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the phone. “Ummm, can’t think. Can’t think right now.”
    Marisa, her voice low, quickly looked toward the kitchen. “Think, Larry, think. It’s important.”
    “It is? Why?” His words were becoming more slurred.
    “I have to know.”
    “Yeah, well, he and I did talk a lot, you know. I mean it wasn’t one of those things where I was trying to get all I could out of him. Nat and me were tight, man. Fucking tight.”
    “Larry, please. Did he ever tell you he was being followed? He might not have told Ellie because he wouldn’t want to alarm her, but he would have told you. He’d have to tell somebody.”
    “Come to think of it, he did say something about it. It was when he told me he missed the address book and the picture of us taken by that English boat guy.”
    “Jack Lyle?”
    “Yeah, Lyle. You’re right, Nat did say he had the feeling somebody was following him, just like he was sure somebody had broken into the house and searched it from top to bottom. Shit, my whole fucking head hurts. Whatever that doctor stabbed me in the ass with is making me feel sick.”
    “A favor, Larry. Don’t mention this to Ellie, okay?”
    “Sure. Whatever you say, Marisa. Any special reason?”
    “I don’t want to upset her. She—she thinks Nat’s death was accidental and I don’t want her to start worrying—”
    “Hey, hey. Run that by me again. I mean this is very, very heavy. Do you know something I don’t know?”
    And then talking to Larry, drugged, depressed Larry, put the entire thing together in Marisa’s mind and the cold terror that squeezed her heart was physically painful.
    Larry said, “You know who you sound like? Jack Lyle. That old bastard was always carrying on about somebody being after him and somebody coming after us because of that creepy book your friend Robert insisted on keeping. Lyle flipped out, man, remember? He was scared shitless, but we never took him seriously, remember?”
    Marisa remembered.
    London.
    Marisa held the phone and listened to a terrified, drunken Jack Lyle shout into her ear, “It’s a Book of Shadows, the most precious thing a bloody witch can ever own on this bloody earth and you people ’ave it. You be carryin’ around your death warrant, I’m tellin’ yer. I’m an old man and me mind ain’t what it used to be and I sip the juice too often, but I’ve got the sense the good Lord gave me to be afraid and to know when somebody’s steppin’ on me shadow. I know they’re followin’ me.
    “Them Druids, them witchy people, they hold me life in their ’ands. Too late fer me, I suppose. Too fuckin’ late. They know it was me what did a stupid thing and brought the boat to their village. They know me from the canal. They been watchin’ me sail up and down fer years and they let me live ’cause I never bothered them. Now they know I’m a part of them what ’as the book. I know what they do and they’ll not burn Jack Lyle, no sir. I’ll kill meself first. I just called to warn you, missy. You seem to have a little sense, so I’ll tell you that maybe, just maybe, you can live if you return that there book your friend’s holdin’ onto so tightly. Mr. Robert —”
    Robert rudely snatched the phone from Marisa’s hand, listened a few seconds and said coldly, “Mr. Robert’s listening, rummy. You’ve already ruined our vacation, you son of a bitch, and now you call when we’re leaving for the airport and give us more of your boozy ramblings. Crawl back into the bottle and pull the cork in after you. Better yet, take the bottle and shove it.”
    Robert slammed down the phone, glared at Marisa, then turned and walked to the bed to resume packing.
    “Asshole,” he said.
    Me or Jack Lyle? thought Marisa.
    Marisa whispered into the phone, “Larry, Ellie’s coming back. Remember what I said: This is between you and me.”
    “I’m cool, I’m cool. I was just wondering. With Nat gone, the money won’t be coming in, so I could use a little help. I