COMING BACK FROM COLETTE’S, the last thing on Scott’s mind had been writing. It was late, and the headache had become a hallucinogenic marvel of pain so rarefied that it felt like a kind of religious trance, the kind that Dostoyevsky described before his visions of God. Maybe it wasn’t a migraine—he’d never had one before—but it had to be close. If anything, he’d anticipated popping some ibuprofen and lying in a dark room with a cool washcloth over his eyes to wait it out.

But the moment he stepped inside Round House, his headache disappeared.

It was almost as if the house had eaten it. In its place he discovered an idea for a new scene in The Black Wing—effortless, again, it had appeared in his consciousness, fully formed. Was this how real writers did it? Maybe sometimes you just got lucky. Or maybe this was what they meant about good writing stemming from pain.

Bypassing the ibuprofen entirely, he switched on his laptop, not pausing to bother with the lights, and sat down at the settee and jumped right in:

Chapter 21

The sheriff knew.

Faircloth somehow knew that he knew. It was in the polite but inquisitive way that the lawman asked about Maureen’s absence and changed the subject and then came back to it with exaggerated casualness. He was trying to catch Faircloth in a lie.

The sheriff, a genial fellow named Dave Wood, had dropped by a half hour ago. The conversation had started out in the entryway, and after a few minutes, Faircloth had invited him back to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Sheriff Wood had admired the house, its size, and the way the hallways turned without angles, creating the peculiar sensation of moving even when you were standing still. Had Faircloth actually found that feeling disquieting at one point? He couldn’t imagine a time when he hadn’t thoroughly enjoyed it.

He gave the lawman an obligatory tour, showing Wood all the little side rooms and corridors as they came along in a clockwise direction throughout the first floor.

They were standing in the dining room when Faircloth decided he would have to kill him.

“Well, this is quite a place,” Wood was saying into his empty cup, and then he raised his head upward. “Not a sharp edge in the whole house.”

“That’s right,” Faircloth said. “Even the electrical outlet covers have rounded-off corners. They had to be specially constructed.”

“I bet you’ve got a lot more room up there too, don’t you?”

“Sure,” Faircloth said. “More than we’d ever need. It’s a big place.” He chuckled. “I haven’t even looked in some of the rooms.”

They both laughed, and then the sheriff turned and looked at him. His face was calm and without expression.

“Which one is she in, Karl?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your wife.”

Faircloth smiled. “Oh, she’s not up there.”

“No?”

“No.” He allowed the smile on his face to widen. “I put her in the wing.”

“What wing?” The sheriff frowned, his mouth starting to form a question, when Faircloth swung his

“Scott?”

He jumped and shot a look over his shoulder so hard that something popped in his neck. There were footsteps coming down the entryway. Standing up, sliding the computer from his lap, he saw Sonia at the far end of the foyer with a bundle in her arms. The bundle was Henry.

“You scared me,” he said.

“I’ve been out there knocking, but you didn’t answer.”

“It’s a big place.” He was aware that he’d just spoken a line of dialogue from the book, Faircloth’s line to the sheriff. “I was just … working.” He tried to smile, but it felt ridiculous, so he quit. “It’s going really well.”

Sonia was looking at him expectantly, as if awaiting permission to come closer. In her arms, Henry groaned and shifted, one small hand clutching her jacket in his sleep, the way an infant would reach for his mother.

Scott forced his voice to sound normal. “Thank you for bringing him over. Is he all right?”

“He’s fine. He could use a hot bath and a meal, but that can wait until morning.”

He nodded and smiled. That was what people did when they were agreeing, he told himself, they nodded and smiled—the normal behavior patterns were returning slowly. “Listen, Sonia, I really appreciate what you’ve done. Here.” He reached for his nephew and felt her hesitating before she passed him over. “I’ve got an air mattress and a sleeping bag…” He carried Henry into the dining room and laid him down, the boy wrestling with something inside himself on his way into the lowest levels of sleep. “You want a drink or something?”

“No thanks.”

“Listen,” he said, “I wanted to tell you, that thing at Colette’s—”

“None of my business.”

“She had that movie that Great-Uncle Butch showed at the Bijou the night it burned. They just found it in the wreckage. Owen found it, actually. It was … I didn’t understand it.” The light of the laptop screen caught his eye, a rectangle of pure, expectant blue—a swimming pool waiting to be jumped into. “Tonight of all nights.”

Sonia was still looking at Henry, fast asleep on the air mattress. “Red was the one that found him there.”

“Red Fontana, the football player?”

“He’s overseeing the construction project. It’s a McGuire project, so …”

“Right, right. I get it.” Scott felt himself itching to get back to the scene that he’d been writing. It was as if Faircloth were still right there, frozen in space with the cup he was going to smash down on the sheriff’s head, just waiting for—

“Scott?”

“Yes?”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, why?”

“You keep staring over at the computer screen. It’s like you’re not even here.”

“Where else would I be?”

Her eyes flicked at the laptop.

“Sonia …” Before he could stifle it, that same dry, tired laugh escaped. It seemed to startle her. “Look, I’m sorry if I seem distracted. It’s just—If you had any idea the kind of day I’ve been having …”

She came closer, blocking his view of the computer screen. “Did you pick up your medication from the pharmacy?”

“I told you I’m fine without it.” He almost told her about how he’d conquered the headache and the electrical feeling in his head, but it would mean explaining them in the first place, and he was fairly positive that would be a bad idea. “It’s actually helping not being on it. Look.” He faced her straight on and held up his hands, perfectly steady, as if that proved anything. “Let me finish the scene I’m working on, okay? Then we’ll talk, I promise.”

Sonia was looking at him as if he were a stranger.

“Sure, Scott,” she said without inflection. “Whatever you say.”