanted to get his journal and forget about Colin Schaefer, forget that he liked riding on the back of his bike, forget that he liked his smile, forget that he kind of liked being with him.

Jacob studied Colin, his warm smile whispering, _Trust me, bud, I'm with you in this mess._ From the TV, a burst of laughter filled the silent room. He glanced at the screen. Alfalfa was eating a cream puff filled with liquid soap. It might have been funny the first time, but he had seen the episode before.

Jacob looked at Ms. Schaefer to make sure it was okay. She smiled and he smelled the odor of menthol cigarettes on her breath when she spoke.

"Go for it, sweetheart."

"The pie was good," he said, standing.

"Come on," Colin said, draping his arm over Jacob's shoulder and ushering him outside. A gust of wind whipped across the backyard, the air charged with possibility.

Colin picked a football off the grass, wincing as his hand curled around it.

"Is your hand okay?"

"It's nothing," Colin said and gestured for him to run. "Go deep."

Jacob didn't move.

"Go on," Colin said, "I'll put it on a silver platter for you." He clutched the ball to his chest and waited. With each passing second, Jacob became increasingly aware that as much as he feared dropping the pass, he did not want to disappoint Colin Schaefer.

Jacob ran across the lawn, his legs feeling surprisingly light. A scattering of raindrops began to fall.

"Heads up!" Colin shouted.

Jacob looked back at the ball spiraling through the air. A drop of rain fell on his cheek. He stretched out his arms and the ball landed perfectly in his hands.

A thunderclap boomed and the cold rain poured.

### Chapter 1 (2010)

Colin Schaefer eyed the blueberry muffin. He knew he should avoid the calorie bomb— especially now that the U.S. Attorney had finally decided not to indict him. Without the guillotine of ten-years-to-life for securities fraud and embezzlement hanging over his head, the eating had to stop, for the sake of both his self-esteem and the Senate campaign that was now inevitable. All his positive attributes would be irrelevant if the voters thought he was a gluttonous fatso. Not that he was fat, but six months of shoving Kettle Chips and Godiva Chocolate ice cream down his throat whenever he panicked about life in an orange jumpsuit had softened his athletic figure.

He pushed the muffin to the edge of the table and thought about his future. Some diet discipline and a few weeks with a personal trainer would return his body to its pre-investigation chiseled condition. He had been a three-sport varsity athlete in high school and knew how to push his body hard.

Colin glanced around Buck's. Christmas ornaments, plastic reindeer, and purple tinsel now accompanied the restaurant's kitschy decor. In the corner booth, under a stuffed shark, five tech bloggers were hunched over their laptops—a veritable 21st century portrait of a gaggle of gossiping spinsters. No doubt they were already twittering online about his presence in the restaurant. He was about to give them something real to talk about.

A few minutes later, Henry Meacham, Colin's breakfast date, entered the restaurant. He was wearing a pinstripe Armani that on his pear-shaped doughy body looked like a reject from the Men's Wearhouse clearance rack. And the visual travesty's clincher: A Santa tie. The man could groom a candidate to perfection, but didn't have a clue how to present himself. In Silicon Valley, if you wanted to flaunt your wealth, you imported an artisan from Italy to lay mosaic in your swimming pool or you entered a yacht in the America's Cup. You did not buy an expensive suit.

Meacham walked through the restaurant, passing the bloggers. One snapped a photo with his iPhone. Colin pictured the chain of events that was about to unfold. By now the blogger had already posted the photo on his website or a link on his Twitter feed. His readers would quickly identify the man in the photo as Henry Meacham, one of California's top political strategists. When Meacham sat at his table, the blogosphere would figure it out in an instant: Colin Schaefer was running for Senate, which meant the Feds had ended their investigation.

Meacham stopped in front of Colin and studied him as though he were a thoroughbred on the auction block. His eyes rested on Colin's undershirt collar. One corner of his mouth turned up, his expression teetering between amusement and contempt.

"What's with the t-shirt?" Meacham asked.

In the last week, Colin had taken to wearing tight-fitting undershirts to hide his burgeoning man-boobs, but that was hardly something he could tell Meacham.

"It was cool out this morning."

"Then put on a jacket." Meacham sat and his gut banged against the table. "Men who sweat profusely wear t-shirts. Voters see perspiration as a sign of sleaze. The Nixon-Kennedy debates ring any bells? "

"Should I take it off now?"

Meacham grinned, which meant he liked the response. Good. For six months, Meacham had been privately working with the Schaefer Foundation. Ostensibly he had been giving Colin's nonprofit media strategy, but in reality it had been a courtship period.

"Keep your shirt on," Meacham said, "but I got a guy that can fix the sweat thing. Has something to do with Superglue in your pores. Pretty sure it's non-toxic. He did some work on Nancy Pelosi's upper lip. I'll get you his number." Meacham snatched a muffin from the basket and peeled off the paper. "I can only stay a minute. Any longer and everyone will be convinced you're running for Senate."

"Isn't that why we're meeting?"

"You're thirty-five years old."

"So was Kennedy."

"He served in the House for six years before running. Your political experience is limited to running a successful ballot initiative. If you get out in front now, people will think you're arrogant — which of course you are, but that's something I'd prefer to keep a family secret. We want it to seem like you were asked to run. Let the people come to you." Meacham shoved the muffin in his mouth. "Let's talk investigation."

"It's over. No charges will be filed. It'll be on the news tonight."

Meacham grimaced. "Tonight? Who gave them the story?"

"My lawyer."

"What?" Meacham sputtered and nearly choked on the bite, crumbs spewing.

"I told him to—"

"Shut up." Meacham gulped down the rest of his muffin and leaned in, speaking quietly and slowly. "From this second forward, everything you do and say will be scrutinized as if you were the bastard mulatto love child of Barrack Obama and Sarah Palin. All news about you, your wife, your kid, your non-profit, your gardener, your nanny, your housekeeper, your bowel movements, goes through me first. Got it?"

"I thought you'd want the story out ASAP."

"It's Friday. You know who watches the local news on a Friday night? People who don't vote and don't give money to campaigns." Meacham tapped the table with his butter knife. "I got to get you into the weekend news cycle. By Monday I want to make sure there's not a person in California that doesn't think you're the second coming of Bobby Kennedy. This state's full of egotistical billionaires that treat politics like a mid-life hobby—write enough checks and you get the moose head on the wall. I want to clear the field and keep those rich bastards out of the game."

"I can be available all weekend for interviews."

"They'll ask about the investigation. You better have a response."

"Simple enough. The U.S. Attorney ended his investigation because there was nothing to investigate. No crimes were committed. The real crime is how much more we as a society should be doing to end homelessness. For example—"

"Nice, always come back to your issue and remember to hit both sides. Your ballot initiative won not because it taxed the rich to fund affordable housing and shelters, but because it cleared the streets of beggars, derelicts, and bums."

"Chronically homeless," Colin said. "That's what we call them."

"You should reconsider that. Your numbers would get a nice little bounce if you added the word _bum_ to your lexicon."

"I don't bash the mentally ill, I help them."

"What about derelict?"

"No."

"Let me do some polling on the word bum."

"Forget it."

"How about a focus group?"

"Not a chance."

"Fine, I'll put it on the shelf for now, revisit it during the campaign if need be." Meacham paused, his brow knitted in thought, and flicked the crumbs off the table. When the table was clean, he wetted his lips and asked, "How badly do you want this?"

The truth was that Colin had never wanted anything as much as this. Two years ago, Defiance Corporation, the software company he had founded and built into a tech superstar, had collapsed. The loss had nearly destroyed him. For weeks he could barely manage to get out of bed. And then his wife suggested he accompany her to an event held by Soup and Salad on Sundays, a small non-profit that handed out — you guessed it — soup and salad to the homeless at a park in downtown Palo Alto. But the idiocy of the well-meaning endeavor inspired him. The last thing those people needed was a free meal. Half of them were bat-shit crazy and should have been tossed in mental institutions while the other half needed a kick in the pants, an affordable place to live, and some assistance finding a job. For a month, Colin threw himself into learning everything he could about the homelessness epidemic plaguing California. Then he established the Schaefer Foundation, dedicated to eradicating homelessness. Nine months later he succeeded in passing Proposition 264, which treated homelessness for what it was: a human tragedy _and_ an urban blight. Ultimately, his all-consuming mission to pass Prop 264 not only saved him from the loss of Defiance, it helped him find his calling.

Politics.

Colin thought about the night he made that discovery: election night, one year ago. The voters had passed Prop 264 by an astounding two-to-one margin and his team had gathered at the Stanford Park Hotel to celebrate. When he stepped onto the stage, the volunteers went insane. Colin was no stranger to the love of the crowd. His senior year in high school he had started at quarterback and would have led his team to state had he not torn his rotator. But hearing the roar of the crowd after throwing a touchdown pass did not compare to what he experienced that night. Standing on that stage, the love of the crowd pulsing through him, he knew with complete certainty that he was destined for greatness. His life was special. Before that moment he had never considered a career in politics — money had always been his goal — but after that night, his dream was set:

Senator Schaefer. Governor Schaefer. President Schaefer.

Colin looked into Meacham's eyes and answered his question: "It's all I want."

Meacham pressed his lips together, thinking. Then he lowered his voice and spoke: "We need to talk about Howard Segal."

A pit hardened in Colin's stomach. Howard Segal was the former Chief Financial Officer of Defiance. A year ago he had fled the country after it was discovered he had embezzled over a hundred million dollars in a little under three months; the news outlets had described his crime as a white-collar "smash and grab." The U.S. Attorney's office had tried to build a case connecting Colin to Segal's scheme, but had failed to come up with a shred of evidence. Because there wasn't any.

"What's there to talk about?" Colin gave his shoulders a casual shrug.

Meacham tilted his head to the side as if to say, _How unfathomably stupid do you think I am?_

Colin sat quietly, feeling a little lightheaded.

Meacham reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a photo that he slid across the table. "That was taken yesterday in Troncones, Mexico."

Colin's heart pounded as he studied the photo. A tan, but still painfully recognizable Howard Segal was lying on a beach talking to a voluptuous woman in a bikini.

"How did you find him?" Colin asked.

"It wasn't hard. My guy spent fifteen minutes chatting up his aunt. Your boy Howard sent her a Christmas card with a picture of himself standing in front of some local church."

"Do you think the Feds will try to find him?"

"Should I be concerned if they do?"

Colin was debating whether an emphatic or nonchalant response was best when Meacham cut him off.

"Don't bother answering," Meacham said with a smirk.

Colin looked back down at the photo and studied the face of the man who could send him to prison for a long, long, time.

"Look at me," Meacham said, his voice soft and comforting.

Colin looked into Meacham's understanding eyes.

"I have never met an A-list politician who didn't have a skeleton or two in the closet. It's the nature of greatness. Great men are not afraid to dream. Great men see opportunity. Great men get shit done when your average Joe is too afraid to even wipe his ass. Sometimes that boldness — that willingness to disregard boundaries — can get a great man in trouble." Meacham reached out and rested his hand on Colin's wrist. "You built an empire and lost it. That would have crushed most men, but you saw a way to end homelessness and used your money to make it a reality. This year your ballot initiative was responsible for generating over one billion dollars that was used to keep bums off our streets, subsidize low income housing, and provide treatment for the mentally ill. You changed California. You changed lives. Profoundly. That is greatness. Unequivocally. And I know that was only the beginning for you, otherwise I would not be sitting here." Meacham looked down at the photo and then continued. "Maybe they find Segal next year. Maybe they find him when you're in the Senate. Maybe you make it all the way to the White House before they track him down. Maybe Howard Segal ends up dying of old age or drinking too many margaritas and drowning in his own puke. Or maybe I'm talking crazy and you have nothing to worry about. Only you know the answer to that. All I know is that if you have a skeleton in your closet..." Meacham leaned across the table, his lips an inch from Colin's ear...

" _You bury it._ "

Colin jerked his head up and stared into Meacham's unblinking eyes.

"Bury it?" he asked quietly.

Meacham pulled out his Blackberry, typed a message, and set it on top of the photo. Colin glanced at the screen:

To: pimpmyride8@hushmail.com

From: JohnDoe48@hushmail.com

Subject: Things to do

___________________________________

Honey, don't forget to take out the trash.

xx oo

Colin's throat tightened. Instead of using the usual Blackberry email interface, Meacham was sending the message on a Hushmail Web based account to avoid leaving any record of it. Colin was looking at Howard Segal's death warrant.

"This is your future," Meacham said. "This is your decision."

Light glinted off the Blackberry screen. A dull ache spread behind Colin's eyes as he saw his two futures unfold. In one he pressed the send button and heard the crowd cheering each of his victories until he stood in the oval office, his destiny fulfilled. The other future was not so clear. Would Meacham still manage his campaign? Would there even be a campaign? Would Segal reappear as a witness against him? Would he end up in prison? He had no way of knowing.

Colin looked up at Meacham. "Can this ever be traced to me?"

"Yeah, tomorrow there'll be a billboard on the 101. Or maybe I should see if the Fuji blimp is available." Meacham sneered. "Of course it can't be traced to you."

Colin thought about Howard Segal. Even by Silicon Valley standards he was an uber-geek; a quiet man with bushy red hair, pale skin and a body so scrawny it made you question Darwin's survival of the fittest theory. Push the button and the world would lose a pencil-pusher wasting away in a Mexican beach town and gain a public servant who had already immeasurably improved the lives of tens of thousands of working poor and mentally ill. And there was so much more he would do. He had already decided on the signature issue of his Senate campaign: transforming the nation's disgraceful elementary schools. Unlike all the failed reforms of the past, Colin Schaefer would not throw money at the problem. Two decades of increased expenditures on education had shown the folly of that thinking. His plan would attack the source of the dysfunction: teacher's unions and apathetic parents. He would give administrators the power to fire under-performing teachers. He would give parents the right to choose which school to send their child to. And for those parents that failed to make their child's education their top priority, he would deny them access to their governmental benefits. The days of subsidizing bad teachers and bad parents were over. His proposal would infuriate the unions and they would pull out all their knives to defeat him, but the voters would love him. With so many schools and so many parents failing so many children, the nation could not afford to wait. Colin Schaefer's time had come. The crowd was waiting.

Colin pressed the send button and blinked. The ache behind his eyes slipped away and he felt the weight of the room lift. The voices in the restaurant faded to a soft hum and for a moment he felt untethered from the world, as if he were drifting away from his table. Desperate to feel normal, he snatched the muffin and took a bite. The still-warm blueberries oozed across his tongue.

Meacham slid the Blackberry into his pocket, exposing the photo of Howard Segal. Colin tried to swallow the bite of food, but his mouth was too dry. He sipped his orange juice and his stomach churned.

"Everything okay, _Senator_?" Meacham asked, amused.

Colin noticed one of the bloggers staring at him. Their eyes met and the blogger raised his coffee, toasting him.

"Yes," Colin said and took another bite. The dry lump scraped down his throat and settled in his stomach. "Yes, everything is fine."

"Glad to hear it." Meacham flipped over the photo, revealing a stanza of words taped to the backside. "That's a quote from Theodore Roosevelt — now there's a man who knew how to get shit done. Tonight I want you to read it and then don't spend another minute thinking about this. I need your A-game from here on."

Meacham pushed the photo across the table. Colin slipped it into his shirt pocket.

"Now," Meacham said, clasping his hands together, "let's talk shop. Have you spoken to Jacob?"

"No," Colin said, still trying to focus his buzzing brain. "I was going to call him tonight."

"Don't break a sweat on the way to the phone. Why not wait until tomorrow? Or maybe next week? Or a month or two? After all, he's only your former business partner and brother."

"Stepbrother."

"Whatever, just call him. The guy's a cult hero around here. The last thing your campaign needs is him blasting you. Call him."

"All right," Colin said as his lingering unease drained away, replaced by an intoxicating feeling of power.

### Chapter 2

Before arriving at his monthly Fools Club meeting, Jacob always made a point of stopping by 3000 Sand Hill Road. He never went inside, just pulled into the same parking space in the lot next to Building 3. That afternoon a Prius was parked in his usual spot. Probably some Gen Y newbie, fresh out of college, pitching yet another social networking tool.

Eight years ago Colin had parked his BMW M3 in the same space and the two of them had rehearsed their pitch for Acorn Capital. The genesis for that pitch had occurred while Jacob was at Stanford working toward his PhD in Electrical Engineering. Starting in his second year, he had begun working part-time for Stanford's IT Services Department. His primary responsibility had been developing and maintaining the university's junk email and virus filtering systems. To combat the rising tide of spam email, he had created a series of incredibly effective heuristics to sort the good email from the bad. Every IT department in the world had similar (although far more basic) techniques to combat spam. Jacob, however, believed there was a better way to filter out spam. Rather than attacking spam at the email server level, it would be far more effective for institutions to outsource their email security to a third party, which would scrub the email and then deliver it to the client's email server. All the client had to do was change its DNS entry to contain the IP address of the third-party email processing service. Not only would a third party be far more effective at scrubbing email, but by outsourcing this responsibility, IT departments would free up bandwidth and server space that had previously been jammed by spam. One night over beers, Jacob had mentioned this idea to Colin. Colin had seized on the idea's potential and together they had developed a business plan.

But up until that meeting with Acorn Capital, their pitch had bombed. Acorn Capital was their tenth meeting in a month and they were coming perilously close to tapping out on potential VC funding sources. The VC community was still recovering from the dot-com crash and was struggling with the idea of IT departments outsourcing something as mission critical as email security. However the meeting at Acorn had been different. The Acorn VC had been confident IT managers would embrace a product that reduced their costs and improved their email filtration. He was willing to make a bet on their idea.

A month later, they had secured three million in A-round financing. Colin quit his job at Childress Securities, Jacob dropped out of the PhD program and Defiance was born. Six month later their service was up and running and they had their first customer. Three months later they had a dozen customers and more importantly they had the raw data to show how effective the product was at blocking spam. With that compelling track record, new customers were practically pounding down the doors: over night they had become the undisputed email filtration king. Not particularly glamorous, but incredibly profitable. By the time they went public, Defiance was processing more than 400 million inbound SMTP connections every day from over ten million distinct IP addresses. Two years after going public, following the stock market crash, the company was bankrupt, a casualty of competition and IT departments strapped for cash in the recessionary economy. Defiance's market cap had fallen from a peak value of $15 billion to zero.

Since then, Jacob had made a monthly pilgrimage to the parking space. It was his way of telling himself that it would happen again, that someday soon he would step out of his car with another brilliant idea, enter Building 3, and walk out with financing to launch another company—his company. However, over the past two years he had come up with dozens of ideas, but he had never mustered the nerve to pitch a single one.

Jacob parked his Accord beside the Prius. Through the windshield, he had a clear view across the 280 Freeway. In the distance, a massive _nimbostratus_ cloud hovered above the Santa Cruz Mountains, casting a shadow across the dark green hillside. It was supposed to rain that night, which he was looking forward to. All day he had been feeling uneasy. Hopefully the storm would clear his head.

He pushed aside the melancholy feeling and took out his brainstorming notebook. He was about to start jotting down some thoughts on how to combine high speed computing on the same backplane as high speed routing, when his phone rang. He had no intention of answering it. That morning the news about Colin had broken. All day he had been bombarded with text messages, emails, tweets, and phone calls from friends and the media asking for his reaction. His reaction? What was there to say? The U.S. Attorney had decided not to indict Colin. Case closed. The phone stopped ringing. A second later the ringing resumed. Irritated, he checked the caller ID. It was Colin.

Jacob debated whether to answer. The last time they had seen each other was two months ago at Jen's birthday party. They had only spoken for a few minutes, polite chitchat interrupted a dozen times by the pack of screaming two-year olds running around the indoor gymnasium.

Jacob would have preferred to think about his concept for a super router, but if Colin wanted to talk that badly, he might as well get it over with.

"Congratulations," he said, answering.

"Big day, little brother," Colin said, his voice resonating with joy.

Jacob felt the muscles in his neck tighten and knew a migraine would soon follow. "Are you and Annie going out to celebrate?"

"Not tonight. The nanny has the night off. Maybe tomorrow."

"Well," Jacob said, looking for a way to end the call, "congratulations again."

"Here's a thought. Why don't we meet up in the city tomorrow for dim sum?"

"I think I'm busy."

"You think or you know?"

"I am busy," Jacob said, the lie straining his voice.

"Oh, come on, little bro, I'm sure Annie could join us."

A lump formed in Jacob's throat at the thought of seeing Annie.

"The Lichee Garden at one good for you?" Colin asked.

When Jacob opened his mouth to speak, he intended to reject Colin's offer. Only a chump would have said yes.

"I guess," Jacob said, "I could rearrange my schedule."

"Excellent. See you tomorrow."

The line went dead. Jacob tossed the phone on the seat beside him and rested his head on the steering wheel.

"I did not just do that," he said out loud. He leaned back and looked through the windshield. Strands of mist were creeping down the mountain and into the valley. Again he felt the unease ripple through his gut — a faint tremor of sadness. He cracked open the window and inhaled the air, infused with the cool moisture of the gathering storm. Then he cranked the ignition, backed out of the space, drove through the parking lot and turned onto Sand Hill Road.

Five minutes later he pulled up to the Dutch Goose. It was ten to five so he had some time before the other members of the Fools Club arrived. Time enough to have a beer or two and forget about Colin.

He entered the bar and made eye contact with the bearded guy who worked the register. The man smiled and Jacob felt himself grow uncomfortable. He had been going to the Goose since his senior year at Stanford and had probably seen the bearded guy several hundred times. It felt weird and more than a little awkward that he had never had a conversation with him. He didn't even know his name. Wait, he did know his name. It was Mike. Colin had told him.

Fuck Colin.

Jacob looked around the beer and burger dive for a place to sit. There were two open booths. Both had their problems. One was directly beneath the television, which on the plus side meant he would not have to see Colin's face on the evening news, but if the volume were up it would be impossible not to hear him. The other booth was at the opposite end of the room. Volume would not be an issue, but it had a clear viewing angle of the television screen. While Jacob struggled with the decision, a pair of frat guys sat at the booth beneath the television, settling the dilemma.

At the bar, Jacob ordered a pitcher of Anchor Steam and a plate of devilled eggs. Then he sat at the far booth and shoved an egg in his mouth. The disgusting but oddly satisfying mixture of egg yolk, mayonnaise, and paprika spread across his tongue. He washed it down with a sip of his Anchor Steam and tried to forget about his conversation with Colin. _I guess I could rearrange my schedule._ Jesus, how hard was it to say no?

He ate another egg and studied the top of the wood table. It was carved up with names, Greek letters, and obscenities—a prehistoric version of MySpace. Jacob searched for his initials and tried to find something else to think about. He listened to the sounds of the room: the frat guys arguing about who should be Stanford's shooting guard, the rumble of the cars out on the street, _Jeopardy_ _!_ playing on the TV, and a rattle coming from the fan over the grill that started and stopped at random — or so it seemed.

He concentrated on the rattle. A few seconds passed and then — _thump —_ the back door slammed and the rattle stopped. Jacob counted the seconds — _one, two, three, four_ — and then the rattle resumed. A man walked toward the back door and Jacob waited for his second data point. The back door swung open and then slammed shut — _thump_. Again the rattle stopped and Jacob counted the seconds — _one, two, three, four_ — until the rattle resumed. He grinned. Chaos was merely a synonym for ignorance.

Jacob considered how one would mathematically express the relationship between the vibrations caused by the door and their effect on the rattle. The rattle noise was essentially a standing wave where _v_ was the speed of the wave, _f_ was the frequency and   was the wavelength, so if the vibration caused by the slamming of the door—

A hand waved in front of Jacob's face and broke his concentration. He looked up at Austin Lin, decked out in fluorescent Lycra biking gear and dripping in sweat. Austin had been Defiance employee number 20. Back then he had been an overweight, out of shape programmer that lived on Red Bull and Power Bars. After Defiance's collapse, he had suffered a minor heart attack, which induced a near death experience with what he described as the "Shining Clear Light Void." Immediately thereafter, he became a practicing Tibetan Buddhist, went cold turkey on junk food, adopted an obsessively earth-friendly lifestyle, trading his Celica for a Trek road bike and swearing off toilet paper. Outside of Austin's two obsessions — Buddhism and the impending environmental catastrophe — he had zero interest in the news. Had Colin been accused of embezzling from the Dali Lama, Austin would have been camped out at the courthouse, but corporate fraud was a non-story.

"Let me guess," Austin said. "You were pondering whether black holes really radiate energy and evaporate the way Hawking predicts?"

"Try the mystery of slamming doors and rattling fans."

Austin sat in the booth and unslung his Camelback water pouch. Alcohol, which he deemed a waste of agricultural resources, was strictly off limits. On paper, Austin might have come across as a strident bore, but in reality he was so resigned to the inevitable environmental apocalypse that his attitude was more of calm bemusement. And besides, his anti-alcohol stance meant the Fools Club always had a designated driver. Austin sucked on the tube hanging from his water pouch and then said, "I guess the cretin didn't do it."

"Guess so."

"You talk to him?"

Jacob raised his hand and cut him off. "We're not talking about him. I've got a new idea I want to brainstorm."

"Relax much?" Austin took Jacob's hand and pinched a point between his thumb and index finger. "Keep the pressure there, it increases the blood flow to your brain."

"What if I want to decrease it?"

Austin shrugged and said, "Hold your breath." He was about to sip his water tube when he paused and inhaled deeply. "Patrini's here."

Jacob looked outside. Stephanie Patrini was climbing out of her 1960 Buick Electra Convertible, a.k.a. "Fang." Fang had once been a beautiful boat of a car, but after four decades of service, the canvas roof had deteriorated into a patchwork quilt of holes mended with dental floss and duct tape that leaked like a sieve when it rained. As a result, the interior resembled a Petri dish, infested with various molds and mosses. To hide the musty smell Fang imprinted on its inhabitants, Patrini had taken to wearing copious amounts of French perfume. She stepped through the door looking like an extra off the set of X _ena: Warrior Princess —_ black leather mini, black leather bra, black leather boots, and black leather Blackberry case.

Everyone in the bar stopped to watch her strut across the room. At UCLA she had been an All American volleyball player. And as the only Caucasian female in the Mechanical Engineering Department, she had fine-tuned her ability to use her sexuality and barbed tongue to make geeks excruciatingly uncomfortable. Since Defiance's implosion, she had become a minor local celebrity for her Twitter feeds commenting on Silicon Valley style, _Geek Chic Tweet_.

Patrini sauntered up to the table, placed her hand on her hip and eyed them seductively. "Goodness me," she said, "Would either of you two strapping engineers be interested in posing for my latest Flickr slideshow: _Geek Physique of the Week_?"

"I'm happy to do nude," Austin said, "provided it's tasteful."

Patrini fixed Jacob with a seductive stare. "I guess that means you get to wear the crotchless Kris Kringle outfit."

"I'd be honored," Jacob said.

Patrini sat on his lap and draped her arms around his neck.

"Twenty bucks for a lap dance," she said.

Austin rolled his eyes. "How does it feel to be at the vanguard of enslaving your gender?"

"Depends on what kind of enslavement we're talking about — I prefer rope." She kissed Jacob loudly on the cheek and then slid off his lap and poured herself a beer.

"So," she said, "looks like the shithead didn't do it."

"We're not talking about him," Austin informed her.

Confused, Patrini looked at Jacob. Since the U.S. Attorney had initiated his investigation, the subject of whether or not Colin was guilty had increasingly dominated their conversations. It was time to get back to discussing start-up ideas.

"When Richard gets here," Jacob said, "I want to talk about a new idea. Not Colin."

"Suit yourself Boy Wonder," she said. "I'm only here for the beer and hot engineers."

Finally the last Fool, Richard Volokh, stormed through the front door, charged up to the booth and gripped the table. Jacob braced himself for the tirade.

"A pox on cloth diapers and the environment!" Richard screamed.

Everyone at the booth traded glances, unsure what to make of Richard's blasphemous outburst. Richard was exactly what any Rush Limbaugh listener imagined when picturing a Northern California Liberal, except he didn't have body odor. Other than that, he had all the boxes checked: Republican-hating, Yoga loving, hemp-clothing wearing, paranoid conspiracy-spewing, tree-hugging, and tofu-eating (not to mention he only used cloth diapers and his kids, five months and six years old, had never been vaccinated and slept with him and his wife in the family bed). Before joining Defiance, Richard had been part of an underground Shakespeare troop that staged impromptu scenes in public places. Since Defiance's bankruptcy, he had been staying at home with the kids while his wife slaved away at a blue-chip San Francisco law firm.

Richard held up his fingers, covered in Band-Aids. "Cursed safety pins, I lost a pint of blood changing Baby Che's diapers today."

"You haven't heard?" Jacob asked.

"I thought we weren't talking about him?" Patrini said.

"Heard what?" Richard asked. "I've been with Baby Che all day. Do you think I'm one of those dads who obsessively check his iPhone instead of interacting with his child? Think again, Fools, think again."

Jacob looked at the other Fools. Nobody wanted to be the one to break the news to Richard. Their freshman year at Stanford, Jacob and Richard had been roommates. About once a month, Colin, a freshman at Cal, had driven down from Berkeley to supposedly hang out, but spent most of his time crashing parties and hitting on every cute girl that crossed his path. It was no secret that Richard considered Colin a hateful scumbag who should be cast into the ninth circle of hell and tortured for eternity.

"What?" Richard said. "Spit it out."

Austin dove on the grenade. "The U.S. Attorney isn't going to indict."

Richard's nose flared and his chest heaved.

"Merry Christmas," Patrini said.

Everyone waited for him to erupt. Instead he grabbed the pitcher and gulped down the remaining 30 ounces of Anchor Steam. After a disgusting belch, he slammed the pitcher onto the table, struck his thespian pose — one hand behind his back, the other stretched out to the audience — and bellowed, "O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! That we should, with joy, pleasance, revel and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!"

"Falstaff?" Austin asked.

"Cassio," Jacob answered. He knew all of Richard's lines.

"Screw Colin," Richard said and slid into the booth. He pounded the table. "I hereby call the December gathering of the Fools Club to order. Show your papers!"

All the Fools pulled out their old Defiance stock certificates and slapped them on the table. Jacob winced at the sight. It never got any easier.

Richard removed a tattered coaster from his wallet on which he had written the membership requirements the day the NASDAQ Capital Market delisted Defiance. In the preceding month, Defiance's stock price had tumbled from an already battered $34 a share to $0.23 to, well, nothing. During that period, insider trading rules had prohibited employees from selling. Most employees had lost small and, in some cases, gigantic fortunes, but only a special few could claim membership to the Fools Club.

"Rule One," Richard announced. "Said Fool must have held a minimum of $10 million in fully vested Defiance Corporation Common Stock. Rule Two: said Fool must never have sold a single share of said stock. Rule Three: said Fool must meet and drink on a monthly basis with other qualifying Fools." Richard turned to Patrini. "Ms. Patrini, do you meet these requirements for membership?"

"Proudly. One hundred and fifty thousand shares, maximum value: twelve million three hundred thousand dollars."

"Ever sell?"

"No."

"Explain your foolishness."

"That's what happens when you take six months off to surf the South Pacific and none of your friends call to say the stock is tanking. Thanks boys."

And so it went, each of the Fools reciting their now defunct paper net worth and why they had failed to sell. Austin did not realize he owned any stock until it had already plummeted from $25 million in total value to a mere $220. Richard thought the plunging stock price was a Wall Street conspiracy created to prompt unsuspecting shareholders to unload their stock at low valuations. And then it was Jacob's turn.

"Is this really necessary?" Jacob asked.

"If we don't recall history, we risk forgetting history," Richard said.

"The infinite loop of stupidity," Austin said.

"Dazzle us with your foolishness." Patrini beat the table with her palms in a simulated drum roll.

Jacob raised his hand, cutting her off.

"Out with it," Austin said.

"Fifteen million eight hundred thousand shares," Jacob mumbled.

"Peak value?" Richard asked.

"Everybody knows."

"Say it," Richard said.

"Come on," Patrini laughed. "Your colossal stupidity helps me sleep at night."

"I second that," Austin said.

Everyone sat quietly while Jacob forced out the words:

"One billion two hundred ninety-five million three hundred and twelve thousand eight hundred and forty-two dollars—"

"And twelve cents!" the Fools chimed in, cringing.

"Explain your foolishness," Richard demanded.

"Because it was never about the money."

"And for that," Richard said, "I dub you King of the Fools!"

Patrini raised her glass and proclaimed, "All hail the King of the Fools."

The other Fools toasted him with a "here-here" and he took it with a wincing smile because even after all these years he still felt that Defiance's failure was his fault. He sipped his beer and stared at the stock certificates while Patrini led the other Fools in the club's pledge, a rip-off of T.S. Elliott's, _The Hollow Men._

"We are the foolish men," they groaned. "We are the broke men. Drinking together, our wallets filled with crap..."

The Fools Club had started as a way to spit in the face of their loss, revel in their stupidity rather than wallow, laugh rather than cry. They were young. They were smart. They were bold. And they would do it again. But with each passing year they spent less and less time going over new ideas and more time gossiping about the latest startups that had little to do with inventing new technology and everything to do with creating online communities that Jacob could hardly pretend to give a damn about. What had begun as a start-up incubator had evolved into a drinking club.

Across the bar Jacob could see the television screen. A local reporter was interviewing Colin. He looked a little overweight, which gave Jacob some twisted sense of pleasure. Colin had the vanity of a TV news weatherman; anything short of physical perfection would torment him to no end. Jacob smirked and pounded his beer.

**

Six beers and as many devilled eggs later, Jacob was downright giddy. Everything was making him laugh. The way Austin held his drinking tube between his teeth like a cigar: hilarious. The way Richard's eyes bulged when he spoke: hysterical. The way Patrini puckered her lips after sipping her beer: bust-your-gut funny. And the funnier something was, the better, because as long as he was laughing, the sadness lurking in the back of his beer-soaked brain remained in check. But between the bouts of laughter, the sadness continued to build. Desperate to hold it back, he downed another beer and challenged the group to come up with the stupidest idea for a start-up.

"I got it." Patrini rested her hand on his shoulder. "A Twitteresque microblogging site that automatically converts all postings into haikus, call it Haikuit."

Jacob nearly choked on his beer. Her comment wasn't really funny, but he was looking for any excuse to laugh. And as the laughter rolled through him, the sadness burned inside his chest. He reached for his beer and tried to drink the stabbing pain into submission. Across the room, he saw Colin again on the TV. He was touring a homeless shelter. Annie was walking beside him, holding his arm. She was wearing a white blouse and a tan skirt, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. As Jacob searched her face for a hint that her life with Colin was less than perfect, his giddiness dissolved and he realized why the melancholy had haunted him all day.

"I wanted him to go to prison," Jacob said over the group's laughter, not even realizing he had spoken until the words left his mouth.

The Fools stopped laughing and stared at him. He should have left it at that and ordered another pitcher, but he felt the need to complete the unfinished thought.

"He's my brother and I wanted to see him go to prison. Not because I thought he did anything wrong, but because I thought maybe then Annie would come back to me." Jacob raised his glass and toasted himself. "All hail the King of the Fools." He sipped his beer and waited for the other Fools to join him.

They continued to stare at him, their eyes full of pity.

"You suck," Richard said.

Jacob felt his stomach lurch and the devilled eggs surge up his throat. He gulped the eggs back down and stumbled away from the table. Then he banged opened the back door and staggered outside.

The back patio was empty and the cool air seemed to ease his nausea. Suddenly, vomit charged up his throat. He doubled over and a nasty mess of eggs and beer spewed from his mouth and onto the concrete deck. He fell to his knees and another batch shot out — and another and another and another.

When he was done, he leaned back against a wooden bench and closed his eyes. His ridiculous dream of rescuing Annie after Colin's incarceration tumbled through his brain and he cringed at the utter stupidity of his fantasy. How could he have possibly believed that he and Annie might have a future together? Their whole relationship had been a colossal mistake — on her part.

They first met at her father's New Year's Eve party. Early in the evening, George Childress, the Chairman of Childress Securities, Colin's former employer, introduced Jacob to his daughter. They spoke for less than a minute — a minute of sheer terror that ended when Jacob wandered off in search of crab cakes, Annie's perfume clinging to his brain, his arm tingling where she had touched him, her sea-green eyes blazing in his short-circuiting mind. By midnight he had retreated from the noise and guests to the back porch. Later Annie would admit to seeking him out, but that night she claimed to be looking for a friend. Inside the house the partygoers counted down to the New Year and cheered. Jacob smiled awkwardly at her, worried she might be offended if he did not kiss her, or worse, outraged if he did. Women like her who looked like a John Singer Sargent portrait come to life were supposed to date men with names like Whipple or Chapin that had trust funds and cocaine habits. What could she possibly see in a geek from Phoenix who was more comfortable interacting with a computer than a woman? But instead of fleeing from his awkwardness, she embraced it; as the room cheered on the New Year, she smiled and then rested her hand on his wrist. Instinctively he jerked his hand away. Before he could worry that he had offended her, she jammed her index finger forward and made a _popping_ sound with her lips. "That," she said, "was the sound of me bursting your bubble." Then she placed her hand on his elbow and pulled him down to her lips. By that point, the kiss was academic. The instant her hand touched his skin it had melted away his insecurity and moved straight to his heart where it remained long after she left him.

Jacob sucked in a deep breath of the cool evening air. Usually when he missed Annie, he would Google her and read the latest news about her and Colin — a pathetic attempt to feel some connection to her life. But tonight he wanted to hear her voice, and he was too drunk to care if he sounded like an idiot.

He called her cell phone, his fingers shaking as he dialed the number.

"Hey," she answered, her soft voice catching in his chest.

"Congratulations," he said, slurring the word.

"You okay?"

"Spectacular."

"You out celebrating the good news?"

"Something like that."

"We couldn't have asked for a better Christmas present."

"Merry Early Christmas," he managed to say.

"Thanks," she said. In the silence that followed, his mind wandered. He remembered how she used to kiss him, her lips barely touching his forehead, her breath cool against his skin, her hair dangling down and grazing his cheeks —

"Are we gonna see you for Christmas?" she asked.

Jacob paused before answering. He had always celebrated Christmas with Colin — and then Colin and Annie — and then Colin and Annie and Jen. The thought of doing it one more time was too much. This year he would come up with an excuse to miss it.

"Have I ever missed it?" he lied.

"Good, I'll tell Colin. We're so excited."

Jacob waited for her to say something to fill the silence, but the longer he waited the more conscious he became of the sound of his breathing. I must sound like a stalker, he thought.

"I gotta go," he mumbled and hung up.

He rested his pounding head on the redwood bench. The thin layer of evening dew covering the wood felt cool against his forehead. In his mind he played back the call and tried to remember if he had said anything stupid. How must he have sounded? Maybe a little over eager, but at least he had kept his mouth shut when he had felt the urge to spill the forbidden words.

I love you. Can you believe that shit? All these years and you're still rattling around my brain.

You're pathetic, he thought. What did you think would happen? That she would confess to still being in love with you? That she would admit that Colin and the kid were a terrible mistake? That she would beg to live with you in your grim little apartment?

He heard footsteps and looked up. Richard was staring down at him. His eyes wandered to the cell phone.

"You called her?"

"How pitiful is that?"

Richard sat on the bench and sighed. "Thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us." He eyed the puke. "Devilled egg barf. Nice work. You want to go home?"

"I still miss her. Can you believe that? She's married with a kid and I still miss her."

"Of course you still miss her. When most people get dumped, they rarely, if ever, have to see the ex. But you, you were forced to take a front row seat and watch her get on with her life."

"If only my brain were a hard drive. Just wipe it clean with a hundred billion zeros, reformat it, and presto, I'm back in business. What I need is a brain wiping algorithm."

"You might want to consider a lobotomy."

Jacob looked at the pile of puke that undulated with his teetering vision. "How did I end up here?" he asked. "Seems like last week Defiance was going public and I was dating the most amazing woman in the world. Now I'm doing contract work and Mr. Wonderful is living happily ever after with her."

"Let me ask you a question," Richard said. "Of all the women in the world, why do you think he married her?"

"I don't know."

Richard shook his head in dismay. "Let me get this straight. The guy that won the Westinghouse, the guy who was TAing graduate electrical engineering classes as a sophomore, the guy that ruminates on Fermat's last theorem to fall asleep, the guy that could probably think his way out of hell—that brilliant guy can't answer this simple question: Why, with all the women in the world, did your stepbrother marry the love of your life?"

"I guess I hadn't thought it through," he said, the muscles in his neck tensing up.

Richard patted him on the shoulder and then walked toward the back door. Before entering, he stopped and looked back. "Do you hate him?"

"No," Jacob said.

"You should," Richard said and then walked inside, letting the door slam shut.

Jacob closed his eyes and rubbed his throbbing head. The harder he tried not to think about what Richard had said, the harder his head hurt. The thought of Annie with Colin — every night running her fingers across his cheek, every morning resting her head on his chest, having a child with him, sharing her life with him, _fucking him_ — sent a hot rush of anger through his body. Colin could have steered clear of Annie, but he didn't because Colin Schaefer could not simply beat you at something, he had to rub your face in it. When they were kids, if someone topped Colin's high score on _Street Fighter_ , he would rock the machine until the plug came out and then start it up again with a blank slate of scores. And God forbid you ever embarrass his highness. Jacob could still remember the time during a backyard baseball game when Terry Wilson smacked a line drive into Colin's crotch. Everyone had laughed hysterically while Colin writhed on the ground. But the laughter stopped when Colin scrambled to his feet, chased down Terry, punched him in the stomach and then hawked a lugi on his head. Always the big man, in high school, Colin never passed up an opportunity to make Jacob feel foolish about his sexual inexperience, like laughing for five minutes when he asked if giving a girl the finger were the same as flipping her the bird. _You're fifteen years old and you've never fingered a girl?_ So of course, after Annie had dumped him, Colin had jumped at the chance to restore the pecking order—to humiliate him. Hey, Jacob, you remember that amazing woman who dumped you? Yeah, the same woman who said she would never go out with me? Guess what? Not only are we in love, but we're going to get married and start a family. How 'bout them apples?

Well fuck you Colin Schaefer. Fuck that part of you that has to piss on every one around you. Fuck your ostentatious mansion. Fuck your phony fucking ballot initiative. Fuck that voice of yours that makes everyone swoon. And fuck your metaphorical trophy case that had to have Annie in it. And fuck you Annie, too. Fuck you for marrying him. Fuck you for asking me to be okay with it. Fuck your yoga. Fuck your bullshit organic gardening class. And fuck whatever else you do to delude yourself into thinking you're happy with such an egotistical asshole. Fuck your whole Goddamn lives together.

Jacob spit out the taste of barf and stood up. He could not let the night end like this. He had to do something so he could go to bed knowing that Colin had not walked all over him and gotten away with it. If only he could piss him off just a little. Like the time in sixth grade when he smashed his baseball trophy with a rock and then claimed not to know where it had disappeared too. Something petty and stupid would be perfect. When Jacob looked down at the vomit, he knew the answer.

Eggs.

Jacob wiped his mouth clean, waited for the ground to steady, and walked back inside. The Fools were sitting around the table unsure what to expect.

"Let's go egg the motherfucker's house," Jacob said.

The Fools silently eyed each other. Then Austin set down his beer and said, "Only if the eggs are organic."

### Chapter 3

Colin spent the evening at home with Meacham watching the local news. Channel 4 was the last station to report the end of the U.S. Attorney's investigation, but also included a background piece on the Schaefer Foundation. The B roll was stellar. It showed him visiting a homeless shelter, speaking to a poor family living in newly constructed subsidized housing, and walking side-by-side with the Los Angeles Chief of Police down what was once skid row while a crowd of grateful street vendors swarmed him as if he were a rock star. Colin loved that final clip. It had a historic quality that reminded him of the footage of Bobby Kennedy touring the south. Dressed in khakis and a white oxford, he even looked like a Kennedy. His ego felt like it were high on crack cocaine.

Colin hit the pause button on the remote and froze the image on his media room's 60-inch display. He looked over at Meacham, grinning on the couch beside him.

"That," Meacham said, "was practically a coronation. Everyone watching just forgot you were ever under investigation."

"Can you get a copy of that video for the campaign spot?"

Meacham typed a message on his Blackberry. "Done."

Colin's phone rang and he checked the caller ID. It was Sri Malik, the partner at Acorn Capital who had made the initial investment in Defiance. Once they had been close friends, but Malik had cut him loose when the investigation started.

"You gonna get that?" Meacham asked.

"No," Colin said and silenced the ring. All day "friends" he hadn't heard from in years, had been calling. "Just another rat looking to get back on the ship."

"Be nice," Meacham said. "Everyone's a potential donor."

Colin replayed the evening news clip, relishing the reporter's litany of statistics that heralded the success of Prop 264: 25,000 units of affordable housing constructed with another 25,000 on-line, fifteen new drug and alcohol treatment centers, and a massive expansion of the state's mental hospitals. At the time of its passage, Prop 264 had a chorus of skeptics, mostly anti-tax conservatives and lefty-loons that despised the initiative's zero-tolerance policy toward public homelessness. Now the critics had been silenced.

Toward the end of the piece, Annie entered wearing tight-fitting Yoga pants and a tank top, her face glowing from the workout. Colin sensed Meacham leering at her.

"I thought you guys might be thirsty," she said, setting down two glasses of water.

"Is that Pellegrino or tap?" Colin asked.

Annie smiled at Meacham. "Colin thinks that drinking fizzy Italian water is more important than saving the environment. We are officially a water-bottle-free household."

"Aren't you feisty tonight?" Colin said. "Come here." He grabbed her waist and pulled her onto his lap. Meacham's leering eyes drifted over her body. The fat turd could barely contain himself. Just to torment him, Colin nuzzled up against Annie's cheek. "Promise not to get too excited," he said.

"I promise."

"Henry's internal polling has me ahead of all potential challengers by at least five points."

"Really?" she said, beaming.

"Your husband," Meacham said, "was born to do this."

She hugged him and said, "I'm so happy for you."

"For us," he said.

She kissed him on the cheek. "Get back to work."

He watched her walk out of the room and again sensed Meacham gawking at her ass. Who could blame him? Annie was that gorgeous.

"The voters are going to love her," he said to Meacham. Then he pointed toward the beverage fridge in the corner. "There's Pellegrino and Diet Cokes in there. Help yourself to the contraband."

"Annie doesn't care?"

"She pretends it doesn't exist. One of the advantages of marrying a WASP. She was bred to ignore unpleasantries."

"Speaking of unpleasantries, did you talk to her about the church thing?"

"Not yet, she's been stressed about the investigation."

"The investigation is over. It's time you and your family start attending church regularly. And that Unitarian granola-fest of hers is not an option."

"There's St. Matthew's in Atherton."

"Will she be okay with that?"

"Of course, it's what I want, it's what she wants."

"Good. This Sunday I want to see you, Annie and the kid there. Annie's New Age vibe might fly around here, but take that shit into the central valley and you might as well tattoo a 666 on your forehead."

"Church on Sunday. I got it."

"And can you talk to her about that organic gardening gig she does in the East Palo Alto schools?"

"What about it?"

"It's political hari-kari."

"Wal-Mart's going organic."

"P.R. bullshit. Next time you're in a superstore tell me how many hairy lesbians in Birkenstocks you see buying produce."

"Anything else?"

Meacham grimaced, hesitating, and then said, "I've been holding off on bringing this up, but if you want to get serious about winning, you need to think about your reproductive choices."

"My what?"

"Kids — like where the fuck are they? Because that's what the voters are going to ask, especially when they see the size of your house and learn you have only one child."

"The investigation—"

"It's over. What are you waiting for? A one-kid family is a public relations nightmare. Think about all the negative messages: your marriage is unstable, you're selfish, you hate kids, you got a low sperm count. And, then there's the worst: maybe your wife doesn't love you enough to have more kids. If the voters think that, you're screwed. If a politician's wife doesn't love him, the public never will. Look what Hillary did for Bill's approval. The man puts his dick in that slutty intern's mouth and ends up more popular than ever because his wife stands by him. Everyone's thinking: _Must be some guy if she's willing to stick with him after that!_ Listen to me, the Catholics had it right, a litter of kids is best for politics. Four Schaefer kids will tell the voters how much you two love each other."

"Four? How about seven?"

"That's cult territory. Creepy. Stick with four."

"So," Colin said, "you're saying I need to tell Annie to quit her job, change her religion, and then get her pregnant?"

"You might want to fuck her first. And while you're at it, tell her to gain some weight."

"Are you serious?"

"I never lie when I'm wearing my Santa tie. Women hate skinny women, especially country club-blond skinny women. My God, Annie Schaefer practically has a sign on her that says: for ten generations nobody in my family has had to fuck ugly."

"She's not that person."

"But she looks like that person. I'm not saying I want her fat — that has its own set of challenges — I just want the masses to relate to her. Five, ten pounds max, should do. She's not a vegetarian, is she?"

"No."

"Thank God," he said. Then he clapped his hands together. "Looks like we're done—except for this." He removed a slip of paper from his jacket and handed it to Colin.

"What's this?" Colin asked.

"Trash removal fee with wire instructions. I suggest you pay on time." Meacham stood. "Remember, every day is a new day," he said and walked out of the room.

Colin glanced down at the paper. It was a copy of an email from pimpmyride8. The message contained the routing information for a bank account in the Caribbean. Beneath it was the fee: $100,000.

Howard Segal was dead.

In the entry hall he heard the front door open and close as Meacham left. Then the house was silent except for the sound of Annie showering upstairs. Colin waited for the remorse to hit him, but as he stared at the slip of paper his only thought was this: All I have done is what great men have always done—make painful sacrifices for the greater good. What I have done is no different than what the President of the United States does when he authorizes a drone strike on an Afghani village harboring terrorists knowing that innocents will die. The world needs great men to make these difficult decisions— _and I am one of them_. A profound sense of responsibility overcame him and he inhaled deeply, solemnly shouldering the weight of his destiny. He tucked the paper into his pocket, left the media room, and walked up the spiraling staircase.

He entered his study and locked the door. Leaving the lights off, he stepped up to the window. Beyond it, Silicon Valley glimmered beneath a dome of clouds infused with an orange glow. The view always made him think of his mother. As a kid he would often come home from school to find her sitting on the roof, dressed for work, smoking a cigarette. He would climb the lemon tree beside the front door and sit with her. Never once did he hear her complain about anything — except one time, while watching the sun set, she said quietly to herself, "A house with a view of the city would have been nice."

It killed him that she never saw his success. His senior year at Cal she had died after her car veered off the highway and plunged fifty feet over a cliff. Everyone assumed her death was an accident — it had been raining that night — but Colin knew the truth. Earlier that week she had been diagnosed with a progressive subtype of multiple sclerosis. She had killed herself rather than suffer the indignity of her body's deterioration. She would have loved all his achievements, but the view would have been her favorite. In the view he saw the beauty of his life reflected back at him.

He kissed the window and then walked over to the bookshelf, found the copy of _Moby Dick,_ and read the combination written inside the cover. He could remember the names and faces of every person he had ever met, but he could barely remember his phone number. In sixth grade his class had taken a field trip to the Native American Heard Museum. The tour guide had showed them how Navajo rug weavers intentionally made one mistake to symbolize that only God was perfect. Whenever Colin thought about his trouble with numbers, he remembered that day. Everything had a flaw, even him.

He was about to open the safe when he remembered the security camera. On his computer he pulled up the surveillance camera images and disabled the one to his study. Free to work, he lifted the painting of his family off the wall, revealing the safe. He ran through the combination and opened the door.

The Smith & Wesson revolver rested on top of the ledger. Six months ago, after receiving a series of threatening emails, he had purchased the gun with the intention of keeping it in his bedside table drawer. The instant Annie saw it, she insisted he get rid of it.

Colin left the gun in the safe and took out the ledger. The weathered saddle leather of the cover was emblazoned with the seal of the "Stockton Mining Company." Colin had purchased it at an antique store in downtown Palo Alto the day Segal completed their first "licensing deal" with a Cayman corporation. Segal had advised him to keep only a paper record of the transaction and any future deals. Information on a hard drive was virtually impossible to erase.

He sat at his desk and opened the ledger. The first few pages contained the 150-year-old bookkeeping entries for the short-lived mining company. On the pages that followed were his entries covering fifty-two offshore accounts, which held funds that had compounded to well over one hundred million dollars. In their quest to indict him, the Feds had subpoenaed every computer and mobile phone that he had ever come in contact with and had come up with nothing; the ledger was the only record he had ever kept. It contained everything: bank names and phone numbers, account numbers and balances, transaction histories and passwords. But most importantly, the ledger held his _get-out-of-jail-free_ card: tucked inside the front cover were three fake Canadian passports — one for him, Annie, and Jen — that he had acquired a week after receiving the target letter from the U.S. Attorney. Together, the ledger and passports were his blue chip guarantee throughout the investigation that he would never spend a minute in prison.

The end of the investigation could not have come at a better time. To fund the ballot initiative and his legal team, he had burned through fifteen million dollars — nearly all the cash in his legitimate accounts. Before the market crash he could have relied on his wife to bail him out, but her trust's only assets had been stock in her family's now defunct investment bank. Six months ago he had been forced to take out a home equity line of credit to finance his lifestyle and keep his team of lawyers going. A week ago he had reached his credit limit. Now, with the Feds out of his life, he could focus on laundering the offshore funds into his legitimate bank accounts. A month from now his cash flow problems would be over.

Colin read through the individual account balances, a soothing string of accumulating zeros. Technically speaking he had embezzled every cent, but that legalistic interpretation failed to see the stunningly simple bigger picture: Defiance was his company. Every cent he had taken was value _he_ had created, value _he_ was entitled to. Embezzlement had simply been his only viable liquidity option.

Eight months after the IPO, he had sold twenty million dollars in stock. Yet even after that sale, his Defiance holdings were worth over a billion dollars. And then the stock market stumbled. Defiance's stock took a 50% hit and he knew he had to cash out before the share price collapsed completely. But the company's insider trading policy prohibited him from selling until after quarterly earning were announced, which at the time had been three months away. So Colin had been left with no choice but to watch as the stock market continued to crater with the slumping economy and his fortune slipped away.

It was then that Segal had approached him with a plan involving "other liquidity options." Segal's plan was to license bogus software and services from shell companies and deposit the proceeds into offshore bank accounts. Defiance was the perfect environment: cash rich, exponential growth, and autonomous divisions. And because Defiance lacked a Treasurer, it was unlikely anyone would notice. Even if they did, Segal would be the only one involved in the transactions. All Colin had to do was not ask any questions when the deals crossed his desk and tell Segal where to transfer his half of the proceeds. By the time the auditors noticed, Segal planned to be in Mexico. Although Segal's smash-and-grab technically constituted fraud and embezzlement, it was the perfect solution to Colin's liquidity woes. A legion of venture capitalists, institutional investors, and hedge fund managers had made hundreds of millions of dollars off his company. What was he supposed to do? Sit around idly and lose a fortune? That would have been the ultimate loser move.

From the ledger Colin picked an account on the Isle of Man that he would use to pay pimpmyride8. He was about to jot down the routing information when the door knob rattled.

"Hey," Annie called from in the hallway, "it's locked."

"Hang on," Colin said, hurrying over to the wall. He hung the painting, hiding the safe, and then opened the door. Annie, fresh from the shower, was wearing a terrycloth robe and smelled of her jasmine scented face cream.

"Sorry," he said. "I had to make a call and didn't want Jen coming in."

"Isn't she asleep?"

"You're right," he said and flashed a smile. "Habit I guess." He walked back to the desk and eyed the ledger, lying beside his keyboard.

"Jacob called," she said, her eyes wandering over to the ledger.

Colin closed the ledger and pushed it aside. "I didn't hear the phone ring."

"He called on my cell."

Colin had to suppress a smile.

"What?"

"I didn't say anything."

"You kind of smiled."

"Did he talk dirty to you?"

"Stop."

"Dazzle you with a discussion of the inadequacy of WEP encryption?"

"Stop it. He called to congratulate you."

"I see," Colin said. "He called _you_ to congratulate _me_."

"I'm worried about him," she said. "He didn't sound good. Actually, he sounded drunk. Can you talk to him?"

"We're having lunch tomorrow. I'll mention it." He waited for her to leave.

She leaned against the doorway and looked down at the floor. "When you and I started dating," she said, her voice trailing off. She looked up at him, her eyes teary. "I never wanted to hurt him."

"I know that," he said, knowing it was a lie. Jacob had broken her heart. What better way to hurt him than to date his stepbrother? And he had been more than happy to oblige. It wasn't like Jacob owned her.

"You coming to bed?" she asked. Her robe slipped open and he saw her small breasts brushing against the terrycloth. He felt himself getting hard, which came as a surprise. The stress of the investigation had been like napalm on his sex drive. He walked up to her, slid his hand around her bare back, and kissed her lips. Her mouth parted and her breaths quickened. She kissed him hard, biting his lip. Then he remembered the thing he had to take care of and pulled back.

"What?" she asked.

"I left a memo at the Foundation. I need it for an interview I'm doing tomorrow."

With her finger, she traced a line down his chest. As much as he wanted to make love, he hated the thought of waking up tomorrow with the whole Segal affair still unresolved. Not to mention, it seemed unwise to keep pimpmyride8 waiting.

"I should really look at it tonight."

"Are you sure it can't wait?"

"It shouldn't take long."

Annie kissed him on his lips. "Wake me when you get home."

She turned and walked down the hall. He locked the door and hurried over to the desk. After writing down the account information, he returned the ledger to the safe, turned the camera back on and left the room.

Since it was dark out, he allowed himself the pleasure of driving his Bentley Continental GT — a big time political no-no during daylight hours, which were reserved exclusively for the barely palatable Ford Fusion hybrid. Colin cruised down the driveway, feeling the rumble of the car's V-12 through the leather seat, reveling in the guilty pleasure of driving an automobile that got 13 mpg on a good day. If only Ford or GM could build a hybrid like the Continental GT, it would completely change American politics. Conventional wisdom held that good people did not run for office because of the incessant muckraking. Bullshit. Good people just didn't want to drive a domestic heap to keep the unions and environmentalists happy. If Ford were to ever come out with a sexy hybrid, you would see the number of quality candidates quadruple.

Turning out of the driveway, he sped down the hill. The tires squealed as he raced past the mansions of the wealthy, super-wealthy, obscenely-wealthy, and more-money-than-God-wealthy. He gave the accelerator an extra tap, the engine growl telling them that not only had he survived, but he had triumphed. And although he did not have a Gulfstream, or a private yacht, or a collection of Renoirs, he would soon have something none of them could buy: a legacy of greatness. They would choke with envy.

He turned onto Woodside Road, accelerated down the hill, and then guided the Bentley onto the 280 Freeway. The pay-phone he used to manage his offshore accounts was located on San Mateo's sleepy main street. After merging onto the 92, he headed west and then exited on El Camino Real. He turned onto 25th Avenue and drove slowly down the deserted street; the ethnic restaurants and mom-and-pop shops had closed hours ago. He parked in front of the post office and walked up to the pay-phone mounted on the brick wall next to the nail salon. A solitary streetlight cast his shadow against the sidewalk. The sight of his long thin silhouette unnerved him. He jogged up to the pay phone and relaxed as his shadow disappeared into the wall.

Using a prepaid phone card, he called his bank on the Isle of Man and authorized the transfer to pimpmyride8's account. Start to finish, the call took less than five minutes. He placed the phone back in the cradle. It was over.

Colin pulled out the photo of Segal. "Thank you, Howard," he said and then flipped the photo over and read the Roosevelt quotation Meacham had taped there:

It is not the critic who counts —

"You're damn right they don't count," Colin said, thinking of all the cowardly reporters and bloggers who had been skewering him for years, first over the initiative and then the investigation — a legion of myopic cowards who knew nothing about what it took to change the world. Colin continued reading the words written by a kindred soul:

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short—

I am that man, he thought. Fate fucked me at Defiance, but I wiped the dust and sweat off and picked myself up and changed the world. I did not shy away from doing great things. And I never will. He read on:

Who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Well I did not fail, he thought.

"I'm still here!" he screamed to the night. "I'm still here!" He dared the world to answer, but his only response was the faint buzz of the streetlight overhead.

He climbed into the Bentley and pulled out the cigarette lighter, which he pressed to the wire transfer instructions. The paper caught fire and he tossed it to the ground. Then he dropped the photo of Howard Segal onto the flame and watched him burn.

I killed a man.

The thought flared through his brain. He stepped on the smoldering photo and ground his foot against it until all that remained was a pile of ashes that he kicked across the black asphalt.

A few minutes later he was speeding back up the 92 thinking about how Annie (with a little coaching) would make the perfect Senator's wife. Soon he would be back home making love to her. It would be the perfect start to this new chapter in their lives. He relaxed his grip on the steering wheel and eased back into the leather seat. Anxious to meet his destiny, he hit the accelerator and every fiber of his body tingled as the Bentley rocketed into his magnificent future. Up ahead, a Taurus lumbered down the left lane, barely breaking sixty. Colin swung the Bentley into the right lane and passed the car. With a flick of his wrist he was back in the fast lane. And it was all so effortless.

### Chapter 4

Jacob figured egging Colin's house would be a simple endeavor. Buy a carton at the market, speed by the mansion, chuck a handful of eggs, and race away giggling. Nothing, however, was simple with geeks. They always had to go MacGyver on you.

It had all gone horribly wrong the moment Austin turned Richard's minivan into the Safeway parking lot. After spending twenty minutes debating exactly which organic eggs — large or extra large — could be thrown the farthest, they agreed to buy three cartons of each and conduct a test. At the checkout, no one had any cash and Richard refused to use a credit or bank card out of fear that the transaction could be traced. To preserve their anonymity, they drove to the nearest ATM where Patrini withdrew a hundred dollars and then returned to the store and purchased the eggs.

Once they piled back in the minivan, a heated discussion erupted between Richard, Austin and Patrini over how to accurately benchmark egg velocity and distance. Austin pointed out that throwing the eggs by hand would result in too much variability. Patrini wanted to weigh each egg to provide an accurate mass measurement. And Richard wanted to build a radar gun to track speed.

On any other night, Jacob would have been a stickler for proper research design. Tonight he could not have cared less. His beer buzz had gone from feeling like a warm and fuzzy blanket to a cold sludge sloshing around his head. All he wanted to do was hurl a handful of eggs at Colin's front door and fall asleep with the knowledge that he had finally done something, however stupid and immature, to get back at Colin.

Eventually they agreed to build a funnelator that would perform the exact same throw for each egg. And Richard abandoned his demand for a radar gun, but only after Austin whipped up a nifty application on his laptop that could calibrate speed based on the user inputting distance and time variables (although it did assume a constant tension and flight angle).

Confident in their experiment design, the Fools Club descended upon the Home Depot in East Palo Alto and purchased the funnelator parts as well as a digital scale, laser level, laser measurer, and some duct tape. From there they recrossed Palo Alto to the eighteenth fairway of the Stanford Golf Course and assembled the funnelator for a test run. After ironing out the functionality bugs in the digital angle duct taped to the funnel, the Fools Club was ready to strike — two and half hours after leaving the Goose.

**

Austin turned onto Woodside Road and Jacob directed him through the maze of narrow streets shrouded by live oaks and redwoods. Although the minivan was barely going five miles per hour, it was so dark they nearly missed the turn onto Shady Oak Lane. The minivan rounded a bend and the eight-foot masonry wall in front of Colin's house came into view.

Austin turned off the headlights, pulled the minivan onto the shoulder, and rolled to a stop opposite the home's wrought iron gates. At the end of the long driveway stood Colin's three-acre Spanish estate, _Hacienda de Los Robles,_ named after the groves of California live oaks that covered the property.

"Los Robles," Patrini muttered. "What kind of jackass names his house?"

"I bet he has a butler," Richard said.

"I don't remember the gate," Austin said.

"He put the gate in six months ago," Jacob said. "Since the investigation he's been getting a lot of anonymous threats."

Richard's eyes twinkled. "I can't imagine who would do such a thing."

"He's got a kid," Jacob said.

"Small things make base men proud."

Patrini poked her head between the front seats. "Blah, blah, blah. Boys, as much as it's every girl's fantasy to be trapped in a minivan with three geysers of testosterone such as yourselves, it's getting late. Time to shit or get off the pot."

Jacob stared at the compound, thinking about his failure to sell a single share of stock. Last year, a reporter for _Wired_ magazine had asked him about this. Without thinking, he had answered, " _I guess I was afraid of being rich."_ Prior to Defiance, he had spent his life minimizing his needs. The idea that it was suddenly in his power to have virtually everything he could ever want was deeply unsettling. While everyone at Defiance was constantly tracking the stock price, he refused to even think about it.

The sight of Colin's house ate away at him. He could have sold a fraction of his stock and built a spectacular estate. Instead he had opted to hold his stock and live like a hermit in his one bedroom shithole in Mountain View because he was too small-minded, too miserly, and too stupid to dream of something as simple as sleeping beside Annie in his own house. He wasn't just the King of Fools, he was the Supreme Lord of all Idiots that Ever Existed on the Planet Earth.

Jacob grabbed the door handle. "Let's do this," he said, practically choking on his bile. He yanked open the sliding door, which squealed along the track. For some reason the other Fools thought this was hilarious and burst out laughing. To Jacob, there was nothing funny about his stepbrother living his dream.

The Fools jumped into action. While Patrini attached the surgical tubing to the handles on each side of the door opening, Austin aimed the measuring laser at the house and entered the distance in his laptop. Richard weighed the egg and handed it to Jacob.

"It's not just an egg," Richard said. "It's a revolution."

"No," Jacob said. "It's a stupid-ass prank." He placed the egg in the funnel and pulled it back, stretching the surgical tubing across the width of the van. Austin kept his eye on the electronic angle taped to the funnel while guiding Jacob's hand up and down.

"Right there," Austin said, "Thirty five degrees to the horizontal. All systems go for launch."

In the distance the house glowed in the floodlights. Fortunately the bedrooms were on the other side so there was no danger that an egg might accidentally smash through Jen's window. Jacob's hand tightened around the plastic funnel. For a brief moment, his beer buzz vanished and he saw himself from a distance: a thirty-four year old bachelor hurling eggs at his stepbrother's house. Pathetic.

Next to him Richard cried out: "Cry havoc, and let slip the fools of war!"

Jacob looked down at the funnel and then at the Fools eagerly waiting for him. What was more pathetic? Letting go or returning home a failure?

He released the funnel. With a _voosh_ it zipped out of the minivan and launched the egg into the darkness. All the Fools waited, eyebrows raised, mouths open, while Austin called out the passing time:

"One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi—"

S _plat._

The egg hit, barely making a sound. Everyone but Jacob burst out laughing. He had hoped to see the egg splatter against the house, preferably the front door, but from a hundred feet away, who could tell?

"84 miles per hour," Austin said, reading from his laptop.

Jacob looked down the driveway at the house, its seemingly untouched walls mocking him. He plucked another egg from the carton and laid it in the funnel.

"Whoa," Austin said. "You need to weigh that."

"Screw the experiment," Jacob said and pulled back the funnel. He aimed it at the front door and released it. As the egg sailed into the black night, Jacob fixed his eyes on the door. That would be the ideal place for an egg explosion, smack in the middle of Colin's custom-made front door. He would be livid.

The sound of the impact was barely audible, a faint snap in the distance. Worse, he could not see any sign of impact. His mind raced to calculate the futility of the endeavor. The front of the house looked to be around 150 feet wide and 30 feet tall, totaling 4,500 square feet of surface area. They had six dozen eggs. Assuming a hit-rate of seventy five percent, only 54 eggs would likely hit the house. If each egg when splattered covered approximately three square feet, the maximum amount of coverage they could expect from splattered eggs was 162 square feet. Less than four percent of the front of the house would be defaced! Unless they scored a direct hit on the door, their idiotic undertaking would likely go unnoticed by Colin.

"What's the point?" he said and slid into the backseat.

Patrini offered the carton to Richard. He grabbed an egg that broke in his hand.

"You brute," Patrini giggled.

"Silence, wench!" he said and then dumped a handful of eggs directly into the funnelator. Before Austin could remind him to follow protocol, he pulled back the funnel and barked out, "If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

He released the funnel and with a _whip_ it shot through the minivan's interior. A few seconds later Jacob heard a series of muted splats. The other Fools giggled. Jacob lay down on the backseat and sulked.

Was it any wonder that Defiance had failed? He couldn't even pull off a stupid prank. His mind wandered back to the final months at Defiance. The year before the market crash, Defiance's largest competitor had been swallowed up by a certain to-remain-nameless internet search giant that saw the economic downturn as a chance to destroy Defiance. It slashed prices and cash-strapped IT departments were more than happy to take their business elsewhere. Jacob and has team worked feverishly to update their product with better spam detection heuristics, but during a massive recession a somewhat better product was no match against a cheaper product. For six months Defiance bled customers and cash until there was nothing left.

Richard peered over the backseat, interrupting Jacob's thoughts. "That," Richard grumbled, "was hardly the pound of flesh I'd envisioned."

Jacob sat up, his head throbbing.

"On the lame scale," Patrini said, "I'd give that a solid nine." She slammed the sliding door shut. "Let's go."

Austin moved behind the driver's seat and was about to start the engine.

"Wait," Jacob said, not knowing what he would say next, but certain he could not let the night end like this. If they did not succeed in doing something petty and immature, they would be worse than fools, they would be failures.

"We can't go home."

"I have to work tomorrow," Austin said.

"Work?" Richard said. "You sell massage chairs at _Relax the Back_. Like it matters if you're tired."

"Patrini," Jacob asked, "what's the finest prank you ever pulled off?"

"That's easy. For the '01 SC game, we snuck into North Gym, dipped our asses in blue and yellow, and went Jackson Pollack on center court."

Richard grinned. "Ass painting, the Bard would approve."

**

Getting around Colin's security system took less than five minutes. With a quick phone call to the alarm company, Patrini — pretending to be Annie — verified that the system was off. Using his laptop, Austin hacked into the home's wi-fi network and accessed the security cameras. After scanning each video feed, he confirmed that everyone was asleep, and then turned off each camera.

"The shield is down!" Austin announced. "Commence attack on the Death Star's main reactor."

"Oh my God," Patrini groaned, "I'm in geek hell."

"Tech enthusiast," Jacob said, correcting her. He opened the sliding door.

"Hang on," Richard said, digging around the back of the minivan. He lifted out a box of supplies he kept on hand for the evenings when he moonlit as a computer repair tech. He rifled through the box and pulled out a bag of antic-static gloves.

"Leave no trace," he said, putting on a pair of gloves. He offered Jacob the bag.

"I didn't realize we are about to steal a Van Gogh."

"Suit yourself, but when Colin's goons find your fingerprints, they will come for you. And when they clip the electrodes to your nipples and demand to know your accomplices, I hope you have the fortitude to keep my identity a secret."

"Fine," Jacob said and put on a pair of gloves. "Let's go."

Suddenly Richard's eyes began to tear up.

"What?" Jacob asked.

"It's good to see you leading a team again," Richard said, choking on his tears.

"This is hardly the return I'd imagined."

"Still," Austin said, "it's nice to see."

Patrini opened the door. "Lead us, Fool King."

Jacob stepped out of the van. Had he been looking down instead of at the house, he might have seen the beer bottle and avoided stepping on it. His foot slipped on the bottle and he tumbled onto the dusty ground. The Fools gaped down at him.

"Dear God," Patrini said, "I hope he never reproduces."

The Fools burst out into hysterical laughter. Jacob stared up at the cloudy night sky. Wouldn't they all be better off if he asked Austin to back the van up over his head? Please, God, just end the misery. After a minute, Patrini realized that he might actually be hurt. Her laughter ceased and she asked, "Are you okay?"

Jacob sat up and glared at the Fools. Then he wiped the dust from his palms. Richard offered his hand to help him get up. Pride demanded he stand without assistance—which he did, barely.

"Come on," he said and limped across the street.

A redwood towered in front of the stone wall. He scaled the branches and stepped onto the top of the wall. Patrini and Austin joined him and together they watched Richard jump and flail to reach the tree's lower branches.

"Hey, Shakespeare McFatty," Patrini called down to him. "I thought you were some Yoga guru. Just contort your body and squeeze through the gate."

Richard scowled at her. "You tread upon my patience."

"Hang on," Jacob said. He slid off the wall and dropped to the ground inside Colin's compound. Then he crept up to keypad beside the gate's electric motor. The paint on the numbers "1," "2," and "3" was faded. He pressed the buttons in succession and hit the "#" sign. The motor started and the gate swung open. Patrini and Austin came up behind him and quietly applauded Richard as he strode through the gate. Richard flipped them the double-bird.

Rather than head down the well-lit driveway, Jacob jogged into the grove of oaks that bordered it. The damp air carried the musty scent of decomposing leaves. He moved quickly through the darkness. When he reached the edge of the grove, he stopped and the Fools came up behind him. Between them and the house stretched fifty feet of lawn, illuminated by dozens of lights stationed in the bushes around the foundation.

Austin winced at the sight. "Here's a thought. Why don't we all leave a hundred incandescent lights on every night to hasten global warming by a few decades? Why prolong the inevitable? Even worse, I bet he drives a Prius. "

"His wife drives the Prius," Jacob said. "He drives a Ford hybrid."

"They should both be pilloried in the Stanford Mall," Richard said. "Force fed compost until they puke."

Jacob hushed them and studied the house. To reach it they would have to leave the safety of the oak grove. Anyone looking out a window would easily see them crossing the lawn.

"You're sure they're asleep?" he asked Austin.

"You saw the video," Richard snapped. "It's not like there was a R.E.M. monitor hooked up to them."

Jacob looked at the house. The living room's six double-hung windows faced the lawn. The odds were high that one of them would be unlocked. But what if they were spotted crossing the lawn? What would he tell Annie? That they were in the neighborhood and dropped by to clean the gutters? Oh, and, sorry about all the broken eggs. I promise to clean up the mess.

"Well?" Richard said.

Jacob was acutely aware that if he spent another second thinking, he would turn back. When you're surfing a tidal wave of anger, booze, and stupidity, the surest way to wipeout is to think.

"Screw it," Jacob said and sprinted toward the house. He glanced back and, to his surprise, the Fools were following him. Patrini, in her black leather mini skirt, striding gracefully in her heels. Austin trotting behind her, his face the picture of calm, his neon Lyrca shirt so bright it was probably visible from space. Richard bringing up the rear, huffing across the grass, sweat glistening on his face.

My friends are idiots — wonderful idiots — but still idiots.

This thought made him laugh and took the edge off his fear, allowing him to reach the house without having a heart attack.

"Everyone try a window," he called out quietly.

"Genius idea," Richard said.

Patrini and Austin ran off and inspected the windows along the left side, while he and Richard checked the windows to the right. From the far corner of the house, Patrini hissed, "Over here."

They gathered at the open window. Inside the house, Jacob could see the dark outlines of the living room furniture. Just keep moving, he told himself, and climbed in through the window.

Except for the sound of the fountain bubbling in the courtyard, the house was silent. On the other side of the room there was a fireplace large enough for a child to stand inside. The polished brash andirons glinted in the darkness. A Christmas tree stood in the far corner. Its scent brought back the memory of last year's Christmas. Jacob remembered how he had sat quietly on the couch, dying inside as he watched Jen tear open her presents. Having to bear witness to Colin and Annie's biological offspring had hardly been a Merry Christmas.

The other Fools joined him and he was about to leave the room when Richard held out his arm and stopped him. "This historic moment cries out for a word from the Bard."

"Screw the Bard," Jacob said.

"Blasphemy!"

"Shh!" Jacob hissed.

Richard struck his thespian pose. "Do I have your full attention?"

"Out with it," Patrini said.

Richard fluttered his hand and then proclaimed, "From this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remember'd. We few, we happy few, we band of fools." He bowed and gestured toward the doorway. "After you, sir."

Jacob led the group through the entry hall and into the playroom, which looked like a two-year old's version of heaven decorated by Martha Stewart.

"Whoa," Austin said, "this room's bigger than my apartment."

"Where's all the plastic?" Richard asked.

"Colin thinks plastic toys are for peasants."

"What a douche bag," Patrini groaned.

"Mark my words," Richard said, "when the workers revolt, Colin Schaefer will be the first to feel the prick of the pitchfork."

Jacob led them toward the art corner, equipped with an easel and a shelf full of paints.

Richard snatched up a box of finger paints. "This will work nicely."

Turning back to the doorway, Jacob noticed a bookcase on the far wall filled with American Girl dolls, their creepy little eyes glowing in the darkness. He spotted Josephina, the doll he'd given Jen for her birthday. A series of thoughts rolled through his head:

I'm thirty-four.

I'm drunk.

I'm breaking into my niece's house.

So I can ass-paint my stepbrother's study.

I am officially the biggest loser on the planet earth.

Richard edged up beside him. "What is it?"

Jacob studied the doll. The stupid thing had cost him $90 and he had paid another $15 for the colorful fringed wrap hanging from her shoulders; apparently she needed it to stay warm on those cold winter nights in Oaxaca. Beside the doll stood Sombrita, the stuffed goat he had bought for $20. He had felt like an idiot buying it, but had done it anyway because Colin had said that's what Jen really wanted — and who was he to ever say no to Colin? Well, he thought, those days are over, because tonight I will say no to him — with a beautiful print of my ass on his study wall.

"His study," Jacob said. "That's his favorite room."

Jacob led them back through the entry hall and up the stairs. As he passed by the master bedroom, an image of Colin and Annie asleep together flashed in his mind. He forced the thought from his head and continued down the hallway to the study and opened the door.

The jasmine scent of Annie's face cream filled the room. Jacob froze and his knees grew weak. As the Fools slipped past him into the room, he tried to find the source of the smell. He raised his hand to his face and smelled the scented cream. Annie must have touched the doorknob recently. He cupped his hand around his nose and inhaled.

A rush of memories fluttered through his brain: Annie in his Mountain View apartment, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, hair wet from the shower, a towel around her chest, rubbing the cream into her face in tiny circles... Annie sleeping beside him, her arm draped across his chest, the scent of jasmine infusing the air... Annie whispering in his ear that his kisses tasted like the moon... Annie's blond hair fanned out across her back... Annie running her finger down the inside of his leg, his body tingling...

And then came the final memory, the one he was still trying to hide from. They had stopped by her father's house to pick him up for dinner. When he didn't come out right away, Annie ran inside to get him. After waiting a few minutes, Jacob grew anxious and went inside. Downstairs it was quiet and dark. As he climbed the stairs, he called out for Annie. No one answered. At the top of the stairs, he heard the muffled sound of Annie crying inside her father's bedroom. His heart skipped a beat and he ran down the hallway. When he reached the doorway, he froze.

The room was dark except for a pale green glow coming from the alarm clock on the bedside table. George Childress was lying motionless in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Annie was kneeling on the floor, her head resting on the bed beside her father. She looked back at Jacob and said:

"He's dead."

Any other man would have rushed to her side to comfort her, but he stood motionless, his mind seized by the memory of the morning he found his mother dead. By then she was only getting liquids through a tube in her arm, but he still brought the juice every morning because his father still made it and he still liked setting it beside her, hoping that she would emerge from her stupor and smile at him. That morning he set the glass on the table and studied her emaciated face, ghoulish in the darkness. He listened for the sound of her breathing. The room was silent. He edged closer to the bed and leaned over her face so his ear was beneath her nose. He heard and felt nothing. His mother was dead. Without thinking, he climbed into bed beside her. For months he had longed to lay with her, but did not want to be a bother. Now he figured it was okay. He pulled her arms around his chest and gently held her bony hand.

His mother's body hadn't always been so frail. He had seen a wedding photo of her shoving a piece of cake into his father's mouth; her hand had been fleshy and she had been laughing, blissfully unaware of how she would struggle to have kids, of how her first child, a boy named Thomas, would die a week after being born, or of how she would suffer to give birth to him. Jacob knew all this because his father had told him. That was why it was important that he not ask too much of her, " _Because of what she had been through_... _"_

"I'm sorry," he said, squeezing his mother's hand but quickly let go out of fear that he would break a bone and someone would discover what he had done.

For a long time he lay beside her, enjoying the weighty feel of her arm, thinking that's what love felt like. When he heard his father's footsteps in the hallway, he scrambled out of bed. He was about to get back in the chair when he realized his father would notice he had been crying. He grabbed the glass of orange juice and crawled under the bed.

The door swung open, letting in a burst of light, and then it closed. His father stepped up to the edge of the bed. Jacob scrunched his body into the corner and waited. A few seconds passed and then his father let out a sharp exhale, slumped onto the chair, and sobbed.

Jacob had never heard his father cry. It sounded like he was choking and gasping for air all at once. Jacob wanted to crawl to his father and hug him. He wanted to feel the comforting weight of his father's arms wrapped around him. But how could he possibly go to his father when he had caused all his pain?

The guttural rawness of his father's groans was terrifying. The sound gripped Jacob's chest and squeezed the air from his lungs. He clamped his hands over his ears, but his father's grief pounded into his ears, suffocating him.

And then he smelled the rain.

The window must have been open a crack. The moist air of the coming storm was infused with the scent of the greasewood bushes that grew in the desert behind their house. The soft patter of the rain filtered through his father's wails. He focused his mind on the rain and his father's cries faded away. He did not need to feel his father's arms to be happy. All he needed was the rain.

When Jacob finally emerged from the memory, Annie was staring at him, waiting for him to come to her side. Without thinking, he stepped back into the shadows of the hallway, hiding like the Boy Under the Bed, terrified she would finally realize that she wasn't dating the next Bill Gates, but a weak little boy who could scarcely find his way in the world.

"Jacob..." she said, the grief and confusion in her voice seeping into his pores.

He backed down the hallway, stumbled down the stairs, and ran outside. Only when the fresh air hit his lungs, did his fear recede and he realize how completely he had failed the woman he loved.

After that he did his best to avoid her, spending all his time at work and refusing to talk about it. When she finally left him, it was a relief to be free from the look of pain and disappointment that had haunted her face since that day.

Looking back on their relationship, what hurt most was the realization that she had never really loved him: Annie had fallen in love with the idea of Jacob Miller, tech boy-wonder. And he had been more than happy to play along, simultaneously exhilarated and terrified by the adoring sparkle in her eyes that saw him not just as a man, but as a budding tech-titan, so much larger than the tiny, invisible boy that cowered inside his chest. There were times, after making love, when he would watch her sleep, his stomach fluttering at the sight of her beauty and he would long to wake her up and say, "You know, I'm just a guy who knows how to write code, that's all I am." But he never did. And in the end, he didn't have to. Eventually the reality of Jacob Miller shattered her illusion. How could he possibly fault her for ending up with Colin? Colin _was_ that larger than life person she had wanted him to be.

Jacob rested his hand on the doorway to the study. In an instant his anger toward Colin drained away and he said softly to himself, "What am I doing here?"

"Come on," Richard said, pulling him by the arm into the room.

Jacob did not move. He wanted to dissolve into the walls and die.

"Get in here," Patrini said, yanking his arm.

"We shouldn't be here," Jacob said.

"Let's have this conversation in the study," Austin said and dragged him into the room. Patrini closed the door and he slumped into the chair behind Colin's desk.

The room was dark except for the glow of the lights in the valley below. The three Fools swarmed around him.

"This was your idea," Richard said.

Jacob gestured at the view. "David Packard and Bill Hewlett invent an audio oscillator in a garage and give birth to this."

"This," sneered Richard, "and a legion of blood sucking MBAs and econ majors like Colin Schaefer who don't know dick about technology but manage to make millions leeching off the brilliance of others. Now, are we gonna ass-paint or not?"

"No," Jacob said, standing. He walked toward the door, expecting the others to follow. They didn't. "Let's go."

Austin and Patrini walked slowly over to him. Richard remained in the middle of the room holding the box of paints.

"Richard," Jacob said.

Richard glared at Jacob and lifted a bottle of paint from the box. "I don't give a shit what the U.S. Attorney said. Your stepbrother is a slimy, materialistic fuck. If the Feds won't bring him to justice, then I will — or at the very least I'll plaster a print of my ample ass on his wall." With his thumb, he popped open the bottle's spout and squeezed a stream of red paint onto the floor. "All cowards should feel free to leave," he said as he tossed aside the empty container. Then he reached for another one. "Yellow anyone?"

Austin looked sheepishly at Jacob. "I kind of like the color."

"Take it from me," Patrini, said, "nothing beats the feel of wet paint on your ass."

The two of them walked back to Richard.

Jacob stood alone at the door.

"We need a canvas," Richard said, turning around.

"How about the window?" Patrini said.

"Too easy to clean."

"What about the bookcase?" Austin said.

"He won't be able to see the ass shape," Richard said and then his eyes locked on the irritatingly perfect portrait of Colin, Annie, and Jen, smiling in front of her rose garden. "The Stepford pic will do."

"No," Jacob said. "You can't put an ass print on my niece's face."

"Watch me."

Before Richard could act, Jacob crossed the room and hoisted the painting off its hook. Behind him, Austin said, "That's interesting." Jacob glanced back at Austin who was pointing at something on the wall. He set down the painting and looked.

A circular safe rested in the wall.

"Do you know what's in it?" Richard asked.

"Maybe Annie's jewelry," Jacob said.

"Doubt it," Patrini said. "Rich chicks keep that crap in their bedroom."

Richard walked up to the safe and rubbed his gloved hand over the combination dial. "If you were a felonious, embezzling, huckster, where would you hide that information?"

Austin studied the old fashioned lock. "I can hack anything electronic, but I'll need some help with this." To Jacob he said, "Do you know where the security camera feeds are archived?"

Jacob didn't answer.

"Try his desktop," Richard said.

Austin sat behind the computer and tapped the space bar. The screen saver blinked off and the individual feeds appeared. Austin double clicked the image of the study, filling the screen, and then dragged the time bar back several hours. All the Fools hovered around the screen and watched as Austin fast-forwarded through the video. For a long time the study was empty and then Colin entered. A second later the image went black.

"What happened?" Patrini asked.

"He turned the camera off," Austin said.

"Rewind it and slow it down," Patrini said.

"Austin dragged back the cursor to the moment when Colin entered the room and played the video back at normal speed.

"Colin enters," Richard said, narrating, "Locks door, looks out window and feels all-powerful, goes to get a book, realizes he's illiterate and puts book back, sits behind computer, shuts down camera."

The screen went black. Austin stopped the playback. "Who locks the door to their own study?"

"Maybe he was jerking off," Patrini said.

"Or," Richard said, "maybe the greedy swine needed to open his safe."

Jacob felt the dread seep through his veins.

Richard whirled around and faced him. "You know where the combination is."

Jacob sat in the club chair in front of the coffee table.

"Where is it?" Richard asked.

Jacob stared straight ahead. On the table there was a stack of old _Wall Street Journals_ and a few framed photographs, including a picture of him and Colin taken the day Defiance went public. Everything about that day had been surreal: the two of them huddled around the squawk box at Childress Advisors, the head of the syndicate calling out the offering, _"Two million shares to go at thirteen dollars a share,_ " the stock jumping to $52 a share, his head spinning with the knowledge that on paper he was worth $104 million. After they left Childress Advisors, Colin convinced him to splurge on something for himself. At the Stanford Mall he purchased a Ralph Lauren shoulder bag that Annie had liked. When he returned to the office, he couldn't bring himself to get out of the car. The bag's luxuriousness felt so foreign and unnecessary. The thought of carrying it into the building made him blush. So he raced back to the store, returned it, and then spent the rest of the day working with his team of programmers to fine-tune their heuristics module to better determine whether a received electronic message was associated with a desirable business.

Jacob studied the photo. The two of them were eating dinner at Antonio's Nut House, the bar they used to meet at to brainstorm ideas before founding Defiance. Colin's arms were draped over his shoulder and they were both smiling — like brothers.

Richard sat on the edge of the table and spoke softly: "If it's his personal stuff, I won't touch it. But if it's something else..."

Jacob looked at the safe. _You don't want to know what's in there._ He ordered his body to get up and walk away. It refused to obey.

Patrini sat beside Richard. "Jacob, you've always said he didn't do it."

"And if he did?"

"Wouldn't you want to know?"

"Maybe it's better not to know."

"Jacob," Richard said, "willful ignorance is for Republicans, not for anyone with a brain."

Jacob looked to Austin for advice.

Austin smiled sadly. "According to Buddha, three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth."

"Ponder that, grasshopper," Richard said.

"Screw you," Jacob said and pointed at the bookcase. "Colin's decorator bought the collection from an estate sale. He hasn't read a book since college."

Jacob, followed by the other Fools, walked up to the spot on the bookshelf where Colin had been reaching before remembering the camera. "Colin can recall the name of every person he's ever met, but he can't remember his social security number." He gestured at the books. "The combination's in one of those."

The Fools attacked the bookcase, yanking out books and flipping through the pages. A minute later Patrini found the combination.

"Got it," she said, holding a copy of _Moby Dick._

"Well call me Ishmael," Richard growled.

Patrini walked up to the safe. Austin pointed his flashlight at the lock while she turned the combination dial. With each number, Jacob felt the vice constricting around his chest. Patrini turned to the final number and pulled the handle down—

Thunk.

Jacob's heart fluttered into his throat.

Patrini opened the door. "There's a gun in here."

Jacob exhaled. It was only a gun—

"And there's also some kind of book."

Richard went to grab the book, but Patrini stopped him. "Jacob," she said, "whatever is in here, you should see it first."

The other Fools moved to the side, revealing the black hole in the wall. Jacob walked forward, his legs wobbly. Austin aimed the flashlight beam on the safe. The light glinted off a revolver, resting on what looked like an old book. He placed his hand on the gun's handle and slid the book out from beneath it. The Fools huddled around him.

"What is it?" Richard asked.

"It looks like an old mining company ledger," Jacob said flipping it open.

Tucked inside the front cover were three Canadian passports. Richard snatched one and opened it. "Fools, meet Michael Wilde." He held up the photo. It was Colin. "Apparently Mr. Innocent was thinking about running. Gee-whiz, I wonder why?"

Jacob looked down at the closed ledger. Do it fast, he told himself, like you're tearing off a Band-Aid. He flipped through the mining records, the flimsy old paper crinkling as he brushed the pages aside. There's nothing here, he thought, and then his fingers rested on the smooth surface of new paper. On the top of the page, written in Colin's meticulous handwriting, was a single word: Omnicon.

Jacob's mind lurched and a voice hissed through his head:

Colin did it.

"Omnicon," Patrini said, reading over his shoulder. "That was one of the bogus offshore corporations that we licensed code from. The Feds were all over that transaction. Segal's fingerprints were on it, but they couldn't connect it to Colin."

Beneath the company's name were a dozen dated entries tracking a brokerage account balance. The most recent entry had been made that day, a debit for $100,000 leaving a balance of $2,543,456. Jacob turned to the next page.

"TNA Technologies," Austin said, reading the name of the company. "Another one of the transactions the Feds were investigating."

Jacob thumbed through the ledger, page after page documenting Colin's embezzlement. He felt nauseous again, but this time the feeling wasn't confined to his stomach; it had seized his entire body, which suddenly felt cold and clammy. He clutched the ledger to his chest and leaned against the wall. Then he heard the roar of a car engine coming up the driveway.

### Chapter 5

Colin scarcely noticed the minivan parked across the street from _Los Robles_. At the top of the hill there was a make-out spot popular with the kids from the local high school. On the few occasions when it got crowded, his street received some overflow. Turning as he passed the minivan, he drove through the gates, enjoying the view of _Los Robles_. Meacham had suggested he tone down the exterior lightning as a nod to conservation voters, but Colin wasn't ready to give it up. If nobody can see your big, beautiful house, you might as well live in a tear-down in San Carlos.

Normally Colin would have pulled into the garage, but as he rounded the driveway, his headlights washed across the front door — it shimmered, like it was wet. He turned on his high beams. Yellow streaks of what appeared to be egg yolk covered the dark mahogany door.

Colin slammed on the brakes. Blood rushed into his head. He turned off the engine and jumped out of the Bentley, nearly slipping on a mess of eggs splattered across the cobbled stone driveway. He shook the slime from his shoe and studied the front of his house. It was covered with broken eggs, the garlands on the front door glistening with yolk. He looked at the fountain. Egg gunk covered the hand painted Talavera tiles he had purchased in Spain and by the mounds of suds overflowing from the fountain it was clear that the eggs had contaminated the water. He had to restrain himself from storming out to the guesthouse and ordering Marta out of bed to clean up the mess: verbally abusing Marta was a bad idea. Although she was currently on the books, for the first year of her employment, before his conversion to politics, he had neglected to report her income. Now he was paying the price. Marta knew she had him by the _cajones_. Not only was he shelling out $20 an hour, but he was also paying her social security _and_ health care _and_ she had Friday night off. Given his generosity, one would have thought he had earned the right to drag her ass out of bed for some late _noche_ cleaning, but he could not even do that out of fear she might turn on him.

He thought about calling the cops, but if news of the prank leaked, he would look like an ass. Best to handle it himself. Colin stomped up the front steps. His front door was inset with an ornately carved piece of wood salvaged from an old church in Chiapas, Mexico. The sight of the egg crap on this beautiful scene from the Bible — which one he wasn't sure — made his blood boil. He grabbed the doorknob. It was covered in egg slime. He shook the goop from his fingers and stormed inside.

After washing his hands at the kitchen sink, he went upstairs to wake Annie who was much more adept at dealing with Marta. When he reached the landing, he noticed that the door to his study was cracked open. A year ago Jen had crammed a goldfish cracker in his USB port and crashed his computer. Since then he had always made sure to keep the door closed. He walked up to the door and nudged it open.

The painting was sitting on the floor.

The safe was open.

A scream charged up his throat. He clamped his mouth shut and willed his legs to step forward until he reached the safe.

The gun was there.

The ledger was missing.

Still uncertain that it had actually happened, he rested his hand inside the safe and felt the cold steel where the ledger should have been.

The ledger was gone.

Colin's mind reeled with terror as the implications of the stolen ledger pummeled him. Someone could access all his accounts and he was powerless to do anything about it. What was he supposed to do? Travel to every Caribbean bank and ask if he had any deposits with them? The money was gone—and that was the best-case scenario. What if the thief gave the ledger to the Feds? A series of terrifying images flashed through his head: an FBI agent slapping cuffs on his wrists, his lawyers escorting him to the courthouse for arraignment, a trial with a predetermined outcome, and then the prison cell. When the Feds were through with him, the public would think the Enron crooks were choirboys. His chest tightened and his breaths shortened as he struggled to breathe.

Then he remembered the minivan parked in front of his house.

He wheeled around and was about to sprint toward the doorway when his foot came down on something slippery. His legs flew out from under him and his tailbone crashed to the floor. His hand landed in something that looked like paint, but he was moving to fast to care. Without missing a beat, he scrambled to his feet and raced out the door. He ran down the hall, leapt down the stairs — one, two, and then three at a time —burst through the front door, and then reached into his pocket for the car keys. Gone! He had left them on the kitchen counter.

In the distance he heard an engine start. Beyond the gates, the minivan's tail lights glowed. If only he could get a look at the license plate. He sprinted down the driveway and reached the closed gates as the minivan pulled back onto the road. Rather than wait for the gate to open, he jumped onto the electric motor box and heaved himself over the top. His shirt caught a post, which tore into his ribs, but he was moving too fast to register the pain as he dropped to the ground. When he looked up, he saw the red glow of the minivan's brake lights as it rounded the corner.

"No," he screamed and ran down the hill. He turned the corner and caught a glimpse of the minivan as it accelerated around another bend. He stopped and squinted, straining to read the license plate. But before he could make out a single letter, the minivan disappeared around the corner.

Colin took two futile steps down the hill and then stopped and doubled over, panting for air. "Oh, Christ," he groaned. The urge to panic clawed at his chest. He looked around for something to break, which usually settled his nerves. His eyes fixed on his neighbor's fence. Half the wood planks were rotting. Weeds grew rampant along the base. He had sent the owner a dozen certified letters requesting that he repair the eyesore. Obviously the owner had felt free to ignore him.

Colin kicked the cracked plank, breaking it in two. His foot throbbed, which pissed him off even more. He picked up a rock and bashed it into another plank. The center splintered and he moved down the fence, pulverized the rotting wood and busting planks loose. After awhile his arms grew tired and he let the rock slip to the ground. He backed away from the fence, now gaping with holes, and walked back toward his house. Thankfully the fit of destruction had settled his nerves and he knew exactly what to do.

He yanked out his phone and called Meacham. The prick didn't answer so he called again and again and again until finally the fat fuck picked up.

"What?"

"I got a problem."

"A middle of the night kind of problem?"

"More like a get your ass over here right now kind of problem."

"What happened?'

"Someone took something from me."

"Stop talking."

"I want—"

"Shut up, I'm on my way."

Colin pocketed his phone, stepped up to the keypad beside the front gate, and dialed the code. The gates swung open and he walked through, the crushed granite crunching beneath his feet. At the end of the driveway stood his magnificent home. Before beginning construction, he had spent months working with the designer and architect, obsessing over every detail—hinges, tile, plaster, floors, light fixtures, fountains—to make sure that _Los Robles_ stayed true to the mission style. Now, without the money from the offshore accounts, there was no way he could keep _Los Robles_ , or even the Bentley—

Forget the house and the car, he told himself, you'll be lucky to have your freedom. Anger rolled through him. He would find whoever had done this and crush him.

He walked past the fountain and climbed the front steps. Annie stood at the base of the stairs, her scared face illuminated by the porch light coming through the doorway.

"What's going on?" she said.

"Someone egged the house. Probably some pissed off stockholders."

"Should we call the police?" she asked, her voice shaky.

"You didn't hear anything?"

"No."

"Nothing?"

"I was asleep."

"You sure you didn't hear anything?"

She shook her head. "Maybe we should call the police."

"If we do, the press will hear all about this and that's exactly what people like that want — to embarrass me. They can't deal with the fact that I did nothing wrong."

Annie studied him, still worried. Then she noticed the cut on his side. "God, you're bleeding," she said hurrying up to him.

He touched his side and looked at the blood on his fingertips. "I scraped myself climbing over the gate. I was trying to see their license plate."

"Come in the kitchen," she said. "I'll clean it."

"I'm fine," he said, walking past her toward the stairs.

"There's something on your shoe," she said from behind.

He looked down. Red paint covered his suede Ferragamo loafer. His mind flashed back to the memory of slipping on the study floor.

"It's paint," he said and yanked the shoe off his foot. The loafer was ruined. And then he remembered the ledger. The loss of a pair of five hundred dollar shoes was the least of his problems. He hurled the loafer against the wall where it thunked and dropped to the ground, leaving a fist-sized red mark on the plaster.

Annie sucked in a sharp breath.

"Relax," he said. "Someone egged our house. Nothing to freak out about."

"And the paint?" she asked, looking up the stairs. He followed her gaze and saw that he had tracked red paint down the Afghan runner that covered the stairs.

"It's just paint. Have Marta clean it."

"They were upstairs?" she asked, her voice catching.

"Oh, God, Jen," Colin said and dashed up the stairs with Annie following. He reached the landing and ran toward Jen's room. The door was already cracked open and he batted it aside. Jen was sound asleep in her bed, her little breaths filling the room.

Colin let out a sigh of relief as Annie reached his side.

"She's fine," Colin said, closing the door. "She's fine."

"Maybe we should call the police?"

"You want the whole world to know about this?"

"No."

"Good, because I'm not calling the police. Meacham's on his way over."

"Meacham? What does he—"

"He knows how to deal with situations."

"Like this?"

Her gaze shifted past him to the study. "Why is that painting off the wall?"

He spun around. Although the study was dark, he could see the painting resting against the wall. The safe was still hidden in shadow, but any closer and Annie would notice it. "They were probably planning on stealing it," Colin said. "A trophy to post on the Web."

"That's terrible," she said. Curiosity would have driven most people into the study, but not Annie. She had a pathological need to maintain her peace of mind. Anything that might disrupt her harmony, she scrupulously avoided.

"Why don't you go back to bed?" he said. Her eyes lingered on the painting. He moved in front of her, blocking her view, and rested his hands on her shoulders. "Annie," he said, looking into her eyes, "men like me, men who put themselves out in the arena and fight for change, we will always have enemies, petty and jealous souls that would rather tear down than create. I need to know that you understand that."

"I do." She forced herself to smile. "I'll call the carpet cleaners in the morning. And I think Marta has an Uncle or cousin that does exterior house cleaning."

"Thank you," he said and kissed her on the forehead.

"Don't stay up too late," she said and then he watched her walk down the hall and into the bedroom. She did not look back.

Colin waited out front for Meacham to arrive. He stood with his back to _Los Robles_ to avoid seeing the mess of eggs on his front door. He needed to keep his mind clear so he could think. Given the prankish nature of the eggs and paint, whoever had stolen the ledger was probably just a rank amateur who had stumbled across it. How hard could it possibly be to track down this jackass? Meacham would have the creep nailed in a day. Forget Meacham, he thought. The ledger was too important. It was the key to his dreams. It was time to bring in the professional. He wanted pimpmyride8 to handle this.

Meacham's Cadillac turned through the gates and crept down the driveway. The car stopped in front of the fountain and Meacham climbed out. His hair was a mess and he was wearing sweats that were two sizes too small. Colin charged up to him.

"Someone egged your house?" Meacham said, eying an egg on the ground. "This is why you dragged me out of bed?"

Colin planted himself in front of Meacham and said, "I want pimp-my-ride-8's number."

### Chapter 6

Forty-five minutes after speeding away from Colin's house, Austin parked the minivan in front of a small two-story house in San Francisco's Richmond District, the home of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California. After spending the past year sending him anonymous fan mail, Richard had memorized the address.

Jacob sat in the back row, staring at the ledger resting on his lap.

"Even the smallest worm will turn being trodden on," Richard said.

"Thanks for the encouragement."

"Seriously, Jacob," Patrini said, "who's going to miss him? His wife? I doubt it. I hear he's got a tiny wiener."

"He has a daughter," Jacob said.

"So what if her dad goes to prison?" Patrini said. "That's what my father would call a character building experience. And besides, it will make a great personal statement on her college application."

"It's the right thing to do," Austin said.

And it was the right thing to do. By the looks of it, Colin had embezzled well over fifty million dollars that was now worth over a hundred million. Jacob rubbed his fingers over the ledger. All he had to do was walk up the steps, place the ledger on the threshold, ring the doorbell—

And Colin's life would be over.

"Jacob," Richard said, "he's a thief."

"He's also my brother."

Jacob slid open the door. Nobody said a word as he stepped out of the minivan. It had started to drizzle and the fog had rolled in. Christmas decorations covered most of the houses on the block. Two houses down a giant inflatable snowman billowed on the roof. Jacob walked up to the front door and stopped. Christmas lights draped around the door flashed, each pulse straining his eyes.

Ring the damn bell.

And Colin goes to prison. The boy that saved your ass a thousand times, taught you how to throw a football, hit a baseball, shoot a bottle rocket from a soda can, swear like a real kid — that's who you're putting in prison. That's who you're going to hurt.

He looked back at the minivan. All the Fools were watching him. He clutched the ledger, which by now felt like a lead brick in his hands. He wanted to be the kind of person that could hurt Colin and give him what he so richly deserved. You can do this.

But he couldn't. Certainly not to Colin and probably not to anyone. He was awful at doing anything that required him to hurt another person. At Defiance he had never fired a single employee. That always seemed something better left to Colin. Jacob backed down the steps and faced the minivan.

Richard jumped out. "What are you doing?"

Jacob hurried down the sidewalk. Richard caught up and grabbed his arm.

"How many different ways are you going to let him screw you before you do something about it?"

Jacob yanked his arm free and continued down the sidewalk.

"Goddammit, answer me," Richard said.

Jacob kept on walking. Richard ran in front of him and blocked his path. "I want an answer."

"He wasn't always that person."

"Oh please, don't even start with the he's my brother bullshit. So your dad married his mother. So what? So he helped you out. Kept the bullies away. Taught you how to pick out a matching shirt. So what? Kids do what they have to do to survive. Guess what? You're not that kid anymore. You don't owe him shit."

"You weren't there."

"The hell I wasn't. Every geek in the Valley lived through something not all that different from your childhood. And guess what? Colin Schaefer is the enemy. He is everything that is wrong with the Valley. The geeks used to run this asylum and now we've turned it over to the popular kids just because we want to feel cool. You know what jobs guys like Colin should be allowed to do? Sales and marketing and that's it. I wouldn't even let him work in HR. By not sticking it to him, you are perpetuating the tyranny of the cool kids. You are forcing every geek to show up at work and act like all the bad shit that happened in grade school never took place. Now, I want to see you take that ledger and put a stake in that fucker and get on with your life."

"I can't do it."

"Why not?" Richard shouted.

"Keep it down."

"Keep it down? Afraid someone might overhear us and learn that Colin Schaefer is actually the devil?" Richard turned around and bellowed across the street, "Colin Schaefer is a felonious, embezzling, scumbag!"

"You're an ass."

"I'm an ass? This prince of your childhood steals millions from you, marries your girlfriend, and I'm the ass?"

"I can't hurt him."

"Why not?"

"I don't know," Jacob said, trying to keep his emotion in check. "I just want him out of my life. That's all."

"Prison would certainly accomplish that."

"I can't do that."

Richard's face scrunched up as he struggled to hold back his anger. "I just realized what you are," he said. "You, Jacob Miller, are Colin Schaefer's personal inflatable _fuck-me_ doll."

"What the fuck do you know?" Jacob shoved him hard in the chest. "What do you know!"

Richard took a step back. "What do I know? I know that for practically two years I have been wondering when you're going to have the balls to turn one of those brilliant ideas that effortlessly spill out of your mind into a company. But if you can't find it in yourself to put a man in prison that screwed you like Colin did, then I'm done waiting for you. Fools Club adjourned." He turned away, walked back to the minivan, and climbed inside.

Jacob stood by himself and watched the minivan crawl toward him. As it passed by, he looked down to avoid seeing their faces. Then the minivan accelerated around the corner and, except for the fluttering of the snowman, the street was silent.

### Chapter 7

Twenty-two years before she put a bullet in Howard Segal's head and dumped his body in the ocean a mile offshore of Troncones, Mexico, the woman known as Mel was a senior at Cedar Falls High School. Before graduating, Mel, along with all her classmates, took a career aptitude test. Two weeks later, Mr. Drummond, the guidance counselor, summoned her to his office. She sat in a steel chair opposite his desk and fidgeted while he read over her test results. Her heart raced. She was about to discover her destiny.

Would she be a Park Ranger? An accountant? A carpenter? She hadn't a clue. All she knew was that finally someone was going to help her find her way in a world where for as long as she could remember she had felt lost. Her dad was a salesman for Pfizer and was always on the road. Her mother was a June Cleaver type who could only talk about crap like clothes and cooking and celebrity gossip. At home she felt like an alien, but at school her ugliness and gravelly voice made her a freak. The less contact she had with her peers, the better.

Finally Mr. Drummond looked up from her results. "In life," he said, "you get one thing you're good at." He paused and grimaced. "Sweetheart, I'm sorry to tell you, but based on these scores, all you're cut out to be is a First Class W-B-G-T-D."

"What's that?" she asked, keeping her voice soft to hide the roughness.

"You've never heard of a W-B-G-T-D?"

"No."

He tittered to himself and Mel felt sick inside.

"W-B-G-T-D," he said. "Where Boners Go To Die." He grinned, flashing his yellow teeth, and then his mouth opened and laughter poured out.

Mel's face burned with shame and anger. She eyed the cup of pencils on his desk and imagined jabbing their sharpened tips down his throat. Her hand was reaching for the pencils when she stopped herself and raced out of his office. She ditched school and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the mall. Up until that day she had never bothered to enter the record store. All the music she occasionally heard on the radio—George Michael, Tiffany, The Bangles—seemed so stupid and insubstantial. On her way to the video arcade, she happened to notice the clerk in the store — a chubby woman in her thirties with short hair and no-makeup, wearing red Converse high-tops, ripped up 501s, and a plain white t-shirt. Mel liked her style and walked in to get a better look. A song was cranking over the stereo. That's when Mel first heard the voice of her angel.

I got a chrome plated heart...

I got wings on these fingers trying to tear it apart...

The woman's voice was a revelation. Love, desire, and rage crackled through each syllable. If my soul could make music, Mel thought, this is what it would sound like. The voice of the clerk brought her back to Earth.

"Cool, huh?"

"Who is she?"

"Melissa Etheridge—and she rocks hard!"

Mel spent the rest of the afternoon in the record store, listening to the album over and over until she knew all the words by heart. That night she lay in bed whispering the lyrics, each word sending goose bumps over her arms and chills down her spine. For the first time in her life, she did not feel alone.

With the soundtrack for her life discovered, Mel set out to find her purpose. Following graduation, she joined the Army. She had heard they used sophisticated tests to help recruits figure out what they were good at. After completing basic training, she took the tests and ended up working as a data systems clerk until the first Gulf War broke out. A week into the war, she was off-duty listening to albums at a Tower Records when a plain looking man in a gray suit approached her.

As it turned out, she had tested off the charts in the skills needed for assassination work—a preference for working alone, the ability to concentrate for extended periods of time, an indifference to human life, strength and quickness, and a taste for violence—but because of the Army's policy against women in combat, her unique skills had been wasted. Fortunately, with the outbreak of the war, the CIA had gotten their hands on the Army's personnel files and had come calling.

Their interest did not surprise Mel. She had always been a loner and anyone who had attended middle school with her was well aware of her violent streak. The story was legendary. A group of boys led by Peter Stone had dragged her into the bathroom and demanded proof of her girliness. When she refused to lift up her skirt, the boys knocked her to the floor, chanting, " _U-G-L-Y you ain't got no alibi! You're ugly! Oh yeah, you're ugly!"_ A mix of emotions tore through her—shame, hatred, anger—and then she snapped. Jerking her head up, she sunk her teeth into the first thing she saw: Peter's Stone's crotch. Kids swore they heard his howling from as far away as the cafeteria. In a flash the other boys bolted. Peter Stone tried to pull away, but Mel gripped his waist and continued to exact her punishment until she tasted blood. Only then did she release him. He staggered back, shrieking at the sight of his bloody shorts. She stood and stalked toward him. He stumbled back into the stall and flopped onto the toilet. She licked the blood from her lips.

"Who's the girl now?" she asked.

"Me," he blubbered.

"Correct," she said and then quietly walked away.

For five years Mel worked for the CIA, but when her travels to South and Central America began interfering with her ability to see Melissa in concert, she quit and started freelancing. The pay was excellent and she was her own boss, but what pleased her most was being good at something, so good that each time she fired a round into a skull, or stuck a knife into a heart, or snapped a neck, she saw Mr. Drummond's laughing face and imagined herself punching out his teeth and saying, _See, I am good at something._

That evening after arriving at San Francisco International Airport, Mel managed to make it to the Warfield for Melissa's rockin' second set. For an encore, they dimmed the lights and Melissa sang _Bring Me Some Water_ while the crowd held up their cell phones, which cast a phosphorescent glow across a sea of pink bracelets. Mid-way through the song, Mel linked arms with the surrounding fans and sang the lyrics, her brutal voice drowned out by the crowd. It had been the perfect way to end the day.

Her apartment was on the third floor of a five-story walk-up in the heart of the Tenderloin. She had covered every square inch of wall, ceiling, and floor with sound board. This allowed her to blast Melissa over her stereo at ear-drum splitting levels without disturbing the neighbors.

Mel tossed her duffel onto the couch, turned on the stereo, cranked Melissa singing _American Girl_ , and then headed straight for her second bedroom—her training dojo. For the past three days, she had been stuck in Mexico and was anxious to resume her regimen, especially after seeing Melissa in concert, surrounded by all those crazed fans, not to mention the legions of homophobes that would love to see such a life force extinguished. It was only a matter of time until one of them threatened Melissa. It was imperative that Mel be at her side before then. The only problem, however, was that Mel had not yet completed all the training necessary to fulfill her _raison d'être_ :

To Serve as Melissa Etheridge's Personal Bodyguard.

Mel turned on the dojo lights. Full-length mirrors were bolted to all the walls. They were indispensable to her training, allowing her to carefully observe and refine her body positions. To avoid the distraction of her grotesque face, Mel had covered the top section of the mirrors with pictures and posters of Melissa, all taken during the 80s before Melissa went fem. Mel stripped down to her athletic bra and underpants and studied herself, front and back, in the mirrors. She picked a muscle at random.

"Infraspinatus," she said out loud as she flexed her shoulder muscles. She smiled. Although she was not a vain person, she did take pride in her preternatural muscle control. "Latissimus dorsi," she called out and flexed the muscles on her lower back. It was no wonder that all the grapplers at the Jiu-jitsu dojo around the corner had long ago given up sparring with her. She was a machine. A killing machine.

Mel studied the array of weights, punching bags, and weapons. This was the place where her dream was becoming a reality. With her unrelenting training program, she had made tremendous progress, but there was still so much to master. She had only begun practicing with the piano wire, her nunchaku skills needed work, she could only bench press 220 (she had to get that up to at least 300), and her close-in knife work was sloppy. Mel was an experienced contract killer, but being someone's bodyguard was an altogether different job—one that did not permit any weaknesses. She picked up the nunchakus and worked through the positions. Many in her field considered the nunchakus nothing more than a fetish, but Mel knew their value. There would be times, especially during airport travel, when she could not carry a gun or a knife. The ancient weapon was the only dependable option.

After two hours of intense training, Mel stripped off her sweat soaked bra and underpants, collapsed on her bed and surrendered herself to her favorite fantasy. In her mind's eye, she is escorting Melissa through San Francisco International Airport when without warning, a pack of rabid autograph seekers mobs Melissa. She coolly shoves body after body to the side, clearing a path for Melissa. From behind a Cinnabon kiosk, a bearded wacko wearing a John Deere hat lunges with an ice pick. Instantly she jumps between the assailant and Melissa and with the grace of a ballet dancer, she whips out the nunchakus, whacks his hand, and in the time it takes for the ice pick to fall to the ground, she grips his wrist and takes his hand back over his shoulder, dragging him down. Once he is on the ground, she owns him. With her legs, she wraps his head in a Jiu-jitsu head-lock and administers the blood choke, pinching the carotid artery with her knee. A second later, the assailant passes out. For a moment she is tempted to snap the man's neck, but she knows that such an act would upset someone as loving as Melissa. So she scoops up the ice pick, springs to her feet, and quickly ushers Melissa away from the scene. Later that evening, after they safely check-in at the Plaza Hotel, Mel is showering in the adjoining room when through the mist Melissa appears, her eyes flaring with lust. Never has Melissa seen such exquisite musculature on a female body. Before Mel can protest and remind Melissa of her wife and children, Melissa whispers, " _Nobody loves you like the way I do... Nobody wants you like the way I do... Nobody needs you like the way I do,"_ and they fall into a fierce embrace. Melissa's fingers claw into her delts, slide down her rhomboids, and come to a rest on her lats. Then their ravenous lips meet and they devour each other as only soul mates can.

After bringing herself to orgasm, Mel slipped the dildo into her bedside drawer and lay back on her pillow. Her body tingled and her soul glowed with the awareness that her fantasy would soon be a reality. Only a few more months of training and she would be ready to offer Melissa her services.

On the bedside table her phone beeped, indicating she had a text message. She would get to it in the morning. She rolled over and was falling asleep when the phone beeped again and again and again.

"Put the client first," she groaned and checked her phone. The text message read "eight," which meant there was an email in her eighth Hushmail account, pimpmyride8, the one she used to communicate with JohnDoe48. Maybe there was a problem with his payment. She got out of bed and logged into the account. Her in-box showed four messages. After entering her encryption passphrase, she opened the messages:

Need immediate help. Can we meet?

Answer ASAP

Please respond

Must meet tonight

Mel read the words again to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. "Must meet tonight?" Like in person? Was JohnDoe48 insane? Mel did all her work via Hushmail. It was the safest way to conduct business, not to mention it saved her the humiliation of speaking. With an anonymizer on her browser and a few Hushmail accounts running 2048-bit Open PGP encryption, she could communicate without any risk of being traced. Even if for some inexplicable reason law enforcement got a hold of her accounts, all they could subpoena would be her encrypted messages, which were automatically deleted after being read. The risk of her communications ever being monitored was nil. But if she were to meet a client in person, this carefully guarded anonymity and firewall would vanish. She was about to delete the messages when another one arrived:

Lots of $$$$ at the end of rainbow

Out of curiosity, Mel answered via Hushmail's instant messaging:

How much?

A second later the IM answer appeared:

7 figures min

Her breath caught in her throat. With that kind of money she could stop taking jobs, focus exclusively on her bodyguard training, and fast track her dream. The timing could not have been better. Over the last year she had been forced to cut her rates to compete with all the Special Forces operatives retiring after their tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mel gripped the armrests of her desk chair. The idea of meeting a client in person terrified her. Not only was there the obvious risk of a law enforcement trap, but she would actually have to show her face and use her voice. Another IM popped up:

Yes or no?

Her fingers rested on the keyboard and she wondered what Melissa would do. She thought of the young Melissa Etheridge blowing out of Leavenworth, Kansas with nothing but a guitar, some songs, and a dream to make it big in Los Angeles. Melissa never held back on anything. _G_ _o for it_ was practically her anthem. Slowly Mel typed out her reply.

### Chapter 8

Colin stood alone in front of the study window watching for signs of pimpmyride8's arrival. The exterior lights were off and the fog had rolled in. All he could see were the hulking black outlines of the oak trees swaying on the edge of the misty darkness.

He paced, remembering Meacham's last words to him, " _This is all yours now,"_ said with a smirk before driving off. Meacham had given him instructions on how to contact pimpmyride8, but had insisted his involvement end there. Colin would have to solve this problem himself.

He pressed his thumbs to his temples and reminded himself of how easily pimpmyride8 had resolved the Howard Segal issue. Getting the ledger back would not be a problem. He would have it in his hands before sunrise and all this would be forgotten like a bad dream.

Through the fog, a pair of headlights emerged and then flashed three times. Colin buzzed open the gate and then hurried down the stairs. He stepped through the front door and watched a white Astro Van slip out of the mist and come to a stop beside the fountain. Hoping to catch a glimpse of his savior, Colin strained to see inside the van's dark interior. The door opened and the driver climbed out.

That pimpmyride8 was a she came as a surprise, but nothing prepared him for the shock of her appearance. She was short and stocky, her shoulder muscles bulging beneath a leather bomber jacket. With each step, her grotesqueness became more apparent. Her skin was a bloodless gray, her small black eyes flanked a nose that lay flattened against wide set cheeks, and she had no chin, her face melting away into her muscular neck.

_My God,_ he thought, _my savior's a beast._

She stalked toward him like an Olympic weightlifter about to perform a dead lift — on him. He had to force himself to walk up to her.

"You're Pimp-my-ride-8?" he asked.

She stared at him. Her too-still eyes reminded him of a possum's: dark, beady, and unreadable. He had a gift for putting people at ease, but his presence seemed to be having the opposite effect on her. Hoping to win her over, he forced himself to smile and said, "Thank you for coming. What should I call you?"

Her eyes shifted down. "Call me Mel," she mumbled. Her words slurred into each other, coming out as one deep growl that sounded like she had a glob of phlegm in her throat. "What can I do for you?"

Colin told her about the egging and the theft of a "book" from his personal safe, keeping the details of the ledger vague.

"What's in the book?" she asked.

"Does it matter?"

"How should I know?"

"No, it doesn't matter."

"Anyone else know about this book?"

"No."

"Not even your wife?"

"Especially not my wife."

She looked around at the mess of broken eggs. "Somebody doesn't like you."

"Try a few hundred ex-employees and a few thousand former shareholders."

"I'll need their names."

"I'm sure I can find the old personnel files."

Her gaze fixed on a security camera above the front door. "Can I see your surveillance video?"

"They turned it off."

She thought for a few seconds and then grunted. "You said seven figures?"

"An even million for the book."

"What's it look like?"

"It has an old leather cover with the words _Stockton Mining Company_ on it."

"Okay," she said and then walked back to the van.

"Whoa!" he cried out, following her. "That's it?"

She shrugged. "Until I have a lead."

"Can't you find a lead? Isn't that what you do?"

"I'm not a detective. My forensics person will be here in the morning."

"Can't he come tonight? I need this book now."

"She works the night shift."

"Isn't there someone else?"

"No one I know."

"There has to be more we can do."

"Like I said, make a list of everyone who hates you."

Mel climbed in the van.

"That's it?" he asked.

"Don't touch anything until my forensic gal shows up."

"Okay," he said. "In the morning I'll get everyone out of the house. She can take as much time as she needs."

"Good," Mel grunted before slamming the door and staring the engine. The dim light of the dashboard instruments cast a cool glow on her face. She nodded at him and then accelerated around the fountain and drove back down the driveway.

The taillights disappeared into the mist and then the sound of the engine faded until all he could hear was the water bubbling from the fountain. A knot hardened in his chest. This was not how he had imagined his encounter with Mel ending. She was supposed to solve this problem, not drive off into the night.

I'm fucked. Oh, fuck, I am fucked.

He slumped onto the edge of the fountain. He thought about Annie and how nice it would feel to lie beside her and tell her what he had done. But how could he possibly tell her about the ledger? She would never understand. How could she? Annie Dutton Childress was San Francisco royalty. Her grandfather had founded one of California's first banks, which her father had grown into what had once been the state's largest investment bank. Wealth was her birthright. In Annie's world, money was like oxygen, an inexhaustible resource to be consumed without reflection. He would never dream of telling her otherwise. He had to be perfect to deserve her love. He had to be Colin _fucking_ Schaefer, that brilliant comet streaking across the sky that made all the other stars look like specks of dust.

The first drop of rain splashed against his cheek and slithered down his face, sending a chill up his spine. Another drop crashed against the back of his neck. Then the sky opened and blanketed the ground with water. Within seconds his shirt was soaked, its cold weight pressing against his chest. Seeking shelter inside where Annie might see him was not an option. He ran down the side of the house into the backyard. He stopped beneath the magnolia. Its canopy of leaves offered some relief from the rain.

He leaned against the trunk and looked out into the mist. The storm cloud now blanketed the lights of the valley. Only darkness loomed.

He thought about the gun sitting in his safe and imagined how soothing it would feel to press the muzzle to his head. One squeeze of the trigger and all his problems would be solved. No perp walk. No bankruptcy. No courthouse mob scene. No orange jumpsuit. Only peace. Then he had another thought:

_Bef_ _ore I blow my brains out, there'll be another bullet for the bastard that did this to me._

### Chapter 9

It was exactly three thousand six hundred and twenty-two paces from the U.S. Attorney's home to the intersection of Van Ness and California. And Jacob had counted every one of them. It had been the ideal way to keep his mind off the night's events.

As he crossed the street, the drizzle turned into a light rain. He scarcely noticed as he trudged up the hill. By now his legs were tired and unsteady, his mouth and throat parched, and his head ached with a hangover. Only when his hand grew cold did he remember the ledger tucked beneath his arm. He looked at the leather cover speckled by raindrops. He had no idea what to do with it, but he could not let the rain resolve the issue. He tucked it under his coat and continued to walk and count.

After another seven hundred and twenty-one paces he reached his apartment building on the corner of Van Ness and Greenwich. He did not want to stop counting so he took the stairs rather than the elevator. Sixty-two steps later he reached the fifth floor. Twenty-nine more paces down the hallway and he was standing in front of his apartment.

He opened the door and walked into the kitchen. He turned on the faucet, gulped at the water, and then stepped back and looked around the room. Other than the coffee maker it looked exactly the same as when he had rented it. It was supposed to have been temporary, a place to recharge while he came up with another idea for a startup and then moved back to the Valley. Two years later, he was still living in a city he had come to loathe.

He hated the incessant wind that leached all warmth from your body. He hated the endless gray days. He hated how beautiful San Francisco could look from a window, but when you stepped outside the sidewalk had dog shit on it, the air reeked of urine, and the wall next to you was either covered in graffiti or plastered with concert posters. He hated the ubiquitous coffee shops packed with hipsters sipping organic soy lattes fiddling on their iPhones. He hated having to see some 70-year old grandpa in assless leather chaps every time he went to the grocery store. He hated the incessant celebration of quirkiness and normalization of the freakish. And he hated always feeling weird for not being openly weird.

He walked down the hall toward his bedroom. At the doorway to the extra bedroom he used as an office, he stopped and looked inside. The room was dark except for the orange glow coming from the switch on the power strip beneath his desk. Floor to ceiling bookshelves flanked his desk. Each shelf was jammed with books on finance, competitive strategy, accounting, marketing, leadership, negotiation — all the subjects he needed to master in order to start his own company.

On the opposite wall were more bookcases. The shelves sagged under the weight of stacks of notebooks filled with his ideas for aborted business plans. There was the idea for an enterprise wi-fi router that would have given businesses the bandwidth and security they demanded. There was the idea for a silicon based chip that would have used laser light to send data to other chips rather than wire. Then there was his latest idea — the superflow router, essentially combining Cisco and IBM in one box that could handle the massive amount of highly personalized data flowing over the Internet.

"It'll never happen," he said, knowing he would find a way to kill it, just like he had killed all the other ideas. Maybe he would decide that the market for the product wasn't there. Maybe there were already too many competitors in the space. Maybe the engineering was too complex. Maybe there were too many scientific unknowns. But all his excuses were total bullshit. The truth was he was terrified of being _the guy_ out in front, the man leading the charge into the unknown.

With Defiance, Colin had been that guy. Colin had pushed to meet with the VCs despite Jacob's concerns about actually being able to deliver an enterprise-ready product. In the weeks leading up to the IPO, the bankers had wanted Jacob to take part in the road show. Who better to tell an audience of prospective investors about Defiance's technology than the inventor? But when it came time to rehearsing the pitch, he froze. They brought in a speaking coach to help him master his fear, but he was hopeless. Ultimately, the bankers left him behind and Colin did the road show without him. How Colin Schaefer, the kid who barely passed high school physics, managed to discuss Defiance's technology was still a mystery to Jacob. But ignorance did not stop Colin from setting the market on fire with excitement for the IPO. The stock price tripled on the first day of trading.

Jacob's eyes wandered over the graveyard of books and business plans. Who had he been kidding? He was a back room kind of guy.

He left the study and entered his bedroom. He tossed the ledger on the dresser and sat on his bed. Other than the digital clock on the bedside table, the ledger was the only object in the bedroom. Keep your shit to a minimum. That's the way he liked it. Before purchasing anything, he would agonize for weeks over whether he actually needed it. Invariably the answer was no. Life was simpler that way.

Staring at the ledger, all he could think about was his failure to give it to the U.S. Attorney. Like his trash heap of ideas, it was yet another reminder of his inability to do anything that took courage. After all these years, he was still that boy who had let Reed Higgins grind an orange on his face and spit down his throat.

He looked out his window at the Comfort Inn that blocked part of his view. Beyond it the lights of the city continued for a few blocks before abruptly ending at the Bay. Deep within that misty darkness, the white light on Alcatraz glowed.

He tried to recall the Latin word for mist. As a kid he knew those words like the alphabet — _cirrus uncinus, cirrostratus, cirrocumulus undulatus, altocumulus, altostratus translucidus —_ but his sluggish mind could not produce the word for mist. An unsettling thought occurred to him. Virtually all great mathematicians — Newton, Euler, Gauss, to name only a few — did their finest work in their twenties. And you would be hard pressed to find a successful startup with a founder over thirty. Maybe Defiance had been his one shot at brilliance. Maybe his career was already over. He lay back on the mattress and stared at the dark ceiling. He tried to remember the Latin word for mist. Anything not to think about his life.

### Chapter 10

Colin was in an Ambien-induced stupor when he felt the tiny finger poke into his side. He groaned and prayed for the disturbance to go away. The poking continued.

"Daddy," Jen said.

He did not have the energy to face her. "It's early, go back to bed."

"Barney laid egg."

"Barney's a boy, he can't lay an egg."

"He did," she said, her voice rising with excitement.

"That's great. Go tell Mommy that miracles really happen."

"Come, Daddy," she said, grabbing his hand. He could either follow or risk the wrath of a two-year old. He slid out of bed and allowed her to drag him into her room.

"See!" she said pointing at her bed.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked.

No shit. Barney _had_ laid an egg.

The chubby purple dino with that big goofy grin was sitting on Jen's bed holding a brown egg. Colin looked back through her open door and out into the entry hall. The roof of the entry had been designed to invoke the bell tower of a Spanish mission. The small window at the peak of the spire was open. Last week he had told Marta to get a ladder and close it. As usual she had ignored him, no doubt too busy downloading another idiotic ring tone.

He studied the egg. Had it landed a few inches to the left, it would have hit Jen in the head. He would seriously hurt whoever had done this. He picked up the egg and headed out of the room.

"What are you doing?" Jen asked, following him down the stairs.

"Throwing it out."

"No, Daddy. No! No!"

"Why not?"

"I want to see dinosaur hatch."

He couldn't help but smile a little. Clearly his daughter possessed the Schaefer gene for grandiose dreams. He felt more than a little guilty about bursting her bubble. He squatted in front of her and brushed aside the strand of hair resting on her cheek. "It's a chicken egg, sweetheart. There's no dinosaur in it."

"How'd it get on my pillow?"

What was he supposed to say? _Some asshole chucked it at our house?_ "I guess Barney must have laid it," he said and kissed her on the forehead.

He entered the kitchen, walked up to the sink, and held the egg over the disposal. Jen looked at him, her mouth turned down, on the verge of tears.

"I wanna see it hatch," she whined.

He couldn't stomach the thought of breaking her heart. He set the egg on the counter. That afternoon he would toss it and blame Marta.

"Make it warm," she said.

"You want me to sit on it?"

She scowled at him. "How about a light, like at school?"

"It's called an incubator," Colin said as he placed the egg in a cereal bowl. Then he flicked on the desk light and slid the egg under it. Jen stepped up to the desk, her eyes inches from the egg.

"See it hatch," she said.

"You do that," he said and opened the freezer. What happened to the ice cream? Then he remembered throwing it out yesterday. Yesterday, when his bulging gut had been his biggest concern. Behind him Jen said, "It's dirty."

"Then clean it," he said, starting the coffee maker. He watched in wonder as it automatically measured the beans and ground them. Fresh Kona coffee, bet they don't serve that in prison.

He looked out the window. A cloud of mist enveloped the massive cedar play structure that sprawled across the side lawn. On a clear day you could see a hedge behind it. Today it lay hidden behind the ashy vapors of the cloud. His mind wandered and he thought about how this would be the perfect site on which to build the stables in a few years. He pictured how magnificent Jen would look in her brown riding boots, khaki breeches, and black velvet helmet. How his mother would have adored her. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jen wet a wash cloth.

"Jenny, what are you doing?"

"Cleaning."

"What's on it?"

"Gunk."

He was about to let her proceed, but then thought better of letting his daughter handle an egg that had been left behind by a bunch of hoodlums. For all he knew the thing could be explosive. He took the washcloth from her hand.

"I'll do it," he said and inspected the egg for the gunk.

There was not a speck of gunk on it.

Only a beautiful fingerprint, memorialized in dried egg yolk.

### Chapter 11

Mel pulled into the parking lot of the elementary school. Because it was Saturday morning, the place was deserted—just like she had told the Senator it would be. Normally she would have been cranking Melissa over her Astro Van's punked-out stereo system, but at that moment she needed the silence to think and steady her amped-up nerves. Last night after leaving the Schaefer residence, she had returned to her apartment and researched him on the Web. After a few Google searches, she had a pretty good guess as to why Howard Segal was lying dead at the bottom of Manzanillo Bay. Segal likely had some dirt on Colin Schaefer who seemed well on his way to becoming Senator Schaefer. As for the "book" the good Senator had lost, Mel had a feeling it was related to Segal's embezzlement scheme.

ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS!

That's what the news articles said Segal had embezzled. If the Senator's missing "book" were linked to that, he would pay anything to get it back. She felt a little unprofessional over the prospect of rescinding her agreement to do the job for a million, but the more money she could squeeze from the Senator, the more freedom she would have to pursue her dream. With Melissa Etheridge's personal safety at stake, client loyalty would have to take a backseat.

A Ford Fusion turned into the parking lot. She could see the Senator behind the wheel. He circled around her van and parked so that his window was opposite hers. She rolled down her window and he followed suit. Up close she could see the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. Even exhausted he was still one of the finest looking men she had ever seen. God how she loathed him. The perfect triangle nose. The square jaw. The thick sandy blond hair. The flawless athletic build. He had won the DNA lottery. If she ever had the opportunity to shoot him, she would make sure to use a high caliber round to maximize the damage to his face.

He hoisted a backpack. "The egg's in here."

She nodded, preferring not to speak, and took the bag.

"How long will this take?" he asked.

Mel set the bag on the seat beside her. "Depends," she said, cringing at the sound of her voice, "on the print quality."

"I can see it clearly," he said, his voice jittery.

"Just hope there's a match in the database."

"I have to think anyone who breaks into someone's home has a criminal record."

She could have left it at that, but she wanted to confirm her suspicions about the contents of the "book" so she said, "There's an extra charge for the forensic work."

"Fine, whatever."

"Payment is at time of service—fifty thousand."

"Now?"

"Now."

"Let me get my wallet," he said and waited for her to laugh.

She didn't.

"That was a joke," he said. "You think I carry that kind of cash in my wallet?"

"I'll advance it."

"I'm glad we've developed some trust."

"We haven't. You'll need to wire it to me this afternoon."

He grimaced. "I can't do that."

"Is there a problem?

"My bank's closed on Saturday."

Mel had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing at his horseshit excuse. Last night she had received his wire transfer for the Segal job, but now he was claiming he couldn't wire fifty grand. What a difference a day, or in the Senator's case, a missing book makes.

"Wire it on Monday," she said, and then pulled a pink phone out of her pocket and handed it to him. "The phone is prepaid, I'll call when I have something."

"They didn't have any other colors?"

"The pink ones support breast cancer research."

"Can you claim it as a deduction?" he said, trying to charm her. Like she could give a shit.

"One more thing," she said, "when I call, my voice will be digitally altered."

"When should I expect to hear from you?"

"When the phone rings." Mel put the van in gear and pulled away.

She turned onto 19th Street and glanced into the rearview mirror to make sure the Senator was not following her. Then she pulled over to the curb. Her hands shook violently as she unzipped the backpack and looked inside. Even in the dim light she could see the print on the eggshell.

"Please, God, let there be a match," Mel said and then giggled like a schoolgirl. She looked around to make sure no one had noticed. Recovering the ledger was practically a blank check. She could ask for a hundred million and the Senator would have no choice but to pay up. With that kind of money she could buy her way onto all the boards Melissa served on. By the end of the month she could be rubbing elbows with Melissa at the annual meeting of the Pink Bracelet Fund. They would be together in the same room! Somehow she would steer the conversation to a discussion of Melissa's personal security.

What's a nunchaku?

You mean your bodyguard doesn't carry a set?

I'm shocked.

Why, yes, I am an expert.

My background?

Oh, that's a long story, most of which I'm not at liberty to discuss.

Yes, I am exceptionally capable.

Perhaps we can meet later and I can demonstrate my skills.

Tonight? I'll be there.

Mel cranked the stereo and Melissa blared from the speakers: _It's only fear that makes you run, the demons that you're hiding from!_ Mel opened her mouth and belted out the words: "When all your promises are gone! I'm the only one!"

As her joyous voice shook the inside of the van, she prayed to God — who was without a doubt an Etheridge fan — that her contact at the Oakland Police Department would find a fingerprint match.

### Chapter 12

In Jacob's dream, Colin and Annie are lying naked beneath him making love. Their intertwined bodies move rhythmically while he gapes down at them. Annie's ecstatic moans rip at his heart. He screams at her, unintelligible words thundering out of his mouth. Somewhere in the room a child is crying. Is it Jen? Suddenly, Annie grabs his arm and pulls him toward her naked body. Colin whispers in his ear, "Merry Christmas." Jacob yanks his arm back and yells, "No!"

Jacob jerked awake, his shout catching in his mouth. Richard was sitting on the edge of the bed, shaking his shoulder. A screaming Baby Che was strapped to his chest in a Snugli. Each wail sent a wave of pain through his hungover brain. Richard retrieved a pacifier from his pocket and jammed it in Baby Che's mouth.

Jacob rubbed his temples and tried to massage some life into his cottony brain. The light in the room was gray and dim. Outside he could hear the sound of the rain falling in the street. As his head cleared, the rage that had infused his dream slipped away.

"You awake?" Richard asked.

"I didn't realize inflatable fuck-me dolls actually slept."

"Ouch," Richard said. "I guess that was kind of harsh. My apologies."

"Apology accepted. How did you get in?"

"Some dumbass—meaning you—left the door unlocked."

"Where's Dina?"

"Who?" Richard said, peering suspiciously out the window.

"Dina, your wife, the one sane adult in your house."

"She's with Asher at his soccer game."

"Soccer? Isn't that kind of bourgeois for you?"

"It was the kid's idea. Asher doesn't let me go to the games anymore. He said I was alienating the other parents. Can you believe that? He used the word alienating properly."

"You must be proud."

Richard's eyes darted around the room. "Where's the ledger?"

"I'm not changing my mind."

"Where is it?"

"Relax," Jacob said, nodding at the ledger on the dresser.

Richard scampered over to it. When he bent over to grab it, the pacifier plopped out of Baby Che's mouth and his scream shook the room. Richard grabbed the ledger and shouted over the baby's shrieks, "Thank God! I was convinced Colin had contracted with those Blackwater Security lunatics to retrieve it. Be happy I didn't find you with a hole in your head!"

"Remember," Jacob said, "he doesn't know we have it."

"Wake up fool!" Richard produced another pacifier and jammed it in Baby Che's mouth. "Colin is part of the cabal. You don't think a rich corporate tool like him could pay off the Carlyle Group to work some magic at the NSA? They're probably already analyzing their satellite images, looking for my minivan, enlarging my license plate—" He stopped speaking and his eyes widened with fear. "What if they found fingerprints?"

"We wore gloves."

"Not when we handled the eggs. I'm sure he has a team of forensic techs assembling shells as we speak."

"And what if he did? Your fingerprints aren't on file."

"Wrong! Remember freshman year, the Western Civilization protest."

"How could I forget — hey-hey, ho-ho, teaching dead white men has got to go?"

"You mock, but the cause was righteous."

Jacob studied Richard's face. His eyes were puffy, but there were no obvious signs of insanity. Jacob stared up at the ceiling. "Now that you've confirmed the ledger is safe, can I go back to sleep?"

"Screw the ledger. This is about you."

"Me? Don't you mean that spineless guy that you berated last night?"

"I was inebriated, you fool." Richard yanked the comforter off his body. "Get up and get dressed. I want to show you something."

Jacob rolled over and closed his eyes.

"Fine," Richard grumbled. "You've left me with no choice." A second later Jacob heard the pop of the pacifier being plucked from Baby Che's mouth followed by the wail, inches from his head.

Ten minutes later they were in Richard's minivan heading south on the 101 Freeway, Baby Che asleep in the car seat behind them. It was raining hard and the windshield wipers squeaked furiously across the glass. By now the Advil had kicked in and the vice on his brain had loosened. He sat quietly, listening to the tires of the speeding cars hiss across the rain-drenched concrete. Richard broke the silence.

"You should ask Patrini out."

"Out? Like a date out?"

"Yes, you imbecile. She's had a thing for you for years."

"Patrini?"

"Why on Earth do you think she hangs out with us losers?"

"She likes mocking us?"

"No, scab. It's because she likes you."

"Patrini?"

"Stop saying her name and just ask her out."

"She's taller than me. That would be weird."

"Of, for fucksake, I give up." Richard turned away and looked out the windshield.

Jacob pushed out a breath and tried to process this new information. Patrini was definitely smart, and attractive, and funny, but after watching him flounder for the past few years how could she possibly be interested in him? It didn't make any sense.

They passed Candlestick Park; to the east the San Francisco Bay stretched out like a sheet of lead. When they reached Oyster Point, Richard guided the minivan onto the Grand Avenue off ramp. Jacob knew exactly where they were heading: Defiance's old headquarters.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"All will be revealed anon," Richard said pulling up to the stoplight.

He turned onto Haskin's Way. At the end of the road, the twelve story building lay shrouded in mist. Before the crash, the building had glowed at all hours. Now it sat vacant, caught in a lawsuit between dueling creditors.

Richard drove through the parking lot, covered with puddles rather than cars. He stopped in front of the building that towered above them like a black tombstone. A padlocked chain was wrapped around the front door handles.

"Come on," Richard said, climbing out of the minivan.

Jacob remained inside.

Richard scowled at him. "Get out!"

Jacob stepped out and slammed the door. "This is what you dragged me out of bed for? To rub my face in my failure?" In the distance he heard the familiar rumble of Fang's V-8. He looked back and saw the car racing across the parking lot. Austin's bike was strapped to the roof.

"What's going on?"

"How poor are they who have not patience."

"Enough with the Bard."

Fang pulled up alongside the minivan. Patrini and Austin climbed out. He was wearing a rain suit made out of recycled Tyvek and she had on an ankle-length brown duster. Knowing she might have a "thing" for him made him feel incredibly awkward and self-conscious. All he wanted was to crawl back in bed and sleep forever.

"I thought the Fools Club had disbanded," he said.

"Wrong," Patrini said and gestured at Richard. "Dumbass doesn't have that authority."

"Patrini's right," Austin said. "Only the King of Fools can do that."

Richard stepped up to Jacob's side and pointed at the building. "Look at it."

"I know what it looks like," Jacob said, keeping his back to the building.

"Tell me you don't miss it," Austin said.

Jacob stared down at the wet asphalt. During Defiance's first year, he had unsuccessfully tried to be directly involved in every project. Over time, however, he developed a pattern that worked. During the day he roamed around his team of engineers and programmers, serving as a sounding-board, problem solver, and motivator. Only at night did he return to his cubicle to do his deep thinking. Before the collapse, his division had over two hundred employees working feverishly on a portfolio of projects. It had been the most exhilarating experience of his life.

"I failed," he said.

"So what?" Richard snorted dismissively. "Ever heard of Next Computer?"

"I'm hardly the next Steve Jobs," Jacob said.

"Zounds!" Richard screamed. "You were a king, Jacob." Richard pointed at the building. "And that was your empire and don't give me this shit about how you don't miss it because I was with you your last day. I watched you pack up the crap on your desk and walk out those doors. I saw your face. You want to know what you looked like? Like you'd died."

"Jacob," Patrini said, her voice devoid of its usual sarcasm. "You're good at this. This is what you should be doing with your life."

"My dissertation advisor's now at MIT," Jacob said. "He always said I could go out to Cambridge and finish."

"What's there to finish?" Richard asked in disbelief.

"I never published my research."

"You have twelve patents with your name on top," Austin said.

"Publishing is just a formality to get the degree."

"And then what?" Austin asked.

"I'm thinking about academia."

Jacob shifted uncomfortably and waited for someone to speak. But they just stared at him as if he'd told them they would be spending the rest of their lives working at Microsoft. So much for letting them down gently. "Thanks for the pep talk," he said. "But there are guys that start companies — the problem is, I'm not one of them. You were right, the Fools Club is dead."

Jacob walked back to the minivan and climbed inside. A few seconds passed and then Fang's engine rumbled to life and faded as the car drove across the parking lot.

Richard climbed in and glared at him. "What about the ledger?"

"I'm going to tell him about it. Today."

"You're _what_?"

All morning the idea had been percolating in the back of his head. Now he was certain he had to tell Colin.

"I'm having dim sum with him and Annie today. I'll tell him then."

"So how's that gonna work? Between bites of _shumai_ you casually mention that you egged his house, found the ledger, and now know he's a thieving, evil bastard?"

"Something like that. I can't send him to prison, but I can look him in the eye and say I have the ledger. I want him to know that I know who he is."

"Oh, that'll teach him to behave."

"All my life I've felt indebted to him. Now we'll be even."

"Let me get this straight. Just because he stopped the dickheads in high school from giving you a daily wedgie, you're gonna let him get away with stealing over a hundred million dollars from your company, not to mention that part about him marrying your girlfriend."

"I doubt she'll stay with him once she knows."

"Unbelievable," Richard said. "You still think you can get her back?"

"No," Jacob said, "but before I head back East, I want to know he doesn't have her in his life."

"And the ledger? He's going to want it back."

"So?"

"My God, how naive are you?"

"What? You think he'll try to hurt me?"

"For a hundred million? Yeah, I think the thought might cross his mind. We're not dealing with a good person here."

"I'll put it in my safe deposit box. Happy now?"

"No," Richard said, shaking his head. "I'm not happy. Not at all."

They sat in silence, Richard's disappointment filling the car. Finally Jacob spoke:

"Can you please take me back to my apartment?"

"Gladly." Richard started the engine, jerked the gearshift down, and floored the gas.

### Chapter 13

Colin parked the Ford in the lot next to the Lichee Garden and practically danced out of the car. Not only was he about to eat some of the best dim sum outside of Hong Kong, but what had seemed like the mother of all train wrecks was looking like a tiny bump in the road. Once again he was giddy about the future and it was all because of the egg. That beautiful, beautiful egg. The odds of that egg flying through the open window, passing through the crack in Jen's door, and landing safely in Barney's arms, had to be a million to one. Now add the perfect fingerprint to the shell and the odds skyrocketed. A geek like Jacob would have racked his brain to figure out those odds and missed the big picture: Such a ridiculously improbable act did not happen without divine intervention. Yes, God had important plans for Colin Schaefer. Not a chance the Big Man was about to let some pranksters screw them up.

He handed the attendant his keys and took the claim ticket. It was raining so he opened his umbrella and hurried down Broadway toward Powell Street. He tried to remember the quote Annie had taped to the fridge. _Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul._ Well screw hope. He had the egg. He had Mel. And now he had God on his team. He could practically feel the ledger in hands.

He turned onto Powell Street and jogged up to the restaurant. The smell of Chinese food wafted out the front door. Food nirvana awaited. Through the window he saw Jacob sitting by himself, shoulders hunched, head down. He looked like he was brooding over something, which didn't surprise Colin. All those anxieties bouncing around the poor kid's brain had a way of squeezing out all the joy.

Colin entered the restaurant. The place was packed for Saturday lunch. Servers in maroon aprons hurried around the room carrying trays stacked with dim sum dishes. Large Chinese families filled the tables, each one with at least three generations. Colin's mind flashed forward fifty years and he saw him and Annie gathered around a table with their four beautiful children and a few dozen grandkids. His heart fluttered with joy and he felt even more confident than ever that all would soon be right.

In the far corner he saw the _San Francisco Chronicle_ reporter that Meacham had tipped off. All Colin needed was a blurb in the newspaper about how he and Jacob had been spotted having lunch and looked to be getting along. That would squash all the rumors about the cold war between them.

Colin made his way over to the table. Jacob slowly rose to meet him and was offering his hand to shake. Before Jacob could complete his chilly reception, Colin wrapped him up in a bear hug and patted his back.

"It's great to see you," Colin said, which was the truth. He genuinely liked Jacob, even if Jacob's way of dealing with his marriage to Annie had been to withdraw. Eventually he would get over it. Colin gave Jacob one last pat on the back before releasing him and sitting down.

"Where's Annie?" Jacob asked.

"Last night some assholes egged _Los Robles_. Annie wanted to make sure the mess got cleaned up." Colin could see the disappointment on Jacob's face. Pathetic. Even though she had left him years ago, he still acted like it had happened last week. "She told me to say hi," Colin added, hoping to cheer him up.

Jacob continued to sit quietly, infecting the room with his negative energy. The kid could be such a downer. Colin needed to get Jacob thinking about something else, otherwise the reporter was likely to think things were still strained between them. Thankfully a server plopped a tray of dim sum on their table and then rattled off their choices in unintelligible English. Colin picked the shrimp rolls and Jacob opted for some nasty looking egg noodle thing. Colin was reaching for his chopsticks when Jacob's phone rang.

"You gonna get that?" Colin asked after the third ring.

"It's not mine."

Colin listened to the ring. It was the Mel phone. He snatched it out of his jacket pocket and fumbled the pink phone onto the table.

"Pink?" Jacob said. "It's a good look for you."

"Just doing what I can to support breast cancer research," Colin said and then answered. "Hang on," he said into the phone, and then cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and said to Jacob, "Sorry, but I have to take this." He hurried away from the table, turned down a hallway, and slipped into the bathroom. After locking the door, he peeked under the stall to make sure it was empty.

"You still there?" Colin asked.

"Richard Volokh," Mel said, her digitally altered voice sounding like a stalker from a horror movie. "You know him?"

Colin's hand curled around the phone. "Yeah, he used to work for me."

"The print on the egg was a perfect match. In college he was arrested by the Stanford police and fingerprinted for—"

"I know. He and a bunch of other lefties broke into the President's office. He was my stepbrother's roommate."

"I'm parked outside his house now," Mel said. "He's alone inside."

"Then why are you still talking to me?" Colin said, barely able to keep himself from screaming into the phone. "Go get my book."

"It's not that easy," she said. "I don't have a lot of expertise in breaking and entering. I suggest we wait until it's dark."

"Until dark?" Colin seethed. Every second that ledger was not in his hands was a second that Richard Volokh's patchouli smelling hands were all over his ledger, likely showing it to the Feds or wire transferring his fortune into the bank accounts of the Green Party. "Listen closely," he said. "I need that book. Not tonight. But right fucking now."

"It's the middle of the day, sir. It could get messy."

"Then get messy! I don't care what you do. Kick down Volokh's door. Knee him in the balls. Waterboard the pacifist motherfucker. Just get me my book back. Got it?"

"I'll call when I have it."

Colin shoved the phone in his pocket. Richard Fucking Volokh. Richard and Jacob were best friends. _Christ, Jacob, if you had anything to do with this..._

Colin gripped both sides of the sink and struggled to rip it free _._ His arms shook violently. The caulking at the back of the sink began to pull away from the wall. He stopped himself and stepped back. A busted sink was a mess he did not want to deal with. He studied himself in the mirror. His jaw was clenched and his face flushed. If he confronted Jacob in the restaurant there would be a scene, which he did not want the reporter to see. Not to mention Jacob might warn Richard and jeopardize Mel's retrieval operation. Colin turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on his face. Then he stepped back and took a series of deep, calming breaths, the heat of his anger subsiding a bit. He smiled at himself and forced his face to relax. He smiled again. Better.

He was ready to deal with Jacob.

### Chapter 14

"Fuck," Mel said and pounded the van's dashboard. This was definitely not how she did business. Her operations always relied on exhaustive planning and meticulous execution. Now she was supposed to go fetch in broad daylight without anything resembling a plan. She was a contract killer, not an errand boy.

She looked across the street at Richard Volokh's small Victorian home. With her laser microphone, she had probed all the rooms and confirmed he was alone. Now she had to figure out a way inside to retrieve the book. She could probably kick down the front door, but with the constant flow of cars on the street the risk was high that she would be seen. However, if she could get him to open the door, then there were over a hundred Jiu-jitsu holds she could perform that would incapacitate him in seconds. After that it was just a matter of searching the house until she found the book. Piece of cake.

"Pink Bracelet Fund, here I come," she said and opened her glove compartment. She fished out her fake detective shield that she used to get backstage at Etheridge concerts, pulled on a pair of leather gloves, lowered the baseball cap over her face, and stepped out of the van into the rain.

She waited for a break in traffic and then jogged across the street. As she approached the house, she went through her options on how best to immobilize her target. Chances were good that once he ushered her inside, he would turn his back to close the door. That would be the optimal time to attack. The rear naked choke was the simplest blood choke, but because of her height it could be difficult to perform on someone significantly taller. If that were the case, she would take him down to the floor and incapacitate him with a variant of the triangle choke. Or, just screw the Jiu-jitsu and bash the motherfucker's head into the door and be done with it.

She walked up the front steps. Thankfully the windows were closed, which would muffle any sounds of struggle. On the front door was an old "Quagmire Accomplished" bumper sticker alongside a new "Afghanistan=Vietnam" sticker. She relaxed a bit. The fact that Volokh was a peacenik dramatically reduced the odds that he kept a 12 gauge in the house. She knocked and a few seconds later heard footsteps.

"Who is it?" he asked, his voice muffled by the door.

She held up her badge to the peephole. "I'm Detective Winston from the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office," she said, trying to sound authoritative. "Can I ask you a few questions?"

"Questions about what?"

"Last night there was some vandalism in Woodside. Your car was seen in the area." She waited for the door to open. "Sir, would you mind opening the door?"

"Bring me a warrant and I'll open the door."

She bit her lip, trying to control her irritation. "Sir, you have to open the door."

"I have to? Last time I checked you needed a warrant to make me do that. Or have Scalia and Thomas so thoroughly crapped all over the Constitution that you feel free to kick down my door?"

With a single kick she could send the door flying back into his face and knock him out cold. But as badly as she wanted to hurt the mouthy hippie, the risk was too great of her being noticed.

"Sir, please open the door," she said.

"May I suggest you read the Constitution? There's a little provision there called the Fourth Amendment. I'm quoting now: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."

Mel clenched her teeth. God how she wanted to draw her Colt and start blasting away at the front door. After the first two shots, the hole would be plenty large enough to empty the remaining rounds into Mr. Constitution's big fat mouth.

"Suit yourself, I'll be back with your warrant," she said, and then stormed down the steps and hurried back toward the Astro Van. If she wanted to retrieve the book, she would have to break into Mr. Constitution's home—with virtually no advance planning. This was no way to run an operation. Get in the van and drive away, she told herself. Melissa can wait a little bit longer. With this thought, Melissa's aching voice screamed through her head:

I would stand inside my hell and hold the hand of death.

You don't know how far I'd go to ease this precious ache.

You don't know how much I'd give or how much I can take.

Just to reach you!

Melissa would brave hell and death to reach her love and yet Mel was afraid to break into some hippie's house to get a book that could launch her dream.

"You're a spineless worm," Mel said to herself. "You're a worm!"

She climbed in the van and accelerated down the street. At the intersection, she made a hard left. The tires skidded on the wet asphalt and the van shot forward. In the middle of the block, she spotted the alley entrance and turned into it. She slowed and cruised down the alley until she spotted the back of Volokh's home. A peace flag draped over the upstairs balcony flapped in the wind. She parked and climbed into the back of the van. Working quickly, she tore off her raincoat, replaced it with a yellow slicker emblazoned with a Comcast logo, strapped a tool belt to her waist, and put on a hard hat. Then she lifted the lid off the compartment hidden in the floor. A dozen different rifles and pistols rested inside. She traded her Colt for the Amphibian, a silenced pistol manufactured by AWC. It was a factory modified Ruger Mark II with an integral suppressor built around the barrel. Not only was the weapon virtually silent, but its long, sleek black barrel was utterly terrifying. To the unfortunate soul who had the shitty luck of staring into the muzzle, it said: _All I am good for is killing people._ If the grim reaper were ever to ditch his scythe and carry a gun, it would be the Amphibian.

Mel yanked back the cocking slide, chambering a round, and then slid the gun inside her jacket. "Come to my window!" she sang. "I'll be coming home soon." Then she climbed out of the van and approached the back of the house.

### Chapter 15

Jacob sat alone at the table, watching the rice noodle rolls on his plate grow cold. The jiggly white surface reminded him of gelatinized mucus. He had only picked them because he had been too stunned after Annie's no-show to think straight. Since telling Richard about his intention to confront Colin, he had been eagerly anticipating seeing the look of horror on Annie's face when he broke the news to her.

Jacob's phone rang and pulled him out his thoughts. By the Grateful Dead ringtone, he knew it was Richard, probably calling to see what had happened. Jacob silenced the ring and sent the call to voice mail. A second later his phone beeped to indicate he had a text message. He opened the message:

!!!CL ME A-FUCK'N-SAP!!!!

Jacob debated whether to call him back. He was in no mood to hear Richard abuse him. Again the phone rang. On the third ring Jacob answered.

"Have you told him?" Richard asked, his voice nervous.

"What?" Jacob said, turning up the volume to hear over the din of diners speaking in Cantonese and Mandarin.

"Does Colin know about the ledger?"

"No," Jacob said. He scanned the restaurant for Colin who was still in the bathroom. "I haven't said a thing."

"Well I'm telling you he knows and he sent some she-goon-hobbit to my house who claimed to be a detective."

"Maybe a neighbor got your license plate."

"Or maybe your evil stepbrother hired someone to get his ledger back. You tell me what's more likely."

"What are you doing now?"

"I'm defrosting Dina's breast milk. Once I have Baby Che's bottle ready we are getting the hell out of here before the she-hobbit returns."

"She said she was coming back?"

"Wake the fuck up, Jacob! We're dealing with a guy that stole a hundred million dollars. Call me nuts, but I think he'll do what he has to do to get that ledger back."

"I'm gonna talk to him."

"Don't you even think about giving him the ledger!"

"It's not worth it."

Jacob hung up as Colin emerged from the hallway. He was looking down, his brow tense, lost in thought. He took a few steps toward the table and then looked up. When their eyes met, he stopped and stared at Jacob. At first his face was expressionless. Jacob's heart raced and he wondered how much Colin knew. The din of voices in the room rose and an entire table erupted in laughter. Then Colin's gaze hardened. He knew.

Keeping his eyes fixed on Jacob, Colin walked across the dining room, sat at the table, and then folded his hands in front of him. Jacob's eyes flicked down and he scratched his fingernail on the paper place mat. Colin picked up a deep fried shrimp roll and bit into it, his teeth crunching through the crispy exterior.

"So," Colin said, "Is there something you want to tell me?"

Jacob sucked in the sides of his cheeks, hoping to draw some moisture into his suddenly parched mouth. "Richard just called," he said, his voice catching. "There was a woman who came by his house." Jacob paused, hoping to steady his shaky voice. "Who is she?"

"Someone you don't want to meet."

The muscles in Jacob's stomach clenched.

"Richard doesn't have it."

"Is that so?"

"I do."

For what seemed like an eternity, Colin sat silently. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely audible and his words came out slowly, carefully:

"You broke into my house?"

"You stole a hundred million dollars from our company," Jacob said.

Colin's eyes bore into him. Jacob felt droplets of sweat forming on his brow. He wanted to wipe them with his napkin, but he didn't want Colin to see how nervous he was.

"I want that ledger back."

"Please call her," Jacob said. "I'm worried about Richard."

"You should be worried about Richard."

"Please, call her."

Colin took another bite, chewing it for a long time before saying, "Where's the ledger?"

"In my safe deposit box," Jacob said, painfully aware that if he did not wipe his forehead, sweat would soon be dripping down his face and onto the table.

"I want it back."

The intensity of Colin's gaze was too much. He looked at the steel teapot and watched the steam rise from the spout. Quietly he said, "I should tell you to go to hell. I should tell you that if anything happens to Richard that ledger will wind up in the U.S. Attorney's hands." He stopped speaking and looked up.

Colin stared at him, unflinching.

"Fine," Jacob said. "You can have it back. Now please make the call."

### Chapter 16

All Colin could think about was how magnificent it would feel to hurl Jacob through the plate glass window and kick him into the gutter. Little Jacob Miller, the scrawny kid who never would have survived elementary school without him, had done this to him. Once he got the ledger back there would be a reckoning.

Colin removed the pink phone from his pocket and dialed the number. After the first ring, the call went straight to voice mail. Mel's phone was off. She had already begun to make her move. A wave of panic clawed at him and he forced himself to stay calm. Keeping the phone to his ear, his mind raced through his options. He could tell Jacob to call Richard and warn him. But what if Mel had already gotten to Richard? How much time had passed since he had given her the go-ahead? Less than five minutes? For all he knew, she could already be going Abu Ghraib on Richard's hairy ass. If Jacob's warning call went unanswered, Colin doubted he would hand over the ledger. No, it was too risky for Jacob to call Richard. Getting the ledger back was his top priority. If that meant Mel roughed up Richard, so be it.

"Hey it's me," Colin said, pretending to talk to Mel's voice mail, "I want you to back off." He paused so Jacob would think he was talking to someone and then said, "That's right, I want you to leave." Colin hung up and looked at Jacob. "Now I would like my ledger back. We can take my car."

### Chapter 17

One minute before Colin called Mel, she was standing beside a utility pole in the alley behind Mr. Constitution's house. She had checked and double-checked the windows of the surrounding houses to make sure no one was watching. A few lights were on, but she had yet to spot a figure. Her time had come.

She turned off her cell phone — nothing like a ring tone to screw up an operation — and stepped up to the alley gate that led into Mr. Constitution's backyard. Through a gap in the planks, she could see him standing at the kitchen sink with his back to her. If he stayed like that she could cross the tiny backyard unnoticed. One kick to the kitchen door and she would be inside before he could say "civil liberties." If only it were that simple. Crossing the lawn would take less than three seconds, but if he saw her coming he'd have time to escape out the front door. Unfortunately, she could see no other way inside.

Rather than enter through the gate, which might squeak or rattle, Mel walked up to the chain-link fence on the alley-side of the hedge, pulled a pair of wire cutters from her tool belt, and snipped an opening. Then, to minimize her weight, she removed her hard hat and utility belt. She was good to go.

She crawled through the opening in the fence, slithered through the hedge, and came out sprinting across the lawn. The grass was wet from the rain so she slowed her pace to stabilize her footing. Inside the kitchen, Mr. Constitution's back was still to her. Her boots sloshed across the grass. Fifteen feet to go.

Her foot came down on the brick patio and she sprung onto the steps. Mr. Constitution was busy at the sink, the sound of the running water masking her approach. Without breaking stride, she kicked open the door. Mr. Constitution whipped his head toward her and then sprinted out of the room.

She chased him into the living room but to her surprise, instead of heading straight for the front door, he turned and clamored up the stairs. She lunged and caught his heel, sending him crashing to the stairs. Her left hand closed around his ankle and she twisted it laterally, transferring torque to his knee. He screamed, but because he was facedown the stairs muffled the sound. While continuing to apply torque to his knee, she slid onto his back, wrapped her free arm around his head, and pressed the carotid artery in his neck against the edge of the stair, cutting off the blood flow to the brain. Four seconds later his body went limp.

Working quickly, she slapped a pair of flex cuffs on his wrists and then tore off two pieces of duct tape that she sealed over his mouth and eyes. He had only gotten a glimpse of her and she wanted to keep it that way. She grabbed his ankle and dragged him back down the stairs. In the living room there was nothing heavy to tie him to so she dragged him into the kitchen, dumped him next to the stove, and was reaching for another set of flex-cuffs when he regained consciousness. Like a fish, he floundered and grunted on the linoleum floor until she gripped his big toe knuckle and wrenched it. His back arched in agony and he groaned.

"Shut up and the pain stops."

Mr. Constitution went silent.

She released her toe hold and Mr. Constitution lay motionless, the only sound his panting for breath and the water still running in the sink. She hooked the new set of flex-cuffs around the ones already binding his wrists and then secured them to the foot of the stove.

"Where's the book?" she asked quietly and then peeled back the duct tape. Mr. Constitution's breathing slowed and he swallowed hard.

"I don't have it."

"Who does?"

His mouth twitched; he was debating whether to talk. To facilitate his decision she drew the Amphibian pistol and jammed the barrel in his mouth. He gagged and jerked his head side-to-side, panting furiously through his nose. She yanked out the gun.

"Jacob Miller," he blurted out. "He's with Colin. Just call him."

"What's upstairs?" she asked, remembering how he had charged up the stairs rather than head for the front door.

"Nothing."

"Bullshit."

"For Goddsake, just call Colin."

Mel studied his blotchy sweat-soaked face. She did not have a clue whether he was telling the truth. Back when she worked for the Company, only specialists handled interrogation cases. She debated whether to call the Senator, but given his reaction the last time she called without the ledger, she decided to first look around the house.

Mel slapped the piece of duct tape back on his mouth, turned off the kitchen faucet, and hurried up the stairs, the floorboards squeaking with each step. The house reeked of sandalwood incense. Brightly colored rags from the Far East covered every square inch of wall space. At the end of the hallway, a door was partially open. From inside the room she could hear the quiet breathing of someone asleep.

"Fuck," she said. She had thought Mr. Constitution was alone.

She raised the pistol and entered. A baby was asleep in the middle of the king-sized futon, which explained why Mr. Constitution had headed upstairs rather than flee. She walked around the futon, scanning the room for the book that she now doubted was there. Had her eyes been on the floor, she would have seen the plush gecko, but she was looking at the dresser when her boot came down on the toy—

Screeeeech!

The baby's body jerked and out of its minuscule mouth came the loudest wail Mel had ever heard, which was saying something given her profession. Her training told her to bolt, but she could not bring herself to leave a screaming baby. Without thinking, she leapt to its side and started to mumble: "Twinkle, twinkle, little star..." Obviously not a fan of her voice, the kid went ballistic, its entire body arching and shaking. All she could think to do was pick it up.

She set the pistol on the dresser and scooped up the baby. At first she could not get her arms around the thing in a way that stopped its head from flopping back. Then she slipped her forearm beneath the neck, got her other hand beneath the body, and _shushed_ the baby like she had seen people do on TV. The kid kept on wailing. Maybe another song would help? She sang the first song that popped into her head, Melissa's _Talking to My Angel_ : "Don't be afraid... Close your eyes... Lay it all down... Don't you cry..."

Mel had hated the song when the album first came out. With its sappy lyrics and schmaltzy music, it sounded as if Melissa had overdosed on estrogen, or worse, been possessed by Natalie Merchant. Over time, however, the song had grown on her — a schmaltzy guilty pleasure in a hard rocking world.

Mel continued to sing and the kid kept on screaming. She was about to give up when suddenly the baby cooed and then—

It smiled at her.

Someone smiled at me.

The thought took her breath away. Her entire life people had avoided making eye contact with her, but this creature was smiling at her as if she were the most beautiful person in the world. A wave of joy tingled through her.

She studied the baby's plump arms and legs and longed to squeeze them, not to hurt the child but because there was something so incredibly luscious and life-affirming in those rolls of fat. Worried she might actually squeeze an arm, her gaze shifted to the short hair covering the baby's head. Never in her life had she seen something so wonderfully soft. Unfortunately she could not feel it through her gloves so she did the next best thing: she pulled the baby to her face, pressed her cheek against its soft skin, and breathed in the sweet smell of —

A floorboard creaked. She spun around.

Mr. Constitution picked her gun up off the dresser and pointed it at her.

"Put him down," he said.

She quickly appraised him: drenched in sweat, pupils dilated from the rush of adrenaline, ankles charred from where he must have burned them on the stove to melt the nylon restraints. Mel was impressed. The guy had to be some kind of yoga guru to have ignited the burner with his feet and then grabbed something sharp from the drawer to cut the wrist restrains. Unfortunately, now that the Hippie Houdini had seen her, he would have to die.

She eyed the gun. As long as she was holding the baby, he would never fire the weapon—at least not intentionally. But with the safety off, all he had to do was tap her custom hair-trigger and the gun would fire.

"It's a light trigger," she said.

"Put him down."

"Slide your finger off the trigger."

"There," he said, moving his finger onto the trigger guard. "Now put him down."

If she could close the gap, get in real close, then it would be a cinch to take him down. "Let's talk this through," she said, taking a step toward him.

"Let's not." He lowered the gun and fired at her feet. The floorboard splintered an inch from her boot.

She froze. Never underestimate an animal protecting their young.

He aimed the pistol at her head. "Put my child down, _now."_ With his free hand he reached into his pocket and took out his cell phone. "I'm calling the police," he said. She waited for him to glance at the keypad—that would be the prime moment to attack—but he kept his eyes fixed on her while his trembling thumb bounced around the keypad, struggling to dial the number. Eventually he would get it right. She needed to disable him immediately.

The knife sheathed to her ankle was her only option. With a frontal attack, a brain strike through the base of the chin was the quickest way to kill, but if she accidentally caught the jugular she'd have a gusher on her hands. A direct heart strike—between the second and third ribs—was the way to go. Now all she had to do was force him to drop the gun. The solution was obvious.

She inhaled the baby's sweet scent one last time and then looked up at Mr. Constitution.

"Catch," she shouted and tossed the baby toward him.

Without thinking, he dropped the pistol and stretched out his arms to catch the now shrieking baby. In one motion, Mel drew the knife from the sheath around her ankle and lunged. As his hands clutched the baby, she ducked beneath his arms and jabbed the blade into his side, stopping at a rib. She angled the knife and as he collapsed on top of her, the blade slipped past the rib and speared into his chest. He groaned and rolled away from the blade, giving her a chance to squirm out from under him.

Still holding the baby above his head, he was defenseless. Mel pounced. The blade sliced cleanly between his ribs and she angled it up and into the heart. He groaned and arched his back, clinging to his screaming child, while she kept the knife buried in his chest until finally his body went limp. It was the longest ten seconds of her life.

She yanked out the blade and scooted back. The screaming baby tumbled out of his father's hands and thudded onto the floor. Blood oozed down the dead man's side and snaked its way toward the baby. The child's arms and legs flapped and within seconds he was covered in blood. Over the metallic scent of blood she smelled the stench of the child's feces.

Vomit shot up her throat and she swallowed it. Never in her two decades of killing had she ever felt a twinge of guilt or disgust over a death. On the contrary, with her previous kills, she had always felt something akin to pleasure at a job well done. And on her best days, when everything went exactly as she had envisioned, there was even a sense of beauty in the perfection of her work. This was different. It was ugly.

Mel tried to conjure up a song from the jukebox in her head, but all she could hear was the child screaming. All she could see were his tiny hands and feet thrashing in the blood. And all she could smell was shit.

Her eyes went blurry and she wiped at them, but they blurred again. It wasn't until she felt the tear on her cheek that she realized she was crying.

Mel scooped up the baby and tried singing again.

"Don't be afraid... close your eyes..."

He only screamed louder.

Outside she heard a car pull into the driveway. She kissed the baby's soft head and placed him on the futon. His bloody arms flailed, staining the white sheet.

"I'm sorry," she said, backing away. "I'm sorry."

Working quickly, she found Mr. Constitution's Blackberry and pocketed it. Then she grabbed the knife, wrapped it in a t-shirt that had been sitting on the dresser, tucked it under her coat, and bolted out of the room.

She ran down the stairs and charged out the back door into the yard. Her foot slipped and she tumbled onto the muddy grass. She clamored to her feet, batted the gate open, and burst out into the alley. After collecting her hat and tool belt from beneath the hedge, she approached her van. Behind her she heard the faint sound of the baby's wail drifting out the window. She yanked open the door and climbed inside. Rain pounded the windshield. She cupped her hands over her ears and for a brief moment it was silent. Then the baby's wail pierced through her ears and knifed into her brain.

### Chapter 18

It was only a mile from the restaurant to the Chase branch on Van Ness, which was across the street from Jacob's apartment building. To Colin it felt like a hundred miles. If Jacob heard from Richard before he got the ledger back, he was screwed. He turned right onto Van Ness Avenue and accelerated. Up ahead the light turned yellow. If he floored the gas he could make it, but he did not want to risk spooking Jacob. He eased his foot off the pedal and gently braked the car to a stop.

"You all right?" Jacob asked. "You're grinding your teeth."

"I'm tired. I was up all night cleaning that egg shit off my house. I can't believe you egged my house."

"I can't believe you stole a hundred million dollars from our company."

_I guess we're even_ , Colin wanted to say, but bit his tongue. Until he got the ledger back, he would have to put up with Jacob's snark.

"Why did you do it?" Jacob asked.

Colin sucked on his bottom lip and then said, "Because only a fool would watch their fortune swirl down the drain and not do something about it."

The pink phone rang and he snatched it out of his pocket.

"He didn't have the book," Mel said.

"It doesn't matter."

"And there were complications."

Colin shifted his gaze to the flashing pedestrian signal. The light was about to turn green. He was sliding his foot off the brake, when she spoke:

"He's dead, I had to kill him."

The rain pounded against the windshield. Deafening. Suddenly he became hyper-conscious of every muscle on his face tensing. Mel continued speaking:

"He said Jacob Miller has it."

A cacophony of horns blared. The light had turned green. A Lexus sped past him, honking its horn, which sounded like a faint scream. Colin hammered his foot on the accelerator. The tires slipped and squealed and then the car lurched forward.

"You still there?" she asked.

"Yes," Colin said, willing his face muscles and voice to relax.

"Jacob Miller," she said. "Are you with him?"

"Of course," Colin said.

"Say great if you have the book," she said.

Colin stayed silent. The phone call was taking too long. Soon Jacob would suspect something had happened.

"Say great if you're on your way t get it," she said.

"Great," Colin said.

"You don't have much time. On my scanner I heard the dispatch call go out. The moment he hears about this you are screwed — unless." She paused, and then said, "I got an idea. I need you to confirm his address: 2701 Van Ness, Apartment 5F."

"That's right."

"Listen to me. If he refuses to turn the book over, you have him call me immediately. Understood?"

"Got it," he said and slipped the pink phone back into his pocket.

"Everything okay?" Jacob asked.

"Yes," he managed to say. Ahead he saw Jacob's apartment building. Across the street was the Chase Bank branch.

### Chapter 19

Jacob watched the guard step up to the wall of safe deposit boxes. They were the only two people in the vault. Colin had dropped him off in front of the bank and was parking the car. The guard inserted Jacob's key in one lock, placed the master key in the other lock, turned them both, and opened the tiny door. Then he grabbed the box by its handle and pulled it out, its metal base screeching across the opening.

"Sorry about that," the guard said.

The guard walked to a cubicle and set the box on the desk. Jacob thanked him and the guard left him alone in the vault. He opened the box. The ledger rested on top. He moved it aside and looked at the other contents: his parents' marriage license and death certificates, his father's watch and wedding band, his mother's tiny engagement ring, and the program from his father's funeral. His sophomore year at Stanford, his father had been electrocuted in a fluke workplace accident. At the bottom of the box he found his birth certificate and read out loud his parents' names: "Henry Louis Miller and Katherine Joseph Miller."

A random memory of his mother flashed in his mind, one he had not thought about for years. He was unsure of his exact age at the time, maybe three or four. In the memory he was seated at a picnic table. Tiny Dixie cups filled with brightly colored paints were lined up in front of him. A light breeze fluttered the finger painting he was working on. It did not occur to him that the paper might blow away, probably because it had never happened before. A gust of wind lifted the paper into the air. Thinking the wind would blow away everything—the paints, the table, his body, his house, his parents—he screamed. The next thing he remembered was his mother lifting him into her arms and carrying inside where he no longer felt the wind. From the safety of the living room, he looked outside. Paint from the spilled Dixie cups was dripping off the table—a miniature waterfall of color. His eyes searched the yard until he saw his painting pressed against the fence. It was shaking in the wind that had somehow failed to blow the world away.

Jacob closed the box. Although the air in the vault was still, he could feel that wind howling through his life again. Without Colin, he would be completely alone in the world. The thought terrified him and he tried to think of a way to excuse Colin's crime. He reminded himself of the pressure Colin had been under as CEO: the stock market collapse, the imploding national economy, the declining stock price. So what if Colin had snapped and done something stupid. We all make mistakes.

Jacob looked at the ledger. Was this something he could get over? He opened the book and flipped through page after page detailing Colin's embezzlement. He felt sick to his stomach. Colin hadn't stolen from just any company, he had done this to Defiance, he had done this to him. No, this was not something he could ever forgive or forget.

Jacob signaled for the guard. After returning the box to the safe, he led Jacob out of the vault and then handed him a plastic bag for the ledger. He placed the ledger in the bag and stepped out into the lobby.

The bank had been built in the seventies and had never been remodeled. Dark wood paneling covered the lobby's lower walls. Above the paneling, a mural depicting scenes from San Francisco's history — early settlers, miners, railroad tycoons, the 1906 fire — wrapped around the lobby. The cavernous room was empty except for a man waiting to see a teller. On the opposite side of the room, Colin entered.

Jacob walked toward him, his steps falling softly on the stone floor, each step bringing him closer and closer to the moment when Colin would be gone from his life forever. He did not want to think about that so he looked past Colin and watched the cars speed down the wet street. Soon he would be leaving this miserable city, although Cambridge, Massachusetts was hardly an improvement. At least the weather would be more interesting. Other than the fog, the weather in the Bay Area was so mundane that he had never bothered to follow it. The northeast, however, saw systems move in from the plains, the arctic, and the gulf. That was something to look forward to.

He and Colin met in the center of the bank beneath a massive copper chandelier that looked like a gilded octopus. He searched Colin's face for the brother he once loved. A stranger stared back at him.

"Take it." Jacob held out the bag with the ledger.

As Colin reached for the bag, Jacob's phone rang. A Tibetan chant ring tone echoed through the bank. It was Austin. Austin never called on the phone, preferring to communicate via email and text.

"Hang on," Jacob said, lowering the bag. "I should take this."

"Go ahead," Colin said, his eyes following the bag.

Jacob answered. "What's up?"

"Richard's dead."

"What?"

"Richard was stabbed to death. Dina just called me. She found the body."

Jacob's arm dropped and dangled limply at his side. He looked at Colin, not to accuse him, but because he wanted his help in making sense of it all.

"Richard's dead," Jacob said.

Colin stared back, his eyes hard and unreadable. The front doors swung open and an elderly lady entered, cradling a wet and shivering yippy dog. The dog let out a bark that echoed through the lobby. Slowly Jacob began to put it together.

Richard was dead.

But hadn't Colin told him Richard would be fine?

Oh, God.

Oh, dear God.

COLIN KILLED RICHARD.

Jacob's knees wobbled and his head felt light. "You killed him," he said, taking a step back. "You killed Richard." All at once the room around them vanished and it was as if he and Colin were standing in their own shrinking cell. The walls pressed them closer and closer until all he could see were Colin's moving lips, but he could not hear him over the sound of his heartbeat pounding through his eardrums.

Colin gripped his shoulder and instinctively he jerked back, repulsed by Colin's touch.

"Give it to me," Colin said.

Jacob wrapped his arms around the bag and hurried toward the exit. A few feet before reaching the door, Colin stepped in front of him and blocked his path.

"I can't let you leave with that," Colin said.

"You gonna take it from me? With all these people watching? With the security cameras running. With that guard standing there?"

Colin edged closer to Jacob.

"Get out of my way," Jacob said.

Instead of moving, Colin reached inside his jacket and pulled out the pink phone. "Before you leave," he said, "I want you to talk to someone." He flipped open the phone, pressed the send key, and handed it to Jacob. Jacob cautiously took the phone. On the screen he saw that the number was connecting. He pressed the phone to his ear.

"Hello, Jacob." The voice was digitally altered.

"Who is this?"

"Listen closely."

"You killed Richard?"

"No—you did."

Colin smiled and Jacob felt queasy.

"Are you listening?"

"Yes."

"If you don't hand over that book, the police will receive an anonymous call. The caller will say he saw you and Richard arguing outside his house. The police will then search your apartment and find traces of Richard's blood in your shower drain. And in the basement they'll find the knife you stuck in his heart."

"You're lying."

"I want you to look outside."

Jacob looked through the glass doors to the street outside.

"Can you see your apartment?"

On the far corner he could see his building. He raised his gaze to the top floor and found his apartment. Suddenly a figure stepped up to the living room window. Jacob let out a sharp exhale.

"You stuck a knife in your friend's gut," the voice said. "You watched him bleed out on his bedroom floor. You murdered Richard Volokh."

The phone went dead and the figure vanished.

Jacob looked blankly at the now empty window.

Colin took the pink phone from his hand. "Give me the ledger."

"If the cops arrest me, they'll have the ledger."

"That doesn't prove you didn't kill Richard. Maybe you had a disagreement over what to do with it. Maybe you wanted to keep the money and he tried to stop you. Maybe that's why you killed him."

"They'll still put you in jail."

"That's assuming the Feds can introduce into evidence something stolen from my house. And what if they do? I do a few years for embezzlement and you end up on death row."

"You'd do that to me?"

"Are you asking if I could do that to Jacob Miller, the brother who I protected all those years? Could I send that Jacob Miller off to die in prison? No." Colin wetted his lips and continued, the anger rising in his voice, "Because that Jacob Miller would never have broken into my home. That Jacob Miller would never have stolen from me. That Jacob Miller would never have threatened my dreams. But this stranger standing in front of me, I will absolutely destroy him." Colin held out his hand. "I'm done talking. Give me my fucking book."

"No."

"This can all end right now."

Jacob pictured himself handing Colin the ledger. After that he would step out into the rain, cross the street, enter his building, walk up the stairs, and then sit alone in his empty apartment with nothing to do but think about how he had allowed Colin to steal millions from Defiance and kill his best friend. The stupid raid on Colin's house had been his idea. If he had only listened to Richard and turned over the ledger to the Feds, the situation would never have gotten so out of control. Richard would still be alive.

"It's over, Jacob," Colin said.

Jacob stood motionless, his mind torturing him with memories of Richard. He saw Richard hovering over him with Baby Che strapped to his chest. He saw Richard, soaking wet, pointing at the Defiance building. And then he saw Richard sitting in the minivan, giving up on him.

"Jacob," Colin said, "you need to get on with your life."

"I don't want my life," Jacob said and walked out the door.

A bus barreled down the street, its brakes squealing as it came to a stop in front of the bank. Jacob stepped forward and staggered down the sidewalk.

### Chapter 20

Before the door even shut, Colin called Mel. "He's getting away, where are you?"

"Look outside."

On the other side of Van Ness he saw her step out of Jacob's building.

"I see him," she said. "He's heading north on Van Ness."

"Follow him."

Mel ran across the street and then disappeared from his line of sight.

"What are my parameters?" she asked.

"Can't you just yank it from his hand?"

"And if he resists?"

Colin could feel her waiting for an answer. His eyes darted around the bank to see if he were being watched. The guard stood in the corner staring off into space. The old lady with the dog was being helped by the teller.

"Sir?" she said.

Colin studied the guard. He could have sworn the man was looking at him, but now he was staring straight ahead, oblivious.

"He just turned onto Francisco Street," Mel said.

Colin could not think, not with all these people staring at him. He stepped outside and stood beneath the overhang.

"It's your call," she said.

On the street a car accelerated too quickly, its tires spinning on the slick surface. With each passing second, Colin felt everything—his money, his dreams, his life—slipping away, and all because of Jacob. He had spent his life looking out for him. For once he had to do what was best for Colin Schaefer.

"Sir?" Mel said.

"Whatever it takes," Colin said and flipped the phone shut.

### Chapter 21

It was not until Jacob turned onto Chestnut Street that he realized what an unfathomably stupid mistake he had made in leaving the bank. In the bank he could have waited safely for Austin and Patrini but now he was out in the open and the woman who killed Richard — only minutes ago she had been in his apartment — could be anywhere.

He glanced back to see if he were being followed. The street was empty. He could return to Van Ness and try to hail a cab, but the rain made the chances of finding one remote. He ducked into a doorway and called Austin.

"Where are you?" Jacob asked.

"On Grant, almost at Union," Austin said. "What's going on?"

"Meet me at Polk and Union."

He hung up and turned onto Polk. When he reached Lombard Street, he looked back down the block. A small figure in a dark green raincoat turned the corner. Could it be the "she-hobbit" Richard had described? He strained to see the figure's face beneath the raincoat hood. Although her left hand was protruding from her jacket's sleeve, her right hand was tucked inside the sleeve—like it was hiding something. She-hobbit or not, he did not want to take any chances.

He jogged to the other side of Polk and continued down the block. At the corner of Greenwich he looked back. Now the hooded figure was walking on his side of the street. He crossed Greenwich and was half-way down the block when he heard the rumble of Fang's engine in the distance. A block and a half away, at the corner of Polk and Union, Fang pulled up. He glanced back down the block. The hooded figure was walking briskly toward him. Suddenly the figure's arm came up. From the end of the sleeve, a light flashed and then the parking meter beside him shattered. Jacob's body jerked. A split-second later the windshield of the car parked next to the meter cracked.

Oh, Christ! She's shooting at me.

Jacob veered off the sidewalk and darted across the street. To his left a horn blared followed by the sound of car tires skidding. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the grill of a SUV. With a burst of speed he surged forward and the SUV slid behind him. He reached the sidewalk and sprinted toward the corner.

He glanced back. The hooded figure was running down the opposite side of the street. Her stumpy legs pumped like pistons, moving with the grace of a garbage truck but the speed of a Ferrari. He pushed himself harder. His stiff legs lumbered over the concrete. Only ten feet until the corner. His back tingled with a chilling awareness that it was being viewed through a gun sight. From the building beside him, a puff of brick dust exploded and sprayed his face. Adrenaline flooded his body and his arms and legs relaxed, propelling him faster and faster toward the corner. If he could make the turn onto Filbert, he would be out of her line of sight. He willed his legs to move faster.

It wasn't enough.

A searing pain that felt like someone had stabbed him with an ice pick shot through his left shoulder. He lost his balance and tripped forward, but still managed to turn the corner before his feet slipped and he tumbled to the sidewalk.

As he lay sprawled on the wet ground, blood pulsed through his eardrums, beating a _BA-BOOM-BA-BOOM-BA-BOOM_ through his foggy head. Strangely, he started to blink, repeatedly opening and closing his eyes, and slowly his mind started to function again. He looked down the hill and noticed that the water flowing across the steep sidewalk had a pinkish tint. He clutched his aching shoulder and then looked at his hand, covered in blood.

I've been shot.

His vision blurred again and the ground shifted. He pressed his hands against the sidewalk and tried to stand. His shoulder buckled and he collapsed. His mind screamed with a terrifying awareness that the hooded figure was about to come around the corner. To his left a Volvo was parked perpendicular to the sidewalk. He clutched the bag containing the ledger to his chest and then crawled off the curb and slithered under the car.

A torrent of freezing water rushed down his neck, momentarily overriding the burning pain in his shoulder. He placed the bag on his chest, reached into his jacket and fished out his phone. He was texting Austin his location when he heard the slap of approaching footsteps out in the street. He hit the send button and then the footfalls stopped.

For a second he thought he was safe. And then the footsteps resumed their approach. Closer now. Maybe two cars away—

I'm going to die, he thought. This knowledge hit his chest like a board of nails. As his heart boomed all he could think about was the barrage of bullets that would soon rip through his body and end his life. No more thinking. No more drinking. No more eating. No more shitting. Just nothing. Absolutely nothing. For the first time in his life he was facing a reality he could not hide from. He thought about scrambling out into the street and begging for his life—anything to stave off the terrifying emptiness of his death. He waited for his sense of self-preservation to kick in and his body to move, but a single repulsive thought kept him staked to the ground: _Hand over the ledger and Colin gets away with it all_.

### Chapter 22

Given that her Amphibian pistol was designed solely for up-close and silent killing, Mel was pleased that she had managed to hit Jacob on the run. It wasn't exactly her finest display of marksmanship, but given that she had kept the gun hidden in her sleeve—preventing her from aiming with the sight—clipping him was damn good work. Now it was time to finish the job and end the miserable day.

Mel walked down the hill. There was no sign of him, which meant he had to be hiding under one of the parked cars. Because of the hill's steep grade, the cars were parked perpendicular to the curb, their front bumpers jutting out over the sidewalk. From where she was standing, it was impossible to see beneath the cars. She stepped out into the street and squatted behind the first car. Empty. She slid over to the next car. No sign of Jacob. And then she peeked under the Volvo.

The first thing she saw was the soles of his sneakers. She got down on all fours, which allowed her to look across his body. He was lying on his back with his good arm stretched out behind his head—and he was dangling the book over the storm drain.

"If you shoot me," he said, his voice trembling, "I'll drop it."

"Toss it to me," she said.

"No."

Mel was in no mood for his bullshit. She gripped his ankle and flexed it, hyperextending the talocrural joint. Had he been standing on the street, his scream would have shattered glass. Beneath the car, the sound was barely audible. After a few seconds she released her grip.

"Give me the book."

"No," he said between breaths.

She gripped his ankle.

"Do that again," he said, "and I drop it."

She eyed the book. All he had to do was release it and it would disappear into the torrent of water gushing into the drain.

"Do you know what's in here?" he asked.

"I got an idea."

"It's a record of his embezzled funds. Over a hundred million in offshore accounts. It has passwords and account information. These accounts are everywhere — Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, Belize, Nevis, Panama, St. Kitts—"

"I get the point."

"I don't want any of it."

"I don't give a shit what you want." She flashed the barrel of the Amphibian. "Hand it over."

"No."

"No?" she said seething. She glanced around to see if anyone was watching. At the top of the hill, a bike messenger pedaled across the intersection. She waited for him to disappear and then grabbed Jacob's ankle.

"You thought it hurt before," she said. "That was nothing."

"I'll dump it in the drain."

"Like fuck you will. You do that, I won't just hurt you, I will kill you."

She wrenched his ankle and he shrieked so loudly her eardrums hummed. Suddenly the memory of the crying baby exploded in her head and she saw the child's bloody body thrashing on the floor. She cranked his ankle even harder, hoping the violence would silence the baby's screams—

A _whizzing_ noise rose up behind her. She turned toward it. The bike messenger was only ten feet away.

And that's when she made her first mistake. Instead of staying in a crouched position where she could have absorbed the impact, she tried to stand. The front wheel crashed into her leg and the biker catapulted over the handlebars. His head hammered into her solar plexus, knocking the wind out of her, and she fell back onto the street. Her skull snapped against the concrete and she blacked out for a second.

When her bearings returned, she still could not breathe. Instinctively, her hand closed, feeling for the gun. Gone. She pushed up to her hands and knees.

The biker was sprawled beside her.

Jacob was scrambling out from under the car.

Finally her diaphragm relaxed and she sucked air into her lungs. With oxygen returning to her brain, she was able to scan the street for her weapon. It was resting ten feet away. As she crawled toward the gun, the rumble of an old V-8 rose up behind her. A second later a piece of shit Buick skidded to a stop beside Jacob and the biker. The passenger door swung open. Jacob and the biker scrambled into the car. Mel grabbed the gun, popped to her feet, jumped in front of the Buick and leveled her gun at the driver.

And for the first time in her life she froze.

In her ten years working as a contract killer, Mel had seventy-two confirmed kills to her name. All of them were men. Not that she had any qualms about killing a woman—for years she had fantasized about taking out Britney Spears—but up until that moment, every kill had been directed at the male half of the species and had always been accompanied by a delightful rush of loathing. But as she stared down her pistol's sights at the woman driver, she felt nothing. Without the hatred to guide her trigger finger, she was road kill.

The V-8 growled and the car lurched forward, plowing into her legs. Her head and then shoulder slammed the windshield. She twisted her torso, rolling away from the car and landed hard on the street.

By the time her head cleared, the car had reached the bottom of the hill. It turned onto Van Ness, skidding around the corner, and then the rumble of the V-8 faded until all she could hear was the rain.

Mel stood. The wind gusted and the cold rain stung her cheeks. She glanced around. It didn't look like anyone had seen the incident, but she would feel a whole lot better back in her van. She lowered her head into the wind and walked down the hill. With each heavy step, she felt her dream of becoming Melissa's bodyguard slipping away — not because she had lost her chance to serve on the board of directors of the Pink Bracelet Fund, but because she had failed to shoot the woman driving the car. What did it matter that she could bench press 5000 pounds or kill with a hundred weapons? A bodyguard could never hesitate to kill. Melissa deserved better. Deep within her brain, the sound of Mr. Drummond's cruel laughter erupted.

### Chapter 23

Jacob sat in the backseat staring out the window, his head so dazed that he'd forgotten he had been shot. All sounds were muffled and distant, echoes from the bottom of a well.

Fang's skidding tires...

Patrini's screams...

The engine roar...

The rain...

In this suspended state, the world had never seemed so peaceful. On the corner a girl in a bright pink Hello Kitty rain coat danced in a puddle. He counted the whiskers on the cat. Six. A drop of water splashed against his cheek and he looked up. Through a gash in the soft-top fabric he could see the grey sky. A raindrop landed on his eyelid and he blinked. When he opened his eyes, the faint sound of the rain had stopped and the grey sky had vanished. A string of fluorescent bulbs flickered overhead. He stared out his window: a wall of white tile blocked his view. It took him a moment to realize they were in the Broadway Tunnel. Ahead through the shattered windshield a swarm of taillights glowed. Beyond them a cloud of light shimmered at the end of a tunnel. Fang swerved out of its lane. A horn blared. Jacob looked to his left. Austin was clutching a bloody cut on his forehead. Patrini yanked the steering wheel and the car veered back into its lane.

"Slow down," Jacob said, the sound of his voice surprising him, like it had come from another person.

Patrini hammered the accelerator and the car shot forward. Jacob reached over Austin and rested his hand on Patrini's arm.

"Slow down," he said.

Patrini eased up on the gas. The car glided out of the tunnel and into Chinatown.

"She had a gun," Patrini said, her voice catching. "She had a fucking gun."

"Pull over."

Patrini jerked the steering wheel. The car lurched to the curb and stopped. Patrini slammed the gearshift into park.

"There's a reason," she said between breaths, "that I roll with geeks and not gangsters. People aren't supposed to aim guns at geeks! What the hell is going on?" Before he could answer, her gaze fixed on his shoulder. "Are you bleeding?"

He looked down. Blood snaked down the front of his raincoat.

"Have you been shot?" Austin asked.

Jacob touched his shoulder and stared at his bloody fingertips. His hand began to tremble as he remembered being shot. All at once the sound of the rain pelting the car thundered in his head.

"I think I've been shot," he said.

"Oh, fuck!" Patrini reached for the gearshift. "We got to get you to a hospital."

"No hospital."

"What!"

"No hospital. No police."

Suddenly Jacob's head went dizzy and the street tilted.

"I think I should see a doctor," he said.

"No shit," Patrini answered.

### Chapter 24

From inside his parked car, Colin watched the Astro Van turn into the alley. He climbed out into the rain and watched the van approach, his heart banging inside his chest as he searched Mel's face for some sign that she had recovered the ledger. Her face showed nothing.

The van stopped and she nodded for him to get in. He opened the passenger side door and sat beside her. "Where is it?"

Mel stared straight ahead. Rock music played softly on the radio.

"Fuck," Colin said, his breaths quickening. "You incompetent, ugly—"

In a flash, her elbow hammered into his crotch. He doubled over, his testicles burning. What felt like her thumbs stabbed into the back of his neck and his head exploded in pain. Her lips pressed against his ear and she spat, "I don't like your tone, Senator." Her thumbs gouged into his spine for a moment longer and then she released him.

He sat up, massaging his neck until the pain ebbed.

"What do I do?" he asked.

"You don't have a choice."

"Frame him?"

"If you don't, the police will put that death on you."

"If they arrest Jacob, he'll give them the ledger."

"What makes you think he won't give it to them anyway? Either way, you're screwed—just less screwed if you frame him."

"Christ." Colin leaned back, his head throbbing. "You think they'll buy it?"

"Not if you shit your britches like you're doing now," she said. "But put on your Senator Bullshit face, tell them Jacob was planning on running when you saw him at lunch and they'll buy it."

Colin pressed his hands to his face as if to force the thought into his head. "Jacob Miller killed Richard Volokh. That's what happened so that's what the evidence needs to show."

"All right," Mel said. "I'll do it, but I'm done working for free."

"I have to pay you to clean up your mess?"

Her fist came without warning, catching him in the sternum. His diaphragm crumpled and his lungs gasped for air.

" _My_ mess?" she hissed into his ear. "Everything that has happened was set in motion by you. Don't ever think this is my mess."

She reached across his body, opened the door, and kicked him in the side. He tumbled out into the street and landed in a puddle.

"Eyes on me," she said, shouting down at him.

Still struggling to breathe, he looked up at her.

"Monday. One million dollars. In my bank account."

She slammed the door, backed the van out of the alley, and drove off. He rolled onto his back and watched the streaks of rain fall from the sky. Finally his diaphragm relaxed and with each breath, his mind hissed:

He has the ledger...

He knows your secrets...

The world will know your secrets...

It is all coming undone...

Dread and despair weeded through his insides as the cold rain dripped down his face.

### Chapter 25

The room was dark when Jacob woke up. At first he was disoriented, but as the grogginess slipped away, he remembered the blur of events that had unfolded: Patrini calling an old boyfriend who was an ER doctor; racing over to his apartment in the Marina; lying on the kitchen table while the doctor injected something in his arm that relieved the pain; Austin watching, his face ashen, as the doctor stitched up the wound; and then swallowing some painkillers and falling asleep.

Out in the living room he heard the din of the television. Light seeped through the crack beneath the door. Jacob sat up in bed and a bolt of pain shot through his shoulder. He moved to stand but his legs trembled and he sat back on the bed.

I have lost them all.

The thought hit him without warning, the urge to cry welling in his chest.

Annie.

Richard.

Colin.

He doubled over and inhaled sharply to relieve his shortness of breath.

And I know that if I were a different person, a stronger person, a braver person, they would all still be with me today.

The sadness and grief overwhelmed him and he wept, his entire body shuddering. The tears poured out of him in waves and he hated himself for crying. Austin and Patrini had risked their lives for him. Now they would be looking to him for answers and leadership. He could not go out into the living room like this. He wanted to open the window and slip away into the night. He wanted to run and run and run until no one could find him. He wanted to crawl under the bed and hide in the darkness, just like he had done as a boy.

After awhile he stopped crying. The fear and grief still stuck in his chest, only muted now. He stood and faced the door. I have to be a different Jacob, he thought.

He walked out into the living room. Patrini and Austin were sitting on the couch watching the six o-clock news. Dina, Richard's wife, was with them. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt that was several sizes too big. With a jolt, it occurred to him that her original shirt had probably gotten bloody when she discovered the body. She looked up, her face puffy and eyes bloodshot. A wave of sorrow and guilt pounded him. She stood, her eyes piercing into him. On a good day, Dina was a force to be reckoned with, but today...

Jacob braced himself.

"How's Asher?" he asked.

"He and Che are with my mom." Her lips tightened as she suppressed the urge to cry. "He really believed in you."

"I know."

"I wanted him to go back to work. I wanted to be home with the kids. But he kept telling me to just wait another month because you, the brilliant Jacob Miller, were on the verge of something _spectacular_." Venom coated her last word.

His nervous eyes flicked to the local news playing on the television. On the screen was a picture of him. Austin quickly turned it off. A brutal silence settled between them.

"I didn't do it," he said.

"Of course I know that. But this prank that got him killed, that was your _spectacular_ idea, wasn't it?"

"It was."

She stepped closer, in his face. "My husband's dead."

"I'm sorry—"

"No." She raised her hand, cutting him off. "I don't want your apology. What I want is for you to do something. I want you to use that brain of yours that Richard so admired and figure out a way to crucify whoever did this."

"I will."

"You damn well better," Dina said and then she fixed Patrini and Austin with a cold stare. "Fools Club," she snorted. "Try Fucking Idiot Club." She marched past them and left the apartment, slamming the door on her way out.

Patrini and Austin looked at him, their heavy eyes telling him they agreed with everything Dina had said.

"Go ahead and say it," Jacob said.

They stared silently at him.

"Go on. Tell me it's my fault. Say I told you so."

"How's your arm?" Austin asked.

"My arm's fine, sore but fine." He looked at Patrini. "You must have something to say."

"Peter," she said, referring to her ex-beau the doctor, "said the bullet just grazed the muscle. I guess today's your lucky day."

Jacob sat on the edge of the couch. The ledger rested on the coffee table.

"The police are looking for you," Patrini said.

"Honestly, I don't care."

Jacob picked up the ledger. Last night it had felt like a lead weight. Now it tingled in his hands like a loaded gun, charged by its capacity for destruction.

"What are you going to do?" Austin asked.

"I'm going to destroy him," Jacob said.

### Chapter 26

Following his conversion to politics, Colin had sworn off extramarital sex. In reality, it had not been much of a sacrifice. Annie was great in bed — sensual, energetic, and easily aroused. That said, all the kissing and touching she required could be somewhat tedious when all he needed was a good fuck.

From the moment he turned the Ford out of the alley, Alexa Levinson was all he could think about. Back when he was an associate at Childress Securities, Alexa had been an analyst — and his go-to partner for drunk sex after firm parties. There were dozens of other women he could have had. Gayle Palmer, who had been Defiance's VP of Marketing, had a far better figure. Cindy Cowan, his real estate broker, moaned like a porn star. And Kim, the sales associate at Nordstrom's, was insatiable. But Alexa was special. She was the only woman he had ever met that made him feel like _she was fucking him_. There was an anger and impatience to her lovemaking that made him feel like the most desirable man in the world. Plus, she liked it when he got rough.

It took him less than three minutes to drive to her apartment in North Beach. He parked in the red-zone and charged up the stairs. He pounded her door and prayed she was home. Water dripped from his wet clothes and as he watched it pool on the floor, he felt the dread rising up in him. He hammered the door again. A second later it swung open. Alexa stood a few feet away, wearing an athletic bra and running shorts. At first her eyes showed nothing and he worried that too much time had passed. The last time he had seen her had been a month after Jen's birth. They had met for a weekend at a bed and breakfast in Mendocino. The getaway had been a lifesaver, keeping him sane until Annie got her mojo back once Jen started sleeping through the night. Since then Alexa had put on a few pounds, but she could have put on a hundred and it would have been fine with him so long as she still gaped at him with that look of pure unadulterated lust.

Alexa inhaled deeply, her face flushing, her eyes flaring. He stepped into her apartment and closed the door. In an instant their hands were on each other, tearing at clothes. She yanked down his wet pants and then turned around and wiggled out of her shorts. Her naked ass rubbed against him and he felt himself grow hard. She bent over and pressed her palms against the wall. A mirror hung directly in front of her. Their eyes met and he entered her slightly. She slammed her ass against him, moaning as she enveloped him. He looked into her lustful eyes and his groin burned with excitement. She furiously bucked her ass against him, fucking him harder and harder. Suddenly her body began to twitch as she started to climax. The sight of her body thrashing — knowing he had done this to her — was glorious. He grabbed her hips and buried himself deep in her as he came. His body jerked and the pressure in his groin emptied into her. Then his lust drained away, leaving his mind naked and exposed.

Once again, dread and despair over his unraveling life stirred in his gut. Before these dark feelings could seize hold, Colin opened his palm and slapped Alexa's ass. She yelped, but didn't pull away. Her mouth parted and her breaths quickened.

"You fucker," she said through clenched teeth.

He leaned forward, his chest against her back, his lips against her ears, and said, "I want to fuck you forever."

And he nearly did.

For four straight hours they screwed each other's brains out—only stopping because Alexa selfishly insisted on leaving to meet her dinner date. He had begged her to stay, even promising a long weekend at the Post Ranch Inn, but she had just laughed on her way out the door. What a self-centered little bitch.

Desperate to quash his rising anxiety, he retreated to her kitchen for a snack. Just his luck, Alexa was on a NutriSystem diet. The BBQ soy chips tasted like Styrofoam, the pretzels like wood, and he nearly broke a tooth on the almond biscotti. The chocolate pudding was passable, soothing his soul for the sixty seconds it took him to inhale all four containers. He was looking for more food when the Mel phone rang. He answered.

"Are you watching the news?" she said.

Colin turned on the television and changed the channel to the local news. The reporter was standing across the street from Jacob's building. Behind him a fleet of police cars and vans were parked in front of the entrance. The caption at the bottom of the screen said it all: TECH MURDER—POLICE SEARCH EX-FOUNDER'S HOME.

He gaped at the screen. The flashing lights. The mob of reporters. Christ. It was all so real. And it was happening now. When the police arrested Jacob, he would turn over the ledger. Colin broke out into a cold sweat. He slapped at the television and turned it off. In the silence he heard his phone beep. He checked the screen and opened the newly arrived text message from Mel: remember -- monday's payday.

Colin batted the empty food containers off the counter. His brain burned with rage. Mel's incompetence had ruined his life and now _she_ was demanding money. Well, Colin Schaefer's world did not work that way. There was justice in Colin Schaefer's world and the beastly little Mel was a vile assault on this principle. Meacham had brought the sociopath into his life; it was his responsibility to deal with her.

He called Meacham, but his voice mail answered. Normally Meacham picked up on the first ring. The spineless turd was trying to distance himself. He texted Meacham, instructing him to call immediately. After five minutes of waiting for the phone to ring, he got dressed and stormed out of the apartment.

**

Meacham lived in a Brady Bunch scraper in Foster City. Colin parked in front and flexed his hands, sore after strangling the steering wheel on the drive over. For the past year Meacham had been collecting a monthly $50K retainer to consult for the Schaefer Foundation. Meacham owed him.

Colin walked up the front path. Inside the dark house a television flickered. Colin rang the doorbell and listened to Meacham's approaching footsteps. He waved at the peephole and waited for the door to open. But the door remained shut.

"Henry," Colin called out, his voice all smiles. "We need to talk."

The door cracked opened and Meacham stood at the threshold, his gut hanging out from beneath a wrinkle-free oxford, his wisp of hair matted over his bald spot. Colin waited to be invited inside. Meacham did not say a word.

Colin edged up to him, their faces only inches apart.

"You stink," Meacham said and stepped back into the entry hall.

Colin entered and closed the door. In the living room the plasma screen displayed a photograph of Richard with a caption underneath that read, "Software Engineer Killed."

"Jesus Christ," Meacham said, "what have you done?"

Colin gripped Meacham by his collar and threw him against the wall. "What have I done? What have _I_ done? I know what you're thinking. You're thinking they can never trace a thing to you. That you can deny everything. That it'll be your word against mine." Colin listened to Meacham's shallow quick breaths and got ready for the knockout blow. "Guess what? My surveillance cameras have video of you arriving at my house followed a few hours later by your psycho operator. I go down, _you_ go down."

Colin released Meacham's shirt and stepped back.

"What do you want?" Meacham said.

Colin looked at the television. "She's out of control."

"Pimpmyride?"

"Mel," Colin said, "her name's Mel."

"What am I supposed to do? Call her and tell her to quit it?"

"I'm sure you know other people."

"You want to kill her too?"

Colin did not say a word.

"You're fucking nuts."

"She can link us to two murders."

Meacham did not answer immediately, the truth of Colin's statement sinking in. "Christ," Meacham said. "If you ever get yourself out of this mess, you're going to make one helluva politician."

"That's the spirit, Henry."

"I'll talk to a few people. See what I can find out about her. In the meantime, try not to commit any more felonies." Meacham flashed an obnoxious smile.

Not amused, Colin leaned into his face and breathed on him. His smile dissolved. "All the great ones," Colin said, "had their partners in crime. JFK had his old man. Nixon had Dirty Trick Segretti. Reagan had Deaver. Papa Bush had Atwater. Clinton had the Toe-Sucker Morris. And Shrub had the Turd Blossom Rove." He leaned in closer, pressing his lips to Meacham's ear, and whispered, "Henry, you and me, we were destined for each other." He flashed Meacham a loving smile, affectionately patted his cheek, and walked out the front door.

**

Colin guided the Ford through the gates and headed down the driveway. _Los Robles_ loomed before him like a phantom in the mist, a brutal reminder of a life slipping into the past. He rounded the fountain and pulled into the garage. The door clanked shut and he turned off the engine. Above him, the door opener's fluorescent light flickered. He sat motionless, his mind toying with the idea that if he remained in the car forever, then the events he had set in motion could never unfold. After a minute the light turned off and he sat in the darkness. He was exhausted and would have crawled into the backseat and slept had he not been so cold. Finally the cold was too much to bear and he dragged himself out of the car. The garage was dark except for the orange glow coming from the button next to the back door. Colin walked slowly over to the door and entered his home.

The light from the laundry room was blinding. He squinted and waited for his pupils to adjust. The dryer was on, vibrating softly, which meant that Marta was still working. Annie never did laundry. That was about to change.

Colin studied the wall of empty cubbies next to the dryer. This was where he had always imagined his kids would put their backpacks when they came home from school. Jen was supposed to have been the first of many, but the investigation had put their plans for more kids on hold.

He walked into the kitchen. A half-eaten bowl of mac n' cheese sat on the counter along with an apple that had only a tiny bite taken from it. Before today he would never have given such waste a second thought, but tonight it irked him.

He entered the family room. Marta and Jen were snuggled on the couch watching _Dumbo_. Marta normally retired to the guesthouse at seven. The fact that she was still around meant that Annie had taken the news about Richard hard. Suddenly it occurred to him that Annie probably knew Richard quite well from her time dating Jacob. Why she would mourn the death of a freak like Richard was beyond him.

"Good evening, Mr. Colin," Marta said. He had asked her a hundred times to call him Colin, but she insisted on adding the "Mr." probably just to piss him off. With his political career over, he could fire her. But what was the point? By the end of the month he would be out of money to pay her anyway.

"Hi, Jenny-bug," he said as he sat on the couch beside her. She snuggled up to his side, but stayed focused on the movie. "Where's Annie?" he asked Marta.

"Upstairs in bed. She not feeling too good."

At least Jen's English would improve once Marta and her barrio grammar left the house. He kissed Jen on the top of her head and walked up the stairs. He stopped in front of the door to his bedroom. Inside he could hear the muffled sound of Annie sniffling.

He entered the room. Annie was sitting up in bed, her face puffy from crying. Her laptop rested on a pillow beside her. She slid out of bed, threw her arms around him, and burst out into tears. His arms hung at his sides. He had nothing to give her.

"Richard..." she said her voice trailing off.

"I know," he said and was about to comfort her when he realized he reeked of sex. He had to get in the shower before she smelled his stench.

"I tried calling you," she said.

"My phone, the battery died." He forced himself to kiss the top her head. "I need to shower," he said and hurried into the bathroom.

He closed the door, turned on the shower, and undressed. While waiting for the water to warm, he studied his reflection in the mirror. A fist-size bruise had formed where Mel had punched him in the sternum. The purple and black mark was an eyesore, but nothing compared to the set of man-boobs that flanked it. Alexa would have puked at the sight. Given the battered and flabby state of his chest, it was a good thing Alexa had been turned on by his insistence that he fuck with his undershirt on.

He studied his man-boobs, bile rising in his throat. Not a chance he could run for office with man-boobs. Imagine what a tabloid photo of his moobs would do to his Q Score. He pressed his palms over his nipples, feeling the globs of fat that were not altogether different in texture from overcooked Jell-O. His mind wandered, thinking about what his workout regime should be. Road biking was the rage among the VC crowd, but they wore those spandex outfits that would reveal way too much. Jogging would do the trick, but it lacked glamour cachet. Mountain biking, however, did not involve spandex. That was the answer. Once he lost the weight he could shift over to spandex and road biking. That would be the perfect opportunity to schmooze the VCs and prime the fundraising pump.

He closed his eyes and visualized his soon-to-be physique, searing the image of his chiseled pecs, washboard abs, and perfectly defined delts into his brain. His man-boobs were history. He was Colin Schaefer, former CEO of Defiance Corporation, financier of the wildly successful ballot initiative to eradicate homelessness, victim of an overly zealous Federal prosecutor, soon to be junior Senator from California, and that Colin Schaefer did not have man-tits.

Colin opened his eyes. The mirror had fogged over and his body's temporary imperfections had disappeared beneath the layer of moisture. He was about to step into the shower when the bathroom door opened and Jen burst into the room naked.

"I wanna shower," she cried.

"Shouldn't you be going to bed?"

"Mommy said I could."

"What's Mommy doing?"

"Resting," she said, hopping a circle.

Had Colin had an ounce of energy he would have screamed at Annie to get off her ass and take the kid so he could have some goddamn privacy. All he had the strength to do was mumble "fine" before getting into the shower. Jen followed him inside and he closed the door.

The hot water sprayed his neck, easing the soreness in the spot where Mel had attacked him. Jen sorted through the basket of shower toys on the floor and pulled out some cups and bowls. Colin closed his eyes and let the water pound him. After awhile he felt Jen tapping his leg. He looked down. A pile of shampoo covered her head.

"Rinse, Daddy."

He picked her up and wrapped his arms around her little body that had never felt so heavy. "Close your eyes," he said.

She squeezed her blue eyes shut and he held her head beneath the nozzle, keeping his hand over her eyes as he rinsed her hair. With her head to his cheek, he could smell the no-tears baby shampoo. He once had asked Annie when Jen would be too old to shower with him, but now the question was moot.

By then I'll be in prison.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice drowned out by the sound of the water.

He felt her arm around his neck and remembered how tiny she had seemed as an infant and how quickly she had grown. A horrifying realization hit him: Jen was barely two years old, which meant her first memories of him would be her visits to the prison. He would watch his daughter grow up from inside a visiting room. How old would he be when they let him out? Fifty-something? Sixty-something? Or maybe he would die in prison. Terror gripped his chest. He pushed open the shower door and gasped for air.

"Daddy, I'm cold," Jen cried.

He stumbled out of the shower and batted the door closed.

"I can't live like that," he groaned and rested his palms on the counter to support himself. As he struggled to breathe, he thought about how good it would feel to place the gun against his temple and squeeze the trigger. With this calming thought, his breathing returned to normal and the terror faded.

He reached for the towel on the back of the door. Inside the bedroom he heard Annie whispering. It sounded like she was talking to someone on the phone. He pressed his ear to the door and listened. Her words were too hushed to understand. He was about to step away when suddenly it sounded like she had faced the door.

"Okay," Annie said, her voice becoming clear, "okay, Jacob."

Colin's breath caught in his throat. What had Jacob told her?

"At the Foundation," she said.

Colin heard her footsteps approaching the bathroom. He hurried back to the shower and was drying himself when Annie entered. He kept his back to her to hide the bruise on his chest.

"Hey," she said. Colin relaxed. If Jacob had told her about the ledger she would have been a mess. She continued speaking. "I need to run out to the grocery store." Her voice wavered; she was a shitty liar. "Can you put Jen to bed?"

"Sure," he said, thinking how unfortunate that this would be Annie's last image of him—his ass. The bathroom door clicked shut and a few seconds later he heard the bedroom door close. As steam from the shower filled the room, his plan took shape. He would put Jen to bed. Wait until she was sound asleep. Enter his study. Take out the gun. Put the barrel in his mouth. And squeeze the trigger. The next time Annie saw him, he would be dead.

In the shower, Jen was pouring water through a funnel. For a minute he watched her play, thinking about how she would grow up without a father. Better no father than one in an orange jumpsuit. At least Annie would be there for her.

_But w_ _hat if the Feds go after Annie?_

The thought made his stomach turn. Annie had signed the tax returns. With the ledger, the Feds would nail her too. Who would take care of Jen then? Jacob was her guardian and his prospects for being around weren't looking too good. Imagine what Jacob would do if he knew he were responsible for practically orphaning Jen.

And with this thought, Colin felt that thing with feathers called hope, flutter into his heart and perch in his soul.

### Chapter 27

The Schaefer Foundation was headquartered in a two-story Victorian house located in a residential neighborhood a few blocks from downtown Palo Alto. Jacob drove the rental car down the alley and stopped behind the house. A redwood towered beside the back gate, its spiky limbs black except for the top which reflected the pale glow of a streetlight somewhere in the distance. He turned off the engine and sat in the silence, listening to the rain falling in sheets on the windshield.

After awhile his nerves settled and he climbed out, the rain pelting him as he opened the gate. Across the black yard a light was on in Colin's office. Inside he could see Annie sitting by herself. His heart raced at the thought that he would soon be telling her about the ledger and Colin. Austin and Patrini had tried to dissuade him from meeting her, but it didn't seem right to give the ledger to the Feds without first warning Annie. He couldn't blindside her like that—not Annie.

He hurried across the soggy lawn and was drenched by the time he reached the house. His footfalls thudded up the back steps and the old wooden planks of the porch creaked beneath him as he approached the door. Before he could knock, the door swung open. Annie stood in the doorway, her face strained.

"I'm so sorry about Richard," she said moving toward him.

He wrapped his arms around her and smelled the scent of her jasmine face cream. Instantly he felt guilty about what he was going to tell her.

"We need to talk," he said.

"Jacob, what's going on? On the news they said the police wanted to question you."

"We should go inside," he said.

They walked into the house and entered Colin's study. Jacob had attended a reception at the house, but had never seen any room other than the formal living room. The study was decorated with Victorian-era antiques. Photos of Colin campaigning for Prop 264 covered the walls. On the mahogany desk rested pictures of Annie and Jen.

Annie sat in a winged-back chair and Jacob sat on the sofa across from her. A rock formed in his throat and he struggled to find the right words to tell her about Colin. Annie smiled at him, her soft eyes reassuring him that she would listen. He pushed out a long breath and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a copy of the first page of the ledger.

"What is that?" she asked.

He handed it to her.

She glanced at it. "This looks like Colin's writing."

"It is."

"Omnicon," she said, reading the name from the top of the page. "That was one of the companies they were investigating." Her mouth parted slightly and she inhaled sharply. "Jacob, what is this?"

And he told her.

### Chapter 28

The rain cascaded off the eaves, forming a sheet of water an inch from Colin's face. He was standing with his back to the house, just to the right of the office window. Although the window was closed, the old thin glass did little to muffle the malicious words pouring out of Jacob's mouth.

He would hurt Jacob for this, but first he had to let him finish telling Annie his tale. Barging in now might push her into Jacob's corner. As he waited, memories of Jacob blazed through his mind, fueling his anger. Wimpy little Jacob with the orange pulp on his face sniveling in the orchard. Jacob and his skinny chicken legs stumbling across his backyard to catch his perfect pass; he should have spiked the ball into his face. The countless days having to walk with him to school and suffer the embarrassment of Jacob's ridiculous wardrobe choices — the _Star Wars_ t-shirts, the tube socks pulled up to his knees, the Buster Brown sneakers. High school had been a nightmare, with Jacob silently following him and his friends like a permanent shadow. Then the scrawny shit gets into Stanford and he's stuck attending Cal. And then came Defiance. Colin had been the one to seize on the business implications of Jacob's spam detection concept, but the Valley never saw it that way. To them, Jacob was the genius behind Defiance and he was nothing but the pretty boy salesman. And how does Jacob thank him? He goes off and dates Annie, the one woman who had refused to go out with him — the little shit rubbing his nose in it.

Inside the house, Jacob stopped talking. Although Colin could not see Annie's face, he knew how she was reacting. Her pathological need for harmony made her incapable of living with any discord. She would do to Jacob's words exactly what she had done to the facts of her father's death. She would expunge them. Everyone knew that George Childress, depressed over his ouster as Chairman of Childress Securities, had intentionally stopped taking his blood pressure medication. Everyone knew that except Annie who still believed that _beloved Daddy must have forgotten to take his pills_.

Colin looked through the window at Annie, sitting in silence, her head bowed. In her mind she was dismantling Jacob's story, breaking sentences into phrases, phrases into words, words into syllables, syllables into sounds, and sounds into vibrations that drained away into the cellar of her mind until at last peace reigned.

Her peace would be his salvation.

### Chapter 29

Several minutes had passed since Jacob had finished speaking. Annie had yet to say a word. Instead of talking she was staring at the floor, crushing him with her silence. This was not the response he had hoped for. She was supposed to be telling him that she believed him, that Colin was a monster, and — although he hated himself for still wanting it — that she still loved him. Outside a gust of wind splattered rain against the window. Annie snapped her face up. At first her eyes looked distant—and then they hardened. Desperate to hold back her anger, he found himself speaking the words he had longed to say for years:

"When your dad died, I'm sorry I wasn't there for you."

"Oh," Annie said, her hand covering her mouth, holding the tears inside. "That is just brilliant. What do you want now? Forgiveness? Or maybe you'd prefer it if I abandoned my family and ran off with you. Is that how you saw this working out?"

"They're going to arrest him."

"Stop it!" Annie screamed, her voice shrill. "I won't hear it."

"It's the truth."

"The truth?" she said. "The truth is you vandalized my home, broke into my house, and jeopardized my daughter's safety. And you act like I should thank you. Or, did you have something else in mind?"

Jacob felt his face flush.

"Should I go home now and pack my bags?" she asked. "Where would you like to go? The Four Seasons in Maui? I hear the Aman in Bora Bora is lovely this time of year."

Jacob lowered his head and stared at the mud caked to the soles of his shoes.

"That's what I thought," Annie said, standing. "This is just another one of your late night phone calls masquerading as an assault on Colin."

"No—"

"Not another word!"

"He killed—"

"Not!" she shrieked. "Another! Word!"

She hovered in front of him, his heart collapsing.

"Goodbye, Jacob," she said and then walked out of the room.

The front door slammed, the sound echoing inside his carved out chest. He almost ran after her, but stopped when he realized there was nothing left to say. In the street he heard the faint sound of her Prius pulling away.

On the desk a photograph of Colin and Annie smiled back at him. Their smiles sickened him. Tonight he would turn the ledger over to the U.S. Attorney. Tonight he would end their happiness. He walked out the back door and down the steps—

"Hello, Jacob." Colin stepped out of the shadows, his soaking wet body uncoiling with menace. "You didn't actually think she would leave me, did you?"

Before he could answer, Colin's fist drilled him in the chin. A burst of pain popped in his head and he collapsed to the ground. Before he could even focus, a blow crunched his cheek and pain flared across his face. When his head cleared, Colin was straddling him, the weight of his hips pressing him into the muddy grass.

"You tried to kill me," Jacob managed to say.

"All I did was protect myself and my family."

"You're my brother." His voice was louder now and he had started to cry. "You're my brother!"

"You and me," Colin said. "We were never brothers."

Jacob waited for Colin to hit him again, but instead he stood and took a step back. A porch light glowed behind him, the intensity of the glare hiding his face. Jacob was moving to stand when Colin kicked him in the side.

"Stay down and listen," Colin said.

In a hopeless act of defiance, Jacob moved to get up. Colin kicked him in the ribs and he fell back onto the grass.

"Are you listening?"

Jacob nodded.

"You're Jen's guardian," Colin said.

"I know."

"That means if something happens to me and Annie, you'll take care of her."

"You might want to rethink her guardianship."

"Funny you should say that because I'm trying to figure out what happens if we're all in prison. Who'll take care of Jen then?"

"Wouldn't Annie?"

"You really think the Feds won't touch her?"

"She didn't do anything."

"Do you even watch the news? Ever heard of Lea Fastow? Married to Enron's infamous Andrew Fastow? She did hard time for signing her husband's tax return. And guess what? Annie signed the tax returns and I can assure you there was lots and lots of income that we failed to declare. If the Feds get their hands on that ledger, Annie's next organic gardening class will be from a prison yard." Colin flashed a hard white smile and Jacob's insides froze. "Apparently" Colin said, "that magnificent CPU of yours hadn't figured this out."

"No."

"You should have stuck with the PhD. You always sucked at real world thinking, kind of like in sixth grade when I had to break the news to you that terry cloth shorts weren't cool anymore."

"Annie didn't do anything."

"Really? I'm not so sure the Feds will see it that way." Colin half-laughed and then said, "Here's the funny thing. In spite of you trying to ruin my life, I still care about you. And that's why I'm going to tell you what to do. Because I doubt you'd figure it out on your own—it requires practical thinking." Colin squatted beside him. "Take the ledger, take the passport, and find a new life for yourself someplace where the police will never find you. Personally, I prefer the south of France: excellent wine, world-class cuisine, and have you seen the water? It's bluer than the sky."

"I'm not leaving."

"Seriously, Jacob, what reason do you have for staying? Work? Are you that emotionally invested in your consulting?"

"I have some new ideas for a start-up."

"Of course you do. Tell me, when were you planning on doing something with them? Or were you waiting for me?"

"I won't leave," Jacob said, his voice less than convincing.

"Can't bear to leave the wife and kid? Or is it those geek-freaks you call friends that are keeping you? Face it, Jacob, your life's a waste. I lose Defiance and I create this." He pointed at the house. "I change lives. But your cold timid soul was never meant for much." Colin smirked and then said, "You're the perfect person to go on the run because you have no one to say good bye to—except me." Colin patted him on the cheek. "Good bye, Jacob," he said and walked away.

Jacob rested the side of his face in the mud. The pouring rain pounded the ground, drowning out all other sounds with its unrelenting roar. He opened his mouth and a hoarse groan escaped his lips. Then his whole body shuddered and he curled into a ball and wept, just like he had done that morning beneath his mother's bed. How right the Boy Under the Bed had been to hide from the world. It was time for the Boy to hide again.

Forever.

### Chapter 30

A little after nine o'clock, Colin returned to _Los Robles_. He entered the foyer and rested his hand on the banister to steady himself. Water dripped from his wet clothes and puddled on the terracotta tiles he had imported from an 18th Century hacienda in Mexico City. Suddenly an image of Jacob's bloody face flashed in his head. Had he been closer to the wall he would have banged his head into the plaster to shatter away the image.

He looked up the spiraling flight of stairs that led to his bedroom. He wasn't sure if he could make it. Adrenaline had carried him through the day, but his final confrontation with Jacob had sucked the last bit of energy from him. On the drive home he had tried to lift his cratering spirit by telling himself that the nightmare—or at least the prison part—was over. But all his positive thinking could not counter the exhaustion he felt deep in the marrow of his bones.

Beside the front door sat a basket full of Mexican blankets. He thought about how good it would feel to spread them on the floor and sleep off the weight of the day. But sleep would have to wait until he cleaned up the final mess. Annie.

Up in the bedroom he could hear the sound of the shower running. Like he had predicted, Annie had found a way to preserve her harmony. Now he had to play along to make sure her bubble stayed intact.

He dragged himself onto the first step. Every fiber of his body ached. He paused, caught his breath, and then took another step—and another, and another, until he reached the landing and entered the bedroom.

The room was dark except for the light shining beneath the bathroom door. He stripped out of his wet clothes and then slumped onto the stool in front of Annie's vanity. He stared at the mirror, his reflection hidden in darkness. It was important that he look his best for her. She had to see the Colin Schaefer she loved.

He turned on the makeup light and squinted at the brightness. His eyes adjusted and his reflection came into focus. What he saw revolted him.

His face was pale and bloated with fat. His beard stubble gave his skin a dirty hue. His eyes were bloodshot with dark circles beneath them. His lips were bloody and chapped. His forehead was gouged with wrinkles. His scalp was visible through his thinning wet hair. This was not a face Annie could believe in. And certainly not a face she could love. In a single glance she would see the truth of everything Jacob had said.

Unable to bear the sight, he looked down. A wedding photo rested beneath the mirror. In the picture, Annie's arms were wrapped around his shoulders. She was smiling at him while he grinned for the camera. The adoring look in her eyes took his breath away.

"I have to feel that," he said, knowing with complete certainty that what he needed to survive was Annie's love. With her love he could be Colin Schaefer again and everything he had done could be forgotten.

He turned off the makeup light. His shadowy face hovered inside the mirror. In the darkness he saw himself as he was in the photo: his handsome face radiating with the warmth of her love. That was the Colin Schaefer she would see tonight.

He carefully combed his hair, walked over to the closet, and changed into dry clothes. Then he squared his shoulders, standing tall, and walked toward the bathroom door. In his mind he saw himself once again as that young man in the picture. That was the man Annie would see when he stepped through the door.

He entered the bathroom. A cloud of steam enveloped him for a moment and then the air cleared. Inside the shower, Annie sat hunched over on the floor, still wearing her clothes. Her body shook as the water pounded her. Colin reached for a towel and opened the shower door.

He shut off the water and the room fell silent except for the sound of Annie shivering. She looked up, face ruddy, wet hair plastered to her cheeks. Her sunken eyes peered at him, searching to see if what Jacob had said were true. If he didn't act soon, she would uncover his ugliness and it would all be over for Colin Schaefer.

He squatted down so his face was right across from hers, so close it could only mean he had nothing to hide.

"Hey," he said, his voice calm and reassuring. "What is it?"

"Is it true?"

"Is what true?" he said and reached out to touch her.

She batted his hand away. "Don't," she said scooting into the corner.

"Talk to me," he said. "Did something happen with Jacob?"

She nodded as the tears streamed down her face. "He said you killed Richard. That you stole from the company."

Colin was acutely aware that Annie was teetering on the edge of an abyss. He smiled sadly. "Annie," he said and paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts. "Just yesterday you told me how unhappy he seemed." He spoke slowly and carefully, allowing his gentle words time to descend into her dark place. "Remember?" he asked, dangling the lifeline in front of her. "Remember how you told me he needed to get some help?"

She nodded and he felt her eyes withdrawing. He had her on the line.

"Jacob's different. He's got this whole world going on inside his head that we have no idea about. It's how he comes up with the ideas he does. But I think something in there might have broken."

Colin moved to her. This time she did not push back. He wrapped the towel around her. She rested her head on his shoulder and cried.

"Last night," she said, choking on her words, "when I spoke to him on the phone, I was so cold to him. I should have been kinder, but I didn't want him to think there was anything left betwe—" She couldn't finish the word as her sobs overwhelmed her.

"Shh," he said, pulling her into his chest. "Whatever happened in Jacob's head, has been happening for a long time. It's not your fault. Okay?"

"Okay." She bit her lip to stop herself from crying. "Sometimes," she said, "I feel guilty about loving you."

"Why?"

"Because I had to hurt Jacob to get to this place with you."

He kissed her on top of her head. "Let's get you in some warm clothes."

"No," she said, resting her hand on his cheek. She leaned in and kissed him on the lips, softly at first, and then she bit down, taking his lips between her teeth. Her sudden need to make love did not surprise him. The few times they had fought were always followed by lovemaking. For Annie, it was the ultimate way to move past conflict and restore harmony. In the past, Colin had always been more than happy to placate her, but tonight as her tongue slipped into his mouth, a bolt of fear shot through him. Could she taste the rottenness inside him? He waited for her to spit and gag, but then her hands slid over his back and the tips of her fingers dug into his shoulders. Her tongue pressed further into his mouth and she let out a faint impatient moan. He kissed her back and pulled her into his body. A sharp breath escaped her lips and her head shot back, her face alive with pleasure. She kissed his chin and her hand cupped his crotch. He hardened instantly. She kissed his throat while her hand fumbled open his zipper. Panting, she leaned back and pulled at her wet pants that refused to slide down.

"Help me," she whispered.

He grabbed her waistband and yanked her pants down to her knees. She wiggled her legs out and straddled his crotch, moaning as he entered her. Her hands found his face, cradling his chin, and she looked at him with a neediness that terrified him.

"I love you," she said, the hoarseness in her voice hollowing out his insides.

_I have to tell her_ , he thought. _I have to tell her everything or I'll be lost._ He willed his mouth to confess, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that Annie was not strong enough to handle the truth. This was a weight he would have to carry alone—for Annie's sake.

"I love you too," he said and kissed her.

### Chapter 31

Walking up the stairs to her apartment, all Mel wanted to do was crawl into bed and forget the past twenty-four hours had ever happened. Forget that she had been foolish enough to meet the Senator. Forget that she had broken into Mr. Constitution's house. Forget that she had killed that baby's father. Forget that she had hesitated to shoot. Forget that the ledger was gone. Forget that her life's dream was dead. But when she stepped into her apartment, the sour odor of her sweat made it impossible to forget.

The smell, seeping from every square inch, mercilessly reminded her of the years spent training to be Melissa's bodyguard. With each breath she remembered the tens of thousands of bench presses, squats, dead lifts, chin-ups, push-ups, leg presses, and curls; the countless hours spent practicing the sword, the bow, and the nunchakus; the endless sessions hitting the speed bag, kicking the heavy bag, and chopping away at wooden boards until her hands and feet were raw, her limbs drained; and the sleepless nights lying in bed, going through every conceivable scenario in which Melissa's life might be threatened to make sure that she was absolutely prepared. In the stench of her sweat, she smelled the death of her dream.

Never would she save Melissa's life. Never would she walk beside her soul mate and talk about stupid stuff like her favorite Converse high top color. And never would she feel Melissa's loving hands caress her body.

Tears flowed down her cheeks as she entered the dojo. The hulking silhouettes of the exercise equipment loomed in the darkness. As her eyes adjusted, she could see the posters of Melissa gazing at her from deep within the shadows. Crushed by Melissa's disapproving glare, her eyes shifted down and in the mirror she caught a glimpse of herself, standing uselessly in the doorway. She stormed into the room, yanked the Samurai sword from its stand, and bashed it against the mirror. Glass shards scattered as she hacked her way around the room, demolishing the mirror until not a single piece remained on the wall. Then, with a furious shriek, she slammed the sword into the exposed soundboard and hacked away until the blade snapped against the brick wall. She flung aside the sword, grabbed the pair of kamas, and shredded the posters and pictures of Melissa until the wall was bare. Nauseous with self-disgust, she looked around at the array of ridiculous weapons hanging from the walls. Throwing stars, swords, nunchakus, daggers, knives — she destroyed them all. Then with no weapons left to break, she threw herself against the wall and clawed at the soundboard until blood flowed from her raw fingertips. Only then did she step back and stare at the wreckage of her dream.

The room was dark except for a sliver of light shining through a gash in the soundboard. Instinctively, she yanked the board free, revealing the window that had been covered over by the soundboard. A streetlight shone on the opposite corner. She opened the window and inhaled. The moist air washed through her nostrils and cleared the stench of her dead dream. Inside her chest, in the space once occupied by her dream, she felt the stirrings of a desire that had been germinating all day. Once again she inhaled the fresh scent of the storm, which ignited in her mind a memory of the baby's clean scent. Her body tingled as she recalled how beautiful the child had made her feel.

"That was love," she said, laughing a little, not because the memory was funny, but because after all these years of thinking she had found love in Melissa's music, she had finally stumbled across the real thing. It was like hearing Melissa's voice for the first time — _multiplied by a billion_. That's how hard it rocked her soul.

Mel closed her eyes and imagined cradling the baby against her naked chest, feeling his soft skin against hers, placing his lovely red lips on her nipple, and then feeling him suck the milk from breast. She gasped and her body shuddered with ecstasy. Breathless, she gripped the windowsill, steadying herself as this new dream seized hold of her. Tears poured down her cheeks and her body shook as she sobbed.

"I want a baby," she said to the night. "I want to be a mother."

She closed her eyes and for a long time reveled in the emergent dream, letting it pour into every molecule of her body until it consumed her completely. Holding a baby— _her baby_ —was all that mattered now.

Mel walked out of the dojo and entered her bedroom. She sat in front of her computer, opened her browser, and typed into the Google toolbar her search term: "sperm bank."

### Chapter 32

Jacob stood with his back to the bathroom mirror buttoning his shirt. His right shoulder was stiff and sore from where the bullet had grazed him, but he could move it well enough to get his shirt on. Through the tiny bathroom window he could see that the storm had moved on. The sky way blue except for a scattering of cirrus clouds.

He imagined what was going outside in the street: junior i-bankers waking up for a morning jog, legions of recent Stanford grads sitting down at Starbucks with their lattes and _New York Times_ , yoga-moms pushing their beautiful children in the latest and greatest thousand dollar strollers. Just another day in the Marina—except he was about to board a plane and leave his life for good.

He tucked in the shirt. It was time to face the mirror.

He looked at his reflection. His upper lip was split, his cheek and chin were swollen, and a patch of greenish purple had formed beneath his right eye. But his injured face was hardly the most dramatic change. His shaggy brown hair was now dyed black and he had sheared it down to a Matt-Laueresque length. The shirt — by some Italian designer that he could not pronounce — was white and crisp and chafed his skin. His pants were Gucci, a gray wool-cashmere blend that hung low on his hips and made his legs look skinny; they didn't even have belt loops. His new wardrobe had come courtesy of a metrosexual dentist friend of Patrini's who had allowed her to go through his closet earlier that morning.

"Good morning, Michael Wilde," he said to himself. "I bet you get your nails done, your chest waxed, and your teeth whitened."

Jacob picked up the fake passport and checked his appearance against the picture of Colin as Michael Wilde. Had his face not been bruised and swollen, there was not a chance he could have passed for Colin. But given the battered state of his face, it was nearly impossible to tell who he normally looked like.

"My name is Michael Wilde," he said to himself. "I was born on April 12, 1976 in Ottawa, Canada and I'm an Aries in case you were wondering."

Jacob took one last look at himself and then walked out of the bathroom. Austin and Patrini were seated at the kitchen table eating breakfast. Patrini paused mid-bite and Jacob waited for her to laugh at his extreme makeover.

"You look like a prick," Partini said.

"You're really leaving?" Austin asked.

"I don't have a choice."

"Bullshit," Patrini said. "You do have a choice."

"I can't hurt her," Jacob said.

"How can you actually still give a shit about her?" Austin asked.

Jacob shrugged. "What can I say? I'm a fool."

"What about Richard?" Austin said. "What about Dina? You promised her—"

"I know what I promised. I also promised you I start another company. Apparently the list of things I've failed to accomplish just got a little longer."

"Don't do this," Patrini said, her voice quivering with emotion. "Don't you dare make me cry."

Austin stared into his bowl of Cheerios. "You're really leaving?"

"Yes," Jacob said. He took out his wallet, pulled out his driver's license, bank card, credit card, and everything else in it that had his name on it and tossed it all on the table. "Say good bye to Jacob Miller."

"Oh, fuck," Patrini groaned and then covered her mouth and cried.

## Chapter 33

Annie's naked body lay curled against Colin's side, her head resting on his chest. Even in her sleep, he knew she was listening for signs of the other Colin — the one Jacob had told her about. Last night he had fooled her, but today his heartbeat, bursting with the knowledge of his deeds, was betraying his secrets:

You beat your brother.

You lied to your wife.

You killed a man.

He smelled the stench of sweat dripping from his underarms. Even his odor was betraying him. He needed to do something to hide the smell. The comforter lay across his hips. Sliding it beneath Annie's head might shield him. He reached for it and she stirred, letting out a quiet moan that brought back the memory of their lovemaking last night.

Christ, I didn't use a condom.

His mind raced to remember the date of her last period. Thanksgiving. They had celebrated the holiday with the Campbells. That evening he had actually consumed enough wine to forget about the investigation long enough to want to have sex, but Annie had just gotten her period. Thanksgiving was two weeks ago, which meant Annie was likely ovulating.

Oh, Christ! Christ! Christ! Not another kid.

The thought of having to support another child forced him to think about his impending financial reality. Without the ledger he had no way of paying off the line of credit he had secured with the deed to _Los Robles_. Already he had drained his bank accounts to support the Foundation and his team of lawyers. He was weeks away from insolvency. He would have no choice but to sell the house. And then what? Where would he go? What would he do? His political future looked bleak. Have fun explaining to the voters why they should trust you to run the country when you can't even balance your own checkbook. How was he supposed to support his family, not to mention another child? With his history with the Feds, none of the private equity guys would touch him. As for finding work in the tech sector? Forget it. All the former Defiance geeks had thoroughly poisoned the tech community against him. He would be lucky to scrounge up enough consulting to break six figures.

He looked down at Annie and studied her perfect aristocratic features. How would she take to their new lifestyle? A wave of hatred rolled through him at the thought that he had married a woman with such a sense of entitlement. Of course Annie — her mind deluded with her New Age spiritual bullshit — would claim stuff did not matter, but he couldn't wait to see the look on Annie Dutton Childress's face when he handed her the keys to a used Civic and ushered her into their two bedroom apartment in Redwood City. Now tell me stuff doesn't matter, Annie. Tell me it doesn't matter when you can't sleep at night because the walls are so thin you can hear the Pakistani family above you arguing over who to vote for on _American Idol_. Tell me it doesn't matter when you're cooking dinner (when was the last time you did that?) and the apartment building smells like the United Nations food court. Tell me it doesn't matter when we pull Jen out of her swishy private nursery school and send her to the kiddie classes at the circa-1963 city rec center. Tell me it doesn't matter when your breasts sag and your face wrinkles and all your old friends — if they're still even your friends — can pay to stay young and you, Annie Dutton Childress, look old. Now tell me stuff doesn't matter. Tell me you still love me.

Colin knew he should be happy, or at least relieved. He had avoided prison and his wife, rather than going nuclear over Jacob's disclosure, had actually made love to him. But the more he tried to convince himself that his stock was on the upswing, the more he felt like someone had poured cement into his veins.

In the bathroom, his Blackberry beeped. By the distinctive tone, he knew it was an email from Meacham. He carefully slid Annie's arm off his chest, tiptoed into the bathroom, and opened the message: 438 welsh st – 8am – need to talk.

Had Meacham already handled the Mel problem? Given his abominable luck over the past twenty-four hours, Colin hated to get his hopes up. He looked back into the bedroom. Thankfully, Annie was still asleep. He could leave the house without having to explain himself.

He turned on the faucet to wash his face. A spider in the sink scrambled up the side to avoid the rising water. As soon as it cleared the rim, he grabbed a Kleenex and smashed it. Then he tossed the tissue in the toilet and washed his face.

Fifteen minutes later, he was speeding north on the 101 Freeway, scarfing down his second Sausage Egg McMuffin. The sky was clear and sunlight glinted off the cars. He savored the smell of the Bentley's leather seats and the seductive growl of the engine. Being able to eat whatever he wanted and drive the Bentley during daylight hours were about the only upsides of his impending political implosion, not to mention he might as well enjoy the automobile before the bank repossessed it.

He took the 6th Street exit and followed the GPS navigation system to Welsh Street, a narrow one-way road lined with warehouses. The rain had opened up a pizza-sized pothole in the center of the road. He was about to steer around it when he realized that the Bentley was essentially a rental. Gleefully he tossed the Egg McMuffin on the leather seat and veered the front-right tire into the hole. The car bucked and clanked and he cackled with delight. Three more potholes lay ahead and he drove the car straight into them, each one funnier than the next. He was laughing hysterically when he pulled up to the address, a four story brick warehouse, the facade covered with graffiti.

Once his laughter subsided, he looked around. The street was deserted. He checked Meacham's email, confirmed he was at the right place, and honked his horn. The motor above the door started and rolled the steel door up.

Meacham's Cadillac was parked against the back wall. Colin pulled up alongside the car, expecting to see Meacham's doughy head behind the wheel. The car was empty.

He climbed out of the Bentley and looked around the cavernous space. Gray light filtered through the dirty casement windows. The place smelled dank, of mold, like it never dried out. Except for a few stacks of crates and flats, the warehouse was empty. Behind him the door rolled down, the grinding sound of the motor echoing through the cavernous space.

"Henry," Colin called out.

"Henry will be joining us later," a familiar voice grunted.

Colin spun around in time to see Mel slip out from behind a pile of crates. She was wearing a black raincoat and jeans. Her right hand was shoved inside her jacket pocket. The outline of a gun barrel showed through the fabric. A cold trickle of fear seeped into his stomach.

"I thought I had until Monday to pay you," he said.

She walked toward him, each footstep echoing through the warehouse.

"I'm a little short on cash," he said, doing his best to sound calm. "But my wife has some spectacular jewelry. You should see the Bulgari necklace I gave her, a chain of rubies with a diamond—"

"I don't want your wife's jewelry," she said, bearing down on him.

"That's an easy fix," he said, backing away. "I'll sell it and give you the cash."

"I don't give a fuck about the money," she said. "In fact, I'd forgotten you owed me anything."

"Then what's the problem?" he asked, backing into the wall.

She picked up a wooden flat that must have weighed forty pounds and flung it at him as though it were a Frisbee. He ducked and it crashed against the wall behind him.

"Cut the crap, Senator. There's a reason you don't know my real name. There's a reason you don't know where I live. Tell me the reason, Senator."

"You like your privacy," he said, his voice catching.

"Yes, I like my _fucking_ privacy."

Colin felt his knees go week.

"I want you to explain to me," she said, pacing in front of him, "why late last night I got an email from a private investigator I do business with. He said that Henry Meacham was asking questions about me, wondering how to locate me." She stopped in front of him and picked up a plank that had broken off the flat. "Senator," she said, drawing the board back like a bat, "why was Henry Meacham trying to find me?"

"I don't know."

Her beady black eyes drilled into him.

"Maybe he had some other business." His eyes fixed on the plank, waiting for the blow. "I'm not his only client—"

Because he was watching the plank, he didn't see her left hand until it careened into his field of vision and hammered his nose. When he came to, he was lying on the ground, the taste of blood burning in his mouth. He spit out the blood and looked up at her grotesque face hovering over him.

"Senator, there's so much crap in you that I don't know whether to shoot you, or just give you an enema and bury your paltry remains in a matchbox."

She swung the plank and it cracked against his ribs.

"Oh, fuck," he moaned. "It was all Meacham—"

"Shut!—the fuck!—up!" she screamed while beating him with the plank. "Last night I was done with you. More than done. I had a new plan for my life. But I can't execute my plan knowing a fuckhead like you is trying to take me out." She reached into her pocket. Colin's brain screamed as he waited for the gun to appear.

Clunk!

His whole body jerked at the sound of Meacham's trunk popping open.

"Get up and get in," she said, now holding the key fob in her hand.

Colin looked back and saw the slightly ajar trunk. His skin crawled with the awful awareness of what was likely inside.

"Get up."

He couldn't move. Without any warning, she speared the plank into his spine. The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt—a thousand volt current surging through every muscle in his body. He screamed and screamed and screamed until she lifted the plank and the pain stopped.

"Move," she said.

Panting like a dog, his eyes teary, he struggled to his feet.

"Now walk" she commanded.

Colin took a step. His legs trembled.

"Faster."

He edged up to the trunk.

"Get in."

With the tips of his fingers, he raised the trunk.

The body was wrapped inside a plastic tarp. There was so much blood trapped inside the tarp he wasn't sure it was Meacham until he saw his bald spot pressing up against the plastic.

Colin gulped. Last night the thought of his own death had soothed him, but there was nothing soothing about getting your brains blown out in the trunk of a Cadillac.

"There's no room," he said.

Mel drew her gun. "Climb on top. He won't mind."

Colin looked back at the body. His stomach knotted and vomit shot up his throat. He doubled over and puked, the vomit spewing beneath the car. Before he could even catch his breath, he heard the sound of Mel chambering a round, inches from his head. His tears came without warning, gushing down his face. This was _definitely_ not how he wanted to die — not next to a fat turd like Meacham and especially not in the trunk of a Cadillac. Behind him he heard the sound of her chambering a round.

"If you get in the trunk," she said, "I'll put the bullet in the back of your head, you won't feel any pain. If you stay on the ground, my first shot goes in your left kneecap, the second in your right, and the third in your crotch."

Colin pressed his palms to the ground and pushed up onto all fours. Then he grabbed the Cadillac's bumper and pulled himself up."

"Trust me," Mel said. "The trunk's the way to go."

He held his breath and climbed into the trunk. Blood from his nose dripped onto the plastic, which crinkled as he crawled over it. He rested his face against Meacham's feet and closed his eyes. Now would be a good time to pray, he thought, but he wasn't sure how. Meacham had promised to give him a primer on Christianity, but he had never gotten around to it. Were there special words involved? He tried to remember...

Our father who art in heaven — or something like that. Forget praying and just beg! Oh God, I don't want to die. Why do this to me? Why deliver the miracle egg to me only to have my life end like this? Remember your plan? Or have you forgotten how you chose me to be your instrument on earth? Why have you abandoned me?

Suddenly it occurred to Colin that _he_ had abandoned the plan — _he_ had lost faith. Last night, faced with the loss of the ledger and his impending insolvency, he had all but given up his political ambitions. A slug had more resiliency. God had been testing him—and he had failed. No wonder God had abandoned him.

Oh dear God, he prayed, I see now, I see how strong I must be to serve you. I don't need the ledger to carry out your will. The loss of the ledger was a blessing. My bankruptcy will show the voters how much the initiative meant to me. How I spent all my money and mortgaged my house to do what I thought was right. The voters will see this and love me and the contributions will pour in. Oh dear God, let me live and I swear I will never falter again.

Mel's raspy breaths filled the darkness above him. Every muscle in his body tensed up and he waited to die. Then, without warning, she ran her fingers through his hair. He shuddered.

"Is this all real?" she asked, massaging his scalp.

He peeked up at her. She tugged on a piece of his hair and asked, "Your hair, is it real? Any implants?"

"No."

"What about Rogaine or Propecia?"

"No."

"Get out, I've got some questions for you."

Colin crawled over Meacham's body and climbed out.

Mel slammed the trunk and pointed at the bumper with the gun. "Take a seat."

Colin sat. "What do you want?"

"If you're lucky," Mel said, her smile showing off every one of her crooked teeth. "Your seed."

### Chapter 34

Mel preferred to do her close-in killing with a .22 caliber, sub-sonic round. Because of its small size, it could easily be silenced with a suppressor, and if the suppressor malfunctioned a plastic water bottle over the muzzle did the trick. But that morning she had brought along her .45 caliber Colt 1911 to kill the Senator. Sure, she could just have easily shot him with a .22, but firing that small of a round into the back of his head would have left his pretty face intact. The Colt, however, was guaranteed to scatter his magnificent face into every nook and cranny of the trunk. This was exactly what Mel was picturing as she stared down the gun's sights at the back of the Senator's head—until she realized what incredible hair he possessed. It was like a fur pelt, a veritable mink curled up on his head.

That was when the idea occurred to her: The Senator might make an excellent sperm donor. One look at him and it was obvious that his enviable genetic material did not end with good hair. He had other promising qualities too: excellent teeth, fine features, height, and from her research she knew he had been a high school jock. Certainly he had some moral short-comings, but those likely had more to do with nurture than nature—nothing good parenting could not overcome.

Mel pocketed the Colt, feeling stupid that she had nearly shot her ideal sperm donor. And what luck! She had a chance to interview him in person, which was infinitely better than playing Russian roulette with the sperm bank. As far as she could tell from the websites, none of the sperm banks verified donor information. This meant that any toothless hillbilly could jerk off in a cup and they could claim it was the cum of a Harvard-educated, Olympic swimmer. The thought that after nine months of pregnancy, instead of squeezing an Einstein-Adonis from her uterus, out flops Earl with an extra nipple, had kept her awake long after she had paid Meacham a visit. The X-factor was the Senator's medical history. She needed more information.

"You want my semen?" he asked.

"If you're lucky, because that means you get to live. I can't kill the father of my child."

The Senator's eyes widened and he licked his lips nervously.

"Relax," she said, "you don't have to fuck me. But if you lie to me and Baby M has some birth defect that you knew about, I will find you and kill you." Mel pulled up a crate and sat across from him. Fortunately, her research into sperm donors had given her a good idea of the questions to ask. She jumped right in.

"Any family history of cancer?"

"No."

"Did your mother smoke?"

"Occasionally."

"Did she smoke while you were in utero?"

"I would imagine."

"Your dad?"

"Never knew him."

"That explains a lot," she said, now even more certain that his environment had caused his moral bankruptcy.

"Diabetes?"

"No."

"Any family diseases?"

"My mother had MS. I am told it's not genetic."

"Lucky for you. That would have flunked the sperm test."

She quizzed him for an hour. With the exception of an allergy to cats, the man's sperm was grade AAA. From inside her jacket she pulled out a pair of surgical gloves that she kept for obvious work-related reasons and handed one to the Senator.

"It's sterile," she said.

He looked puzzled as he started to put it on his hand.

"No dumbass, it's for you to cum in."

"Now?"

"You want dinner and a movie?"

"Have you considered adoption?"

"Those people want references. Now hustle up. Use the backseat, I promise not to watch."

The Senator walked slowly up to the car door and rested his hand on the handle.

"I could turn on the radio," she said.

"I think I can manage in silence." He opened the door and sat in the Cadillac.

"Happy trails," Mel said and closed the door. She walked away to give him some privacy as well as to hide the tears of joy streaming down her face. The dream was so close. The last day of her period was 16 days ago, which meant she was probably still ovulating. She could be pregnant by the end of the day.

"I'm going to be a mother," she said to herself. Tears flowed down her face and her imagination burst with the soon-to-be-real dream of holding Baby M in her arms.

### Chapter 35

Sunlight reflected off the windows of SFO's international terminal. Jacob had to squint to see as he retrieved his Tumi rolling bag from the cab's trunk. He paid the driver and gave him a big tip because that's what he figured Michael Wilde would do. Then he adjusted his Versace glasses and walked toward the entrance, going over the "facts" of Michael Wilde's life that had been contained in a dossier tucked behind the passport.

_I am Michael Wilde._ _I was born on April 12, 1976 in Ottawa._

Act calm, he reminded himself. The police are searching for a schlumpy guy who wears old jeans and t-shirts with shaggy brown hair. To reassure himself, he rubbed his hand through his short black hair.

I am Michael Wilde. My father's name was Julian Wilde.

Jacob glanced at the gold Cartier watch weighing down his wrist. Every skin cell on his body cringed with embarrassment. Not that he had anything against gold; it was an especially useful oxide-resistant metal that was easily shaped to form the tiny interconnects on a computer chip. But using this noble metal to make man-jewelry was just plain wrong. Get used to it, Jacob told himself, because Michael Wilde likes nice things because they make him feel special and important. Jacob Miller would never have dreamed of spending $2,500 on a watch when twenty bucks could buy you a Timex Ironman that was infinitely more durable and reliable. Or, better yet, save the money and look at your cell phone for the time.

I am Michael Wilde. My mother's name was Lucy Wilde.

Jacob walked toward the entrance, the stiff leather of his Bruno Magli loafers cutting into his ankles. He pushed through the revolving door and walked to the American Airlines check-in line for first-class travelers. There was only one person in front of him. He checked the departure board: his flight to Costa Rica was on time. In ninety minutes Jacob Miller would be leaving his life forever.

I am Michael Wilde. I graduated from McGill University in 1997.

He took a deep breath and then another, struggling to keep his nerves in check. He studied the female agent behind the counter. She looked friendly enough.

I am Michael Wilde. My first job was as an analyst for Goldman Sachs.

The man in front of him thanked the agent and walked away. Jacob stepped up to the counter, his heart pounding in his chest. Sweat dripped from his underarms. He handed the agent his reservation and passport. Her eyes lingered on his battered face. He smiled at her and uttered his rehearsed line:

"The concierge said South Beach was a safe neighborhood."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said.

"Looks worse than it feels."

Her fingers clattered away on the keyboard. After a minute she asked, "How would you like to pay for that?"

He handed her a stack of one hundred dollar bills. She counted them out, made change, and then gave him his boarding pass. "I hope you feel better."

He smiled back at her and then walked away. By now his undershirt was soaked. He tore off his blazer and continued toward the security checkpoint. There was a long line of people and the TSA agents were taking their time to examine every traveler's passport.

My name is Michael Wilde. I'm an Aries—or am I an Aquarius? I know it starts with an A. Aries... Aquarius... Aries... Aquarius... FUCK! FUCK THE ZODIAC!

The Web would have the answer. He reached for his cell phone. His pocket was empty. Michael Wilde had yet to buy a new phone. Sweat beaded on his brow and dripped down his face. He hurried into the bathroom and locked himself in an empty stall. He had to get it together before passing through security. He sat on the toilet, bunched up a wad of toilet paper, and wiped his face. Still sweating, he unbuttoned his shirt. The fresh air sent a chill across his clammy skin. His body temperature felt like it had dropped twenty degrees. He gripped the toilet to steady himself.

"I am Michael Wilde," he whispered, "I am Michael Wilde."

A man entered the bathroom, whistling as he stepped up to the urinal. Jacob pulled up his legs and lifted his suitcase onto his lap. He shut his eyes and pressed his hands over his ears. The whistling faded, leaving his mind dark and quiet. When it's dark and quiet, nobody knows you exist. You are invisible. You are untouchable.

No, you're dead.

Jacob's eyes shot open, his heart racing. In the stall's stainless steel door, he saw Michael Wilde's unfamiliar face reflected back at him. He looked closer at his blurry reflection and saw the Boy Under the Bed staring at him.

You did this.

The Boy nodded.

All at once a thread unraveled in Jacob's mind, revealing the Boy's constant presence in his life. The Boy dragging him to the corner of the cafeteria where no one would see him. The Boy instructing him never to speak in class because the other kids would laugh. The Boy denouncing him as too weak and too small to walk to school by himself, best to go with Colin. The Boy informing him that he was too awkward and too strange to have friends of his own so he was better off following Colin around. The Boy warning him that Defiance's investors would rip him to shreds — better let Colin do the talking. The Boy demanding he not sell any of his stock because he didn't deserve the money. The Boy fleeing from Annie in her moment of crisis and then retreating into his work. The Boy picking apart all of his startup ideas to make sure he never had to put himself out there. And lastly, the Boy assuring him that Colin was right, that he had nothing to stay for, nothing to fight for, and that the best thing to do was run and hide.

Run and hide. Run and hide. Run and hide.

Run and die.

If I leave, I die.

This horrific knowledge swept over him and he felt the floor spinning out beneath him. He clutched the toilet seat and his breaths quickened as the Boy's terrified eyes implored him to board the plane. He was about to obey the Boy when suddenly, without warning, his drowning soul coughed out a dream for a life that he had never dared imagine for himself. He saw the towering headquarters of a company he longed to create. He smelled the scent of fresh cut grass from the home he longed to own. He heard the laughter of the son he longed to tickle. He touched the face of the daughter he longed to hold. And he tasted the lips of the wife he longed to kiss.

The Boy recoiled from the dream. _You don't deserve this life!_

But Jacob refused to let the dream slip away. He savored the details: the glare of the sun reflecting off the building, the sweet smell of the grass, the lilt in his son's laughter, the smoothness of his daughter's cheek, and the salty taste of his wife's lips.

THE WORLD DOES NOT WANT YOU!

The Boy was screaming now, but his voice seemed distant, drowned out by this dream resonating inside of him. Jacob pulled his boarding pass from his coat pocket—

THE WORLD HAS NEVER WANTED YOU!

He ripped the boarding pass in half and silenced the Boy. Then he took one last look at his distorted reflection on the stainless steel door.

"Good bye, Michael Wilde," he said and walked out of the bathroom.

### Chapter 36

Once the Senator finished his business, Mel planned on rewarding him with a .45 caliber round in the back of his head. Not only had he already attempted to terminate her life, but he knew way too much about her. No question he had to die. If Baby M ever asked about her father, Mel would tell her that he was just a sperm donor, which was sort of the truth. But still, there was something about killing Baby M's father that was slightly unsettling, which was why she didn't mind that the Senator was taking forever. She was more than happy to sit on the crate and dream about her future. When she pictured Baby M smiling, she cried happy tears. When she pictured Baby M cooing, she cried happy tears. When she pictured Baby M taking his first tiny steps, she cried happy tears. Every moment of Mel's inevitable future with Baby M was an endless orgy of happy tears.

She already had it all planned out. Baby M could not grow up in San Francisco; the public schools were abysmal and there were too many weirdos. What child should have to see a grown man in a dog collar on his way to nursery school? Baby M needed fresh air and the great outdoors to nourish his soul. They would move to Boulder, Colorado and buy a Subaru Outback to fit in with the other lesbian mothers. In the summer they would hike through the Rockies. In the winter they would ski the slopes at Aspen. In the spring they would collect wildflowers. And in the fall they would sit outside at night and gaze at the stars. Their lives together would be perfect. Her only worry was whether to vaccinate Baby M. She had already done some research on the subject. MMR, with its link to autism, seemed highly suspect, and although the DPT vaccine caused seizures, Mel was well aware from her time working in Nicaragua of the destructive power of diphtheria. The DPT vaccination would be a must have.

"Oh the fun we will have, Baby M, oh the fun!" Mel's words echoed through the warehouse and she laughed until her pink phone rang. She answered it.

"I have a deal for you," a voice that wasn't the Senator's said.

She glanced at the phone's display. The number was restricted.

"Who is this?"

"The guy you tried to kill yesterday."

"How did you get this number?"

"I read it off of Colin's phone."

"What do you want?"

"My life back."

### Chapter 37

Given the circumstances—his broken nose, his cracked ribs, and his lack of lubricant to name a few—Colin felt some sense of accomplishment at the sight of his semen pooled inside the middle finger of the rubber glove. God certainly had a twisted sense of penance. He tied a knot in the glove and looked over at Mel standing in the corner. Her back was to him and she was talking on the phone. If he opened the door quietly, he could make a run for it. But what would that accomplish? She knew where he lived and if she wanted his sperm that badly she would likely find a way of making him do it all over again.

Colin leaned back in the seat and sighed. His entire life he had dreamed about whether his legacy would be money, fame, power, or all of the above. Fathering the child of a she-beast killer was not on the list. However, considering the alternative was lying dead in the trunk next to Meacham, questionable progeny was not such a bad deal.

He climbed out of the Cadillac, his ribs aching. A nauseatingly cheerful Mel walked over to him and he handed her the glove. She eyed the contents, her eyes twinkling. He had to force himself not to think about what she would soon be doing with it.

"What about the million I owe you?" he asked.

Mel looked at the glove. "This should cover it."

"Thanks, I guess." Colin was turning to leave.

"Hang on," she said. "I need the phone back."

Colin handed her the pink phone and walked toward the Bentley, thinking about his promise to God. There were a million issues he needed to get on top of to get his campaign back on track. With Meacham dead, he had to hire another manager A.S.A.P. It was crucial that he be the first candidate to get his hat in the ring. That would limit his challengers and give him the fundraising advantage. The Foundation was closed on Saturdays, so he could spend the day there working. As he reached for the door handle, it suddenly occurred to him that if Mel were to kill him, this would be the moment. He froze.

"Are you going to shoot me?" he asked.

"Only if you come looking for me— _Daddy_."

She chuckled as she spoke the last word.

### Chapter 38

As the taxi pulled into the parking lot above Baker Beach, seagulls drinking from the puddles of rain water scattered. Jacob paid the driver and walked down the path to the ocean. Several summers ago he had been there with Richard and Dina. Back then they had been going through a nudist phase; it had taken him months to forget the image of Richard's package flopping around as he chased a flock of seagulls. Jacob smiled at the thought — until he remembered that Richard was dead.

Baker Beach looked north across the Bay to the Marin headlands and had a perfect view to the east of the Golden Gate Bridge. The late-afternoon sun sat low on the horizon, casting a blinding glare across the water. Small waves rolled all the way up to the beach before breaking on the sand. Except for a man walking his dog at the other end of the beach, the cold weather had kept the crowds away. Following Mel's instructions, he walked toward the bridge and stopped by the trash can with the pink bracelet sticker plastered on the side. He sat on the sand and waited.

The wind gusted and he wrapped his arms around himself to keep warm. A seagull fluttered onto the trash can. As the bird's tiny black eyes stared at him, he thought about how surreal the scene was. He was about to meet a woman who only yesterday had tried to kill him. Surreal was the wrong word. Insane seemed more apt.

He looked back at the trees and shrubs covering the hill behind the beach. Was Mel hiding there? Peering at his head through the scope of a sniper rifle? He had gambled that his one hundred million dollar offer would trump any professional commitment she had made to kill him. It had seemed like a safe bet, but risk taking did not come easy to him. He much preferred to treat every decision as a solvable problem, but now he was operating in what he liked to call "black box" territory.

Every groundbreaking invention had a black box — a problem that, at the outset, the inventor was uncertain whether or not he could solve. The black box he now faced, however, was not part of an invention — it was his life. How could he get his life back and destroy Colin without running the risk of inadvertently sending Annie to jail? He didn't know the answer, but his intuition told him he had to go through Mel. The old Jacob would have rejected this uncertain direction and spent a year holed up in a shack in Mendocino thinking through the problem, breaking it down, pondering it to death with the hope of eliminating all risk. And even after all that, he probably would have failed to find an answer and done nothing.

The trashcan suddenly started to ring. He jumped to his feet and dug through the trash until he found a backpack with a phone inside.

"Hello, Jacob," Mel said, her digitized voice difficult to hear over the sound of the surf. "Before we meet, I have to take certain precautions to make sure you are not being followed."

"Okay."

"I need you to do exactly what I say. There are only two words you are allowed to speak—yes and no. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Did you leave your wallet and cell phone behind like I asked?"

"Yes."

"In the event that you took a stupid pill and decided to wear a wire or a transponder, I need you to strip and go for a swim."

Jacob studied the ocean. He'd be lucky if the water temp were over 50 degrees.

She continued: "Make sure your entire body goes under the water. When you get out, there is a change of clothes in the bag. Call me when you're dressed." The line went dead.

Jacob undressed, kicking off the silly loafers, tearing off the ridiculous Italian shirt, unfastening the gaudy Cartier watch, and stepping out of the Gucci pants. Then he stripped out of his too-tight Calvin Klein underwear and stood naked, shivering. After cramming Michael Wilde's clothes into the trash, he jogged down to the ocean. Rather than ease into the frigid water, he charged in. The cold hit him like a body blow, crushing all air from his lungs. He sucked in a series of breaths and then dove beneath the wave, making sure the water covered him. Then he waded out of the water and jogged back up to the beach.

Even after changing into the fleece sweats and sneakers that were in the backpack, his hands were shaking so badly that he could barely press the buttons on the phone. After a few tries he got it right and she answered.

"Put on the headset," she said. "It's in the jacket pocket."

He found the Bluetooth headset and slipped it over his ear.

"Walk back up to the parking lot. Go to the red Dodge Neon. Keys are behind the gas tank flap. Take the car and head toward the bridge. Do not hang up."

Jacob jogged back up to the parking lot and found the car and keys. Then he started the engine, cranked the heat, and accelerated down the road. Five minutes later he was heading across the Golden Gate Bridge.

To the west, a sailboat glided across the Bay, a white triangle pressed against the glimmering water. It was moving upwind, a graceful illustration of the laws of physics. The curved sail was acting like an airplane wing, generating aerodynamic lift. Without the keel, the wind would have pushed the boat sideways instead of forward. But the keel, acting like an underwater wing, created a side force that canceled out the lateral force generated by the lift of the sail, enabling the boat to travel forward instead of being just blown to the side. There was something completely pure and true in the way the sailboat turned force into movement that made Jacob detest his lie-choked life. For as long as he could remember, fear had stopped him from turning his dreams into reality. Whatever happened with Mel and Colin and the ledger, he would never again allow fear to hold him back.

### Chapter 39

Weekend tourist traffic jammed the streets of Sausalito. Mel searched the taillights of the cars in front of her for the Neon. For a panic-stricken second she thought she had lost him until she spotted the taillights four cars ahead. She chastised herself for losing focus. Jacob Miller had bested her yesterday. That could not happen again. With Baby M's future now in her hands, any screw-up, however small, was unacceptable. Her heart skipped a beat at the thought of how close she had come to killing the Senator. Thank God Jacob had called when he did. Not a chance he would have been willing to trade for the ledger if Colin were dead. Once again, the ledger was the key to her dream. Working as a gun-for-hire was not compatible with being the kind of involved parent she was determined to be. With Baby M at home, she could hardly jet off to Prague for a contract hit at a moment's notice. A hundred million would enable her to be the ultimate parent, always around and able to give Baby M everything.

As for Baby M, Mel was certain he was already growing inside her uterus. After leaving the Senator she had returned to her apartment and injected his semen inside herself. She had given the sperm plenty of time and the perfect environment — two hours flat on her back — to operate. She was confident they'd accomplished their mission.

Mel followed the Neon out of town. After passing a stretch of warehouses, she instructed Jacob to do a u-turn, watching carefully to see if he were being followed. Once he finished the turn, she made a quick u-turn and accelerated in front of him.

"See that van in front of you?" she said.

"Yes."

"Follow it."

Five minutes later she turned into the marina and parked. Jacob pulled into the spot beside her.

"Get out and wait for me," she said.

He stepped out, looking taller than she remembered, and waited beside the Neon, indifferent to the drizzle. She climbed out and walked around to the back of the van

"Come here," she said.

Jacob joined her. She took a quick look around—the place was deserted—and swung open the back doors. A black duffel bag rested on the floor. She pulled back the zipper, revealing Meacham's ghostly face pressed against the plastic.

"Christ," Jacob said.

Mel zipped the bag shut. "Yesterday you got smart and got away with it. Don't try it again." She hoisted the bag onto her shoulder and they walked toward the boat slips.

Thirty minutes later she guided the chartered motor boat past the Golden Gate Bridge and headed toward the open ocean, the horizon still aglow with the fading orange of the sunset. A few minutes after passing the bridge, Mel cut the motor and sat at the table across from Jacob. Without any forward momentum, the boat rocked and rolled with each swell.

"Tell me about the ledger," she said.

"Fifty two off shore accounts with all the information you need to access them." He showed her a photocopy of a page with the account number crossed out.

"Have you tried accessing them?" she asked.

"This afternoon I successfully transferred money between two accounts."

"You said one hundred million. Is it all still there?"

"I checked all the accounts online. The balance is actually $104 million."

"And you don't want any of it?"

"It's not mine."

Mel had to force herself not to laugh. What an idiot. She studied him, trying to figure out his game. He sat quietly, his calm slightly unnerving.

"What do you have for me?" he asked.

Mel pulled out a Ziploc bag with two pink cell phones inside.

"That looks like the phone Colin was using," he said.

"The other one's mine. Both were prepaid. Neither have any user data connected to them. But his fingerprints are all over his phone."

"I assume the records for your phone will show you in the vicinity of Richard Volokh's house at the time he was killed."

She nodded.

"And I'm guessing you and Colin spoke around that time?"

"Yes."

Jacob shrugged and frowned. "So what? All this shows is that Colin was talking to someone near Richard's house. You said your evidence was bulletproof."

"And that's why I have this." She gestured at the laptop resting on the table and tapped the space bar. The screen flashed on, revealing the media interface. She clicked on play and the Senator's voice came out over the speakers:

" _Listen to me. I need that book. Not tonight. But right fucking now."_

She paused the playback.

"You recorded your calls?" he said.

"All inbound calls for both our phones were routed through a recording switch before being forwarded to each phone. I always like to have some insurance." She clicked on play and her digitized voice crackled over the speakers:

" _It's the middle of the day, sir. It could get messy."_

" _Then get messy! I don't care what you do. Kick down Volokh's door. Knee him in the balls. Waterboard the pacifist motherfucker. Just get me my book back. Got it?"_

Mel closed the laptop, silencing the recording. "How's that for bulletproof?"

Jacob sat quietly.

"Still interested in making a deal?" she asked.

He nodded.

"This is how it will work," she said. "First I swap the recordings for the ledger. To make sure you don't tip off the police, I'll hold onto the phones. Once I have the ledger and verify that the money is still in the accounts, I'll send you the phones."

"And if you don't?"

"Keep a copy of the ledger. If I screw you, drain the accounts." Mel returned the pink phones to her coat pocket. "Do we have a deal?"

Jacob gazed silently at the laptop.

"Give me your answer when we get back to the dock."

She walked out of the cabin and onto the deck. On the horizon streaks of orange and red stretched across the darkening sky. Her entire life she had watched the sun rise and set alone. That was about to change. She placed her hands over her belly and felt the budding life inside.

"Baby M," she said, "you will love this world."

She took one last look at the sky and then stepped up to the pile of chains resting beside the duffel bag. Working quickly, she looped them tightly around the bag and then dumped the body over the side and watched it sink into the ocean.

### Chapter 40

The incessant rumble of the boat's motor ground into Jacob's nerves. There was no pattern to the sound. The motor would strain as the boat chugged up a swell and then rev as the boat rode down the backside. Obviously the swells were a function of the tide and offshore weather, but they were also affected by the depth and width of the bay, which was always fluctuating. Hence the randomness.

Mel stood at the wheel inside the cabin, steering the boat back to the marina. The boat looked to be about ten minutes from shore and he had not yet figured out how to respond to her offer. He clamped down on his obsessing mind and forced himself to think. If he gave her the ledger and turned over the evidence to the U.S. Attorney, the end result was clear: the sociopath that had killed Richard and nearly killed him would end up with a mountain of cash and Colin's fate would be in the hands of the criminal justice system. Both of these outcomes were unacceptable. Jacob wasn't exactly sure what Mel deserved, but one hundred million dollars certainly wasn't it. As for Colin and the criminal justice system, Jacob had no desire to go that route. Not only would turning over the ledger put Annie and Jen in jeopardy, but rather than expose Colin's mendacity, a trial seemed far more likely to produce months of lawyers obscuring the truth, haggling over procedural rules, and bringing in an endless parade of witnesses to crap all over the evidence. He could practically hear the expert hack testifying that the recordings could easily have been fabricated. Even if Colin were found guilty, the whole process felt deeply unsatisfying. Moreover, he hated the idea of giving someone else the satisfaction of exposing Colin's lies. He wanted to be the one to rip off Colin's mask. He wanted to be the one to shove the truth in Annie's face. And he wanted to do it now. Because for the first time in his life, Jacob Miller wanted revenge.

Mel guided the boat into the slip and cut the engine. She looked back at him. "What's your answer?" she asked.

Jacob sat quietly, sensing he had found a solution. A few seconds passed and then the answer crystallized:

Absolute truth.

This was the key to the black box. This was how he would save himself. This was how he would destroy Colin. He would show all of them the truth of their lives.

"You have a deal," he said, standing. "Meet me at eleven-thirty at Defiance's old headquarters. It's on Haskin's Way off of Oyster Point. The building is still vacant."

"I'll see you there. And remember, don't get smart."

_You don't even know smart,_ he thought as he walked out of the cabin and stepped onto the dock. He had a plan, but he needed help.

He needed the Fools Club.

### Chapter 41

Colin stood in front of the floor-length Victorian mirror that hung in the foyer of the Schaefer Foundation. Fortunately, he was the only person in the house so he could gaze away without worrying that someone might catch him. All day he had been icing his face. The swelling had gone down enough for him to see how his broken nose altered his appearance. Whereas before there was a prettiness to his handsomeness, he now looked rugged — like the kind of man that would not back down from a fight, a leader unafraid to make difficult decisions. In only a few hours he had gone from Rob Lowe to Harrison Ford. He turned his head and studied his profile. The bump was pronounced. Gorgeous. He faced the mirror and stood ramrod straight.

"I am Colin Schaefer," he said to himself, "and I approved this message."

Even his voice sounded better.

Obviously God had major plans for him.

Colin returned to his office. Stacks of position papers covered the floor. He had spent all morning and afternoon downloading and printing reports from an array of think tanks: the Baker Institute's study on preemptive and preventive War; AEI's work on Medicare; the Brookings Institution's papers on bilingual education, class size, charter schools, school privatization, and immigration; and the Cato Institute's briefing papers on farm subsidies and trade tariffs. Once the contributions started rolling in, his staff would prepare his own position papers, but for now he needed a working knowledge of all the issues to avoid being labeled the single-issue homelessness guy.

He grabbed the report at his feet, a Cato Institute paper on income inequality, and was about to start reading when he realized he had not touched base with Annie. It was a few minutes after five o'clock when he called and told her he would be working late.

"That's okay," she said, her voice light and easy, as if yesterday had never happened. "When you get home I want to talk about throwing a holiday party."

"Aren't we a little late? On Monday everyone's leaving for Aspen and Tahoe."

"Different guest list. I was thinking we should reach out to people in the public-interest world. I imagine they'll all be in town with their families. How about something low-key and kid friendly, like an afternoon of cookie making and decorating?"

"That sounds perfect," he said, loving her more than he ever had.

"You sure?"

"I love it."

"I already have a set of cookie cutters for the nativity scene. It even has a little baby Jesus. Do you think that might be offensive?"

"Get a Hanukkah set too."

"Great idea. I'll get it online right now. See you in a bit."

He ended the call and smiled. He had Annie's love. He was unstoppable.

He ate a Power Bar and started to read the report, his mind absorbing the information with Asperger-like focus. When he finally paused to look up, it was completely dark outside. Through the windows, an impenetrable blackness loomed that made him feel like he was being watched. Pushing aside his unease, he took out the pocket mirror he kept in his desk drawer and studied his magnificent nose, a reminder of how God's will worked in the strangest ways. He slipped the mirror back into the drawer, feeling good about all the work he had accomplished. The grandfather clock in the entry hall struck the half-hour. He needed to get home. He filled a manila folder with more reading material, turned off the lights, and left.

On the drive home, he thought through his position on education, formulating a stump speech. _Our existing K through 12 educational system is bureaucratic and bloated and it has failed our children. It is time for a new way forward. It is time we demand the best for our children._ He spoke each line out loud, listening closely to his voice, reworking each syllable and phrase, modulating his voice until it had just the right amount of authority. Too smooth and they think you're untrustworthy. Too stiff and they think you don't have a heart. The balance had to be perfect. JFK had that. So did Reagan. And so did Colin Schaefer.

He turned through his gates and drove down the driveway. Last night the sight of _Los Robles_ had depressed him. Tonight it lifted his spirits. This, after all, was what he had sacrificed to make Prop 264 a success. Such an act was nothing to be ashamed of. Why should he and his family live in luxury when so many families could not afford a simple roof over their heads? Sacrificing _Los_ Robles was courageous and selfless and the voters would cheer his generosity.

He parked in the garage and bounded up the stairs. "Daddy's home!" he called out as he reached the landing.

Jen raced out of her room calling his name. He wrapped her in his arms and kissed her cheek. His heart glowed. Annie stepped out, holding a children's book.

"Oh my God," she said. "What happened to your nose?"

He already had his answer prepared. "Slipped on the porch at the Foundation." He half-laughed, selling the lie. "Thankfully my nose broke my fall."

Jen touched his nose and giggled. "You look funny."

"Did you see the doctor?" Annie asked.

"I'm fine, looks worse than it is."

Annie studied him, unsure. He set Jen down. "Back in bed Jenny-Bug."

"Hug," she cried and he embraced her, loving the feeling of her tiny arms squeezing his back.

"Goodnight, Jenny-bug," he said and kissed his daughter one last time. She trotted off, leaving him alone with Annie.

She studied his face. "That looks like it hurts."

He placed both his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. "Honestly, I have never felt better."

"Have you heard from Jacob? The police are looking for him."

"He hasn't called." Colin pressed his lips together, feigning concern. "I'm sure he'll be okay."

From inside the bedroom Jen called out for Annie to finish the story. She looked to him for reassurance. He kissed her forehead and said, "Jacob's fine. I'm sure of it."

"I hope so. I ordered the Hanukkah cookie cutters. The set comes with a dreidel, a Star of David, and a Menorah. And I thought we could use the gingerbread man as a Maccabee."

"An inspired idea," he said, wondering what the hell a Maccabee was. What an asset she would be once the campaign kicked into high gear.

She kissed him on the cheek and returned to Jen's bedroom. He entered the master bedroom and walked into the bathroom. He turned on the shower and undressed, keeping his back to the mirror to avoid seeing his fat flesh. His cell phone rang, the ring tone indicating it was from an unknown number. He answered.

"Good Evening, Senator," said Mel's digitally altered voice.

His body stiffened. "What do you want?"

"To meet."

"I thought we were finished."

"I changed my mind."

"We had a deal."

"It's time for a new deal."

"Forget it. I'm done with you."

"If only it were that simple. I think you should hear something—something I doubt you would want made public."

"What is it?" His fingers curled around the phone, squeezing it tighter and tighter.

"Meet me at midnight at your old company headquarters. And bring your checkbook."

The line went dead.

Fury flared through his body like a brush fire. He looked around for something to destroy. On the counter rested a bamboo box full of Annie's aroma therapy bottles. He seized one and flung it against the mirror. The glass shattered, releasing a scent that reminded him of his mother's Chanel perfume. White spots popped in his vision and he hurled another bottle against the mirror—and another and another and another until only the bamboo box remained. Still raging, he bashed the box against the counter and then stormed out of his bedroom and onto the landing.

Annie was standing in front of Jen's closed door. Her alarmed eyes wandered over his naked body.

"Are you okay?"

"Actually, I have never felt better."

"What happened to your chest and side?"

He looked down at the bruises. "I must have done it when I fell."

"You sure you're alright? Maybe a doctor should look at your nose."

"Actually, I kind of like the way it looks." He turned and showed her his profile. "See? It's far more distinctive." He faced her, waiting for her approval.

"I guess so."

"Once the swelling goes down, you'll see what I mean." He walked past her, entered the study, and locked the door.

"Colin," she called out, her shaky voice muffled by the door. "Can we talk?"

"Go to bed."

"Colin..."

"Annie," he said sternly, "go to bed."

A second passed and then her footfalls faded down the hall. He walked up to the safe and thought about his upcoming meeting with Mel. With complete certainty, he knew why God had placed this challenge before him: to cleanse him of the last remnants of his pedestrian morality. Greatness demanded its own morality. It was his destiny.

He removed the painting that covered the safe. With the ledger gone, he had not bothered to lock it. He pulled down on the handle, opened the safe, and lifted out the gun. There was no doubt in his mind over what he had to do, or whether he was capable of doing it. Since that day in the orchard when he had nearly beaten Reed Higgins to death, he had always known he was capable of murder. All his life he had wondered why God had put that potential for violence in him. Now he understood.

He looked down the revolver's sights and thought about how good it would feel to stare into Mel's ugly possum eyes and pull the trigger—one slug for failing to recover the ledger, one slug for the blow to his crotch, one slug for the sucker punch to his nose, one slug for forcing him to flop on Meacham's corpse, and the rest of the magazine for making him jerk off into a glove to father her beast-child.

That's what you get for fucking with an agent of God.

### Chapter 42

The three of them sat quietly inside the parked rental car — Patrini behind the wheel, Austin in the passenger seat, and Jacob in the back. Through the windshield, the Defiance building glowed in the moonlight, its black surface a silvery leaden color.

Jacob had just finished telling them his plan and so far neither of them had said a word.

Patrini spoke first. "That's it? That's the entire plan?"

"Pretty much," Jacob said.

"I was kind of hoping for a little Mission Impossible razzle-dazzle."

"You could get shot," Austin said.

"I know."

"Okay, genius," Patrini said, "can't you come up with a plan that doesn't involve you standing in a room with two gun-toting sociopaths?"

"No," Jacob said. "There's no clever way to fix this mess. This is it."

Austin pushed out a long breath. "This is kind of different than drinking beers at the Goose."

"Kind of different?" Patrini said. "It's like someone spiked my beer with bad acid."

"If either of you want out," Jacob said, "now is the time."

"Screw that," Patrini said.

"They killed Richard," Austin said, "and nearly killed you. Whatever you want me to do, I'll do it."

"Then we're all good?" Jacob asked.

Austin and Patrini nodded.

Jacob checked his watch. To Patrini he said, "Have her back here in an hour."

"You sure she'll come with me?"

"Tell her it's her last chance to see Colin."

"What about the kid?"

"The nanny's there. Trust me, Annie will come."

Patrini studied him. Her face tightened and he could tell she was trying not to cry. She forced a smile and said, "I'll kill you if you get shot."

"I'll be okay. I promise."

"Good. Now go and end this fucking mess."

He hoisted the backpack over his shoulder, tucked his laptop under his arm, and climbed out of the car. Austin, also carrying a laptop, followed him out. Then the car sped off, leaving the two of them alone.

Jacob glanced up at the night sky. A misty halo glowed around the moon. Beyond it a scattering of stars glimmered. There was a part of Jacob that wanted to stay there and pick out the constellations rather than continue with his plan that would likely lead to the death of at least one person and destroy the only two people he had ever really loved.

"What is it?" Austin asked.

"I'm not sure I can do this."

"All you're doing is showing them the truth. Think of it as accelerated karma. They'll be better off for it."

"No they won't."

"Then why do it?"

"Because I want to hurt them," Jacob said, confessing. "I can't remember ever wanting to hurt another person, but I want to expose all their lies and watch them suffer."

"And if you do that, can you live with yourself?"

"I don't know. But if I don't, I know I can't live with myself."

"There's your answer."

Jacob walked toward the entrance. A halogen security light clicked on above the door. Austin pulled a pair of bolt cutters from his backpack and snipped the chain wrapped around the handles. With his old key, Jacob unlocked the door. The alarm beeped, counting down the seconds until it would go off. He punched in the code on the control pad and deactivated the alarm. Then they entered the fire stairs and began the climb to the top floor.

### Chapter 43

After leaving the marina, Mel spent the rest of the day at the Macha Café on Sutter Street. For the price of a cup of tea—organic and herbal, of course—she parked herself in one of the comfy chairs and surfed the Web for information about the soonest she could determine if she were pregnant. A number of sites discussed the three Bs—bleeding, barfing and bionic smell—but that seemed like bullshit. The only way to be certain was to take the Serum Beta HCG blood test in a week. Hopefully she would be celebrating Christmas a few days early this year—and for the first time in decades, she would not be alone for the holiday.

Seven days was all Mel could think about when she pulled up to the office building. Although there was probably some risk that Jacob might call the police, she was not worried. There was no physical evidence tying her to the murder, and the phone recordings were only valuable as evidence with the actual phones, which were back in her apartment. If the police picked her up, all they would find on her was the encrypted flash drive, which would erase the instant they opened it without her password. Jacob was a sharp cookie; he had to know that police involvement would only screw up the deal.

Mel parked at the curb and studied the building. A security light cast a dim yellow glow across the entrance. There was not another car or person in sight. Just to be safe, she drew her gun and walked toward the front door. Following Jacob's instructions, she entered the building and climbed the fire stairs, being careful not to bounce, which might adversely affect the implantation of the embryo in her uterus. In her mind, she pictured Baby M curled up inside of her.

"Don't be afraid," she sang softly to her unborn child. "Close your eyes." Her voice echoed in the stairwell and drifted into her womb. And, Baby M, hearing the loveliest sound in the world, fell sound asleep.

At the top of the stairs, she walked down the hall and into the conference room. The lights were dim. Through the window the moon glowed on the horizon. Jacob was sitting at the table, a laptop in front of him. A leather bound book rested beside him.

"So that's it?" she asked, nodding at the ledger.

"Yes," he said. "You have the recordings?"

She handed him the flash drive. "Password's babyforme, all one word, no caps."

He inserted the drive into his laptop's USB port and entered the password. A second later her digitized voice played over the laptop's speakers:

" _Richard Volokh, you know him?"_

" _Yeah,"_ the Senator's voice answered. _"He used to work for me."_

"Are we done here?" she asked, speaking over the voices that continued to play on the laptop.

"How long is it?

"Ten minutes tops."

"I want to hear it all. Then you can have the ledger."

On any other night, Mel would have balked. Getting the hell out of hostile territory was second nature. But tonight she was not worried. If he had called the cops, they would have descended the moment she gave him her password.

"Sure," she said, holstering her gun, "take your time."

While her conversations with the Senator played over the laptop speakers, she gazed out the window. On the other side of San Francisco Bay, the lights of San Leandro glittered across the hills. Beyond those hills were more golden hills. And beyond those hills was her new life in Colorado.

Mel was so lost in thought that she did not hear the footsteps behind her. Only when she heard the cocking of a gun hammer, a faint _click_ that thundered into her brain, did her daydream end. Her head whipped around. The Senator, armed with a .38 caliber revolver, was stalking toward her. Her fingers twitched, itching to draw her Colt, holstered against the small of her back.

"Don't move," he said, entering the room. His eyes flicked over to Jacob and then fixed back on her. "What's he doing here?"

"I thought we should all meet," Jacob said. "Work out our differences."

The Senator's brow furrowed and he looked back at her. "You didn't call me?"

"No," she said, studying the two men. _What the fuck was going on?_

The Senator's eyes darted to Jacob. "That was you who called?"

"I decided I like being Jacob Miller."

"Turn that off," the Senator said, nodding at the laptop.

Jacob closed the laptop, silencing the voices. By his coolness she could tell he had planned the whole encounter. But why? He had to know that if he screwed her, she would never turn over the phones. Without that crucial piece of evidence, it would be difficult to connect the Senator to the recordings and the murder. So why bring the Senator here? She looked at Jacob. He half-smiled and his eyes hardened as he said:

"Did you really think I would turn over a hundred million dollars to the individual who killed my best friend?"

The Senator's jaw muscles clenched and he took another step toward her. "You treacherous little troll, you were planning on selling me out." By the look of pure rage in his eyes, she knew he was planning on blowing her brains out.

"He wants you to kill me," she said, suddenly realizing why Jacob had summoned the Senator to their meeting.

"She's right," Jacob said. "I do want you to kill her. And if you don't, think about what she might do with a certain pink phone covered with your fingerprints. The phone records will show you calling someone in the vicinity of Richard's house. They'll prove you're a murderer."

The Senator thrust the revolver at her. "Where's the phone?"

"I'll get rid of it."

"Right," he said, smirking.

By now her right hand had reached her hip. She could draw the Colt in a flash, but if the Senator were fast—and given his athleticism, that was a safe bet—he would still get the first shot. She studied his revolver. It was a snub-nosed Smith and Wesson—completely reliable, but its heavy trigger and short sights made it difficult to shoot accurately. Even if he got a shot off, chances were good he would miss. But with Baby M's safety on the line, she could not take that chance. Better to dive for cover under the table and then draw her pistol.

The Senator took another step forward.

Her time had come.

She lunged to the floor, hoping the Senator would hesitate. He didn't. The revolver fired and the bullet tore through her right shoulder, the hot lead shredding muscle and bone. When she hit the floor, she reached for her gun but her injured right arm did not move. Another shot shattered the table above her. Shards of tempered glass rained down on her. As her left hand reached for her Colt, a bullet slammed into her back, pounding her to the carpet. Her back burned and her head exploded with pain.

When her vision cleared, she was staring at the tips of the Senator's Italian loafers. If she could only make eye contact with him, then he would know that in killing her, he would be killing his child too. She raised her head. The muzzle of his gun filled her field of vision. She opened her mouth to plead for her child's life but only the ragged sound of her blood-choked lungs wheezed out. She coughed once and a glob of blood dribbled down her chin. Then her head thudded to the floor. Directly in front of her, shards of scattered glass glittered for a moment and then darkness seeped into her vision. In her mind, Baby M smiled at her and to this beautiful child she whispered Melissa's most beautiful words:

We'll cross the desert and watch the moon rise...

And you can sleep while I drive.

### Chapter 44

When the first shot erupted, Jacob did not flinch. He stood completely still and watched the confrontation between Colin and Mel unfold exactly as he had envisioned.

The blood spurting from Mel's shoulder.

The glass table shattering.

Another shot.

More blood.

Colin stalking toward her.

Her raspy breaths filling the room.

And then Colin leveling the gun at her head.

The old Jacob would have looked away, or worse, run from the room. But tonight he stood quietly and waited for Colin to execute Richard's murderer.

Colin shifted his weight. The glass crackled beneath his feet. Then he fired the gun. Her head jerked as the round entered her skull and blood flowed across the floor.

Jacob faced the backpack sitting in the corner. Inside was a wireless camera and microphone, transmitting a video and audio feed of the conference room to Austin's laptop located on the floor below. But at that moment, Austin was not the one staring at the screen—Annie was. Five minutes ago, Jacob's phone had vibrated three times, signaling that Patrini had successfully picked up Annie and brought her back to the building.

He imagined her sitting in front of the laptop gaping at the screen, rubbing her temples to ease the mounting tension in her head as she fought to make sense of the scene in front of her. Would the knowledge hit her fast or slow? Would the truth trickle out? Or would it explode? Jacob stared into the camera and spoke to her with his eyes:

Look at the body, Annie.

Look at the blood spreading across the floor.

Look at the gun in his hand.

He killed her.

He killed Richard.

Yes, Annie, everything I said was true.

He imagined her sitting in the room, looking around for a place where the truth would never find her. He imagined her cradling her belly to keep her insides from bursting. He imagined her trying to scream. He imagined her constricting throat strangling the sound. He imagined her knees buckling. And he imagined her collapsing to the floor as the inevitable weight of the truth crashed down on her.

A part of him recoiled at the suffering he was unleashing on her. He thought about abandoning his plans, running from the room, taking Annie into his arms, and apologizing for ever hurting her. That's what the Boy Under the Bed would have done — allowed the festering lies to continue because he could not stand the thought of hurting someone. What right did such an unwanted boy have to inflict pain? Yet that's what he had to do to reclaim the truth of his life. To flinch at the pain was to deny his right to exist.

His eyes bored into her.

You have only just begun to see the truth of your life.

### Chapter 45

With his hand curled around the revolver, the acrid smell of gunpowder in his nose, and Mel's corpse at his feet, Colin had never felt more alive, more acutely aware that he was destined for greatness. By finally accepting God's mandate—that he rise above the petty ethics of ordinary men—he had triumphed. He would dispose of the body, he would take back the ledger, he would regain control over his money, he would hire a new campaign manager, and he would set his life back on the path to greatness.

Colin looked up from the body, expecting to see Jacob staring at him in awe. But Jacob was standing in the shadows, his face hidden — terrified no doubt. Surely he realized that he was in the presence of a man of historical significance. Or was that expecting too much from such a mundane and timid soul?

An urge to comfort Jacob swept over him and he said, "Someday you will see all the good I have achieved and all the lives I have saved and you will understand why I have had to do these things, why my destiny required me to sacrifice our friendship."

Jacob edged out of the darkness. The moonlight gave his face a pale, ghoulish quality and his unwavering eyes glowed cold in the gray light.

Colin walked toward him, the glass shards crunching beneath his loafers. He stopped at the ledger, resting on the floor. "What's left?" he asked.

"Everything."

Colin picked up the ledger and opened it. The pages containing the account information were missing. He flung it aside. "Funny—where are the pages?"

Jacob did not answer.

Colin leveled the gun at him. "Where the _fuck_ are they?"

"In a safe place," he answered.

"Get them."

"Not yet."

"Not yet?" Colin jammed the gun at Jacob. "Bring me the pages."

Jacob did not blink. Colin wanted to throw him on the floor and beat him senseless. But he could not touch him—not until he had the ledger.

"You were wrong," Jacob said.

"About what?"

"When you said we never brothers, you were wrong. We did share that cramped room at the end of the hallway. I did tell you the name of every star you pointed at. And you did tell me all about your first kiss with Janice Stenstrom. All of that happened."

"Fine," Colin said, "we were brothers, now give me the fucking ledger pages."

"It would have been easy for me to clear my name and send you to prison."

"You want me to thank you? Is that what you want?"

"No," Jacob said. "I want you to understand what I'm about to do. It's because we were brothers that I'm giving you a choice."

"You're giving me a choice?" Colin snorted. "Who has the gun?"

"And that's all you have." Jacob gestured at the laptop on the floor. "Remember, I have recordings of your conversations with her."

"Is that so?"

Colin raised his foot and repeatedly stomped the laptop — the screen shattering, the keyboard breaking — until it lay in pieces.

"I believe you _had_ a recording," Colin said.

Jacob walked up to the bank of light switches and audio controls on the wall.

"What are you doing?" Colin asked.

Jacob turned the volume dial. The speakers in the ceiling crackled and then his voice filled the room:

" _Then get messy! I don't care what you do. Kick down Volokh's door..."_

"The magic of wi-fi," Jacob said. "I transferred a back-up copy to one of my so called _geek-freak_ friends."

Colin stormed up to Jacob and shoved the gun in his defiant face. "Turn it off."

"Shoot me and every cent from every account will be gone by tomorrow morning and a copy of those recordings will be emailed to every blogger and journalist in the world."

"Turn it off!"

Jacob turned the volume dial and silenced the recording.

"What have you done?" Colin asked.

"I am giving you a choice."

" _I_ have a choice _?_ You think you decide my fate?"

"No, I'm leaving that up to you."

Jacob reached inside his jacket and pulled out a manila envelope. Colin grabbed the envelope and tore it open. Inside were the missing ledger pages along with Michael Wilde's passport.

"Where are the other passports? What about Annie and Jen?"

Jacob shook his head.

"I'll be alone?"

"Only if you choose to leave."

"And if I stay?"

"If you stay, then I'll take the money and the passport."

"Some choice, you get to live it up while I'm in prison."

"No prison — if you stay, I'll destroy the recordings."

"You'll take the rap for the murder?"

"Yes."

"Why the fuck would you do something as stupid as that?"

"Because I want you to have a real choice."

"And why would you give a shit about that?"

"Because our choices tell the world who we are."

"But if I stay, no one will know. Right?"

Jacob swallowed, looking nervous for the first time.

"No," a voice whispered behind him.

Colin turned toward the familiar voice.

Annie stood in the doorway, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"I'll know," she said, her wide eyes seeing everything.

He looked at Jacob. "You brought her here to see me choose?"

"No," Jacob said. "I brought her here to see who you are."

Colin's eyes shifted between Annie and Jacob. "You think I'll leave, don't you? I bet you'd love that? Then it would be just you and Annie." Colin smirked at Jacob's pettiness. "You actually think you know me? Dangle the ledger in front of Colin Schaefer and watch him take the money and run. You don't know a Goddamn thing about me. I don't need that ledger. I don't need the money. The voters will look at Colin Schaefer and see a great man who sacrificed a fortune to fund an initiative that changed people's lives. They will embrace me."

"If you believe that," Jacob said, holding out his hand, "then hand me the ledger pages and I'll leave. You can stay and run for office. The future's all yours."

The future's all yours...

Jacob's words echoed in Colin's ears and he desperately wanted to believe them. Just like he wanted to believe that his greatness was only a stone's throw over the horizon. He looked around the room. Blood oozed from a black hole in Mel's skull. Tears flowed down Annie's cheeks. And the man who he had once called his brother was staring contemptuously at him.

A cold knowledge swept over him: God has no plans for me. He felt himself dying inside as a vision of his future — trapped between a concrete sky and a leaden earth — crept over him. He would have to sell _Los Robles_ to pay his debts. Because of the stigma of his inevitable bankruptcy, there would be no campaign, no grand political future. Annie, finally faced with a reality that even she could not ignore, would divorce him and take Jen with her. Alone, he would move into an apartment in Sunnyvale. In the mornings, he would pull on his wrinkle-free Dockers and an Eddie Bauer button-down shirt, slide his feet into a pair of Rockports, drink a pot of coffee to jump start the miserable day, climb into his Hyundai Sonata, and then drive to a soulless job in a sea of cubicles that he would have had to beg to get. And his reward for this miserable existence: every other weekend he would get a day with Jen. However, he wouldn't be able to take her anywhere, because wherever they would go, people would stop and whisper: _Isn't he? I think so. Wasn't he worth? Yes, a billion dollars._ But that was not even the worst part, far from it. The worst part would come at the end of the day when he would lie alone in the darkness, knowing he would die a nobody. A life of loser moves.

Colin thrust the gun against Jacob's forehead and screamed. The shriek, his final protest against this untenable future, thundered out of him until his breath ran out. Then his will to remain Colin Schaefer limped out of his body and died with the scream.

He lowered the gun.

Behind him he heard Annie gasp. He faced her and she covered her mouth with both hands, a futile attempt to stifle the long guttural moan that rose up from her throat. Then she doubled over, slumped to the floor, and sobbed.

To escape the sound, he closed his eyes and saw his immaculate future take shape. Michael Wilde would climb into the Bentley, hit the accelerator, and rocket down the interstate. He would glance in the rearview mirror and say to himself, "Hello, Michael, what would you like to do today? A villa in Monte Carlo? A ski chalet in the Alps? A Caribbean bungalow on St. Martin? A drive along the Autobahn? Why decide!" he would laugh. "I'll take them all."

### Chapter 46

Jacob watched Colin's eyes drift further and further away. When the corners of his mouth turned up slightly in a smile, Jacob knew that Colin Schaefer was gone forever.

"If you can't dream," Colin said, "why bother living?" He slid the ledger pages into his coat pocket.

"Good bye, Colin," Jacob said.

Colin stared blankly at Jacob, his eyes fixed on someplace that his mind had already escaped to. Then he walked away.

"You have a daughter," Annie cried from the floor.

Colin stopped in front of her, but did not look down.

Her words came out in gasps between sobs. "You have a daughter..."

"She's only two," he said. "She won't even remember me."

"At least say good bye."

"I can't do that."

"No!" she moaned, clawing at his pant leg. "No!" she pleaded, her hands on his face, forcing him to turn his head so that his eyes met hers.

"If I see her," he said, "I'll be tempted to stay."

"Then stay."

Colin smiled faintly. "And then what?"

Annie covered her mouth, biting her knuckles.

"I'll send money," he said. "You'll have everything." He moved to kiss her.

"No," she said and held out her hand to keep him back.

He looked at her hand and then at her face. "Good bye, Annie," he said and walked into the reception area.

"Wait."

Colin stopped, his back to her.

"When your daughter wakes up and her father isn't there, what should I tell her?"

Without turning, Colin answered, his voice a whisper from the darkness: "Same thing my father told me — nothing." Then he disappeared down the hallway and his footfalls faded until there was only silence.

Annie wrapped her arms around herself and sobbed. After awhile Jacob walked up behind her.

"We need to go," he said. "The security guard is scheduled to be back at one."

She whirled around. "And that's part of your plan too, isn't it? The guard finds the body, the police hear those recordings, and the truth comes out. And then what? Colin's gone and it's me and Jen trying to make a life in the wreckage. Was that part of your plan?"

"He could have stayed."

"You knew he wouldn't."

She slapped him hard across the cheek. He met her glare and looked into the sad and angry eyes of the woman he had loved for so long, but now felt only pity for.

"I'm sorry for Jen," he said, "but you knew who he was. All I've done is show you the truth of your choice. I hope someday you'll see that as a good thing."

Jacob walked out of the conference room and stood in the reception area. Through the window he looked out at the dazzling lights of Silicon Valley. During his time at Defiance he had been so focused on his work that he had never stopped to marvel. The Valley was an odd place. By day it appeared as a mundane suburban sprawl of houses and mid-rise office parks. But darkness revealed its majesty and beauty. People from out of town always searched in vain for an iconic structure that represented the Valley — an Empire State Building, a Sears Tower, or a Golden Gate Bridge — but it did not exist, because the Valley was about the life of the mind. This was where he belonged.

Jacob walked down the hall. The sting of Annie's slap tingled on his cheek and the memory of her crying rang in his ears. He entered the stairwell. Above him the fluorescent light buzzed and his vision fogged. He rested his hand on the railing and blinked until his vision cleared. He slid his foot onto the first step. His legs trembled and he clutched the railing. He took another step and began to descend the stairs.

At first he thought his legs would buckle under the weight of his unraveling nerves, but with each step the shakiness slipped away until his legs felt loose and his shirt brushed against his chest. His pace quickened and he pushed open the fire exit.

Patrini and Austin were standing beside the rental car. Because they were looking at the main entrance, they did not see him come out the side door. In the moonlight he could see the worry on Patrini's face. He felt like a total shit for being so self-absorbed and so oblivious to her feelings for so long. Behind him the door clicked shut and she turned to the sound. Instantly the tension on her face disappeared and she sprinted toward him. He took a step to meet her, but then she stopped and her smile faded. He walked up to her and an awkward silence settled between them. After awhile she spoke:

"Is it over?"

"It's over."

"And you're alright?"

He nodded.

"That's good," she said. Tears welled in her eyes and her chest heaved. "I was fully prepared to beat the crap out of anyone who hurt you."

"I know."

"We're talking about a serious ass-whipping."

"Thank you."

"Your welcome."

Behind her a horn blared. She looked back at Austin standing beside the open driver's side door, his hand on the horn. "We got to go," he called out and then climbed in the backseat.

Side-by-side they walked toward the car, their shoulders almost brushing.

"Nebula," Jacob said, finally remembering. "That's the Latin word for mist."

"Thanks Rainman. What time does _Wheel of Fortune_ come on?"

"Nebula, it's what we're going to call our next company."

"A Latin name for a company? How very 1980-ish of you."

She climbed in the driver's seat. Jacob walked around the car and got in the front passenger seat.

"I like Nebula," Jacob said.

"What's Nebula?" Austin asked.

"It's what Jacob wants to call his new company."

"Nebula?" Austin said. "I thought only nonsense words were allowed these days: FuBu, BinnyWinny, Zicalico."

Patrini started the engine and drove across the parking lot. Jacob rolled down the window and the night air drifted across his face. He closed his eyes and let the sound of the wind brushing over his ears drown out the memory of Annie crying. He felt the car turn onto the road and accelerate away from the building. He was about to look back, but stopped himself and glanced at Patrini, her right hand resting on her thigh. A memory stirred in his brain of a boy waiting to feel his mother's touch. Tonight Jacob Miller did not wait. He reached over and took her hand in his. She inhaled sharply and he feared she might pull away. Then she squeezed back, her hand strong and warm, and continued driving.

### Chapter 47

It was not until after her baby was born that Annie saw Jacob again. She had taken Jen and baby Nicholas down to the Palo Alto Baylands to look for wildflowers and birds. Nicholas had fallen asleep in his stroller and Jen was skipping down the path, chanting the names of the birds they had already seen: "Egret, heron, duck, egret, heron, duck..."

"You're going to scare all the birds away," Annie said.

"Haven't we seen everything?"

"We haven't seen an avocet."

"What's he look like?"

"Kind of like a brown and white duck with a pointy beak."

In the distance, a jogger appeared. Not until he was twenty yards away did she realize it was Jacob, and even then she had to study him closely to be sure. The man she had dated years ago had been gawky, unlike the man running gracefully toward her. Their eyes met and he stopped.

After a moment he smiled and walked toward her. His legs had put on muscle and his chest had filled out. When he stopped in front of her, she was expecting him to fidget, but he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.

"Hey," he said, and then looked over at the baby. "So this is baby Nicholas?"

"You read the story?"

"They were kind of hard to miss for awhile."

"Right," Annie said, forcing some lightness into her voice. "Well, here's the fugitive's baby in the flesh."

Jacob grimaced. "I didn't know you were pregnant."

"Would it have mattered?"

"The truth?"

"My therapist says it's a good thing."

"No, it wouldn't have mattered." Jacob held her gaze for a second and then squatted in front of Jen. "Hi, Jen."

"How do you know my name?"

Jacob looked at Annie for guidance.

"You can tell her."

"I knew your father."

"You did?"

"We grew up together," he answered, the words catching in his throat. "I guess you could say we were brothers."

"Daddy had a brother?"

"Jacob's your uncle, Jenny-Bug."

"My uncle?"

Jacob smiled at her.

"What did you like to do together?"

"Kid stuff, he taught me to throw a baseball."

"Can you teach me?"

"Sure."

"Can you tell me stories about him?"

"Absolutely."

Jen skipped off to study a flower on the edge of the path. He stood and faced her.

"You don't have to do that," Annie said.

"I want to. She should know who he was — the good part."

Annie felt the tears coming and covered her mouth with one hand. "Sorry, my hormones are still out of whack."

Jacob put his arms around her and for a few seconds she allowed herself the comfort of crying on someone rather than to herself or her shrink. Then she stepped back and wiped away the tears.

"Believe it or not, I'm actually okay," she said and smiled. "In fact, life is awesome."

"Awesome?" He laughed and for a moment the weight of the past lifted. She reached out and rested her palm on his cheek. He smiled sadly and placed his hand over hers. She bit her lip, fighting the tears. Then his fingers curled around hers and he dragged her hand down from his face.

A gust of wind blew across the field, carrying with it the scent of decomposing mud. He released her hand and she wrapped her arms around herself to stay warm. For awhile neither of them spoke.

"What could have been," she said.

"Isn't it nice to think so. Good bye, Annie."

He walked backwards for a few steps. She waited for him to smile or wave or say something, but then he just turned and jogged away without looking back.

Chapter — Epilogue (Ten Years Later)

The man who was once Colin Schaefer no longer recognizes himself when he looks in a mirror. The wine and food have added forty pounds to his frame. His once fine features have been swallowed up by a layer of fat covering his surgically altered face. Once he tried cutting back on the food and wine, especially the wine, but found that without the alcohol, he had no way to quiet the voice of Colin Schaefer that still echoed in his head. And besides, what was one supposed to do in the French Riviera other than gamble, eat, and drink?

Tonight he sits at the roulette table, laying bets on numbers, sniffing his glass of 1994 Château Latour, which has a lovely nose of licorice and caramel. He sips the wine, savoring its sublimely sweet palate, knowing that he must enjoy it now while the voice is bearable, only a whisper:

I want to go back to them.

You can never go back to them.

He swirls the wine and sniffs the nose, this time detecting a hint of chocolate that reminds him of his visit last spring to Château Le Pin. He has a return trip planned to Bordeaux, not for the wine, but for the antiquities. Now that the remodel of his estate is complete, he must focus on acquiring things to fill it.

He places another bet and watches the roulette wheel spin. The sound of the clicking wheel and rolling ball keeps his thoughts from wandering. Across the room he sees an escort at the craps table smiling at him. He squints, bringing her features into focus. Has he had this one? He studies her and tries to recall if she were the one he slept with last New Year's. The upturned nose was the same, but the New Year's escort had been a blond and this one is a red head — although that hardly settled it.

"My chips, Henri," he tells the croupier.

"Yes, Mr. Wilde," Henri says and gathers the chips.

He slips the chips into his pocket and walks over to the craps table to speak to the red head, not because he wants to sleep with her, but because it bothers him that he cannot remember. By the time he reaches the table, she is gone.

"Mr. Wilde," the stickman calls out, "Will you be joining us?"

An attractive brunette eyes him, but with her small breasts and understated makeup, he is certain she is not an escort. He would prefer not to go home alone, but he knows better than to sleep with a woman who will want more from him than a few thousand Euros.

He walks toward the exit, anxious to return home. The tile artisans he flew in from Italy have finally finished the _jardin_ and he is looking forward to seeing the view at night.

The valet pulls up in his Aston Martin coupe, the engine booming. People turn to stare and he smiles. He still enjoys the envy of strangers.

After driving through the city's narrow streets, he turns onto the country road that leads back to his villa. In the moonlight, the dark rolling fields remind him of the Pacheco Pass, the section of hills that separates the San Joaquin Valley from Silicon Valley. His mind wanders and he thinks about the first road trip he took with Jacob, driving from Phoenix to the Bay Area to start college. They packed up his mother's old Mercedes 280CE and headed out across the desert. When they finally reached the Pacheco Pass, the sun was starting to set, the air cooling. They rolled down the windows and cranked the stereo volume. Over the sound of the rushing wind, the opening organ chords of U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name" rose up. All around them the hills burned with the colors of the setting sun. Only the occasional gnarled oak broke up the boundless fields of fire. And as the car glided ahead, they smiled at each other with the shared knowledge that they were heading into a future where everything was possible.

Now the wine fuses the past with the present and he looks over at the passenger seat to tell Jacob how proud he is of him—but the seat is empty.

He downshifts, revving the engine, and floors the gas. He guides the Aston-Martin around the bend, the Pirelli tires effortlessly hugging the corner. As the road straightens, he shifts into fourth gear, steadies his nerves, and begins the ritual.

He turns off the headlights, lifts his hands off the wheel, and presses his foot down on the accelerator. Although he can no longer see the road, he knows he has less than fifteen seconds until it turns. These are the fifteen seconds of his day when he stops taking shallow breaths and allows himself to breathe and feel Colin Schaefer's grief.

He inhales the cool night air. Deep in his chest he feels each of them—Jacob, Annie, and Jen—three permanent knives in his heart. He remembers how Jacob's voice cracked as he said good-bye. He remembers how Annie pushed him away and refused his final kiss. And then he tortures himself with the memory of Jen's tiny hand pressing against his cheek as she hugged him good night for the last time.

"I miss you all so much," he cries, but his words are drowned out by the engine.

Only a few more seconds before the road turns. If he grabs hold of the wheel, he knows exactly what his tomorrow will be: The same as today. His heart aches and he prays for the strength to end his life. The car races ahead. He presses his hands to his thighs and wills them to stay there. In the darkness, the turn appears—

His foot slams the brake. His hands yank the wheel. The tires squeal. And he makes the turn. All the other times he hit the brakes in time to turn without noise. He is getting closer to the end.

When he reaches his estate, he pours himself a glass of Cognac and steps out into the _jardin._ The lights of Cannes glitter in the valley below. He sits on the edge of the fountain and lights a Cuban. He puffs on the cigar and blows the smoke into the night. He places his nose over the tulip shaped Baccarat glass and breathes in the aroma of the Cognac, a fifty year old Château de Montifaud. It smells of toffee, cedar, and sandalwood. He sips the spirit and feels the drink warming his stomach.

As he looks out at the lights, he pretends that he is gazing out on Silicon Valley and that the house behind him is not his empty villa, or even _Los Robles,_ but the tiny two-bedroom starter home in Fremont that he never lived in until now — in his mind.

Inside this imagined home he hears Jen and her girlfriends giggling and begging Annie to stay up a little bit later. Annie acquiesces and then comes out and sits beside him. She rests her head on his shoulder. He smells the scent of roses and basil in her hair and pictures how beautiful she must have looked that afternoon in the garden.

Have you ever seen such lights? she says.

Not even in my dreams.

Go inside and say goodnight to your daughter.

He kisses her and then walks inside to wish Jen a happy twelfth birthday, wondering how that little girl that he used to hold in the shower got to be so big.

Here he stops the fantasy. The pain is too much to bear.

"I am dead," he says to the night.

Then the man who was once Colin Schaefer sips his Cognac, draws the cigar smoke into his mouth, and thinks about how perfect his life might have been if only his dreams had not gotten in the way.
