"What others?"

"Look, I don't have a crystal ball, but if things don't work out with Steve, you'll be entering a new phase of your life." She leaned close again. "Look at these gorgeous hunks." She put her knuckles in her mouth and moaned. "Check out the kid in black to your left."

Casually Dana looked left to a table of three young men and a woman. The male in a loose black shirt opened at the neck had thick shiny black hair pushed back and a tanned Adonis face. Perhaps he saw Dana out of the corner of his eye because he smiled. Dana smiled back, having difficulty thinking that she had a moral obligation to get a lid lift for him.

"Look what's out there for you."

"Yeah, me and Demi Moore."

"You know what I'm saying. You'd be jump-starting your life with a new you and all sorts of possibilities."

"We're only separated, not divorced."

The waitress came with their lunch.

Through the window Dana saw a print of a painting she recognized as Renoir's Nude on a Couch. "Some things never change," she said, and she nodded to the painting.

Lanie squinted. "What never changes?"

"Women never stop posing and men never stop re-creating them."

"I guess."

"Instead of a couch, today it's an operating table. Instead of a paintbrush, he uses a scalpel. Meanwhile, the woman is nothing more than material to be refashioned."

"Aren't we getting a little deep?"

"Nothing deep about it. It's the same old, same old sexist pressure on women to look good."

"And it's not going to change, sweetie. We live in a culture that reveres youth. You're not old, but you don't look young enough for the job. And that's what you want. So get real, kiddo, and do something about it."

Dana nodded. "I wonder if anybody knows her name?"

"Who?"

"The model in that painting. She's just another nude woman on a couch, but the artist is world-famous. And today they're plastic surgeons on TV."

"I see your point, I think."

After a few minutes, Lanie said, "I saw Steve's name in the paper-the murder of some health club instructor. You see the photo of her? She was a knockout. They have any suspects yet?"

"I'm not sure. He doesn't talk about his cases."

Lanie took a sip of wine. "So what's happening with you two?"

"I don't know. I just want to be on my own for a while. It's a trial separation."

"There's no such thing. And you're only fooling yourselves if you think so. I've known two dozen people who had trial separations, and each one ended in divorce."

"We'll see. But I need time to reassess things."

"Do you love him?"

"That's not the issue."

"It's the bottom line. If you don't love him, then get out and get on with your life. There's too much you're missing."

Yes, Dana still loved Steve. And she still had a sexual yen for him. But even before his infidelity, they had begun pulling apart. He was content to remain just the two of them, a streamlined childless couple for the rest of their days. And she wanted kids.

But there was more. Because of the stress of the job, the mounting pressures due to the increased crime rate, and their squabbling over his commitment problems, Steve had taken to alcohol, made worse because he also took antidepressants.

In his adolescence, he had been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder that apparently grew out of the guilt he had carried over his parents' unhappy marriage and their untimely deaths. He spoke very little about his childhood; eventually he had outgrown the disorder. But he still had little rituals. If stress built up, he'd take to cleaning the cellar, rearranging all the tools at the workbench, straightening out his office upstairs, squaring books on the shelves, lining up knickknacks. And he'd do it repeatedly, and in the same fashion, worried that if he didn't follow the rituals something bad would happen.

The problem was not the rituals and annoying repetitions. It was his drinking on top of the meds. One night he had come home stressed-out. They had a fight over something, and in a fit of rage Steve smashed a lamp against the wall. What scared her was not just the violence, but that he had completely blacked out at the time, recalling none of it. Only later did she discover that he had taken a double dosage of the antianxiety medication Ativan on top of several drinks-a forbidden combination.

Perhaps they should have consulted a marriage counselor. Perhaps they should have worked on it before it had reached critical mass. But they were separated now, and she was beginning to enjoy her freedom, her own space, her sense of renewal, corny as that sounded.

"How are you and Carl doing?"

"The same. It's more of a habit than a marriage, but it works."

They finished eating and paid the check. In leaving, Dana shuffled around the tables and glanced at the kid in the black shirt. He was gorgeous-lean tan face, large black eyes, thick shiny hair, cupid-bow lips. He looked up at her and smiled as she moved by. "Goodbye," he said with a slightly foreign lilt.

She felt a gurgling sensation in her chest. "Goodbye," she said, trying to make a cool and graceful departure.

When she got home, Dana called Dr. Aaron Monks's office to make an appointment. Because of his busy schedule, the secretary said that the doctor could see her in two weeks. When Dana said that she was really hoping to have the procedures done before returning to school in September, the secretary said she'd see what she could do.

An hour later she called back to say that because of a last-minute cancellation, the doctor had an opening the first thing tomorrow morning if she wanted to book it. Dana did.

9.

Located on Route 128 near Gloucester, the Kingsbury Club was a large mausoleum-like structure in white stone with dark glass and cubistic turrets and a lot of low greenery. Steve had arrived early for his appointment with the athletic director, so he sat in the car and reviewed the Farina reports, hoping in part to snatch whatever kept teasing him since Ottoman's office.

He reviewed the photographs, but nothing came. One series of shots was of Terry with her sister, photo-lab-dated five years ago. In them, she had short brown hair and was heavier, only vaguely looking like the woman he remembered. The other images from the crime scene made his mind slump. Her golden red hair looked obscenely radiant against an engorged face the color of night.

But this time the image caused a quickening in his veins that he recognized. Someone had done this to her. Someone so driven by hatred and rage that he could squeeze the life out of this woman while champagne still bubbled in her glass. Someone who was out there walking the streets, breathing air, feeling the sun on his face, while Terry Farina lay bone-sawed in a refrigerator in the city morgue. It was an awareness that made Steve hum to get the dirtbag who did that to her.

"Did you ever kill anyone?"

It was the first question she had asked when he told her he was in homicide. They had met during a break in the cafe downstairs in Shillman Hall, their classroom building. He was behind her in the coffee line. She was taking a child psych course, he was doing his Criminology class next door.

Yeah, he had.

"What was it like?"

He didn't want to talk about it.

"Were you scared?"

He didn't remember. It had happened in a fog. He changed the subject.

She had said she liked her job as a fitness trainer, especially the aerobics class because it kept her in shape. But she wanted to move on and had gotten accepted to Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, which was why she was taking refresher courses. The older photos reminded him that when they had first met her hair was brown and cut shoulder-length with wispy bangs the way Dana wore her hair. And how she had resembled Dana.

As arranged, he met Alice Dion, the Kingsbury fitness director, and Bob Janger, the owner, in the lobby, a bright open area behind which stretched a bank of windows onto the main workout area. Dion was in her forties, with short black hair and a tan. She had a solid athletic build that spoke favorably of the dozens of machines on the other side of the glass. Janger, who reminded Steve of the actor Stanley Tucci, was a neat muscular guy with a shaved head and a shadow of where his hair used to be. He wore a blue club shirt and chinos, looking every bit like the owner of an upscale fitness club. They brought Steve to Dion's office, a small cubicle with a desk and computer. With their permission, Steve tape-recorded their exchange.

"This is a terrible loss," Janger said. "She'd been with us for three years, and she was terrific. Smart, motivated, and dedicated to her clients, and they loved her. She was one of our best trainers."

Dion nodded in agreement. "I still can't believe it. She was very professional and a really fun person." Her eyes filled up.

"Can you think of anyone who'd want to harm her?"

"No, not a soul," Dion said.

Janger shook his head. "No one."

"Do you know if she was personally close to any of the club members, maybe even dating any?"

"Actually," said Janger, "we have a hard-and-fast rule that the staff cannot become involved with club members. We had a problem in our first year, and since then it's been written in stone: no dating clientele."

"To what consequence?"

"They'd be fired, no questions asked."

"Seems like an effective deterrent."

"So far so good."

"Do you know if she was seeing anyone?"

"Not that I know of," Janger said, and he looked to Dion.

She thought for a moment. "She didn't say much about her private life."

"So, she never mentioned going out with anyone-a dinner or movie date or whatever?"

"Not to me. But maybe to some of the other staff. Maybe Michelle San Marco. She's one of the other aerobic instructors. She and Terry were pretty close, except she's not in today. But I can give you her number." And she jotted it down on one of her cards and gave it to him.

"I'd also like a list of her clients over the last three years."

"Sure," Alice said, and turned to her computer and hit a few keys. In a few minutes her printer kicked into action. When it was finished, she handed him a printout of a few dozen names, most of them women's.

"If you'll bear with me I'd like to do some cross-checking."

"Sure," Dion said. "Can I get you something in the meantime? Coffee, water, soft drink?"

"Water would be just fine, thanks." Dion left, and Steve went down the list looking for matches to names from Terry Farina's Rolodex-neighbors and friends the investigation had compiled. There were more than a hundred on the list, which he'd have to check for overlaps. But at a glance none jumped out but Neil French.

When Dion returned, Steve mentioned that his partner had hired Farina.

They both remembered him. "Big good-looking guy," Janger said.

"Yes. She was his trainer for a while."

"He must be pretty upset by this," Dion said.

"He is."

They talked some more, and when it was clear that they had nothing else to give him, Steve got up to leave. They walked him to the front door, where Steve handed them each his card. "Call me if you think of anything that might help."

"Of course," Janger said.

Alice Dion nodded as she studied Steve's card.

As he was about to leave, she looked up and Steve felt something pass between them. The next moment she headed back to her office.

10.

DERRY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

FALL 1970.

"Mom, my head hurts."

In the dim gray light of dawn he had padded from his room into the master bedroom where Lila slept alone in the big fancy canopy bed. His father had left while it was still dark that morning to drive to Boston's Logan Airport in order to pilot the 747 he was assigned for the next several days. They had been out the night before, and Lila's clothes were still draped across a chair, her black lace-top nylons hanging on the arm.

Still furry with sleep, Lila opened her eyes. "Oh, baby, I'm so sorry." She sat up and put her arms around him.

"I couldn't even sleep," he whimpered.