Granddad was convinced she was one rung below the deputy chief at the department. He seemed to think her twice-weekly trips to Albany were some sort of high-level investigator's training, instead of Police Basic. Albany. Tonight. Shit. That meant she had to fill up her gas tank.

She ran up the stairs to her room, pausing just long enough to stick her head into the bathroom and say, "Brush!" without checking to see what the kids were actually doing. She had five bucks and change in a mug on her dresser. She emptied it into her pocket and then took her gun safe down from the closet shelf. She didn't like to put on her belt before the kids left for school, but it couldn't be helped when they were running late. She unlocked the safe box, checked the gun just like her instructor had told her, and snapped it into its holster. She wondered if she would ever feel at ease with the thing. She made sure everything else was secure-baton, cuffs, radio mount, ammo pouch-then buckled it on. She twitched the rig around a few times to try to get more comfortable, then banged on the wall adjoining the bathroom. "Finish up!" she yelled. "It's bus time!"

Geneva bolted past her as she left the bedroom, with Hudson following. He eyed her rig. "Ooh, Mom," he said. "Could I-"

She held up one finger. "No. I don't even want you to ask. If you ask again, you're getting a consequence."

He gave her a Look and slumped downstairs, muttering just quietly enough for her to ignore it. In the kitchen, the kids shouldered their backpacks and kissed their grampy, who had abandoned the morning news long enough to make coffee. The pills lay untouched in the cup. "Take your medicine," Hadley said. "And no smoking!"

"I'm not smokin' no more," he said, with the same expression Hudson got when he was lying.

"I'll try to get home at lunchtime and return the cans and bottles." She kissed Granddad. The deposit money and what she had in her pocket should get her to Albany and back. She hoped. She shooed the kids out the door before her and tossed her tote into the back of the car. The bus rumbled to a stop and Hudson and Genny climbed aboard without a backward glance-which, she supposed, was a good thing.

She spent the five-minute drive to the station worrying about what she was going to do for child care over the summer. Granddad was going back to work sooner rather than later, and even in a small town she didn't want to leave Genny and Hudson home several hours a day. The Millers Kill recreation department had a seven-week day camp that sounded perfect, except that it was four hundred per kid. The sight of the TV vans parked in front of the station put an end to her pity party. There were three reporter/cameraman pairs on the front steps that she could see, bringing traffic to a near standstill as drivers on their way to work slowed down to rubberneck.

She pulled into the lot that ran beside and behind the station and killed her engine. She sat, hands still wrapped around the steering wheel, wondering how in hell she was going to get by those people without getting caught on camera.

A flash of copper near the asphalt caught Hadley's eye. Kevin Flynn's disembodied head rose from the edge of the parking lot. What the hell? He beckoned to her. She slid out of her car, snagging her tote bag, and hiked toward him. He was, she saw as she got closer, standing in a stairwell. Rotting leaves drifted over half the cement steps. At the bottom, a door stood ajar.

"In here," he said.

She didn't need to be told twice. She descended carefully so as not to slip on the leaves and ducked inside, Kevin treading on her heels. She was, she found, next to the evidence locker.

"They used to have cells on this floor in the olden days," Flynn explained, tugging the heavy door back into place. "This was the way they took prisoners out."

In the enclosed area, Flynn towered over her. She moved forward, well away from his body space, out of reach. She had decided she was going to approach him with a kind of big-sister courtesy unless and until he hit on her again. Cold and standoffish was a turn-on for some guys, and while she didn't think Flynn was like that, she wasn't taking any chances. She figured if she treated him like everyone else on the force did-as if he were sixteen years old-he'd get over his crush fast.

"Thanks for sneaking me in," she said. She threaded her way past file boxes stacked three deep against the wall and headed for the stairs. "When did the reporters show up?"

"They were here when I got in," he said, his voice echoing along the subterranean hallway. "The chief's not a happy guy right now."

At the foot of the stairs, she paused. Almost made him go up first. Then she pictured the two of them maneuvering around each other, changing positions. The hell with it. She mounted the stairs. If he wanted to get an eyeful of her brown poly-clad ass, so be it.

She could hear voices coming from Harlene's dispatch when she got to the top. "-gotta make a statement," MacAuley was saying.

"I know, I know." That was the chief.

She walked in and was surprised to see the deputy chief spiffed up in the brown wool uniform jacket none of them ever wore, his cap tucked beneath his arm.

"Morning," she said.

Harlene rolled her chair away from the board and stood up. "Looks like I better make more coffee."

"Don't bother on my account!" Hadley called after her, but it was too late.

The chief frowned at her. "Did you say anything to the reporters coming in?"

She shifted her tote bag to her other arm. "No, sir." She could feel a solid mass in the doorway behind her, and knew, without turning, it was Kevin Flynn. "Flynn let me in through a downstairs door. By the evidence locker."

MacAuley raised his brushy eyebrows. "How'd you know to let her in?" He directed the question well over her head.

"Um." Flynn's boots scraped the floor. "I was watching. From the interview room."

MacAuley and the chief looked at each other. The chief opened his mouth.

"I really appreciated it." Hadley leaped in before the chief could say anything. She spoke in a just-us-grown-ups tone, as if she were talking to Hudson's teacher with him standing there. "He's a thoughtful kid."

"Mmm." The chief gave Flynn one more considering look before turning back to MacAuley. "You sure you know everything you're going to give them?"

MacAuley flicked an invisible piece of lint from his hat. "You want to talk to them? Go right ahead."

"Hell, no," the chief said. "I've seen myself on camera. I always look like I'm about to grab the mike and start threatening people with it."

"Then trust me. I'm good at this." MacAuley buffed the bill of his already shining cap on his sleeve and settled it square on his head. He stood up straight, tugging his jacket into place, and was transformed from his usual sly, slouching self to a gray-haired diplomat for law enforcement. He immediately spoiled the effect by winking at them. "Once more into the breach, dear friends."

"C'mon," the chief said, as MacAuley sauntered down the hall toward the station entrance. "Let's get into the briefing room and catch everybody up."

"Everybody" consisted of Eric McCrea, leafing through the Glens Falls Area phone book and jotting down addresses and numbers in his notebook. "Lyle and I have already gone over things this morning," the chief said, tossing his folders on the table. "We got the report from Doc Scheeler on John Doe three's fillings. The amalgam's contemporary, no more'n five years old. Which jibes with Scheeler's estimate of his age as between twenty-one and twenty-five. We have DNA samples from both bodies taken from behind the Muster Field, and the state lab'll be happy to run a comparison for us within two to three years."