Jason reached for the remote, but Rachel stopped him. "Forget the TV. Who’s in your phone?"

"Homeland Security, an automated update. Wait a second." He fiddled with his screen. "In midtown. A partner in a law firm pulled a fire alarm then waited until a crowd formed on the street."

"Another vest?"

"Yeah."

"Look at the bombers," she said, a minute later. "First a pretty young housewife now a respectable old lawyer. The message is, you can’t trust anyone. The whole city's on a hair-trigger."

I lowered the heat to a simmer while Rachel and Jason talked about the bombing for a while. Well, mostly she talked--she knew her father, she knew PJ. Plus, she understood this stuff on some visceral level that eluded me. And that actually made me pity her a little, though I'd never admit that to her.

But finally she shook her head. "We’re not going to track a bomb better than the feds. We need to figure out what my father wants. Knowing him is our only edge."

Nobody spoke for a few seconds. The sauce bubbled.

Rachel looked at me. "Those guys at the intersection--a white lady in a jog bra dropped the first one. Firing a what, a .38?"

"Um, I don't know," I lied. I wasn’t about to implicate Big Molly in a homicide.

Rachel's dark eyes turned hard. "Is this something I need to think about, Lark? Is this lady someone I need to follow up?"

I swallowed. "No."

"Two black guys and a white lady, that can't be all that common." She cocked her head. "What caliber are they going to pull from the guy’s chest?"

"She’s got a little .32 automatic, I think." I stirred the pasta. "They're already gone, though, they left the city."

"What did your friend tell you?" Rachel asked. "On the phone?"

"Trish? They’ve having a town meeting."

"What? Why?"

"To decide what I should do."

She shook her head briefly. "What? Why?"

"Well, I told her what happened and they'll talk it through." I continued when she just stared at me. "To decide what to do next."

She shot me a look of pure disbelief. "You’ll do whatever they say?"

"I’ll do whatever we say. I get a vote, too."

"You get a vote in your own decisions."

I shrugged. "We're all in this together, Rachel. We're a … a family. We're together."

"Little Big Rock," she said, with a faint snort. "I’m afraid to think what they’re like on Big Big Rock."

"There is no Big Rock."

"What do you mean?"

"There’s no Big Rock."

"That’s like having New Park City without a Park City first. Where’d the name come from, then?"

"No idea. Gustav says maybe the mainland is Big Rock. Or Little Big Rock is all that’s left of Big Rock. The rest sank into the ocean, like an underwater mountain."

"Sure, because that makes--" She stopped suddenly. She frowned, then turned to the sticky notes, rearranging them into groups. "Wait. Wait."

"What? What're you--"

"Shut up. Here's the boat, the helicopter, the mercenaries. Yeah, that's Boone. He starts everything. He’s Big Rock, right? Then poof, he disappears. But here’s his sidekick, little big PJ. Getting stronger, more reckless. We know Boone’s gone, because he doesn’t approve of recklessness, and this whole thing's reckless. Okay. Assume that Boone’s not being controlled by PJ--"

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Why?" I asked. "Can’t PJ control anyone?"

"Let me finish." She pointed to the wall. "Then where’s Boone? What does he want? Either he’s got more important things to do, or …"

"What?"

"Or his absence is important. He's not here for a reason. He's shoving PJ into the spotlight."

"Why?"

"I don’t know. He’s the big island, underwater, controlling the tides. What if he does want PJ getting reckless while the cat’s away …" She brushed her hair behind her ear. "Yeah, that makes sense. But why here? Why New Park? What's he after?" She called to Jason. "Did you find anything happening tonight?"

He looked up from his cell phone. "It’s Manattan, Kravitz. Seventy-two of the Forbes 400 live here. There’s the UN, Wall Street, museums and shops and orchestras. Everything is happening every night. Nothing special tonight, though."

I checked the pasta. "So why did your dad leave PJ in charge? And why are we assuming PJ can't control him?"

Rachel stepped back and eyed the sticky notes. I waited for a minute, then realized she wasn’t going to answer, so I drained the capellini. Steam billowed around my face.

"What does Boone want?" Rachel tugged at her earring. "What does he need?"

"Parmesan?" I asked, showing her the container.

She didn't seem to hear.

"You want some?" I asked Umlaut.

He shook his head. "I'm not eating carbs."

I didn't know what that meant, so I dished two plates of capellini instead of worrying about it.

"Not money," Rachel said, answering her own question. "He’s got money." She sat at the table and fiddled with the fork. "I bet the feds don’t trust him anymore."

"You mean after you shot him in the head?" I asked. "And he came back to fucking life?"

"Yeah," she said, unbothered. "His projects came to light and his reputation took a hit. Well, and by 'projects' I mean 'prisoners' and 'experiments.' Hm." Rachel nodded slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, that's what he needs. To launder his reputation, to get his connections back. To make himself indispensable, now that he's returned to life. He needs to convince the politicians and the Pentagon to support him. He need to shock the government into trusting him." She set the fork down, her pasta untasted. "Suicide bombers in New Park City …"

"He's doing all this to win political support? How?"

"I don't know." She took a bite of capellini, then looked at me in surprise. "This is the best thing I've had in ... ever."

I half-smiled. "Dewey always said I’d make some girl a fine wife."

Another bite. "What was he like?"

"A busboy who missed the bus," I said, which used to make him laugh.

We ate in silence for a minute.

"Say I'm right," Rachel said. "Say Boone is trying to gather political support for himself. To stage a comeback. That makes sense. He needs the Pentagon behind him. Fine. But what does PJ want? He’s not that subtle."

"Money? Sex? Power?"

She rubbed her face. "We’re running out of time. I don’t see any other way."

"You mean there’s one way?" I asked.

"Yes."

"What is it?"

Before she answered, Jason Umlaut said, "Lark? Phone."

I crossed the room for his cell, and Trish was on the other end. "You need to stop this PJ guy," she told me, then talked about what Patty and Gustav said, what Miss Corene thought and what everyone else decided. "What are you thinking?" she finally asked.

"I'm thinking about Maddie," I told her.

"Well, stop. You can't help her."

"What did her mom say?"

"Not a single word," Trish said. "She just lost both her children. She's destroyed. Both of them are. But we need to stop this guy, Lark. And Maddie, too."

"I can save her."

"You’re outvoted," Trish told me. "I'm sorry."

I didn't say anything. I didn't have anything to say.

"Do you trust Rachel Kravitz?" Trish asked.

"Yeah. Mostly."

"What does that mean?"

I thought how to describe Rachel with her right there in the room. "Um, a little ruthless, maybe."

"Meaning she thinks Maddie’s a lost cause, too?"

"Yeah."

"Can she stop PJ?"

"Can anyone?"

Trish fell silent, and I looked across the room at Rachel. She'd finished eating and was stacking the plates. I guess she felt me watching, because she paused and looked back at me. For the first time, it occurred to me that she was beautiful. Not the kind of beautiful that glows in the sunlight, not the kind that turns heads--a deep, solemn kind of beauty that goes all the way to the bone.

"Apparently there’s one way," I told Trish.

"What’s that?"

I asked Rachel, "What’s the one way?"

"We give PJ what he wants," she said.

"What does that mean?"

"We give him you, Lark. We use you as bait. PJ pokes his head up, and we shoot him in the eye from three blocks away."

"Oh."

"Which still leaves Spandle and Maddie, all of PJ's soldiers and whatever else he's got hanging fire. You're the bait, but ... " She gave me a smile so sad it broke my heart. "The bait gets eaten."

I crossed to the window and looked out at the avenue. The city was so big and foreign, but it still felt like home. "You can buy a pizza here," I told Trish, "with dates and honey and walnuts and rosemary."

"Sounds horrible."

"I bet it’s amazing."

"One day you’ll find out," Trish said.

"One day," I said, and told her goodbye.

Rachel said we needed backup, a dozen badass guys with high-powered rifles. I was the bait, which made them the hook. She called the senator and asked about the declaration of a state of emergency. She asked about the DHS and the FBI and the NYPD and the chain of command.

She talked about timelines. She talked about a ticking clock. She looked at a map and pointed to a pier jutting from the western edge of Manattan and said, "There. That's where we'll put Lark."