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air moving rhythmically, in and out, and in and out. Not far away and to her right.
    â€œWho are you, my keeper?” she suddenly said. “My captor?”
    Silence.
    â€œI know you’re here,” she said.
    She listened again to the nearby breath, but now it was gone or was being held.
    â€œI can see you there,” she lied, and tipped her head in the direction she thought the breathing had come from.
    â€œI can see through this stupid hood and I know exactly where we are. Do you really think you can kidnap a federal judge and not have every law enforcement agency in the United States coming after you?
    â€œThey’ll find me, you know. And it will be very hard on you all. Do you know the penalty for abducting a federal judge?”
    This time, she was quiet for several seconds. You can’t hold your breath forever, she thought. After what seemed an impossibly long time, she heard it. The breath was louder, no doubt from the effort to hold it in the lungs for so long.
    Then Diane heard the creak of wood and the slightest swish of fabric. She thought she actually felt something. Was it her imagination or was that air against her? Was it the actual displacement of the oxygen in the room as her captor moved? She tried to sit up, to get her feet flat on the floor, but the baby made it impossible to use her stomach muscles. And with her arms bound at the wrists behind her, it was a hopeless task. She tried to roll over on her side to aid the effort and heard the structure beneath the mattress creak.
    Or was that the floorboards again? Was he moving? Was he nearer? Was he close enough to slap her, strike her with a fist, or kick her swiftly in the stomach? She stopped moving and listened again. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt the moisture in the corners.
    â€œPlease,” she said softly. “Tell me what you want. Please, let’s get this over with so I can take care of my baby. Please.”

Chapter 6
    I left my car near the crime scene and walked to the federal courthouse, using the route I assumed Diane had taken to go to lunch. I knew I would walk it again later, in reverse, the way she would have. And with each step, I would try to put myself in her shoes, to see what she would have seen, to absorb what she would have felt—the wind from the east, the heat rising up off the concrete sidewalks, the sun, higher than it was now, bright on the top of her head at midday.
    Had there been any warning? Had she seen it coming, the threat and the menace? Had they tipped their hand, or was she completely surprised by the attack?
    Attack —I didn’t want to use that word about Diane in her condition, carrying her and Billy’s child low in her eighth month. I’d seen her only a week ago in their penthouse apartment overlooking the Atlantic. She’d been waddling around in the kitchen, making fun of herself, bumping her belly against the marble countertop, mocking herself as she opened the refrigerator door, and backing up while simultaneously making a beep, beep, beep noise like a tractor-trailer in reverse.
    â€œHeavy load here, boys!”
    Billy stood aside, smiling and looking back over his shoulder at me, gesturing with his palm at his wife: “Poetry in motion.”
    They had not come to this moment without hours of discussion, lying in bed side-by-side in the early morning hours and late at night when questions are often laid bare in quiet air.
    Billy was my best friend, and even though I had only known him for a few years, a long relationship between our respective mothers in Philadelphia tied us together. We knew each other’s demons.
    Billy had grown up in the faltering neighborhoods of North Philly, whose streets were lined by boarded-up and decrepit homes stained and wasted by the change from blue-collar factory jobs in the inner city to the concentration of white-collar office and consumer-­oriented jobs downtown. His father left before Billy could