Glenn Cooper - Library of the Dead

There was an uncomfortably long pause until, "Will's not here."

"I know. He asked me to pick something up for him."

"Go ahead, I'll be right out," Laura said, retreating into the bathroom.

Nancy tried to find the cable bill and get out before the woman reemerged but was too slow and Laura was too fast. She was barefoot in jeans and a T-shirt, her hair in a towel turban. The kitchenette was uncomfortably small for the two of them.

"Cable bill," Nancy said weakly.

"He sucks at ADL," Laura said, then at Nancy's incomprehension, added, "Activities of daily living."

"He's been pretty busy," Nancy said in his defense.

"And you know him-how?" Laura asked, fishing.

"We work together." Nancy steeled herself for her next response-no, I'm not his secretary.

Instead, surprisingly, "You're an agent?"

"Yeah." She mimicked Laura. "And you know him-how?"

"He's my dad."

An hour later they were still talking. Laura was drinking wine, Nancy, iced tap water, two women with a maddening bond-Will Piper.

Once their roles were clarified they took to each other. Nancy seemed relieved the woman wasn't Will's girlfriend; Laura seemed relieved her father had an ostensibly normal female partner. Laura had taken the train up from Washington that morning for a hastily arranged meeting in Manhattan. When she couldn't reach her father to ask if she could stay the night, she decided he was probably out of pocket and let herself in with her own key.

Laura was shy at first but the second glass of wine uncorked an agreeable volubility. Only six years separated them and they quickly found common ground beyond Will. Unlike her father, it seemed to Nancy that Laura was a culture hound who rivaled her own knowledge of art and music. They shared a favorite museum, the Met; a favorite opera, La Boheme; a favorite painter, Monet.

Spooky, they agreed, but fun.

Laura was two years out of college, doing part-time office work to support herself. She lived in Georgetown with her boyfriend, a grad student in journalism at American University. At a tender age, she was on the verge of crossing what she considered to be a profound threshold. A small, but prestigious publisher was seriously considering her first novel. Although she had written since puberty, an English teacher in high school starchily upbraided her not to call herself a writer until her work was in print. She desperately wanted to call herself a writer.

Laura was insecure and self-conscious but her friends and mentors had urged her on. Her book was publishable, she'd been told, so naively she sent the manuscript, unsolicited and unagented, to a dozen publishers then proceeded to write the screenplay version because she saw it as a film too. Time passed and she became acclimated to heavy packages at her door, the boomeranged manuscript plus a rejection letter-nine, ten, eleven times-but the twelfth never arrived. Finally, a call instead, from Elevation Press in New York, expressing interest and wondering if, absent a commitment, she'd make some changes and resubmit. She readily agreed and did a rewrite in accordance with their notes. The day before, she'd received an e-mail from the editor, inviting her to their offices, a nerve-wracking but auspicious sign.

Nancy found Laura a fascination, a glimpse into an alternative life. Lipinskis weren't writers or artists, they were shopkeepers or accountants, or dentists or FBI agents. And she was interested in how Will's DNA could possibly have produced this untainted charming creature. The answer had to be maternal.

In fact, Laura's mother-Will's first wife, Melanie-wrote poetry and taught creative writing at a community college in Florida. The marriage, Laura told her, had lasted just long enough for her conception, birth, and second birthday party, before Will smashed it into smithereens. Growing up, the words "your father" were spat as epithets.

He was a ghost. She heard about his life secondhand, capturing snippets from her mother and aunts. She pictured him from the wedding album, blue-eyed, large and smiling, locked in time. He left the sheriff's department. He joined the FBI. He remarried. He divorced again. He was a drinker. He was a womanizer. He was a bastard whose only saving grace was paying child support. And he never so much as called or sent a card along the way.

One day Laura saw him on the news being interviewed about some ghastly serial killer. She saw the name Will Piper on the TV screen, recognized the blue eyes and the squared-off jaw, and the fifteen-year-old girl cried a river. She began to write short stories about him, or at least what she imagined him to be. And in college, emancipated from her mother's influence, she did some detective work and found him in New York City. Since then they'd had a relationship, of sorts, quasifilial and tentative. He was the inspiration for her novel.

Nancy asked its title.

" The Wrecking Ball," Laura replied.

Nancy laughed. "The shoe fits, I guess."

"He is a wrecking ball, but so are booze, genes, and destiny. I mean Dad's father and mother were both alcoholics. Maybe he couldn't escape it." She poured herself another glass of wine and waved it in a toast. By now her speech was a little heavy. "Maybe I can't either."

Nelson Elder was arriving at the foot of the driveway of his home, a six-bedroom mansion at The Hills, in Summerlin, when his mobile phone rang. The caller ID registered PRIVATE CALLER. He answered and pulled the large Mercedes up to one of the garage bays.

"Mr. Elder?"

"Yes, who is this?"

The caller's voice was pinched with tension, almost squeaky. "We met a few months ago at the Constellation. My name is Peter Benedict."

"I'm sorry, I don't recall."

"I was the one who caught the blackjack counters."

"Yes! I remember! The computer guy." Strange, Elder thought. "Did I give you my cell phone number?"

"You did," Mark lied. There wasn't a phone number in the world he couldn't grab. "Is it okay?"

"Sure. How can I help you?"

"Well, actually, sir, I'd like to help you."

"How so?"

"Your company is in trouble, Mr. Elder, but I can save it."

Mark was breathing rapidly and visibly shaking. His cell phone was on the kitchen table, still warm from his cheek. Each step of his plan had taxed him, but this was the first requiring human interaction, and his terror was slow to dissipate. Nelson Elder would meet with him. One more chess move and the game was his.

Then his doorbell jolted him into the next level of autonomic overdrive. He rarely had unannounced visitors, and in fear he almost bolted for his bedroom. He calmed himself and hesitantly went to the door and opened it a crack.

"Will?" he asked incredulously. "What are you doing here?"

Will stood there with a big easy smile on his face. "Weren't expecting me, were you?"

Will could see that Mark was unsteady, like a tower of playing cards trying to maintain a composure. "No. I wasn't."

"Hey, look, I was in town on business and thought I'd look you up. Is this a bad time?"

"No. It's fine," Mark said mechanically. "I just wasn't expecting anybody. Would you like to come in?"

"Sure. For a few minutes, anyway. I've got a little time to kill before I head to the airport."

Will followed him to the living room, reading tension and discomfort in his old roomie's stiff gait and high voice. He couldn't help profiling the guy. It wasn't a parlor trick-he always had the knack, the ability to figure out someone's feelings, conflicts, and motivations with lightning speed. As a child, he'd used his natural acumen to fashion a protected triangulated space between two alcoholic parents, saying and doing the right things in the right aliquots to satisfy their neediness and preserve some measure of balance and stability in the household.