Charlie made a face. "You're kidding, right?"

"Do I look like I'm kidding?"

"Hard to say, what with your sarcasm and all."

"I'm not kidding or being sarcastic. How do I get in?"

Charlie sighed, bent over, and pointed to the right side of the page. "You see that link that says 'Join Group'?"

"Yes."

"You click it."

He stood upright.

"And then?"

"That's it," her son said. "You're in."

Now Wendy made a face. "But, as you so wisely pointed out, I didn't go to Princeton."

"Doesn't matter. It's an open group. Closed groups say 'Request To Join.' This one is open to anyone. Click and you're in."

Wendy looked dubious.

Charlie sighed again. "Just do it," he said.

"Okay, wait." Wendy clicked it-and just like that, voila, she became a member of a Princeton graduating class, albeit the Facebook version. Charlie gave her a told-you-so glance, shook his head, and clumped his way back downstairs. She thought again about how much she loved him. She thought about Marcia and Ted McWaid getting word from the police about that iPhone, one Haley probably really wanted and squealed with delight when she got, being found under a strange man's bed.

Not helpful.

The page was up, so back to work. First Wendy scanned through the ninety-eight members. No Dan, no Phil, no Farley. Made sense. All three were probably keeping a low profile. If they had ever joined, they were probably off Facebook now. None of the other names were familiar.

Okay, now what?

She checked the discussion boards. One about a sick class member, offering support. Another about regional gatherings of class members. Nothing there. Another about the upcoming reunion. She clicked around that page and landed on a link that held promise:

"Dorm Pics-Freshman Year!"

She found the three of them in the fifth photograph of the slideshow. The caption read "Stearns House" and featured about a hundred students posing in front of a brick building. She spotted Dan first. He had aged well, the curls shorter as an adult, but otherwise, he looked the same. No question about it-he'd been a good-looking guy.

The names were listed on the bottom. Farley Parks, ever the politician, was front and center. Phil Turnball stood on the right. While Dan was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, both Farley and Phil were decked out for the cover shot of Snooty Prep Monthly. Khakis, collared shirts, loafers without socks-the only thing missing was a sweater tied around their necks.

Okay, so she knew the name of the dorm. Now what?

She could Google every other guy in the picture-the names were listed below-but that could take a while and might not give her what she needed. It wasn't like people listed their freshman roommates on the Web.

Back to it: Wendy started scouring through the Facebook page again. Ten minutes later, she hit pay dirt:

"Our Freshman Face Book on Facebook!"

She clicked the link, downloaded a PDF file, and opened it with Adobe Acrobat. The freshman face book-Wendy smiled at the memory. She had one at Tufts, of course. Your high school yearbook picture along with your town of origin, high school, and-best of all for her purposes tonight-your freshman room assignment. Wendy clicked the M button, jumped two more pages, and found Dan Mercer. There it was, his freshman picture:

Daniel J. Mercer

Riddle, Oregon

Riddle High School

Stearns Suite 109

Dan grinned in the photograph, his whole life supposedly in front of him. Wrong. Probably eighteen years old when this picture was taken. His smile said he was ready to take on the world, and yep, he'd graduate from Princeton, marry, divorce… and what?

Become a pedophile and die?

Did that add up? Was Dan already a pedophile then, at the age of eighteen? Had he abused anybody? Were there tendencies as a college student-or more than that? Had he really kidnapped a teenage girl?

Why was she not buying that?

Didn't matter. Focus. The entry gave her the room number in Stearns. Suite 109. She clicked to the Ps to double-check. Sure enough, Farley Parks of Bryn Mawr, P.A., and Lawrenceville School was also in Stearns 109. Philip Turnball of Boston, M.A., and Phillips Academy Andover looking very much as he did today-yep, Stearns 109 too.

Wendy hit the search button and put in "Stearns Suite 109."

Five hits.

Philip Turnball, Daniel Mercer, Farley Parks-and now the two new ones: Kelvin Tilfer, an African American with a cautious smile, and Steven Miciano, who wore one of those ropey necklaces with a big bead in the middle.

The two new names meant nothing to her. She opened another browser, typed "Kelvin Tilfer" into the search engine.

Nothing. Almost literally. One hit from a list of Princeton graduates-and that was about it. No LinkedIn. No Facebook. No Twitter. No MySpace.

Wendy wondered what to make of that. Most people, even the most innocuous, you can find something about them online. Kelvin Tilfer, especially when you consider his roommates, was a ghost.

So what did that mean?

Maybe nothing. Too early to hypothesize. Gather more information first.

Wendy typed "Steven Miciano" into the search engine. When she saw the results, even before she clicked on any of them for details, she knew.

"Damn," she said out loud.

From behind her: "What?"

It was Charlie. "Nothing, what's up?"

"Do you mind if we head over to Clark's?"

"I guess it's okay."

"Cool."

Charlie left. Wendy turned back to the computer. She clicked the first hit, a news article from four months ago from a paper called the West Essex Tribune:

Local resident Steven Miciano, an orthopedic surgeon at St. Barnabus Medical Center in Livingston, NJ, was arrested last night and charged with possession of illegal narcotics. Police, working on a tip, found what was described as a "large haul of illegally obtained prescribed painkillers" in the trunk of the doctor's car. Dr. Miciano was released on bail pending a hearing. A spokesman for St. Barnabus Medical Center said Dr. Miciano would be put on leave until the matter was investigated fully.

That was it. Wendy searched the West Essex Tribune for follow-ups. Nothing. She went back to the Web and found hits on blogs and even on Twitter. The first was from a former patient talking about how Miciano sneaked him drugs. Another was from a "drug supplier" who had turned state's evidence in nailing Dr. Miciano. Still another blog entry came from a patient who said Miciano had been "inappropriate" and "definitely seemed high on something."

Wendy started taking notes, checking the blog sites, checking the Tweets, the postings on various boards, the links to MySpace and Facebook.

This was too crazy.

Five freshman roommates from Princeton. Nothing on one. Okay, subtract Kelvin Tilfer out for a second. The other four: a financial consultant, a politician, a social worker-and now a physician. All four had been taken down by scandals within the past year.

That was a hell of a coincidence.