vin walked through the door to the duplex, closed himself in, and felt like someone had kneed him in the gut. from the hall, he stared at the ruined living room, and could not believe what he was looking at.

as he walked into the space, all he could do was shake his head. the couches were overturned and the silk pillows were trampled and a number of statues had been knocked off their stands. the rug was ruined over by the bar, stained by liquor that had bled from broken bottles, and the walls were going to have to be repainted and repapered because it looked as if a couple of bordeaux wines had been thrown at them.

taking off his coat and tossing it on a ransacked sofa, he wandered around the once perfect space. it was amazing how all those priceless things had been turned into trash so quickly. shit, add a layer of grime and some food garbage and you had a dumpster.

bending down, he picked up some shards that had broken loose from a venetian mirror. the thing had been struck with something that vaguely resembled a human back, the center of the piece smashed in a long, torso-like column.

the fine spray of white powder all over it seemed to suggest that the police had gotten busy dusting for fingerprints.

man, someone sure as hell had been thrown around the room.

vin went over to the bar and put the jagged pieces of mirror next to some of the busted bottles. then he resumed the search for exactly what the cops had no doubt been after.

no blood that he could see. but maybe they had already removed the things that had been marked by it.

besides, bruises bled under the skin, so it wasn't as if a lack of the stuff here was necessarily going to help him.

while the cpd had been in the building, undoubtedly they'd questioned the lobby guard - except it wasn't like the guy could testify to vin's not being in the apartment. after all, residents could take the elevators up from the parking...garage.

vin went over to the phone and called down to the front desk. when a male voice answered, he didn't fuck around. "gary, it's vin - did you give the police access to the security tapes of the elevators and the stairwells in the building?"

there was absolutely no pause whatsoever. "jesus, mr. dipietro, why'd you do it - "

"i didn't. i swear. did the cpd get those tapes?"

"yeah, they got everything."

vin exhaled in relief. there was no way he could have gotten to the duplex without showing up in one of those recordings. in fact, what they were going to prove was that he'd left the building that morning and not returned until after midnight.

"and you were on camera," the guard said.

vin blinked. "what?"

"you came up in the garage elevator at ten o'clock. it's on the tape."

"what?" that would have been impossible - at the time he'd been in the car, driving to the woods with marie-terese. "wait, you saw my face. you actually saw my face."

"yeah, clear as day. she came through the front doors and went up to the duplex, and then twenty minutes later you came in through the garage. you had on your black trench coat and you left like a half hour later, with your boston sox cap pulled low."

"it wasn't me. it - "

"it was."

"but...i didn't park my bmw in my spot - it was gone, and my other car was there. i didn't use my pass card to get through the gate. explain - "

"you got a ride, then, and came in through the pedestrian door. i don't know. look, i got to go. we're running a test of the fire alarm."

the line went dead.

vin hung up the receiver and stared at the phone, feeling like the whole fucking world had lost its damn mind. then after a moment, he went over to the couch, arranged the cushions into some semblance of order, and all but fell on his ass.

as the alarm system in the building started to go off and strobe lights flashed from the fixtures out in the front hall, he felt like he was in the dream he'd had, the one where devina fell upon him like something out of night of the living dead.

chess pieces were being arranged around him, blocking his moves, boxing him in.

you 're mine, vin. and i always take what is mine.

as he heard those words in his head again, the sound of the alarm was the perfect accompaniment to the panic burning through his veins. shit. what the hell did he do now?

from out of nowhere, jim heron's voice cut through devina's: i'm here to save your soul.

ignoring that summarily unhelpful cue, vin got up and went to his study in search of something far more likely to chill him out. over at the intact liquor bottles, he poured himself a bourbon, drank it, and then refilled the squat glass. the television had been left on, but was muted, and as he parked it behind his desk, his eyes latched onto the local news.

when a photograph appeared next to the anchor's blond head shortly thereafter, he could not say he was surprised. with the way things were going, it would take a dirty bomb set off in downtown caldwell to get a rise out of him.

he reached for the remote.

"...robert belthower, thirty-six, was found early this evening in an alley not far from where friday night's two victims were shot. he is now at st. francis hospital in critical condition. no suspects have been identified yet in the crime..."

it was the guy from the iron mask. the one who had come out of the bathroom with marie-terese.

vin picked up the phone and dialed.

the call wasn't accepted until the fourth ring, and jim's voice was tight, like he didn't want to answer: "hey, my man."

still feel like saving my soul now? vin wanted to taunt. "have you seen the news?"

long hesitation. "you mean about devina?"

"yeah. i didn't do that, though, i swear - last i saw her was when i broke up with her that afternoon and let her walk out of my place with the ring i bought her - you're welcome. but i'm more calling about the guy they found beaten in an alley downtown. he was with marie-terese last night. i saw him with her. which would make it three men in twenty-four hours who've...hello? jim?" when there was an uh-huh, it was clear what the problem was. "look, i didn't do that shit to devina, although i know you won't believe me." another long silence. "hello? oh, for fuck's sake, do you honestly think i could hurt a woman?"

"i thought you were calling because of me."

now it was his turn to pause. "why?"

another long silence. "she said she told you. about us."

"us? what 'us'?"

"she said that was why you lost it and hit her."

vin tightened his hand on his glass. "exactly what is there to tell about the two of you." the soft curse coming across the line was in the universal language for sex-that-shouldn't-have-happened.

vin's muscles around his shoulders and down into his arms went rigid. "are you kidding me. are you fucking kidding me."

"i'm sorry - "

the glass shattered in vin's palm, bourbon going everywhere, soaking his sleeve and cuff, splashing on the front of his shirt and his pants.

he ended the call by hurling the cell phone across the room.

while jim hit the end key, he was willing to bet that wasn't the way vin had terminated the call. no, he had a feeling that whatever phone had been up at vin's ear was now fodder for a dustpan. great. just fucking wonderful.

after he rubbed his eyes, he refocused on the entrance of the inpatient building and let the first part of the conversation register: another beaten guy tied to marie-terese. and when vin called, that had been the number one thing on his mind, even above the fact that, oh, yeah, he was up on felony assault for buzz-sawing his girlfriend with his knuckles.

that shit with marie-terese was as strong as ever for him. which somehow didn't feel like such a great thing.

man, this particular mission was going to hell faster than a free fall.

jim glanced down at his watch and then resumed staring at each person who went in and out of the doors. it was close to one, so devina's people would supposedly be coming any second, and then she would be leaving with them.

god, devina was such a liar.

it felt like sacrilege to come to that conclusion, given how that woman's face looked, but the truth was what it was: vin hadn't known a thing about thursday night and what had happened in jim's truck. not one thing. the totally-in-the-dark had resonated through his shocked voice.

why had she lied about telling the guy? and what else had she lied about?

sure as shit it made vin's denial more credible.

one o'clock came and went and so did one thirty. then two. devina had to be coming out soon, assuming it took about an hour to process her paperwork and her folks were on time - and assuming she didn't go out another way.

and assuming anyone was coming to pick her up.

wishing he had a cigarette, he held on to his phone and rubbed the flat surface of the screen until it grew warm. truth. he needed a truth injection into this situation. he needed to know who marie-terese was and who devina was and what the fuck was going on.

unfortunately, that was going to cost him -

devina abruptly stepped out of the double doors, a pair of big sunglasses taking up most of her face. she was dressed in a black yoga suit, and her oversize crocodile shoulder bag made her seem thin as a ruler in comparison. as she came out to porte cochere's curb, people stared at her as they passed, like they were trying to place her in the celebri-verse.

there was no one with her.

and...the bruising that had been on her face was now gone. all of it. she was photo-op ready, as lovely and perfect as she'd been over dinner friday night.

ice-cold warning splashed through jim's veins, the kind that had come only a couple of times in his life.

this was wrong. way wrong.

straightening in the truck's seat, he braced himself as he looked at the pavement down at her feet. in the light that was pouring out of the sky and creating echoes of objects large and small on the ground, she did not throw a shadow. she was form, but not substance, shape but not flesh. this was the enemy. he was looking at the enemy. he'd fucked the enemy.

as if she heard his thoughts, devina looked right where he was parked. and then her brows tightened and her face slowly panned from side to side - which he took to mean she couldn't see exactly where he was, but she knew someone was staring at her...

her expression was stone cold. nothing like the warmth she'd radiated in front of vin or what she'd thrown around at jim in the truck or in the car or in that hospital bed.

stone. cold.

serial-killer cold.

talk about a truth: she was a seducer and a liar and a manipulator...and she was after vin. and not as in marriage, but as in owning the man's very soul.

in the center of his chest, jim also had the sure feeling that she knew who he was and what he was. had known from that first night when they'd had sex - because she'd seduced his ass on purpose. hell, the logic was unassailable. his new bosses, the four lads, had put him on the field, and it looked like the other side had likewise sent an operative into the situation - who knew more than jim did.

as that old refrain of "devil with a blue dress" rolled through his head, he started to wonder about guys on harleys who didn't cast shadows either. and probably were liars, too.

goddamn it.

devina scanned the parking lot again, snapped at some poor guy who backed into her by mistake, and then lifted her hand to call up one of the cabs from the line to the right. when a taxi came forward, she stepped inside and off they went.

time to roll, jim thought as he started his truck and backed out of his space. as she knew his ride but only in the dark, he had a veil, not a cover, so he had to settle in two cars behind her and pray that her cabbie wasn't in the habit of blowing through orange lights.

while he trailed her, he tuned up his cell phone for a call, and as he pressed send, nothing else mattered other than getting what he needed. nothing he had to do was too much. no sacrifice was too great or too demeaning. he was back in the land of single-minded focus, as determined and unswerving as a bullet in midair.

"zacharias," he said as the line was picked up.

matthias the fucker laughed low. "i swear i'm talking to you more than my own mother."

"didn't know you had one. i thought you'd been spawned."

"you call me to discuss family trees or is there a purpose to this?"

"i need the information."

"ah. now why did i have the sense you'd come around."

"but i want the info on two names. not just one. and i can't do a job for you until i finish what i'm working on in caldwell."

"what exactly are you working on?"

"none of your business." although matthias was going to get a pretty good picture of the whos involved.

"how long are you tied up for."

"i don't know. not six months. maybe not even one month."

there was a pause. "i'll give you forty-eight hours. and then you're mine."

"i'm not anybody's, asshole."

"right. sure. expect an e-mail from me explaining everything."

"look, i'm not blowing out of caldwell until i'm good and frickin' ready. so send whatever you like, but if you think you're shipping me overseas the day after tomorrow to off someone, you've got your head up your ass."

"how do you know what i'm going to ask you to do?"

"because you and all my bosses before you have wanted only one thing from me," jim said hoarsely.

"well, maybe we'd mix it up a little if you weren't so fucking brilliant at what you do."

jim cranked his hold down on the cell phone, and decided that if there was any more of this bullshit banter, he was going to take up vin's method of terminating connections.

he cleared his throat. "e-mail won't work. i don't have an account anymore."

"i was going to send you a package anyway. you don't honestly think i trust hotmail or yahoo! do you?"

"fine. my address is - "

"as if i don't already know." more of that laugh. "so i'm guessing you want marie-terese boudreau's rundown?"

"yes, and - "

"vincent dipietro?"

so not a surprise. "nope. devina avale."

"interesting. she wouldn't happen to be the woman who said good ol' vincent put her in the hospital last night, would she? why...yes, she is. it's right here on my computer screen. terrible set of people you're hanging around with. so violent."

"and to think it's a step up from the likes of you."

now there was a little less of that amusement: "how does that saying go? it's not wise to bite the hand that feeds you...yup, i think that's right."

"i'm more likely to shoot than use my teeth. fyi."

"i'm well aware of how much you like guns, thank you very much. and in spite of your piss-poor opinion about me, i have all the intel on marie-terese right here." matthias, to his credit, got to the point. "born gretchen moore in las vidas, california. age thirty-one. graduated from uc san diego. mother and father deceased." there was a shuffling sound and a grunt, as if matthias were switching position - and the idea that the guy had to deal with chronic pain was satisfying as hell. "now for the interesting part. married mark capricio in las vegas, nine years ago. capricio is a bona fide card-carrying member of the mob, a real sick shit who has a personality disorder and a half, given his rap sheet. total skull cracker. she evidently tried to leave him about three years ago and he beat her up, grabbed the kid, and split. took her a couple months and a pi to find him. when she got the son back, she divorced the asshole, bought herself the marie-terese id, and disappeared, eventually ending up in caldwell, ny. since then, she's kept her profile ultra-low, and with good reason. men like capricio don't let their wives go."

holy. shit. so...chances were good that those two dead boys and that beaten man in the alley last night meant capricio had found her. had to be. vin had said the second attack had been on a guy seen with her -

"but when it comes to her ex-husband, she has nothing to worry about in the short term."

"excuse me?" jim said.

"capricio's been doing twenty in federal prison for a salad bar of felonies including embezzlement, money laundering, witness intimidation, and perjury - and after that he's got a bunch of state felonies to serve out, including accessory to murder, assault, battery. guy could be an exam question in law school, for fuck's sake." another shift around was marked with a soft curse. "apparently, it was all crashing down on him right about the time gretchen/marie-terese was going to leave him. which is logical. he was probably getting more and more violent on the home front as the feds and the nevada staties closed in on him. when he snatched the son, he was running from the law, not just his wife - which made the fact that he managed to disappear for three months a testament to the depth of his connections. clearly, someone ratted on him, though - maybe her pi applied the right pressure at the right time by threatening to turn one of his protectors in. who knows."

"but i wonder if his family's coming after her now."

"yeah, i read about those two gunshot murders in that alley. doubtful it's his family. they'd just kill her and take the son. there'd be no reason to expose themselves to any added risk by wiping out innocents."

"yeah, and besides, you kill someone just because she's been with him, that's personal. so the question is, who's after her - assuming she is the common thread between friday and saturday night's attacks."

"wait, someone else got blown, and not in a good way?"

"and here i thought you knew everything."

there was a long pause and then matthias's voice came back - this time without its usual swinging-dick tone. "i don't know everything. took me a while to realize that, though. anyway, i'll do the devina thing for you. stay by your phone for my call."

"roger that."

as jim hung up, he felt as if he were dressed in a familiar set of clothes: the back-and-forth with matthias was just as it had always been. quick, to the point, smart, and logical. that was the problem. they'd always worked well together.

maybe a little too well.

jim refocused on his pursuit, tracking devina's taxi as it headed across downtown to the old warehouse district. when they got into the maze of industrial buildings that had been converted into lofts, he let the taxi turn off onto canal street by itself and proceeded to the next left-hand turn. going around the block, his timing was perfect: as he came back to canal, he got to see devina get out of the cab and stride up to a door. when she entered using a key, he took that as an indication she had a place there.

jim kept going, and as he headed out of the district, he made another call.

chuck, the dipietro group's crew foreman, answered in his usual gruff way. "yeah."

"chuck, it's jim heron."

"hey." there was an exhale, like the guy was in mid-cigar. "how you doing?"

"good. wanted you to know i'm coming to work tomorrow."

guy's voice actually warmed a little. "you're a good man, heron. but don't be pushin' it."

"nah. i'm fine."

"well, i 'predate it."

"listen, i'm trying to get in touch with two of the guys i usually work with and i wondered if you have their numbers."

"i got everyone's number but yours. who you need?"

"adrian vogel and eddie blackhawk."

there was a pause, and the image of the guy chewing on the stub of a fattie was irresistible. "who?" jim repeated the names. "don't know who you talking about. nobody by those names on the bluff job." there was a hesitation, like the guy was wondering whether jim was all there. "you sure you don't need a couple days off?"

"maybe i got the names wrong. they ride harleys. one's got short hair and piercings. the other's huge and has a braid down his back?"

another exhale. "look, jim, you're gonna take tomorrow off. i'll see you tuesday at the earliest."

"no one like that on the crew?"

"nope, jim, there ain't."

"guess i'm confused, then. thanks."

jim tossed his cell phone on the seat next to him and all but strangled the steering wheel. not part of the crew. big surprise.

because that pair of bastards didn't really exist any more than devina did.

christ, it appeared as if he were surrounded by liars in this new job. which really put him back in familiar territory, didn't it.

his phone rang and he picked it up. "you can't find her, can you. devina avale is nothing but air."

matthias wasn't laughing this time. "nothing. not a damn thing. it's like she dropped onto the earth out of nowhere. the thing is, she has all the right surface credentials - but only to a point. no birth certificate. no parents. established credit only seven months ago, and the social security number is actually that of a dead woman. so it's not a great facade, which means i should have been able to find something, anything on the real her. but she's a mirage."

"thanks, matthias."

"you don't sound shocked in the slightest."

"i'm not."

"what the hell have you gotten yourself into?"

jim shook his head. "same shit, different day. that's about it."

there was a short silence. "expect a package from me."

"roger that."

jim hung up, put the phone in the front pocket of his jacket, and decided it was time to go face the music over at the commodore. vin dipietro had a right to know who and what his ex was, and here was hoping that the guy would be open to the truth - even though it sounded a lot like fiction.

abruptly, the memory of vin looking up from the stool in the locker room at the iron mask came back.

do you believe in demons?

jim could only hope that question had been a rhetorical one.