“There’ve been rumors for years that the senator fucked his kids’ teenage baby-sitter,” Susan said. She stayed in front of him, not giving up ground; she was so close that she could see the saliva pooling in his slightly open mouth. “Is that true, Ethan? She ever mention anything?”

“I swear to God,” Ethan said, stressing every syllable, looking everywhere but at Susan, “I don’t know anything about it.”

The phone rang. Susan didn’t move. “Is that you or me?” she asked.

“I don’t have a cell phone,” Ethan stammered.

She arched an eyebrow. “Must be me,” she said, shrugging. She reached into her purse, pulled out her cell phone, and answered it.

“Hello?”

“I’ve got a job for you.”

She turned away from Ethan. Took a couple of steps. “Ian? Is that you? It’s after midnight.”

“It’s important.” There was a pause. “You know those missing girls?”

“Yeah?”

“There’s another one. The mayor had an emergency meeting tonight. They’re reconvening the Beauty Killer Task Force. Clay and I are down here now. I think this is big, Susan. We want you to write it.”

Susan glanced over at Ethan. He was staring at the one-hitter in his hand, looking sort of dazed.

“Cops and serial killers?” she said.

“The mayor is going to let us have a press person on the ground in the task force. They don’t want another repeat of the Beauty Killer thing. Can you come down early tomorrow-say six-just to talk about it?”

Susan checked her watch. “Six in the morning?”

“Yep.”

She looked over at Ethan again. “I’m kind of working on something else,” she whispered to Ian.

“Whatever it is, this is more important. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

Her head was foggy from the liquor. They would talk about it in the morning. “Okay,” she agreed. She snapped the phone shut and bit her lip. Then she turned back to Ethan. It had taken her months to track him down. She didn’t even know if he still kept in touch with Molly. But it was all she had. “Here’s the thing,” she said to him. “The media’s ignored the rumors long enough. And now I’m going to find out what happened. And I’m going to write about it.” She made eye contact with him and held it, wanting him to see her face, to see past the pink hair, to see how serious she was. “Tell Molly that. Tell her that I’ll keep her safe. And that I’m interested in the truth. Tell her that when she’s ready to talk about what happened, I’ll listen.” The rain had progressed from a spit to a halfhearted drizzle. She pressed a business card into his hand. “My name is Susan Ward. I’m with the Herald.

CHAPTER 5

The lobby of the Oregon Herald didn’t open until 7:30 A.M., so Susan had to use the loading-dock entrance at the south side of the building. She was running on four hours’ sleep. She’d spent an hour on-line that morning, trying to get up to speed on the latest missing girl, forsaking a shower, so her hair still smelled vaguely of cigarettes and beer. She’d tied it back and dressed simply in black pants and a black long-sleeved shirt. Then threw on some canary sneakers. No point being completely boring.

She flashed her press pass at the night security guard, a plump African-American kid who had finally made it through The Two Towers and had just started reading The Return of the King. “How’s the book?” she asked.

He shrugged and buzzed her into the basement with barely a glance. There were three elevators in the Herald building. Only one of them ever worked at one time. She took it to the fifth floor.

The Herald was located in downtown Portland. It was a beautiful downtown, full of grand buildings that dated back to when Portland was the largest shipping port in the Northwest. The streets were tree-lined and bicycle-friendly, there were plenty of parks, and public art on every block. Office workers on break lounged next to homeless people playing chess in Pioneer Square, street musicians serenaded shoppers, and, Portland being Portland, there was almost always somebody protesting something. In the midst of all this elegance and bustle was the Herald building, an eight-story brick and sandstone behemoth that the good citizenry of Portland thought was unsightly back when it was built in 1920 and had thought was unsightly ever since. Any interior charm had been gutted during an ill-conceived renovation in the 1970s, which must have been the worst decade in which to renovate anything. Gray industrial carpeting, white walls, low-paneled ceilings, fluorescent lights. Except for the framed Herald stories that lined the halls and the unusually cluttered desks of the employees, it could have been an insurance agency. When she had thought about working in a newspaper office, she had imagined bustling chaos and color and fast-talking colleagues. The Herald was soundless and formal. If you sneezed, everybody turned to look.

The paper was independent, meaning that it was one of the few major dailies in the country that wasn’t part of a corporate chain. A family of timber barons had owned it since the 1960s, having purchased the paper from another family of timber barons. The timber barons had brought in a new publisher, a former public-relations executive from New York named Howard Jenkins, to run the place a few years before, and since then the paper had won three Pulitzers. It was a good thing, Susan figured, because, newsprint aside, there wasn’t a lot of money in being a timber baron anymore.

The fifth floor was so quiet that Susan could hear the water-cooler buzzing. She scanned the main room, where rows of low-walled pens housed the Herald’s news and features staff. A few of the copyeditors sat hunched over their desks, blinking sadly at computer screens. Susan spotted Nedda Carson, the assistant news editor, walking down the hallway with her usual large travel mug of chai in hand.

“They’re in there,” Nedda said, jerking her head toward one of the small meeting rooms.

“Thanks,” Susan said. She could see Ian Harper through the glass panel next to the door. He had been one of Jenkins’s first hires, away from the New York Times, and he was one of the paper’s star editors. She walked over and knocked once on the glass. He looked up and waved her in. The room was small and painted white, with a conference table, four chairs, and a poster encouraging Herald employees to recycle. Ian was perched on the back of one of the chairs. He always perched like that. Susan thought it was because the elevation made him feel powerful. But maybe it was just more comfortable. News editor Clay Lo sat across the table from Ian, his doughy head in one hand, glasses askew. For a minute, Susan thought he was asleep.

“Jesus,” Susan said. “Tell me you haven’t been here all night.”

“We had an editorial meeting at five,” Ian said. He flung his hand at a chair. “Have a seat.” Ian was wearing black jeans, black Converse sneakers, and a black blazer over a faded T-shirt with a picture of John Lennon in front of the Statue of Liberty on it. Most of Ian’s T-shirts were intended to communicate that he was from New York.

Clay looked up and nodded at her, eyes bleary. A cup of coffee from the commissary downstairs sat in front of him. It was the last dregs from the air pot. Susan could see the grounds around the lip of the Styrofoam cup.

She sat down, pulled her reporter’s notebook and a pen out of her purse, set them on the table, and said, “What’s up?”

Ian sighed and touched the sides of his head. It was a gesture intended to indicate thoughtfulness, but Susan knew Ian did it to check that his hair was still tucked back into his neat, short ponytail. “Kristy Mathers,” Ian said, smoothing his temples with his hands. “Fifteen. Lives with her dad. He’s a cabdriver. Didn’t know she was missing until he got home last night. She was last seen heading home from school.”


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