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Venice swept in and recognized him—a local businessman with a family.
    The sight of the photo, which Kate, after much soul-searching, gave him, first shocked him and then sent him into a rage of denial. Kate had left, sorry she tried to help. A month ago she received a bouquet of roses and a letter saying the picture had finally sent him to Alcoholics Anonymous. He told her he just reached the end of his third sober month and that he kept the photograph in a drawer, to look at when he had a bad moment.
    She thought about him on the drive home. Even as her thoughts drifted, Kate checked her speedometer and then, guiltily, her rearview mirror for police cars. A beat-up blue pickup a car or two behind her caught her eye. She’d seen the same truck last night when she left the studio. She recognized it by the dented front bumper. A new neighbor? Somehow, she didn't think so. The uneasy feeling she experienced last night returned.
    Before she got a look at the driver, her attention was diverted by a couple of men walking unsteadily along the street. Swerving to give them plenty of room as she passed, she thought maybe Venice was right about the neighborhood.
    Easing the car onto the broken concrete strips that formed her drive, she stopped, resting her forehead on the steering wheel. What was she doing, she wondered, living on peanut butter and calling herself a photographer? She could have found a job at a reasonable salary in the business world, but she loved working with a camera.   And the business was getting better—if John Gerrard didn’t frighten off her hard-won clients.
    As soon as she got inside the house, the momentary weakness passed. It was her life, and she was enjoying it. At least, most of it, she muttered, recalling the police presence at tonight's meeting.
    Unbuttoning her shirt as she ran upstairs, Kate hurriedly shed her clothes and hopped in the shower. Venice 's remark about the smell of rotten eggs the other morning had hit home. She hoped her hair didn't smell; she didn't have time to wash it. Checking her closet, she selected a neat gray suit and a white silk shirt, leftovers from her former life as a marketing account rep and Teflon wife.
    She brushed the mass of red hair and pulled it back into a soft chignon at the nape of her neck, spraying it into submission. In the mirror, she checked her makeup carefully, then added discrete gold earrings and low black heels. She took a pair of clear glasses from the night stand to complete the effect. Ignoring a spreading ripple in the glass about hip-high—the mirror had cost two dollars at a rummage sale—she inspected herself and laughed. She had wanted to appear sober, conservative, sensible ; she figured she could pass for a Young Republican. She sent up a silent prayer for Venice to hold it down, but didn't have much hope. Ready. After retracing her steps in a frantic search for her car keys, she left.
    Kate waited until a beat-up Toyota passed and then backed out of her crumbling driveway. Using her rearview mirror, she maneuvered around a van angled into the curb across the street and shifted quickly into first gear as a blue pickup pulled away from the curb down the block. A gray Buick—the one she’d been seeing at lunch?—eased into the street behind her. The gray car turned left at the corner, and she saw that it wasn’t the one that had been behind her at lunch. She sighed and relaxed. She wasn’t usually so jumpy—it must be this business with Kelly Landrum.
    Glancing at her watch, she turned off the traffic-clogged main road and took a right up Paris Mountain , a two-thousand foot peak wedged into the north side of Greenville . The way ahead was clear, and she increased her speed, holding the tight curves easily. She came to an open stretch where she could see the road behind her and checked it automatically. No police cars, just a red convertible with two passengers and a glimpse of something blue—she wasn’t sure what, but it