"Well, I don't know what Kristy did or didn't tell you, so we're not going in that direction. I heard about her little trip downtown this morning. I assume that's probably when you saw her, if in fact you actually did. Right now she's being taken care of, for her own good." " 'Being taken care of'? So happens I had a close encounter with a couple of her caregivers today. They're taking care of her, all right." "Look, she used to be W.B.'s girlfriend okay? He's still very concerned about her. Everybody's really sorry about her situation, but nobody saw it coming. And now he's got some problems of his own." "You seem to be pretty heavily involved with Winston Bartlett's personal problems." "Yeah, well, the man's been like a father to me. And I think he feels that way too, since he doesn't have a son of his own." Stone let the taunt just hang in the air for a moment. He mainly just wanted to slug the smug little bastard. "You don't know how little you know, about him or about anything. Someday I may take the trouble to straighten you out. But right now you're not worth the effort. All I care about at the moment is what's going to happen to Ally." "Everybody cares what happens to her. A lot depends on it. Dr. Vee thinks she's our best shot" "What . . . what the hell are you talking about?" Stone stared at him through the twilight. "What depends on it?" "Guess you're not as smart as you think you are." He was up and heading for the parking lot. "Come on, pal. Time to hit the road. I'm gonna tuck you in. This conversation is terminated. And it never happened anyway. I'll have them unlock the gates for you." Chapter 27 _Wednesday, April 8 8:25 P.M. _ Alexa watches as the prow of their forty-one-foot Morgan, two-masted, cuts silently through a placid sea. She vaguely remembers the vessel. It was teak and magnificent. Steve had chartered it, bare-boat, for two weeks and taken them cruising through the Bahamas. By the end of that time, she felt they could have sailed it around the world. But that was six years ago, when he was still very much alive. Now the boat feels like a magical carpet taking them someplace together, effortlessly. The genoa, the mainsail, and the mizzen are all full and blossoming outward even though there's no wind. She's at the helm, holding a course toward something white on the horizon, and Steve is with her. He's alive again and he's with her. She feels her body suffused with joy. Then she looks at the reflection of herself in his sunglasses and realizes she's a little girl, still a child. This is all a dream, she realizes, a cruel dream. Then she looks again at the horizon, the blazing white light, and senses that it represents the future. Their destiny.