“I appreciate you meeting with me.”

“Curiosity. What does my long-ago, ill-advised, and brief affair with Jon Bennett have to do with anything today?”

“You’re aware Professor Bennett was killed during his attack on Lina Rizzo, her minor child, and her female friend in Georgetown a couple decades ago.”

“It was all over the news at the time. I’m a reporter. Even if I hadn’t slept with him nearly a decade before that, I’d have been aware. I’m also aware the child was his biological daughter. I’m aware he physically assaulted both women and the child. Did I mention ill-advised affair?”

“You did. Can I ask if you considered it ill-advised prior to that incident?”

“I considered it ill-advised when I saw Jon physically assaulting Lina Rizzo—though I didn’t know at that moment who she was—in his office. I was meeting him there for a quickie.”

She sipped more coffee.

“It shocked me—shouldn’t have, I admit, to see him with a hand around her throat, her back to the wall. Just for an instant, but I saw that rage and violence on his face. I chose not to risk it being turned on me, and ended the relationship. Which wasn’t a relationship.”

She paused; Rachael waited.

“I was nineteen, and foolish, but not that foolish. Foolish enough to have sex with a married man—in the middle, he claimed, of a complicated divorce, though that was a lie—but not foolish enough to risk getting knocked around for some exciting, illicit sex.

“Why did Lina Rizzo give you my name after all this time?”

“She didn’t. I’d assume she didn’t know yours, or didn’t remember it. You’re on a list, Ms. Potter.”

“What kind of list?”

“Of women, like you, who slept with Jonathan Bennett. There are thirty-four names on it. Four of them are dead—victims or near victims of murder. Four I’ve located and confirmed.”

Tracie lowered her cup. Rachael gave her credit. She didn’t jolt, didn’t gasp. She stared, hard and long.

“I want to verify that. Off the record. You’ve just indicated I’m on some sort of kill list.”

“I’ll give you what information I can. Have you had any threats?”

“No. Oh, you get a few who take potshots over the Internet if they don’t like your reporting. But nothing like this, no. When did this happen?”

“The deaths? Over the course of the last thirteen years.”

“Thirteen years? Are you serious? You were a cop—I did my research before this meeting. People die, are murdered. Four people over that amount of time—”

“On the same list. And I still have more to locate.”

“I assume Lina Rizzo’s on that list. I assume she’s your client.”

“She’s on the list. Did you ever meet or have contact with Jonathan Bennett’s wife or his children?”

“No, why would I? I had a fling with him, Ms. McNee, a matter of weeks. Looking back, and I have, I should have reported him. So should’ve Lina Rizzo.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“It scared me, that one moment I saw him, really saw him. And that was a hell of a long time before Me Too. Who do you think would have taken the heat, if any heat came? The tenured professor—and others on the faculty had to know what he was—or the young undergrad who slept with him? Willingly.”

“Understood. I know this is upsetting. I feel not only an obligation to my client, but to anyone I’m able to contact on that list so they’re able to take precautions.”

“He’s been dead a very long time. Where did the list come from? Give me a break,” Tracie snapped out. “How do I take precautions when I don’t know what I’m up against?”

“He wife compiled the list. She knew.”

“So,” Tracie added, “not as oblivious as he assumed. You think his wife is, after all this time, killing women he slept with?”

“His wife died, an overdose of sleeping pills. About thirteen years ago.”

“Ah.” Now she put the cup aside. “Had she remarried? Have family—a brother, sister?”

“No.”

“Someone, obviously, connected to his wife given the timing. They had kids? How old were they? If I ever knew, I can’t recall.”

“Old enough. Ms. Potter, I’m sure you have substantial resources considering your profession, but I’m, again, going to caution you. I intend to speak with both Professor Bennett’s daughter and his son as soon as possible. Then I intend to turn my findings over to the FBI, and the applicable police departments.”

“Is your name on the list?”

“It is not.”

“Then it’s a job for you. It’s a little more than that for me.”

“If you contact these individuals, or alert them to my line of inquiry, they could bolt. You’d only be worse off. I hope to meet with the daughter, at least, in a matter of days. I’m going to do everything I can to protect my client, and by doing so you, and every other woman on that list.”

“I’m sure you will. You have an excellent reputation. I appreciate you warning me, and I will absolutely take precautions. Now I have to change and get to the studio.”

No help for it, Rachael thought as she got back into her car for the drive home. The woman would poke around. The nature of the beast.

She could only hope the poking around didn’t set off any alarms.

Summer, for a single dad, opened another world and required a sharp revision of schedule. No getting the kids up, dressed, fed, and out to the bus—to return to quiet and solitary work for a solid chunk of hours.

No setting his internal clock for their return so he could at least try to wrap things up and prepare for snack time, talk time, homework time.

Long summer days meant hoping the kids played together without bloodshed—because that occasionally happened. Or arranging for them to play at friends’ houses. Which meant—by parental law—he had to reciprocate.

It meant making sure they had a decent lunch, didn’t end up spending the bulk of the day staring at some sort of screen.

His mother, of course, loved taking them for a few hours if she had the morning or the afternoon off. Once a week, at her insistence, she took them to work with her for a couple hours.

Showing them the ropes, she called it.

And once a week Maya had them over.

Sometimes his backyard filled with kids, and that was fine because sometimes his kids filled other backyards.

And sometimes he blew off an hour playing basketball with them using the hoop he’d lowered to kid height.

Hoping he wasn’t making a major mistake, he pitched a tent in the backyard for Bradley and his two best friends.

Three almost-nine-year-olds, he thought, backyard camping. What could go wrong?

A lot.

But as his mother had done for him, he set up a tent, and he’d stock snacks, drinks, flashlights.

Mariah, who’d turned her nose way up at even the idea of sleeping in a tent, was on her much-anticipated shopping spree.

What could go wrong there?

He didn’t like to think about it.

“Phin’s bringing over his telescope for a while so we can look at the moon and stuff.” Tongue caught in his teeth, Bradley tried hammering in a peg. Which made Raylan question, again, the sentimentality of using his old tent instead of buying a new, basically pop-it-open deal.