Stride wanted to file charges against her for filing a false police report, but he let it go under pressure from Dan and K-2, and the story disappeared from the headlines. Tanjy went underground.

Stride called her several weeks later. He was still angry with her, but he was worried that she might have suffered a breakdown under the barrage of media attention. Tanjy thanked him for his call in that silken voice of hers but declined his offer of help. In a way, he was glad of that, but he learned nothing new from the call. She was as calm and emotionless as ever. The same erotic enigma.

And now she was missing.

Nothing was disturbed inside her apartment. There was no evidence of violence or trouble. His first thought was suicide, and he kept his eyes open for a note, but wherever Tanjy had gone, she hadn't left a message behind. She also hadn't taken much with her. Her clothes were neatly hung and folded in the closet and dresser in her bedroom. Her suitcase was there, too, but he didn't find a purse, wallet, or keys.

Stride sat down on the end of her queen-sized bed, which had a red quilt neatly laid across the mattress and matching fringed pillows. He studied the books on the shelves near her bed-religion textbooks, a pile of romance novels, vegetarian cookbooks, and psychology books about rape. And, of course, The Da Vinci Code. The bed was prim and conservative, with another icon of Jesus hung over the headboard. He thought about Tanjy indulging in rape fantasies underneath the cross. Maybe that was part of the thrill, a forbidden mix of sacrifice and sacrilege.

He hunted on her rolltop desk for a date book or Palm Pilot and didn't find one. The desk was clean and organized, with a manila folder for bills, a neon purple folder from Byte Patrol with instructions for her laptop computer, a stack of software cases, and a collection of fashion magazines like Elle and Vogue. That fit her. Tanjy worked in a high-end dress shop, and she looked like many of the models on the pages.

Stride turned on the desk lamp and picked up a small cube of notepaper to see if he could see indentations of anything Tanjy had written. He was able to make out a phone number, but when he called it on his cell phone, he found himself connected to the local Whole Foods market.

He booted up her laptop computer. She didn't use Outlook for e-mail, which meant she probably used a Web-based service, which would make it harder to find a record of her messages. There were no appointments recorded in the online calendar. He checked her Internet favorite pages and shook his head when he found a mixture of Christian sites and hardcore pornography, including rape sites with brutal, disturbing imagery of women bound and humiliated.

When he checked her recent documents, he clicked on the first one, a Word file labeled ISLAND. The text flashed onto the screen:

The natives tied Ellen spread-eagled to stakes they had pounded in the mud. One by one, they took turns ravishing her with their pierced tongues. She begged them to stop-No! No! she cried, you can't do this!-but they were deaf to her desperate pleas. Despite herself, she felt the most intense of orgasms welling up inside her…

Stride closed the file and checked the other documents, which were of a similar nature. He wondered again how to reconcile the calm, quiet girl in his office with the explicit, submissive fantasies filling her brain.

He shut down the computer. Nothing here gave him any clues as to why Tanjy had disappeared, or whether she had even disappeared at all. There was nothing strange about someone getting in their car and driving away. People did it all the time. Sometimes they chose not to come back.

Stride felt the house sag and heard a sharp pop from somewhere in the rear of the apartment. He got to his feet and stepped lightly to the bedroom door. He listened. There were cautious footfalls near the back window where he had entered the house.

"Yo, dude!" a young male voice called. "What's up? I know you're here."

Stride emerged in the hallway and saw a young man in his twenties there, nervously brandishing a golf club like a weapon. The kid saw him and practically jumped.

"I've called the police! They'll be here any minute!"

"They're already here," Stride told him, flashing his shield. "Who are you?"

"Oh, shit. Wow, I'm sorry." He was wearing gray sweatpants, an untucked flannel shirt, huge unlaced boots, and a bulky fur hat with a turned-up flap in front and ear flaps that hung down on either side of his head as if he were a bloodhound.

I live in the land of stupid hats, Stride thought.

"What's your name?" Stride repeated.

"Sorry, I'm Duke. Duke Andrews."

Even his name sounded like a dog's. "What are you doing here?"

Duke pushed up his black-framed glasses, which were slipping down his nose. He had a wispy goatee on his chin and a string of pimples on his cheek that looked like the Big Dipper. "I live in the house next door. My bedroom looks out on the yard. I saw you go in, and I was, like, hey, could be a burglar."

"Here's a little advice, Duke. Don't try to confront burglars yourself. Let the cops handle it."

"Yeah, yeah, right, guess that was stupid." Duke tugged at the hairs on his protruding chin.

"A golf club isn't much of a match for a gun."

"I don't even golf, man. How dumb is that?"

"Do you know who lives here?" Stride asked.

Duke nodded eagerly as he bit one of his fingernails. "Oh, sure, yeah, it's that girl who was in the news, you know. The whole rape thing. Tanjy. Short for Tangerine, right? Weird name. But wow."

"Have you seen her lately?"

"Not in a couple days, no."

"Do you remember exactly when you last saw her?"

Duke didn't have to think about it. "Monday night. I saw her go out in her car right around ten o'clock."

"You sound like you keep a close eye on her."

"What?" Duke was nervous and shuffled his feet.

Stride was taller than Duke, and the kid shrank as Stride came closer. "I mean, what will I find if we go back to your place? A telescope focused on Tanjy's bedroom? That's better than binoculars for peeping, right? Leaves your hands free."

"Whoa, dude, what are you saying? No way." Duke looked at the door as if he wanted to take a running dive through it.

"Listen, you take your telescope and point it at the stars from now on, okay? I don't want to charge you as a Peeping Tom. But right now, I need to know what kinds of things you've been seeing in Tanjy's bedroom."

A small, excited grin flitted across Duke's lips. He yanked at his sweatpants. "Oh, man. It's so fresh. You wouldn't believe it."

"Try me."

"This girl, she's better than a porn star. Always sleeps in the raw. Gets herself off like every night. I should sell tickets, man. Could pay my rent and then some."

"How about visitors?"

"Nobody in the bedroom, not since I've been watching."

"Which is how long?" Stride asked.

"I moved in to my apartment in early December. Didn't take me long to realize the place had a great view."

"You have any idea where she went on Monday?"

Duke took off his hat and scratched his head. His black hair stuck up in messy wings. "No idea. I just look. I don't know her."

"Was she alone?"

"When she left? Yeah."

"Have you ever seen her with anyone else?"

"Like guys? Yeah, this one dude was over at her place around Christmas. I could see them talking on the back porch. I've seen him around a few times recently. I assume he's her new boyfriend. Lucky guy, know what I'm saying? I was hoping to catch a little bedroom action, but they must do it at his place."

"What does he look like?" Stride asked.

"Big guy. Even bigger than you. The kind of guy you expect a girl like that to go after. They don't put out for the likes of me. It messes up the gene pool. Although some of these models, they've married real ugly dudes, you know? Gives me hope. You gotta feel sorry for their kids, though. Seems like they always come out looking like the wrong half."