"Did he use his gun?"

Wexler looked at me in the mirror. Studied me, I thought. I wondered if he knew what had come between my brother and me.

"Yes."

It hit me then. I just didn't see it. All the times that we'd had together coming to that. I didn't care about the Lofton case. What they were saying couldn't be.

"Not Sean."

St. Louis turned around to look at me.

"What's that?"

"He wouldn't have done it, that's all."

"Look, Jack, he-"

"He didn't get tired of the shit coming down the pipe. He loved it. You ask Riley. You ask anybody on the-Wex, you knew him the best and you know it's bullshit. He loved the hunt. That's what he called it. He wouldn't have traded it for anything. He probably could have been the assistant fucking chief by now but he didn't want it. He wanted to work homicides. He stayed in CAPs."

Wexler didn't reply. We were in Boulder now, on Baseline heading toward Cascade. I was falling through the silence of the car. The impact of what they were telling me Sean had done was settling on me and leaving me as cold and dirty as the snow back on the side of the freeway.

"What about a note or something?" I said. "What-"

"There was a note. We think it was a note."

I noticed St. Louis glance over at Wexler and give him a look that said, you're saying too much.

"What? What did it say?"

There was a long silence, then Wexler ignored St. Louis.

"Out of space," he said. "Out of time."

" 'Out of space. Out of time.' Just like that?"

"Just like that. That's all it said."

The smile on Riley's face lasted maybe three seconds. Then it was instantly replaced by a look of horror out of that painting by Munch. The brain is an amazing computer. Three seconds to look at three faces at your door and to know your husband isn't coming home. IBM could never match that. Her mouth formed into a horrible black hole from which an unintelligible sound came, then the inevitable useless word: "No!"