He turned off the laptop, located his sunglasses, and locked the door behind him, the memory of the events of a dark night in Santa Estela and all thoughts of the pretty blond American put aside for a while.

Annie lay spooned beside Evan, her eyes open in the dark, watching the rain splat against the bedroom windows. She’d arrived late the night before and had deferred any discussion by climbing into bed next to him and keeping him otherwise engaged for nearly an hour.

She knew him well enough to know that he knew she was not asleep. When she felt him pull the sheet up over her bare arm, she knew that sooner or later, the concerned questions would begin.

She didn’t have to wait long.

“So, you want to talk about it?” he asked softly.

“I thought maybe you might want to tell me about Chicago.”

“Ladies first.”

“Melissa had a number in her phone book listed to a G.S. I called it. Grady answered.”

“That was the only number in the book?”

“No.”

“Why’d you pick that one to call?”

“Because of the obvious-the initials. I knew Grady had dated Melissa, but when I asked him about her, I got the feeling he wasn’t being truthful. Something told me it wasn’t as casual a relationship as he tried to pass it off. No matter how casual a relationship is, there are certain things you have a tendency to talk about when you first meet someone, and for him to claim to know nothing about her, nothing about her background, it just didn’t ring true. So when I saw those initials with a Virginia area code, I thought I’d dial it and just see what happened.”

“Did you tell him Melissa was dead?”

“Yes.”

“And…?”

“And he hung up on me. He sounded genuinely stunned. Stunned, and upset.”

“Which plays back to him having more of a relationship with Melissa than he’d wanted you to know.”

“But why? Why would he lie about that?”

“Why was she hiding in Montana?” he asked. “I think if you answer one of those questions, you’ll have the answer to both.”

“I guess the only one who knows is Grady. And the only way to find out is to confront him.”

“Have you heard yet from the M.E. in Montana as to cause of death?”

“I’m still waiting. I expect they should know by today. God, I’m hoping it was natural causes.”

“What difference would it make?”

“The difference between her dying a natural death or one that I possibly led someone to-”

“Whoa. Hold up there.” He sat up partially and turned her to face him. “Where is this coming from?”

“It’s coming from the fact that Melissa seemed to be living quite happily in Montana until I started looking for her.”

“Annie, please don’t tell me you think you are in any way responsible for her dying.”

“If she was murdered, yes, I have to question why now. The thought that somehow I could have brought this on her is making me physically sick.”

“You can’t be serious?” One look at her face assured him she was. “Okay, let’s take a look at this, shall we? Let’s assume for a moment that Melissa was murdered. You found her, Annie. What makes you think that someone else couldn’t have found her, too? Someone who maybe started looking for her long before you did.”

“I’ve been looking for her for a few weeks. My search and her probable date of death are suspiciously close, Evan.”

“That is supposition on your part.”

“No, that is fact. Shortly after I started asking about her, she died.”

“Who knew you were looking for her?”

“Just about everyone in the Bureau. I asked so many people, and some of them probably asked some other people… Evan, if I hadn’t been so adamant about finding her, she might still be alive.”

“I think that’s a long shot, Annie. I think it’s way too soon to start beating yourself up over something that may not even be true. Let’s put it aside until we find out what caused her death. It could have been any one of a number of things. Before you blame yourself, let’s get the facts.”

She lay silent for a long time, then turned in his arms and said, “All right, then, it’s your turn. Tell me what you found in Chicago.”

“This detective, Don Manley, is quite a guy. You know he’s devoted the past eight months of his life to finding the killers of these girls? He’s totally committed to this case, even though it’s been shelved. No leads at all.”

“How likely is it that he’ll find a lead now? Realistically?”

“He says he has a lot of feelers out. He thinks that sooner or later, someone will have some information to deal. He’s willing to wait.”

“How does this help you in your case?”

He lay silent for a moment, as if he hadn’t considered the question before.

“It helps me to know that there’s someone else out there who isn’t giving up. It helps me to know that when the day comes that Manley gets his lead, he’ll pass on whatever he learns to me.”

“In the meantime…?”

“In the meantime, for me, it’s back to the evidence. Avon County isn’t Chicago, and I don’t have the network that Manley has. If I’m going to find our killer, it will have to be through the evidence.”

“Unfortunately, there isn’t much of that, as I recall. Or did something turn up while I was away?”

“Nothing new,” he admitted. “And you’re right, there isn’t a lot to go on.”

“You had some dirt,” she murmured. “Did a full analysis come back on that?”

“Not that I’ve seen.”

“I can follow up on that for you, have our lab break it down as far as it can go. Maybe that could lead somewhere.”

“Oh, and the dog hair. Let’s not forget about the dog hair.”

“Do I detect some sarcasm there?”

“I keep thinking the lab report will come back with a match to a golden retriever. ’Cause there are so few of them around, it would be real easy to track the owner.”

“Hey, you’ve been in this game long enough to know that you don’t discount anything.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just a little frustrating. The Schoolgirl Slayer is in custody. Seemed awfully easy to solve that case.”

“Not to the parents of the girls who died.”

“True enough. Oh, hell, I think I’m antsy after meeting with Manley and wanting so badly to make this right for these girls, to find out who they were and take them home. You look at what’s happened to these kids-sold or kidnapped or lied to in order to get them under control, sent to work in brothels. Forced into prostitution before they’re even in their teens. Then tossed aside for whatever reason-executed.” Evan made no attempt to disguise his anger and disgust. “And let’s not lose sight of the fact that as long as he’s still out there, other girls could be at risk.”

“You’re thinking there are more girls in the area?”

“Why not?” She could hear his wheels turning. “Let’s assume for a minute that there was in fact a working brothel in the area. A brothel with only three girls? Not likely.” He shook his head. “So there would be others… but would they all be from Santa Estela?”

“How do you find out?”

Annie felt his body tense slightly and smiled to herself, recognizing that he was onto something and, in minutes, would be out of bed and getting dressed, in anticipation of going wherever the thought would lead.

“A few years ago, the D.A. started this program where whenever they picked up a woman for prostitution, they picked up the john and printed his name in the paper. It caused a lot of grief for a lot of guys. After the third arrest, you not only got your name in the paper, you got jail time. Light time, but time all the same. Imagine being some big executive type, or some big lawyer down in Philly, having to take a month off to do time. The program sort of fell to the wayside after a while. Not a lot of guys actually served any time.”

“So, you’re thinking if you had a list of the men with two arrests, you could check in with them, see if any of them knew or heard about some young foreign girls in a house.”