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5.

Neither is there any clear action to take to reduce the risk of trouble with the cops and trouble with M and D.

6.

Therefore trouble of these two kinds should not be the primary concern.

7.

Do I know you? Spencer Bray asked. And I shook my head in the slightest possible way, not wanting to move. I know you. Wait.

And I wasn’t looking at him but could feel his mirth coming in waves.

Wait. Hang on.

I peeked at his hand on the gun on the counter. I waited with all of my might.

One scenario: recognition never comes to Spencer Bray. He forgets about thinking he knew me. Recognition never comes to W. Voss, either, so his name is not given to the cops, and the cops do not find him. Result: I’m home free.

Another scenario: recognition does come to Spencer Bray. He wakes in a bed in the house of one of those uncles or cousins he always stayed with, and sits up, and says, as the dust motes spin in the sunlight, Rory Jeffery. And he puts on his parka—red, as I reported. And puts his gun in its right-hand pocket. And finds me. And kills me. Shoots me right through my tetanus-shot scar, which is just where he once put the pocket-knife blade on the grounds of Wright Elementary. The bullet glances the humerus, slips through the rib cage and explodes my heart.

Goodbye life. Goodbye W. Voss.

8.

Or this: recognition does come to Spencer Bray in a bed on the north side of town, but he stays calm, regarding me—correctly, I guess—as one of the kids he subdued for good a long time ago, on the grade-school playgrounds.

But recognition then comes to W. Voss, too (if it hasn’t already), and she tells the cops, who she trusts from watching high-rated shows like Law & Order.

Everyone watches them. Can W. be faulted for this?

In that one pair of jeans she has, in that tiny green shirt, as she paints her toenails, maybe, she watches the shows and trusts the cops and gives them the name, Spencer Bray. And they go to his house, or the house where his parents live. As I’ve indicated, though, he’s never there!

So the cops don’t get him. But he learns, through the family grapevine, that the cops are after him now, and he blinks his eyes and guesses he must have been wrong about me being permanently subdued. And he gets the red parka, the small gun. And kills me.

That flat pink color, the toenails would be. Bubble gum. She applies it innocently, without asking what others might think about it. Because she likes it. She likes that color.

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