"Something wrong with me?" he asked, teasing gently.

"No. Nothing wrong with you. My fiance was killed in an accident recently."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Yeah," she said.

"I understand," he said.

"Thank you."

"I'm not much good company for anyone, much less myself," she said.

"I understand that too," he answered. "Hey, if things ever change ..."

He handed her a business card. He was in film production in Toronto. She threw the card away.

Then she went upstairs and soon, inexplicably, found herself in tears again.

She came home a day early. Her home answering machine was loaded with twenty-six messages. She cleared it without listening to them. She felt as if she were about to hit bottom and fall through. She wasn't that far wrong.

Two nights later, toward ten in the evening, she took out her Glock 9 and placed it on the coffee table in front of her in her living room. She took out a pen and pad and loosely constructed a suicide note. She put a fresh clip of bullets in the magazine and slapped it into the b.u.t.t of the weapon. She pulled back the slide. It snapped back on its spring, pulling a round from the magazine, leaving the round in the firing chamber and leaving the hammer c.o.c.ked. She clicked the safety catch to "off." All that was needed now was a slight pull on the trigger.

Doggerel tiptoed across the fringes of her consciousness.

The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of many things, Of loaded guns and obscene puns and whether pigs have wings.

Well, the time had come.

She walked her way through a suicide scenario. She set her suicide note aside on the table. She wondered if she was dressed appropriately to kill herself. She considered the mindless small details of who might find her. Or should she call the police first and then do it?

Alexandra's gaze fell upon a small mirror on the table. It was chipped from a time several weeks earlier when Robert, who had come over for an early dinner had knocked it off the table.

She saw the chip and emotions and a.s.sociations took over. How long could anyone be expected to live with such grief? She looked away, purposefully avoiding her own reflection. The awful truth was in that mirror and she didn't need any reminders. Her skin was blotched with tension and fatigue. Her hair, which she hadn't washed in three days-or was it four?-was dirty and stuck to her cheek and neck.

G.o.d, I'm a mess. G.o.d, I can't deal with this. G.o.d, take me away from this.

She wished-she genuinely wished-she had died with Robert. Then they could have entered G.o.d's heaven together.

Then she thought of the other people who had been killed in Ukraine and another wave of despondency washed over her. She was wishing she were dead and those poor shattered families were wishing that their lost loved ones were alive. She felt further guilt for just being alive.

Okay ... she knew what she should do. This would be easier for everyone ...

She fingered the Glock. She hefted it. The gun felt heavy in her hand. Heavier than it normally did with a full magazine, even though that made no sense.

She'd just run through the scenario. Who would find her? Who would bury her?

Who would even miss her?

The answer was obvious.

No one.

She fingered the gun. Yup. Round in the chamber, hammer c.o.c.ked, safety on "off."

Ready for business, as Robert used to say.

She had no family left. No parents, no children. She supported no one. She loved no one. No one depended on her.

She used to think she had come so far, done so well. It wasn't so long ago that all systems were go and the future looked beautiful.

Yeah, well that was a previous lifetime, wasn't it?

Previous lifetime. Her thoughts were skewed and out of kilter.

She reached for the little cross that she had for years worn around her neck and then, when it was gone, she was reminded why it was gone and what had happened. Ukraine had really ruined her, everything that had happened there, everything that she had lost. Her fiance. Her religion. Her belief.

Her life? Just an afterthought. She had lost that in Ukraine too. This one single shot would merely be the final formality, the punctuation point that would complete the sentence.

She picked up the gun.

Her hand trembled. She turned it toward her temple.

Come on, Alex. Have the courage.

Do it. Do it!

She moved the nose of the pistol upward. She felt the cold black steel touch her temple.

She began a little countdown and the blessed eternal darkness became visible.

Five, four ...

Time spiraled. So did thoughts. So did words.

She was a little girl again in Southern California, her mom and her dad nearby in the warm sunlight of Redondo Beach. Then she was a teenager in the south of France, riding a horse one summer.

Three, two ...

Then she was in Russia, laughing with friends at the Cafe Pushkin. Then, finally, she was in Robert's arms for a final time. And he was holding her so tightly that for a split second it didn't seem like a fantasy anymore and she could actually hear his voice and he was telling her that he loved her and always would.

One ...!

She could feel the touch of her finger against the trigger. Just a little more pressure and- And then Robert was in front of her. And from somewhere he was talking to her, a voice as alive or real as anything in this room, telling her deep down what she knew he would tell her, what he would scream at her, if he could have seen her right now.

If anything should happen to me, if something bad, should happen, I never want you to be alone. Or unhappy.

You should go on ... you should go on ...

You must be brave and go on ...

I will send a guardian angel to protect you ...

Zero.

Her hand trembled horribly. Tears overtook her.

Her hand moved the Glock's deadly muzzle away from her head. She cried uncontrollably. She flicked the safety to "on." She pushed the eject b.u.t.ton that popped the magazine partly out of the b.u.t.t and took it the rest of the way by hand and tossed it across the room. She pulled back the slide and popped the round that had been chambered-the one that, if it hadn't been for Robert, would now be in her head-out of the ejection port. The gun empty like that, the slide stayed back. Just reinserting the magazine and pressing the release b.u.t.ton would cause it to travel forward and put another round into the firing chamber, and the hammer was still in the firing position. With her thumb she pressed the release b.u.t.ton and the slide came forward with a sharp snap. She pressed the trigger and the c.o.c.ked hammer fell with another snap. The gun was now harmless.

She sobbed. Oh G.o.d. Oh G.o.d. Oh Jesus ...

It was a prayer, not a curse, an incantation, not a blasphemy.

She sat. She leaned back. She thought.

She cursed herself violently.

She couldn't even work up the courage to pull the trigger!

What a useless excuse for a human being she was, she thought.

She stood. She needed air.

That was it. Air.

She would go out for a breath of air. She would walk across the street to the Irish bar restaurant called Murphy's just two minutes away and knock back some drinks in the bar, summon up all the courage she could, and come back. Then she would finish things off.

That would do it. That would get the job done.

She pulled on her coat and went out the door. No sound from Don Toms across the hall. Well, who cared? Did he care enough about her? Maybe it would be Don Toms who found her. Good for him.

She went downstairs, as bitter as she had ever been in her life. She was working up a rage again, against G.o.d, against everything and everyone, convinced that she could get this final job done tonight.

A few drinks and there would be no equivocating when she came back upstairs.

This is it for Alexandra LaDuca. No one lives forever, right?

She brushed past the concierge, barely nodding to him.

She went to the front door, her head down.

A large man with a p.r.o.nounced limp was approaching, a duffel bag on his shoulder. She made no effort to get out of his way. At the last moment he saw her.

They collided. She threw a furious elbow at him. She connected solidly even though she was off balance.

She looked up, bitter and profane, ready to follow the elbow with a kick.

"d.a.m.n it!" she snapped. "Why don't you watch where-?"

"Hey, hey? Alex?" said a friendly voice, the man she had hit. An accent from the Carolinas. He laughed. "Hey, easy, woman, easy. What the heck? Wow, that's one nasty elbow you throw! Man!"

He reached out and steadied her with a strong arm.

"You okay?" he asked.

Two blinks. Then recognition.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

A smile crossed his face. Concern with affection. "I was looking for you," he answered. "But I never thought I'd see you."

FIFTY.

They stood together on the freezing sidewalk. "I was worried about you," Ben said. He pulled his gym bag off his shoulder and let it rest on the pavement. The bag was thick. He always carried his own basketball.

"Hey, we all know what happened. I can't tell you how sorry we are. You got notes from us, right?"

"I have a lot of mail I haven't opened," she said.

"We're all worried for you, Alex."

"Thanks. I'll be okay," she lied.

"Uh, huh," he said. "Well, I came over to make sure."

"Make sure of what?"

"That you're going to be okay."

"What are you, my guardian angel?" she asked, barely able to control the sarcasm.

"If I have to be, I will," Ben said steadily and without missing a beat. "I have a hunch you might need one right now," he said. "So here I am right here in front of you, minus the wings and the halo because those things aren't so fashionable these days."

She stood uncomfortably but felt herself give a slight smile.

"I promise you I'll be okay," Alex said.

"It's not that easy," he said. "The guys at the gym. We heard you were on leave from work, but this isn't right. We would all feel better if we saw you at the gym again. We're not going to all stop talking when you show up."

"I'm not feeling very social these days," she said.