It took a great deal of patience to sit through the dinner Trula had kept warm. As thoughtful and as much appreciated as that dinner was, and as congenial as the company may have been, Emme was eager to get back to the hotel, settle Chloe for bed, and get to work on her laptop.

Settling Chloe wasn't easy even after they'd returned to their room. She was wound up from her afternoon with Trula and overtired after having been out a little later than she should have been. It was almost nine before the bedtime storybook had been selected and the story read a sufficient number of times. Finally, Emme tucked Chloe in and turned off the light next to the bed. She retreated quietly to their tiny sitting room and set up her laptop on the desk. Moments later she was skimming her mail.

There, as promised, was the email from Hayley.

Emme opened it and quickly read its contents, pleased to see email addresses for all other eight members of the Donor 1735 message board. Several, however, had no phone listings. She dashed off a reply to Hayley, thanking her for the information and asking about the missing phone numbers. She busied herself on the website of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and awaited a reply. It was forthcoming in minutes.

Will and Wayne don't have cell phones, their mom doesn't like them. Go figure. I never had a number for Justin, just email, but I wouldn't have called him anyway. Jessie must have gotten a new phone when she moved to France ′cause the old number doesn't work anymore and no one has a new one for her. No one's heard from her since she moved.

Emme studied the list, then forwarded the email to her work computer so she could print it out in the morning before Nick showed up. She'd called the house and tried to gauge Robert's feelings on having Nick come to the house to work with her, but he seemed ambivalent. Finally he said, “Oh, for heaven's sake, this is not Fort Knox. If you need to work here, there's a conference room on the second floor. Someone should use it once in a while.”

Having that settled, Emme shot off an email to Nick, giving him directions to the Magellan estate. Five minutes later, the cell phone Mallory had given her on the first day began to ring.

“What time tomorrow?” Nick asked.

“I'm usually there by eight, but you don't have to be that early,” she whispered.

“I want to get an early start.” She noticed he'd lowered his voice.

“I don't know how early we want to start making phone calls.”

“If kids are still in school, they're probably up, right? Unless they had a late night of partying the night before. Is Thursday night a big party night?”

“I don't know. Listen-”

“Why are we whispering?”

“My daughter is sleeping about fifteen feet away and I don't want to wake her. She had a big day at preschool.”

“What do kids learn in preschool these days?”

“Letters. Numbers. Colors.” Emme thought back to her earlier conversation with Chloe. “And apparently foreign languages. Chloe hit me with a little Español this afternoon.”

“Good for her. It's a very useful language to know.”

“Agreed. Listen, while I'm thinking of it, what kind of car did Belinda drive? And where is it now?”

“She had a white BMW sedan, the smallest model. And as for its whereabouts, I have no idea what happened to it. All I know for certain is that the Philadelphia police did not have it in their impound lot, and it hadn't been towed from where she parked it.”

“Which means it was driven from where she'd parked it.”

“It was reported missing but it's never been recovered-as far as I know, anyway.”

“Not to cut you short, but-”

“But you're going to cut me short.”

“I don't want to wake Chloe.”

“And just when I was getting used to whispering. It makes for a kind of intimate conversation, don't you think? Anyone ever tell you that you have a very sexy voice?”

She laughed softly.

“I'll see you in the morning, Nick.”

She was still smiling when she slid her phone back into her bag, turned off the laptop and the light, and made her way into the bedroom for the night.

Emme had just finished printing out two copies of the phone and email list the next morning when she heard Trula in the hall.

“This is Emme's office,” Emme heard her say. “Right on through the door here. Come for a coffee refill anytime.”

“Thanks, Trula.” Nick was smiling pleasantly as he strolled into the office. To Emme he said, “You didn't tell me your job came complete with a fairy godmother.”

Emme laughed. “That's as good a description of Trula as I've heard since I got here.” She pointed to the chair that stood next to her desk. “Make yourself comfortable for a moment while I finish this.”

“Seriously, that woman is something else. If she was thirty years younger, I'd ask her to marry me.” He moved a pad of paper closer to the edge of her desk and set his coffee cup on it. “I'd beg her to marry me.”

“You must have gotten a whiff of those muffins she bakes every morning.”

“I got more than a whiff,” he smiled.

“She gave you a muffin?”

“Where do you think I've been since eight fifteen?”

“She must think you're here for a job interview.”

“Nope. She knows why I'm here. She just couldn't resist the old Perone charm.”

Emme coughed into her hand.

“Think you can drag that charm up to the conference room so we can get started?”

“Sure. Lead the way.”

Emme gathered up her files. When she struggled to pick up her laptop, Nick grabbed it for her. Halfway up the stairs they met Robert, who was on his way down. Emme made the introductions.

“I'm really glad to meet you,” Nick told him. “I think what you're doing here is amazing. If I'm lucky enough to see my niece again, I'll have you to thank.”

“You'll have Emme to thank,” Robert corrected him. “She's doing the work.”

Robert went down two more steps, then stopped and turned around. Looking up, he said, “Do I know you from somewhere?”

Nick shrugged. “I don't think so.”

“You look familiar.” He continued down a few more steps. “Nick Perone. Even your name is familiar.”

“Your name is familiar to me, too,” Nick said, “but you're Robert Magellan. Everyone knows who you are.”

Robert was at the bottom step, looking over his shoulder. “If we've met before, it'll come to me. I never forget a face.”

“Could you have met him somewhere?” Emme opened the door to the conference room and turned on the light.

“I think I'd remember if I had. I doubt we travel in the same circles.” Nick followed her into the room. “Wow. Looks like an old-fashioned library.”

“The library is downstairs. And that's pretty much off-limits to the rest of us, one of the few places in the house off-limits to us. That's Robert's private domain. Invitation only.” She placed her files on the table and looked around for a coaster for Nick's coffee. Not finding one, she handed him a file. “You'll have to use this.”

“Have you ever been invited?” he asked, and when she looked blank, he added to clarify, “To the private library.”

“Are you kidding? That's family only. Robert. Kevin-his cousin, Father Kevin Burch, but no one around here seems to remember he's clergy half the time. And of course, Trula.”

She glanced around for the phones, and found them at the far end of the table.

“Let's move down to that end,” she told Nick. “It's easier than moving the phones.”

They repositioned themselves, the laptop between them flanked by a phone on each side.

“I spoke with the Eastwind police this morning. The chief is going to start working on those surveillance tapes. I think he was happy to be kept in the loop. Oh, and here”-she handed him a piece of paper-“I printed out Hayley's email so we'd have clean copies to work from. I also printed out what I think the order of things should be.”