"You killed Jimmy Gagnon," Annabelle said matter-of-factly

"I see you've been busy on the Internet."

"Were you sleeping with Catherine Gagnon?"

"I see you've been talking to D.D."

"So you were involved with her?" Annabelle sounded genuinely surprised. Apparently she'd just been fishing, and he'd stupidly taken the bait.

"I have never so much as kissed Catherine Gagnon," he said firmly

"But the lawsuit-"

"Was ultimately dropped."

"Only after the shoot-out in the hotel-"

"Dropped is dropped."

"Sergeant Warren obviously hates her," Annabelle said.

"D.D. will always hate her."

"Are you sleeping with D.D?"

"So," he said loudly, "I did my job and shot an armed man holding his wife and child at gunpoint. And the department sent me to a shrink. And you know that old saw that shrinks only want to talk about your mother? It's true. All the woman did was ask about my mother."

"All right," Annabelle said, "let's talk about your mother."

"Exactly, one soul-baring moment at a time here. It was interesting. The longer my mother and brother stayed away, the more, on some level, I'd internalized things as being my fault. The shrink, however, raised some good points. My mother, brother, and I shared a pretty traumatic time in our lives. I felt guilty they'd had to run away. Maybe they felt guilty for leaving me behind."

Annabelle nodded, jingled her necklace again. "Makes some sense. So what are you supposed to do?"

"God give me the strength to change the things I can change, the courage to let go of the things I need to let go, and the wisdom to know the difference. My mother and my brother are two of those things I can't change, so I gotta let go." Their exit was coming up. He put on the blinker, worked on getting over.

She frowned at him. "What about the shooting? How are you supposed to handle that?"

"Sleep eight hours a day, eat healthy, drink plenty of water, and engage in moderate amounts of exercise."

"And that works?"

"Dunno. First night, I went to a bar, drank until I nearly passed out. Let's just say I'm still a work in progress."

She finally smiled. "Me, too," she said softly "Me, too."

She didn't speak again until he parked in front of her building. When she did, her voice had lost its edge. She simply sounded tired. Her hand went to the door latch.

"When do we leave in the morning?" she asked.

"I'll pick you up at ten."

"All right."

"Pack for one night. We'll handle the arrangements. Oh, and Annabelle-to board the plane you're going to need valid photo ID."

"Not a problem."

He arched a brow but didn't press. "It won't be so bad," he found himself saying. "Don't let the news articles fool you. Catherine's a woman, same as any other. And we're just going to talk."

"Yeah, I guess." Annabelle popped open the door, stepped out onto the curb. At the last moment, however, she turned back toward him.

"In the beginning," she said softly, "when I saw myself declared dead in the paper, I was relieved. Dead meant I could relax. Dead meant I didn't have to worry about some mysterious boogeyman chasing me anymore. Dead left me feeling a little giddy."

She paused, took a deep breath, then looked him in the eye. "But it's not like that, is it? You, Sergeant Warren, and I aren't the only ones who know it wasn't my body in that grave. Dori's killer also knows he abducted my best friend in my place. He knows I'm still alive."

"Annabelle, it's been twenty-five years…"

"I'm not a helpless little girl anymore," she filled in.

"No, you're not. Plus, we don't know if the perpetrator is active these days. The chamber was abandoned. Meaning he could've been incarcerated for another crime, or here's a thought, maybe he did the world a favor and dropped dead. We don't know yet. We don't."

"Maybe he didn't stop. Maybe he moved. My family kept running. Maybe it was because someone kept chasing."

Bobby didn't have an answer for that one. At this point, anything was possible.

Annabelle shut the door. He rolled down the window, so he could monitor the situation while she went to work inserting the keys. Maybe he was getting a little paranoid, too, because his gaze kept scouring up and down the street, checking every shadow, making sure nothing moved.

The outer door opened. Annabelle turned, waved, stepped into the brightly lit space. He watched her pull the door shut firmly behind her, then go to work on the inner sanctum. Then that door was also opened and closed and he caught one last glimpse of her back as she headed up the stairs.

BOBBY WAS LATE to the task-force meeting again. No baked goods this time, but the other officers were too busy listening to Detective Sinkus to care. As promised, Sinkus had met with George Robbards, the District 3 clerk who'd served in Mattapan from '72 to '98. Apparently, Robbards had a lot to say about their favorite suspect du jour, Christopher Eola.

"The body of the nurse was found gagged with a pillowcase that came from the hospital supply room. Coroner's report indicated that she'd been worked over before death, which was from manual asphyxiation. Originally, the investigation focused on a former boyfriend of Lovell's-they'd recently broken up-and a couple of key staff members who worked at the hospital. Theory was, no way a patient could've been missing that long without someone noticing. Plus, the most logical suspect pool for patients would've been the guys in maximum security, and according to the head administrator, most of them were too drugged up to pull off something this sophisticated.

"Boyfriend got ruled out early on-had an alibi for the time in question. Three male staff members were interviewed, but the only thing they volunteered was the name Christopher Eola. Seems every time a staff member was questioned about the patient population, they ended up saying, 'Oh, our guys couldn't have done something like that, well… except for Eola.'

"Lead detective was Moss Williams. He personally interviewed Mr. Eola four times. Later, he told Robbards that within the first five minutes of speaking to Eola, he knew the guy had done it. Didn't know how, didn't know if they could prove it, but said there was no doubt in his mind Eola had murdered Inge Lovell. Williams would stake his badge on it.

"Unfortunately, that plus a quarter would still only fetch you a cup of coffee. They never could build a case. No one saw anything, Eola wasn't admitting anything, and they had no physical evidence. Best Williams could do was advise the staff to keep a much shorter leash on Eola.

"Shortly thereafter, Eola led some kind of patient revolt in the I-Building and finally earned himself a transfer to Bridgewater. Williams didn't hear about it until nearly a year later, and it pissed him off. According to Robbards, Williams believed they could've used the Bridgewater transfer as a bargaining chip. Maybe make some kind of deal with Eola, so at least the Lovell family could have some closure. No dice, however. Boston State Mental, apparently, preferred to handle its problems on its own-and without public knowledge."

Sinkus cleared his throat, setting down his report expectantly. Most of his fellow detectives around the room were frowning at him.

"I don't get it," McGahagin said. He seemed to have laid off the coffee today, his voice having lost its overcaffeinated edge, though his face still had the pallor of someone who was spending too much time under fluorescent lights. "Are we really thinking one of the patients from the hospital did this? I admit, examining the local loonies makes sense. But like you said, the patients with a history of violence were supposedly locked up. And even if one did get out, how'd he get off the grounds to kidnap not one, but six girls? Then get back on the grounds. And prepare a chamber and spend time down there. And no one saw a thing?"