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lucky. They were like dogs who’d lost the scent.
    “There’s a smaller room off to the rear there. Might check it.”
    He leveled the shotgun in front of him again. But it was training, mostly. It was habit. They weren’t here and they hadn’t been. The cave smelled of earth and damp and seawater. If they’d stayed any time at all it would have smelled . . . otherwise.
    Manetti found the broken pitchfork tine way back in a corner.
    Apart from that, nothing.
    Peters felt himself sag, his body go slack. He took a pull on the whiskey.
    They walked out the way they came in.
    Nobody said anything for a while. They started down the mountain.
    The sea breeze felt good blowing through his hair. Good and clean.
    Midway down he asked Manetti about the dogsand Manetti said they’d be in from Bangor by two o’clock along with another twenty troopers.
    As of now they had two more parties of six men each working a narrow range north and south along the coastline. The troopers and the dogs would take the woods when they arrived, spread farther north to Lubec and farther south to Cutler, and some of the dogs would work the scent off the Kaltsas place.
    Two o’clock gave them four more hours of daylight. Four hours.
    He stepped down off the path.
    It was exactly here that he had put the pump to the woman’s eye so there was no possibility of missing and pulled the trigger. It was already too late for Caggiano. Her jaws were still in his neck when they pulled her off him
.
    Manetti saw him pause.
    “Everything okay, George?” he said.
    Peters nodded.
    “Look, you found the cave. You told us where else you think they’re likely to be and what you think they’re likely to do. I don’t see that there’s any more reason for me to put you through this. Maybe you should go home and get some sleep and let us go from here.”
    Peters shook his head. “I know ’em,” he said. “I shot them all to hell that day and I saw what they had in there and I questioned the survivor. You need me. I know what you’re thinking and it’s kind of you. But you’d do a whole lot better to ask me nicely to please stick around.”
    Manetti smiled. “Hey. Stick around, will you, George?”
    “Sure. Sure I will.”
    He stopped in the sand a moment and stared up the rock face.
    From where he stood it was almost impossible to see the entrance. They’d chosen it well. He wondered how they’d done choosing the new one.
    And thinking that he must have looked sort of pained because Manetti said, “How was it? Pretty rough walking back in there?”
    “I’ve had better memories,” he said. “Better days.”
    He reached for the pint in his pocket again and unscrewed the cap. He said, “But it’ll get rougher, Vic. You’re going to want to join me before it’s through. Hell, you probably will join me.”
    And drank from the bottle.

2:20 P.M.
    Amy looked at Claire across the kitchen table and knew she’d done the right thing inviting her.
    “You look tired,” she said. “You getting any sleep at all?”
    “Not enough. Not lately.”
    She reached for Melissa’s tiny hand. The hand immediately gripped her index finger. She never stopped nursing for a second. “She’s so
beautiful,”
Claire said.
    Amy’s breast was getting sore. She’d need to switch over in a minute or two. But she smiled. Claire was right. Melissa
was
beautiful. Soft pink skin, a dusting of fine brown hair. And the prettiest big brown eyes. She even
smelled
beautiful—all sweet breath and warm clean skin.
    Melissa had been sleeping when they arrived. Claire and Luke had tiptoed into the bedroom and Claire said afterward that it was love at first sight.Even Luke was beaming—as if it were his own baby sister he was staring at.
    Claire withdrew her finger. The baby clutched Amy’s breast instead.
    “They’re serving him the papers today,” Claire said.
    “It’s about time.”
    “It took them till Monday just to find him. Turns out he was back with Marion again,