“And why would I want to do that?”

“I’m not sure you would. But just for the sake of argument, let’s say you believed that what you learned from Hannah’s consultation might help track down Mallory.”

“And if I did believe that…”

“The fact that no bill has gone out yet might give you an avenue to breach confidence with her father. If you were sure the kid was Mallory. Did Hannah say anything about billing arrangements for her session with the girl?”

“Not a word. But I have to work under the assumption that the kid didn’t want her parents to know about the therapy, don’t I? Knowing Hannah, I bet she did the session pro bono, anyway.”

“Why? Why would you assume that the girl wouldn’t want her father to know about the therapy?”

“Why? Because the kid just showed up without an appointment, and she told Hannah that he was up to something and she wasn’t happy about it.”

I played devil’s advocate. “But what if he’s the one who sent her to see Hannah? What if her father already knows all about whatever it was that caused her to go? Ninety-nine out of a hundred kids are in psychotherapy because somebody sends them, and the someone is usually one of the kid’s parents. A kid doesn’t often go on her own.”

Diane’s tone grew dismissive. “If Mallory’s father sent her into treatment he’d have told the police that his daughter had seen a therapist recently, right? That would be important information to consider after her disappearance.”

“You would think.”

“And the police would have contacted that therapist, right? To try and find out what the kid was troubled about.”

I knew where she was going. “Unless the police already knew that the therapist was dead.”

“But if they knew that Mallory was seeing Hannah and that Hannah was dead, they would have sent whoever had legal custody of her practice records-c’est moi-a subpoena in order to get access to the treatment notes.”

“Agreed. If the cops were thinking.”

“Well, none of that happened. None of it. Nobody from the police department has contacted me about Mallory. And I certainly haven’t been subpoenaed.” As she began to connect more of the dots Diane’s foot speed kept pace with her mouth speed, and I had to hustle to keep up with her. “So I’m left thinking that Mallory sought out Hannah for treatment on her own, which would tell me that she didn’t want her father to know what she was up to. Or… her father had sent Mallory to Hannah, which-given his subsequent silence on the matter-would tell me that for some reason he doesn’t want the police to know what his daughter was up to.”

I said, “That about covers the possibilities.”

“As a therapist, I don’t especially like either theory. But I’d put my money on Mallory as the one who was trying to keep the secret.”

We arrived at the intersection with Broadway. The pedestrian signal was red and enough traffic was humming past us to rule out jaywalking. I lowered Diane’s shopping bags to the bricks and lifted my hands so I could show her that my fingers were curled into hooks. I asked, “Do you mind taking these bags back? My hands are frozen.”

She looked imposed upon.

And I realized, belatedly, why her husband refused to shop with her.

I had an additional tie to the Miller family, one that certainly fit any definition of tangential anyone might wish to apply, one that was marked by the requisite degree or two of separation. The link didn’t come into focus for me until my solitary psychotherapy appointment late on the afternoon of the day that I played reluctant Sherpa for Diane as she trolled the Mall for Christmas bargains. The source of the connection was someone I never would have anticipated.

Bob Brandt.

Bob had been coming to me for individual psychotherapy for almost two years, and progress had been glacial. Pre-global-warming glacial. The meager speed of the treatment neither surprised nor particularly disappointed me. Diagnostically, Bob’s underlying character was a caustic blend of toxic pathologies. Had he been using health insurance to pay for his treatment-he wasn’t-the DSM-IV code his insurer would have required would have had as many digits as a Visa card.

The first five of those digits would have spelled out the cipher for schizoid personality disorder. In addition to having a serious schizoid character, Bob was also a chronically depressed, mildly paranoid guy. Forty-three years old, he’d been ensconced in the same dead-end clerical position in the physics department at the University of Colorado for almost two decades.

His mother and an older brother were his only living relatives. Bob had maintained contact with his mom for most of his adult life. A few years before, however, his brother had written him a letter notifying him that their mother was moving to an assisted-living facility near his house in southern Colorado. Bob had interpreted the missive as his brother’s order to “butt out,” and he hadn’t spoken with either his mother or his brother since.

Where did reality lie? Sadly, I didn’t know. Nor was it clear to me exactly how Bob felt about the artificial estrangement. He deflected all my inquiries about it, and resisted my occasional attempts to question his harsh appraisal of his brother’s letter.

Bob had no current friends or romantic relationships and no history that I could uncover of any significant friendships since childhood, or of romantic relationships, ever. His sole social outlet was occasional attendance at local Scrabble clubs and tournaments. Mostly, though, he preferred to play his games online.

The Internet, for all its interpersonal anonymity, is a schizoid’s dream.

Schizoid.

The dictionary, nonpsychological meaning of the word is the “coexistence of disparates.” Something that is part this, part that. In mental health terms, schizoid has surprisingly little in common with either its Webster’s definition or its similar-sounding, polysyllabic psychopathology cousin, schizophrenia. Unlike schizophrenia, schizoid personality disorder isn’t a disorder of thought or perception.

Not at all. Schizoid personality disorder is a disorder of relating.

People with the malady have a history, often since early adolescence, sometimes even before that, of aloofness from relationships, emotional coldness, immunity from praise or criticism, generalized anhedonia-the inability to experience pleasure-and limited affective range.

The portrayal fit Bob like a custom-made wet suit.

Bob was, by his own description, “a dork, a geek, a nerd, a snarf-you pick the synonym for loser, that’s me.” He had a head shaped like the bow of a boat, and I surmised that his hair had been receding from his temples since the second or third grade. Exploratory surgery would be necessary to determine if he actually possessed a chin. His eyes were tiny and at times they seemed to shake in their sockets. The effect was so disconcerting to me that early in the treatment I’d actually referred him for a neurological evaluation to have those vibrating orbs assessed.

The neurologist had a name for the condition, which he assured me was benign. As was my style, I’d managed to forget the specific medical terminology by the time I was reading that night’s bedtime story to my daughter.

Bob liked cars, or, more accurately, was enamored of his own car. He had a thirty-something-year-old Camaro with a big motor that he’d bought from a guy in Longmont who’d lovingly restored it to its original ebony luster. Every time Bob mentioned the old muscle car, which seemed like at least once a session, he reminded me that its condition was “cherry,” and every month or two he assured me that it was a “matching numbers car.”

After two years of reminders I still didn’t know what that meant.