He pressed her to him, savoring how slight and yielding she felt beneath her coat. “Yes! Now go.”

She stepped into the inspection area, slipped off her shoes, and stood with her arms wide, ready to be electronically frisked. On the outside she looked remarkably calm. But he knew otherwise. Whenever she felt really scared, she started giving him instructions.

4:00 P.M.

Hampton Junction

Mark knew someone had been in his house the minute he stepped in the door.

Little things were out of place.

The separation between coats and jackets in the front hall closet had changed. A week ago he’d moved the summer ones to the back and the winter gear to the front, so the positions of those items remained fresh in his mind.

Someone also appeared to have gone though the pockets, the material of a few being pulled almost inside out.

In the former living room, where he’d set up his waiting area, the phone and clock on an end table weren’t in their usual positions. He kept the face of the latter at an angle so everyone could see the time from any chair in the room, the phone placed off to one side so as not to obstruct the view. Instead they were placed one in front of the other.

Growing increasingly alarmed, he rushed into his office, which had once been the dining room.

All his computer equipment remained in place. The usual stack of unopened mail alongside a pile of unsent billings and recent test results that needed to be put in their proper files – he was weeks behind in his paperwork – were where he’d left them. Turning to the steel cabinets in which he kept patient records, he found them locked. No marks on the metal casings suggested an attempt to force them open.

Thank God, he thought, looking around the room, unable to see anything missing. The adjacent examining room also seemed undisturbed. The drug cabinet, he thought, and ran to the back room, where he’d installed a medium-sized safe to store a supply of narcotics – codeine, percodan, and morphine – along with other controlled medications such as tranquilizers.

He found it intact.

Nor had there been any obvious attempt to tamper with it.

So what could an intruder have been after if it wasn’t computer equipment or drugs?

A third possibility crept to mind as insidiously as a chill. What if anything of interest was still here because the thief hadn’t finished robbing him?

He went very still.

The house itself didn’t creak tonight since the wind was light. He heard nothing else.

Had the person escaped?

Either the kitchen’s back door or the basement door could have been forced? Or one of the ground-floor windows could have been broken.

He pulled out his cellular and called Dan. He’d just left him at the White House, having already picked up the boxes of birth records.

“Someone’s been in my house,” he whispered as soon as the sheriff answered.

“Mark?”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus, is anything missing?”

“Not that I can tell in my office or living room. I haven’t checked the rest.”

“Why are you whispering – Jesus Christ! Is the person still there?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m on my way. Get out of there, Mark! Wait in your Jeep with the doors locked. Better still, drive to a neighbor’s.” He hung up.

Good idea.

Except it would take Dan at least ten minutes to get here. That might let whoever it was get away, free to try again.

Tiptoeing back into his examining room, he looked around for a weapon. He kept hammers and axes in the basement. All he could think of to defend himself with was his largest syringe and needle.

So armed, he crept out of his office and silently made his way to the kitchen. Peeking through the swing door, he saw nothing.

He stepped through.

Nobody.

He made his way to the stairs and started up to the second floor, trying not to recall old black-and-white movies where the killer lurked in the dark at the top of the landing. He raised his needle, holding it out in front of him at arm’s length.

No one jumped him.

One by one he checked the bedrooms.

Empty.

That left one other possibility.

At the same time he heard the distant wail of Dan’s siren.

He quickly descended to the first floor, ran back into the kitchen, and threw open the door to the basement. Figuring Dan would be here any moment, he went on the offensive.

Flipping up the switch, he flooded the darkness below with light, and yelled, “Okay, you! The cops are at the door, and I’m armed. Identify yourself now!”

The only sound was Dan’s siren getting closer.

“Do you hear that? Now give up and come out.”

Still no response.

Emboldened, he started down into the single big room. Within seconds he’d checked out the few nooks and crannies where someone could hide.

Not a soul.

Beginning to wonder if he’d been mistaken about an intruder, he turned to go back upstairs.

And saw the coat he’d laid across the bottom of the basement door over a week ago.

It lay pushed to one side, the way it would have been if someone had come in, and, it being dark, not realized it was there. He walked over and tried the door. It was locked, but the mechanism had to be a half century old and could have been easily picked, then locked again on the way out.

He stood there wondering what his uninvited visitor might have wanted and found himself staring at a wall of boxes – his father’s old files.

Oh, shit, he thought, quickly crossing over to check. They appeared just as he’d left them, but with a queasy feeling he pulled open the one containing the original records on Kelly. Chaz Braden could have overheard his conversation with Earl Garnet at the reception about having found old files on her. Had he thought it might contain something incriminating and tried to steal it?

Almost to his surprise he located the folder exactly where he’d left it. He flipped through the contents to verify nothing had been taken. The record of Kelly’s first visit as a little girl – check; Kelly’s letter – check; notations of psychological counseling – check; two dig toxicity case reviews – check; newspaper articles – check. Nothing missing.

Crazy idea anyway, he chided himself. It would have been too obvious a move, even for a klutz like Chaz.

He was returning the folder to its slot when he thought, Wait a minute. He’d kept the contents in the same chronological order he’d found them. Done it out of habit. Doctors always kept the contents in each section of a file, from clinical notes through consults and special entries to test results, in the sequence they were received. It made it easier to review and follow a case that way. His father would have done things the same. It was no accident Kelly’s letter had followed after the entries for psychological counseling, because that would have been the order his father received it. And after photocopying the file Mark had put it back in that same place. Yet just now he’d found it in front of the entries for psychological counseling.

Someone had definitely gone through Kelly’s file.