The bank statement from Washington Savings amp; Loan was next. It was a combined statement showing balances in checking and savings accounts. Lilly Quinlan had not made a deposit in the month of August but had not been short of funds. She had $9,240 in checking and $54,542 in savings. It wasn't enough for four years at USC but it would have been a start if Lilly was changing her direction.

Pierce looked through the statement and the collection of posted checks the bank had returned to her. He noticed one to a Vivian Quinlan for $2,000 and assumed that was the monthly installment on maternal upkeep. Another check, this one for $4,000, was made out to James Wainwright and on the memo line Lilly had written, "Rent."

He tapped the check lightly against his chin as he thought about what this meant. It seemed to him that $4,000 was an excessively high monthly rent for the bungalow on Altair. He wondered if she had paid for more than one month with the check.

He put the check back in the stack and finished looking through the bank records.

Nothing else hooked his interest and he put the checks and the statement back in the envelope.

The third-floor copy room was a short walk down the hall from Pierce's office. Along with a copier and a fax machine, the small room contained a power shredder. Pierce entered the room, opened up his backpack and fed the pieces of Lilly Quinlan's opened mail into the shredder, the whine of the machine seemingly loud enough to draw the attention of security. But no one came. He felt a sense of guilt drop over him. He didn't know anything about federal mail theft laws but was sure he had probably just compounded the first offense of stealing the mail by now destroying it.

When he was finished he stuck his head out into the hall and checked to make sure he was still alone on the floor. He then returned and opened one of the storage cabinets where stacks of packages containing copier paper were stored. From his backpack he removed Lilly Quinlan's phone book and then reached into the cabinet with it, dropping it behind one of the stacks of paper. He believed it could go as long as a month there without being discovered.

Once finished with hiding and destroying the evidence of his crime, Pierce took the lab elevator down to the basement and passed through the mantrap into the suite. He checked the sign-in log and saw that Grooms had been in that morning as well as Larraby and a few of the lower-tier lab rats. They had all come and gone. He picked up the pen and was about to sign in when he thought better of it and put the pen back down.

At the computer console Pierce entered the three passwords in correct order for a Saturday and logged in. He called up the testing protocols for the Proteus project. He started to read the summary of the most recent testing of cellular energy conversion rates, which had been conducted by Larraby that morning.

But then he stopped. Once again he could not do it. He could not concentrate on the work. He was consumed by other thoughts, and he knew from past experience -the Proteus project being an example -that he must run out the clock on the thing that consumed him if he was to ever return to the work.

He shut down the computer and left the lab. Back up in his office he took his notebook out of his backpack and called the number he had for the private investigator, Philip Glass. As he expected for a Saturday afternoon, he got a machine and left a message.

"Mr. Glass, my name is Henry Pierce. I would like to talk to you as soon as possible about Lilly Quinlan. I got your name and number from her mother. I hope to talk to you soon. You can call me back at any time."

He left both his apartment number and the direct line to his office and hung up. He realized that Glass might recognize the apartment number as having once belonged to Lilly Quinlan.

He drummed his fingers on the edge of his desk. He tried to figure out the next step. He decided he was going up the coast to see Cody Zeller. But first he called his apartment number and Monica answered in a gruff voice.

"What?"

"It's me, Henry. My stuff get there yet?"

"They just got here. Finally. They're bringing in the bed first. Look, you can't blame me if you don't like where I tell them to put stuff."

"Tell me something. Are you having them put the bed in the bedroom?"

"Of course."

"Then I'm sure I'll like it just fine. What are you so short about?"

"It's just this goddamn phone. Every fifteen minutes some creep calls for Lilly. I'll tell you one thing: wherever she is, she must be rich."

Pierce had a growing feeling that wherever she was, money didn't matter. But he didn't say that.

"The calls are still coming in? They told me they'd get her page off the website by three o'clock."

"Well, I got a call about five minutes ago. Before I could say I wasn't Lilly the guy asked if I'd do a prostate massage, whatever that is. I hung up on him. It's totally gross."

Pierce smiled. He didn't know what it was, either. But he tried to keep the humor out of his voice.

"I'm sorry. Hopefully they won't take long getting it all up there and you can leave as soon as they are finished."

"Thank God."

"I need to go to Malibu, or else I'd come back now."

" Malibu? What's in Malibu?"

Pierce regretted mentioning it. He had forgotten about her earlier interest and disapproval of what he was doing.

"Don't worry, nothing to do with Lilly Quinlan," he lied. "I'm going to see Cody Zeller about something."

He knew it was weak but it would have to do for now. They hung up and Pierce started putting his notebook back in his backpack.

"Lights," he said.

The drive north on the Pacific Coast Highway was slow but nice. The highway skirted the ocean, and the sun hung low in the sky over Pierce's left shoulder. It was warm but he had the windows down and the sunroof open. He couldn't remember the last time he had taken a drive like this. Maybe it was the time he and Nicole had ducked out of Amedeo for a long lunch and driven up to Geoffrey's, the restaurant overlooking the Pacific and favored by Malibu 's movie set.

When he got into the first stretch of the beach town and his view of the coast was stolen by the houses crowding the ocean's edge, he slowed down and watched for Zeller's house. He didn't have the address offhand and had to recognize the house, which he hadn't seen in more than a year. The houses on this stretch were jammed side to side and all looked the same. No lawns, built right to the curb, flat as shoe boxes.

He was saved by the sight of Zeller's black on black Jaguar XKR, which was parked out in front of his house's closed garage. Zeller had long ago illegally converted his garage into a workroom and had to pay garage rent to a neighbor to protect his $90,000 car. The car's being outside meant Zeller had either just gotten home or was about to head out.

Pierce was just in time. He pulled a U-turn and parked behind the Jag, careful not to bump the car Zeller treated like a baby sister.

The front door of the house was opened before he reached it -either Zeller had seen him on one of the cameras mounted under the roof's eave or Pierce had tripped a motion sensor. Zeller was the only person Pierce knew who rivaled him in paranoia. It was probably what had bonded them at Stanford. He remembered that when they were freshmen Zeller had an often spoken theory that President Reagan had lapsed into a coma after the assassination attempt in the first year of his presidency and had been replaced by a double who was a puppet of the far right. The theory was good for laughs but he was serious about it.

"Dr. Strangelove, I presume," Zeller said.

"Mein führer, I can walk," Pierce replied.