"If I wanted? Kiz, you make it sound like all I have to do is waltz in there and sign on the dotted line. What do you think, everybody in that building is going to be there to welcome me back? Are they going to be lined up in the hallway on the sixth floor, throwing rice or something while I walk to the chief's office?"

"You talking about Irving? Irving got downsized. He's running the department of future planning. I'm calling to tell you, Harry, that if you want to come back, then you are back. It's that simple. After I talked to Tim I went up to six and had my usual nine a.m. with the chief. He knows of you. He knows your work."

"I wonder how that could be, since I was gone before he was brought over from New York or Boston or wherever it was they got him from."

"He knows because I told him, Harry. Look, let's not get into an argument over this. Okay? Everything is cool. All I'm saying is that you should think about it. The clock is ticking on it and you ought to think about it. You could help us and the city and maybe even help yourself, depending on where you're at in the world."

That last part raised a good question. Where was I in the world? I thought about it for a long moment before speaking.

"Yeah, okay. Kiz, I appreciate it. And thanks for putting in the word with the man. Tell me something, when did Irving get dumped? I hadn't heard about that."

"That happened a few months ago. I think the chief thought he had his finger in too many pies. He put him to the side." I couldn't help but smile. Not because Deputy Chief Irvin Irving had always had me under his heel, but because I knew a man like Irving wouldn't let anyone put him to the side, as Kiz had said.

"The man carries all the secrets," I said.

"I know. We're waiting for his move. We'll be ready."

"Then good luck to you."

"Thanks. So what's it going to be, Harry?"

"What, you want my answer now? I thought you just told me to think about it."

"A guy like you, I already think you know the answer."

I smiled again but didn't answer. She was wasting her time in administration. She should be back in homicide. She knew how to read people better than anyone I had ever worked with.

"Harry, you remember the thing you told me when I first got assigned as your partner?"

"Urn, chew your food, brush after every meal?"

"I'm serious."

"I don't know, what?"

"Everybody counts or nobody counts."

I nodded and was quiet for a moment.

"Do you remember?"

"Yeah. I remember."

"Words to live by."

"I guess so."

"Well, think about that while you're thinking about coming back."

"If I come back, I'm going to need a partner."

"What, Harry? You're breaking up."

"I'm going to need a partner." There was a pause and I think now she was smiling, too.

"That's a possibility. You-"

She cut out on me. I think I knew what she was going to say.

"I bet you miss it as much as me."

"Harry, you're going into the dead zone. Call me back when… don't take too long."

"Okay, Kiz, I'll let you know."

I was still smiling after closing the phone. There is nothing like being wanted or being welcomed. Being valued.

But also the idea of having a badge again in order to do what I had to do. I thought about Ritz at Metro and how he had treated me. How I had to fight just to get the attention and help of some people. I knew a lot of that would go away with the badge again. In the last two years I had learned that the badge didn't necessarily make the man, but it sure as hell made the man's job easier. And for me it was more than a job. I knew that badge or no badge, there was one thing on this earth I could and should be doing. I had a mission in this life, just as Terry McCaleb had. Spending the day before in his floating shop of horrors, studying his cases and his dedication to his mission, made me realize what was important and what I had to do. In his dying my silent partner may have saved me.

After forty minutes of mulling over my future and considering my choices, I came to the sign I had seen in the photo on Terry's computer. ZZYZX ROAD

I MILE

It was not the exact sign. I could tell by the horizon behind it. The photo had been taken from the other side, by someone heading to L.A. from Vegas. Nevertheless, I felt a deep tug of anticipation. Everything I had seen or read or heard since Graciela McCaleb had called me led to this place. I put on the blinker and took the exit off the freeway.

Midmorning on the day after Rachel Walling's arrival the agents assigned to what had been labeled the " Zzyzx Road case" gathered in person and by phone in the squad room on the third floor of the John Lawrence Bailey Building in Las Vegas. The room was windowless and poorly ventilated. A photograph of Bailey, an agent killed during a bank robbery twenty years earlier, looked upon the proceedings.

The agents in attendance sat at tables lined in rows, facing the front of the room. At the front was Randal Alpert and a two-way television that was connected by phone and camera to a squad room in Quantico, Virginia. On the screen was Agent Brasilia Doran, waiting to provide her report. Rachel was at the second row of tables, sitting off by herself. She knew her place here and outwardly tried to show it.

Alpert convened the meeting by graciously introducing those present. Rachel thought that this was a nicety allowed for her but soon realized that not everyone in attendance in person or by audiovisual hookup knew everyone else.

Alpert first identified Doran, also known as Brass, on the line from Quantico, where she was handling the collating of information and acting as liaison to the national lab. He then asked each person seated in the room to identify themselves and their specialty or position. First was Cherie Dei, who said she was the case agent. Next to her was her partner, Tom Zigo. Next was John Cates, a representative agent from the local FO and the only nonwhite person in attendance.

The next four people were from the science side and Rachel had seen and met two of them at the site the day before. They included a forensic anthropologist named Greta Coxe, who was in charge of the excavations, two medical examiners named Harvey Richards- and Douglas Sundeen, and a crime scene specialist named Mary Pond. Ed Gunning, another agent from Behavioral Sciences in Quantico, brought the introductions around to Rachel, who was last.

"Agent Rachel Walling," she said. " Rapid City field office. Formerly with Behavioral. I have some… familiarity with a case like this."

"Okay, thanks, Rachel," Alpert said quickly, as though he thought Rachel was going to mention Robert Backus by name.

This told Rachel that there were people in the room who had not been informed of the major fact of the case. She guessed that would be Cates, the token agent from the FO. She wondered if some of the science team, or all of it, was in the dark as well.

"Let's start with the science side," Alpert continued. "First of all, Brass? Anything from out there?"

"Not on science. I think your crime scene people have all of that. Hello, Rachel. Long time."

"Hello, Brass," Rachel said quietly. "Too long."

She looked at the screen and their eyes met. Rachel realized that it had probably been eight years since she had actually seen Doran. She looked weary, her mouth and eyes drawn down, her hair short in a cut that suggested she didn't spend much time with it. She was an empath, Rachel knew, and the years were taking their toll.

"You look good," Doran said. "I guess all that fresh air and open country agrees with you."

Alpert stepped in and saved Rachel from delivering a false compliment in return.

"Greta, Harvey, who wants to go first?" he asked, stepping all over the electronic reunion.