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test would be the door.
    Adam inhaled. The door had unlocked; so far, Lew’s bypass had worked.
    Slowly, Adam edged inside. Dim light illuminated the hallway. A camera aimed down at him from the ceiling, meant to reveal his presence at once. But, if the device functioned properly, the monitor would show the empty space that existed a moment before Adam filled it. No one inside seemed to stir.
    With painful slowness, Adam crept down the hallway toward the stairs to the second floor. As he reached them, he glanced into the security room and saw the broad back of a sheriff’s deputy gazing at a T.V. monitor, watching the door through which Adam had entered. The intruder was safely inside.
    Catlike, he started up the stairs. He willed himself not tolook back at the deputy who, simply by turning, would catch him. Reaching the top, he turned a corner, out of sight once more.
    The second floor was quiet and still. If he got in and out without being seen, Lew had promised, no one would ever know he had been there. But Adam had more complex plans. Reaching the door of George Hanley’s office, also wired to the system, he turned the knob.
    Once again, Lew’s device had disarmed the lock. Slipping inside, Adam softly closed the door.
    Through the window, Main Street appeared dark and silent. Using his penlight, Adam scanned the surface of Hanley’s desk: nothing of interest.
    Kneeling, he slid open the top drawer of a battered metal cabinet, then another, reading the captions of manila folders. Only in the bottom drawer did he find the file labelled, ‘Benjamin Blaine.’
    Taking it out, he sat in Hanley’s chair.
    The sensation was strange. But for the next few minutes, Adam guessed, he was safe. The danger would come when he tried to leave.
    Methodically, he spread the contents of the file in front of him: Hanley’s handwritten notes, suggesting areas of enquiry; the crime-scene report; typed notes of the initial interviews with his mother, brother, and uncle, as well as Carla Pacelli, Jenny Leigh, Nathan Wright – the last man who admitted to seeing Ben before his death – and Adam himself; and, near the bottom of the file, the pathologist’s report.
    For the next half-hour, he systematically photographed each page, blocking out all thought of detection. He had no time to read. But once he escaped, and studied them, hewould know almost as much as George Hanley and Sean Mallory – and, unlike them, would know that he did. Especially advantaged would be Teddy’s lawyer in Boston, who would receive them in the mail from an anonymous benefactor, and who, himself innocent of the theft, would have no ethical duty to return them.
    Finishing, Adam reassembled the file and placed it in a different drawer. This last was for Bobby Towle, his policeman friend who, needing money to pay for his wife’s rehabilitation from drug addiction, had been vulnerable to Amanda Ferris once Adam had betrayed him. Now Hanley would know that someone had rifled his office, but not who it was, creating a universe of suspects who might have sold information to the
Enquirer
. A gift of conscience from an old friend.
    Opening the door, Adam left it ajar.
    At the top of the stairs, he stopped abruptly. The deputy was padding down the hallway, perhaps sensing that something was wrong. If he glanced up, Adam was caught.
    Utterly still, Adam watched him. The man disappeared, the only sound the quiet echo of his footsteps.
    Adam stayed where he was.
    Moments crawled by while the deputy inspected the first floor. At last, Adam heard more footsteps, and prayed that the deputy would not come upstairs. Back toward Adam, the man plodded to his station and sat before a monitor Adam knew to be disabled.
    With agonizing care, Adam walked down the stairs. With each step, the distance between him and the deputy lessened. As Adam reached the bottom of the steps, it narrowed to ten feet.
    Head propped on his arm, the deputy gazed at the frozen screen.
    Turning down