Dooley shrugged. “We were raking leaves last month. She’s a smart kid, she asks questions.”

“Whatever,” Broker said. “Look, Dooley, do me a favor.”

“Sure, what?”

Broker pulled two twenties from his jeans. “Go up to Len’s and get me some cigars, those Backwoods Sweets.”

“Light brown pack. Uh-huh. How many?” Dooley looked at Broker and then at the Toyota, as if to say, You forget how to drive, or what?

“All they got.”

Back inside, he scanned the kitchen calender scrawled with holiday commitments. He picked up the phone and canceled their dinner plans with his ex-partner, J. T. Merryweather, and his wife. He ordered pizza and paced the backyard, smoking one of the cigars Dooley had fetched for him. He checked on Nina, sleeping upstairs. More pacing and smoking, aware that Kit was watching him from the back porch. When the pizza arrived, he set Kit up in front of the VCR. In the middle of her second Harry Potter, she fell asleep. He carried her upstairs and put her to bed.

Not wanting to disturb his wife’s sleep, he spent the night on the floor at the foot of the bed, awake half the time, listening to her troubled breathing.

The next morning Nina was still in bed. Broker sat down with his daughter at the kitchen table. One of Kit’s favorite expressions, which she’d learned from her parents, was, “Say what you mean.” Broker was direct.

“This is just between us. Mom might be a little sick, she might need a lot of rest,” Broker said.

Kit stared at him; the sickest she had ever been was a couple colds and an ear infection.

“We might have to make some changes,” Broker said. “If anybody asks, just say Mom isn’t feeling well. Understand?”

Kit nodded obediently. She had spent the last two years living on the fringe of the special operations community in Italy. Usually it was the dads who went away; the moms and kids did not talk about it to outsiders.