I must admit now that, for a brief moment, I wondered whether that FBI agent might be nothing more than the damn panther that had attacked Alexander, disguised somehow. I mean—didn’t felines also have human lives, in other parts of the world? It could very well have been him.
But that man looked loyal and professional, and besides, he had that old photograph of Alexander. Something about him, even though it provoked rejection in me, didn’t make me feel threatened—not like something unknown would have. I think that if he had been “bad,” some part of me would have sensed it (just as I didn’t sense that Andre was “bad” the first time I saw him, even though we already agreed that what I felt back then was more like pain and emptiness). That was probably why I led him to the house and allowed
