He was one of the first passengers off the plane, and he was all at once inordinately glad that he hadn't taken his briefcase and two-suiter on board with him. Quickly, he made his way past the LAX terminal doors and across the street to the parking structure where his black BMW was waiting.

He wondered again whether he should have gone to the conference in Las Vegas. He certainly hadn't gained much form the medical lectures he'd attended. But then, he hadn't really been listening. He had been preoccupied, anxious about what was happening in his absence. He had called home twice in the early evening, had exchanged long-distance kisses with Kate, with his family, had at first accepted, then turned down, a barhopping offer from some colleagues ("Come on, Mark; cut the matrimonial cord!"). After packing his few belongings, he had watched a pathetically tedious X-rated cable TV offering in his room.

AT 11:10, she had called.

"What's wrong?" he had asked, instantly alert.

"Nothing's wrong. I just wanted to hear your voice again. You sounded so tense before. I know you're worried, Mark, but you don't have to be. I'm fine."

"The kids?"

"Sound asleep. Stop worrying."

After the phone call, he had checked the room quickly to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything. Five minutes later he was downstairs in the lobby of the Las Vegas Hilton, paying his bill. He made it to the airport for the 11:50 P.M. flight to Los Angeles with four minutes to spare.

At one o'clock in the morning, there was no traffic. The BMW made swift progress along the main boulevards, and twenty-five minutes after he had fastened his seat belt, he turned the corner with a mixture of eagerness and a nameless dread that suddenly overwhelmed him, even before he saw the ambulance occupying his spot in the newly cemented driveway, its sepulchral whiteness illuminated by the arching street lamps, before he saw the flashing red lights on the two black-and-white police vehicles that welcomed him home.

He braked sharply in front of the house and jerked the ignition off. The car came to a shuddering stop. In seconds he was running up the carefully tended lawn and almost collided with the white-clothed paramedic who was sliding the stretcher and its silent occupant past the gaping doors of the ambulance.

A uniformed policeman approached. "Dr. Bauers?"

"Oh, my God!" Mark cried. "Kate! Kate!"