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“What?” Eric said. “It’s just that what?”

“I’m awfully tired, that’s all.”

Eric stared at her. Katherine could see that he was on the edge of something, that he was barely—just slightly—disheveled.
“It’s my family, right? You think we’re all crazy.” His tie wasn’t pulled perfectly into his collar. His jacket was ever so
slightly wrinkled.

“Come on, Eric.” From where she was sitting, Katherine could see the shoelace on top of her desk. She got up from the couch,
went over to it and slipped it into her hand, closing her fingers around it tightly. “I really have to get to work,” she said.
“Paperwork, you know, and I have a lot of—”

“It’s okay, I’m going.” Eric smiled. “Have you spoken to the, to the police yet?”

Katherine lied again. “No.”

“Are you going to call them?”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said. “And I’m starting to think that you’re, that you were right about that. I think Pilot’s
just delusional, and it would only upset him to find out that his evidence was, was—”

“Not real?” Eric smiled. He rose from the couch, moving toward her. “Just out of curiosity, can I see the shoelace?”

“Oh,” Katherine said, “turns out it was in my purse, and I left that one at home.”

Eric nodded. His eyes flickered to the window. “Just throw it away, I guess.”

“I will,” she said. “But—”

“But what?”

“What should I tell Pilot I did with it?”

“How is he?” my mother asked.

“He’s the same, and getting more and more like the old
man and the sea.” We were talking about my father. I paced the tiles in Patricia’s kitchen. Whenever I got on the phone,
she and my father fell silent in the living room.

Hannah spoke into the black rotary-dial. “Tell him I said hello. Patricia, too.”

“How are you, Mom?”

“I’m fine.”

“Your eyes?”

“Better, I think.”

“Really?”

She was quiet for a moment, and then she said, “I spoke to your brother.”

“And?”

Again, silence.

“What did he say, Mom?”

“How are you, Pilot?”

“I’m better,” I said. “Completely.”

“He’s acting strange.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. There’s something, though. I don’t know what it is.”

Patricia walked into the kitchen, an apologetic look on her face. “Mom,” I said. “I have to go.”

“Call me soon.”

“You know I will.”

In third grade, Katherine had told her friends that her mother was a movie star. In junior high, she had contrived a mysterious
skin condition to escape the indignities of gym class. Sometimes—no,
often
—she’d had to fake her orgasms with Mark, moaning convincingly into his ear. But every time she lied, even when someone was
just asking what she
thought of an ugly sweater, Katherine became all too aware of her own face, of her own hands, of her own movements, awkward
and telling. Did she feel the same awkwardness with Eric, the same tightness in the mouth, the dampness of the palms? Did
she know where to put her hands? Did Katherine know where to look?

But this time, this lying—was innocent. Lying to a liar, it seemed, was a form of telling the truth. Or at least a way of
getting at it.

Now, Katherine told herself, someone else was lying, too. It was either the crazy one—me—or the sane one—my brother. It has
to be one of us.

And it was.

And it was becoming more and more difficult to tell which of us was the crazy one.

She stood at the window in her office and waited for Mrs. Kelleher, her next patient, to arrive. Is Pilot delusional? she
asked herself. Is Eric a murderer? She went to the phone and buzzed Dr. Lennox on the intercom. “Do you have a minute?” she
said. “It’s Kather—it’s Kate.” She put the phone on speaker, so she could keep her hands free.

“Half a minute,” Dr. Lennox’s voice said. She heard some movement, then he said, “What is it?”

“Is there a drug that can
make
someone psychotic?”

“All kinds of drugs.” She could hear the insincere, condescending smile on his face.

“But is there one that reproduces the symptoms of schizophrenia exactly?”

“That’s sort of what LSD was meant to do, but it didn’t work out.”

“One that lasts longer than a day.”

A hiss of static. Then, “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Kate.”

“Let me put it this way.” Katherine put her hands flat on the surface of her desk and leaned toward the telephone. Her fingertips
were getting bloodier and bloodier, having reached a state of permanent irritation. She was trying not to chew them. But it
was automatic. “If I wanted to make someone seem crazy,” she said, “if I wanted them to
go
crazy, without them knowing, how would I do it—if I had to use drugs?”

“I’d find a way to increase the level of dopamine in their brain,” Dr. Lennox said.

“How could you do that?”

“A big shot of dopamine would do very nicely.” That smile was coming through the phone.

“No shots.”

“Major doses of amphetamine might do it, too. In pill form.”

“Amphetamines. But you’d be able to tell someone was on something. I mean, wouldn’t there be other indications?”

“There would,” the psychiatrist said. There was a pause, a crackling sound coming through the phone, telling her she was on
the speaker in Dr. Lennox’s office, too. “Anyway, Kate, I’m in a meeting right now. Can this wait until later?”

“Oh,” Katherine said, “of course it can. I didn’t realize—”

“As a matter of fact, Dr. Airie and I were just going over some medication schedules. Perhaps he can help you.”

Katherine sat back in her chair.

“Hello, Katherine.”

“Eric,” she said weakly. “Well, sorry to interrupt you guys. Talk to you later.” She pressed the hang-up button on the intercom.
She felt the skin of her face tightening across her skull. She felt her neck getting hot, her palms sweating.

There was a knock. “Katherine,” Elizabeth said through the door. “Mrs. Kelleher is here.” It was her next appointment
—Mrs. Kelleher and her control issues. Mrs. Kelleher and her obsessive need to clean. Mrs. Kelleher, Katherine thought just
now, who could not be helped.

“All right,” Katherine said. “Okay.”

“I’m really sorry about hanging up on you like that,” she said into the phone. “It was—” and she paused. “Anyway, it was very
important.”

“That’s all right,” the detective said. “Where were we?”

“I was about to give you my number.” Katherine watched the door. For some reason, she expected Eric to burst through at any
moment, accusing her of deceit, his finger pointing. “My name is Katherine DeQuincey-Joy, as I said, and I’m a psychologist
with the In-Patient Clinic here in East Meadow.” The door didn’t move, of course. She turned to the window and looked at the
trees across the highway. They weren’t going to move, either, were they? Katherine was beginning to feel things the way I
was feeling them. I was getting inside her.

“The information you’re using,” he asked, “does it come from a confidential meeting?”

“I have permission from my client to go to the police.”

“Your client… he’s—”

“The official diagnosis is schizophrenia,” Katherine said.

“That’s a type of psychosis, correct?”

“Yes.”

“A word of advice, ma’am.” Vettorello cleared his throat. “You might want to get that permission in writing.”

Katherine sighed.

“And what’s the number?”

She gave him her number at the office.

“Fine,” he said. “And the little girl’s name again, the one who was taken—”

“Fiona Airie,” Katherine said.

“Just making sure I got it right the first time.” Something on Detective Vettorello’s end of the line made that squeaking
noise again, like little wheels that needed oil. “Fiona Airie,” he said slowly. “Interesting name.”

“It’s Scottish, I think.” Katherine was losing patience. “How long before you’ll be able to look into this?”

“Well,” he said, “those are pretty old files, which means they’re upstate in the house of records. Could take a couple of
weeks.”

“But I have new evidence.”

“Is it physical evidence or testimony or—”

“It’s a shoelace.”

“A shoelace.” The detective allowed a moment to pass. Was he laughing? “You’ll have to come down here and show me what you’ve
got, anyway,” he said. “If it’s evidence that could change things I can reopen the case based on it. I mean, once I look at
the case files and see how it all fits together. Otherwise—”

“There’s no way I can speak to Detective Cleveland?”

“Detective Cleveland is retired.”

“Because he would know,” Katherine said, “without having to look, he would—”

“I’m not even sure if he lives around here anymore, Miss DeQuincey.”

“DeQuincey-Joy, with a hyphen.”

“Sorry.”

Katherine said, “When can I come to see you, then?”

“You want to come by first thing in the morning?” the detective said. “I’ll buy you a coffee.”

Once again she was sure it was the pizza guy. Walking in, Eric said, “You think I did it, don’t you?” He stepped into her
little living room, a vein bulging on his temple. “You think I killed my sister and that I drugged my brother to make him
go insane.” His voice was shaking. My brother’s eyes were everywhere but on Katherine. He had the posture of a man who couldn’t
believe what was happening. He had the look of an innocent man.

“Come on.” Katherine shook her head. “I don’t think anything of the sort.”

“Then tell me why you’re asking Dr. Lennox those questions about, about—”

“Eric,” Katherine said, “I have to find these things out for Pilot. He’s my client. He asked me these questions, and I have
to provide him with the answers, all right? As a doctor you should understand that. Of course you didn’t drug your brother.
That’s ridiculous. I have to prove it to Pilot, though, okay? He’s a smart guy. He’ll know if I’m telling the truth or if
I’m just feeding him a line of bullshit.”

Eric shook his head. “Pilot is paranoid,” he said flatly, dismissively. “Schizophrenic.”

“I know he is, Eric. I mean, well—he’s paranoid, anyway.” And almost more as an aside, she said, “Schizophrenic I’m not so
sure about. Besides—” Katherine walked up to him, placing a calming hand on his chest, unbuttoning the top button of his overcoat—“Don’t
you think I trust you? Haven’t I demonstrated that by now?” She kissed his chin. She gave him her most imploring expression.
She could feel something inside her recoiling from the lie, like an animal backing away from a trap.