“But hardly a solid connection.”

“Mallory lives for cases like this one. And it’s not like she’s got a life outside of the Job anymore.” Riker ducked his head in apology for raising a hurtful point.

Once, Kathy Mallory had been a regular fixture in Charles Butler’s life. This man had entered her small social orbit via the backdoor of friendship with Louis Markowitz. Lou, that crafty old man, had ruthlessly woven Charles into a safety net created for Mallory-so she would not be alone when he died. Lou had not been able to count on his foster child to make friends on her own. She would not know how.

But the introduction to Lou’s pretty daughter had come with a terrible cost. And sometimes Riker wondered if Charles’s one-sided love affair had also been part of the old man’s plan. No-call it faith-Lou’s cracked idea that Mallory could one day grow a human heart that could beat and love back.

He wanted to ask what she had done to drive this man away. Instead, Riker stared at the dead woman’s handbag on the table. “A woman dies in Mallory’s apartment, and the kid disappears the same day. At least there’s a solid connection there.”

“But you said it didn’t happen in that order. You told me that Mallory left town before-” And here Charles Butler faltered. He picked up Savannah’s round-trip airline ticket, proof of the woman’s b e lief in life after New York City. His expression abruptly changed to a gentleman’s equivalent of the “Oh, shit” response. “You think Mallory helped her over the edge? Yo u think she pushed this woman into suicidal ideation… and then left town, knowing what would happen? Did the gun belong to Savannah Sirus?”

This was not really a volley of questions; it was a mind-reading act. “Charles, sometimes you’re even stranger than Mallory.”

The empty store that bordered the caravan’s c ampsite stood open, and the long line had dwindled to a few men and women holding toiletry kits and towels, waiting for their turn at the restroom inside. The owner’s s o n had been patient while the hat was passed. Paul Magritte counted the dollar bills, the tens and fives as he laid them in the teenager’s hand.

“Oh, yes,” the older man assured him, “we’ll leave the restroom spotless.” He was walking away from this transaction when he heard a familiar voice.

“Stop right there, old man.”

He turned around to see Mallory coming up behind him with a slow stalking gait. Where had she come from? Strange girl-so stealthy. None of the dogs had barked.

Her voice had changed, no rising notes; it was almost mechanical, and this was more unsettling than malice when she said, “You forgot to mention some critical details of your little road trip.”

She was no taller than he was, no more than five feet ten. When she had closed the distance between them, their reflections in the dark glass of the store window showed two people of equal height. And yet he had the unshakable feeling that he was looking up at her. The old man wondered how she worked this trick upon him. He watched two other people exiting the small building. In passing, these larger men also appeared to be looking upward when they glanced her way.

Child, thy name is Paradox.

Yet a common cliché was the first thing that came to mind, for here before him was the living illustration of someone larger than life; her sense of presence did not recognize the boundaries of her body. Her eyes were cold, and so was her stance, arms folded against him. The girl’s face was set with grim suspicion, and this was merely what she allowed him to see. At their previous meeting, that lovely face had been an impenetrable mask, and he had been able to discern nothing from it. Now he realized that Mallory was putting him on notice: she knew that he could tell her more, and, before they parted company-he would.

Though he saw every individual as a unique creature in the world, some of Detective Mallory’s q u alities sounded familiar warning bells. He could sense the tight control that checked her desire for expedient mayhem; she dwelt forever in that moment before the taut string snaps. He knew how truly dangerous she was-and she gave him hope.

“We’ll want some privacy.” Paul Magritte smiled and waved in the direction of his car on the other side of the campground. “I’ll tell you what I can.”

Oh, no, Mallory corrected him, but only with her eyes and the subtle inclination of her head. Silently she said to him, You’re going to tell me every damn thing you know.

Charles was behind the wheel again and crossing the state line into Missouri.

“We caught a break,” said Riker, returning the cell phone to his shirt pocket. “Mallory checked in with Kronewald. She turned up an old grave down the road. Another hundred miles and we can close the gap.”

“If she stays put,” said Charles.

“And if she doesn’t, we can outrun her.”

Miles ago, Riker had resolved his friend’s conundrum of time and distance relative to Volkswagens. He had blamed the computers that processed Mallory’s c redit-card purchases of fuel between New York and Chicago. “A computer glitch. You can’t t rust those damn machines.”

Charles seemed unconvinced, though he was usually the first in line to damn technology. But he did not pursue the problem. Instead, he picked up threads to another disagreement begun over dinner. “About that wall of telephone numbers in her apartment. I don’t t hink Mallory isolated herself to make all those calls. What if she made her connection to Savannah Sirus before she stopped showing up for work? That might’ve triggered the isolation-that first contact.”

Riker’s resistance to this idea was slow to wane. Miles down the road, he waved one hand to say maybe. The detective’s own theory was that the Job had derailed his young partner, or, more precisely, her work on a homicide squad had finished what was begun when she was only a wildly damaged child.

“Chicken and the egg,” said Charles. “Which came first, missing work or making phone calls? You could find out, couldn’t you? Check with the telephone company? Just ask them for the date when Mallory first called Savannah’s number. That wouldn’t have to go through NYPD, would it?”

“Okay.” Riker pulled out his phone, and his attitude made it clear that he was only humoring Charles. After identifying himself for the New York operator, the detective seemed almost bored as he waited for the records on Mallory’s home telephone. And then his expression changed. He thanked the operator, ended the call and closed his eyes. “Mallory made a lot of calls to Savannah. But her first contact was months ago-just before she started missing days from work. How did you know?”

“Everyone has a hobby,” said Charles. “Mallory’s is just a bit outside the norm-she makes phone calls. You said she was doing that as a child. I rather doubt that she ever gave it up. She’s compulsive that way. She had to work through all her numbers until she had a resolution. Given the numerals in a long-distance number, minus the four that she started with- oh, and then you have changed area codes and new ones. So, factoring in all the possible combinations, well, I doubt that she’d run out of telephone numbers anytime soon. That reinforced my theory of the calls as an ongoing thing-maybe a binge activity. Any sort of stress could set it off. Over the years, she’s probably tried many more numbers than the ones you saw on her wall.”

Riker lifted one hand like a traffic cop-stop-too much information. He liked his facts in small fragments that covered no more than a line in his notebook.

Mercifully, Charles cut to the summary. “She had a houseguest for three weeks, but what did Mallory do with the rest of her time? Do you know when she bought the new car?”

“A few months ago.”

“After the first telephone call to Miss Sirus. That’s when Mallory started laying plans for a road trip. Savannah’s hometown of Chicago was a likely destination long before Gerald Linden died. Detective Kronewald’s crime scene was simply in Mallory’s w ay when she passed through town. Adams and Michigan is the official starting point for Route 66.”