Yes, this case would do nicely. Mallory hoped the others on the selection committee would agree.

Mallory turned her attention to the second folder on her desk and opened it. Over the past several weeks, she’d reviewed hundreds of resumes from law enforcement officers from every agency and just about every state. She’d been separating them into two piles: interview and toss. At the top of the interview pile sat the resume of Samuel J. DelVecchio, who had spent the past sixteen years with the FBI, most recently as a profiler.

A resume like that moved Sam DelVecchio to the very top of Mallory’s most-wanted list.

For one thing, she reasoned, a former FBI agent would have a lot of contacts within the Bureau, contacts that could prove invaluable, not only for this case, but for future cases as well. For another, he’d worked just about every kind of crime imaginable, and would bring a wealth of experience to the Foundation. Kidnappings, sex crimes, white slavery, serial killers-Samuel DelVecchio had seen them all.

Mallory went back to Ross Walker’s folder and pulled out a newspaper article that included part of an interview the local chief of police had given three months after the murder. That the body had been posed carefully suggested that the killer was sending a message, he was quoted as saying, but what that message was and who was supposed to receive it, well, no one had figured that out. Mallory figured an FBI profiler might be able to do exactly that.

Yes, Samuel DelVecchio looked like he just might be the right guy.

Sam DelVecchio stopped at the gate that blocked entry onto the grounds owned by Robert Magellan and waited for the guard to wave him through. The gate swung aside and Sam drove his rental car along the drive that wound past an island of newly planted trees. When Magellan’s Tudor mansion came into view, Sam hit the brake. Although he’d seen pictures of the house on the Internet, he hadn’t been prepared for how impressive it was.

“Nice.” He whistled appreciatively. “Very, very nice.”

He parked on the right side of the drive, as he’d been instructed, and got out of the car, pausing to put on his suit jacket and straighten his tie. It had been a long time since he’d been on a job interview, and he wanted to make a good impression. What, under the circumstances, could be more appropriate than basic FBI black? He walked to the door and rang the bell. Almost as an afterthought, he removed his dark glasses-perhaps a little too MIB?-and tucked them into his jacket pocket as the wide front door opened.

A woman of indeterminable age stood at the threshold.

“Samuel DelVecchio?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Come on in. You’re early. But promptness is a virtue not everyone appreciates. Can I take your jacket for you? Must be warm out there.” The woman barely seemed to take a breath before adding, “Late summer around here can be really toasty. Not to mention humid. You want to go right on up those stairs, second door to the left. Conference room. Mallory should be in there. If she isn’t, give a shout and I’ll find her for you.”

She held out a hand for his jacket, and for a moment, he was tempted to hand it over. But he was meeting with one of the nation’s most successful businessmen, and he wasn’t sure the casual look was the way to go.

“I’m fine,” he told the woman-the housekeeper, he assumed.

“Suit yourself.” She smiled and waved and set off toward the back of the house, and Sam headed up the steps as he’d been directed.

At the second door on the left, he knocked lightly. When there was no answer, he pushed it aside slightly and took a step inside. A woman stood looking out the back window.

“Excuse me,” Sam said, and she turned around as if startled.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I’m Sam DelVecchio. I was told to come up here and…”

The woman laughed and waved away his apology.

“I’m the one who should apologize. I was daydreaming. Sorry. Please, have a seat.” She walked toward him, her hand out in greeting. “I’m Mallory Russo. We spoke on the phone.”

He shook her hand, then sat in the chair she’d pointed to.

“I have your resume here…” She sorted through a pile of papers in a fat folder at the head of the table. “Just give me a second… here we are.”

“Excuse me, but I thought Mr. Magellan-” Sam began, and Mallory waved him off.

“I conduct the interviews. I am responsible for the hiring,” she said without taking her eyes from the resume she was scanning. “If I think you’re the right fit, I’ll discuss it with our committee for their input. But the final decision is mine.”

She raised her head and met his eyes. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“No, of course not. I just assumed that Mr. Magellan would be-”

“So.” She brushed his explanation aside. “May I ask why you left the FBI after sixteen years?”

He’d expected the question, but hadn’t expected it to be the first one. “Well, truthfully, I just had enough.”

Might as well just toss it out there.

Mallory raised an eyebrow.

“If you’ve read my resume, you know I’ve worked with the Behavioral Analysis Unit for the past several years,” he said in answer to her unspoken question.

“That was what made your resume stand out from the others. I thought that someone with profiling experience would be an asset to the Foundation.” She paused, then asked, “You do understand what the Mercy Street Foundation was established to do, don’t you?”

“It’s my understanding that your purpose is to help find people who have gone missing. Cases that the local law enforcement agency had to put aside for one reason or another. People who have been lost, and never found.”

“Well, we haven’t ruled out cases where we know death has occurred but the case was never solved. Those families need closure, too. Robert likes to think of us as a facilitator or catalyst for finding the truth, but our focus so far has been on missing persons. Some of those people will be found alive-our first case involved two missing teenagers who we did in fact find and return to their families. Our last case did not result in a happy ending. We did find the young woman we were looking for, but unfortunately, we were too late by months to save her. The case I’d like to handle next involves a homicide. The bottom line is that we’re searching for answers. What happened to this person? Dead or alive, what caused them to go missing? If we know from the outset the person was a victim of a violent crime, our job is to find out who and why, if law enforcement hasn’t been able to do so.”

“I think your website describes your work as private investigation with a twist,” he said.

“The twist being that if we decide to take on a case, it’s because there’s something about it that interests or speaks to us, and therefore our services are free.” She sat back in her chair, her arms crossed against her chest. “Do you see where a profiler’s skills might come in handy to an organization like ours?”

“Well, yes, but-”

“Did you think the cases we take on would be easier than the cases you worked for the Bureau?”

“I thought they were mostly missing persons cases.” He shifted a bit uneasily in his seat.

“You mean, ‘Someone is missing-here, track them down’?”

He nodded. “Pretty much, yes.”

“And that appealed to you?”

“To some extent,” Sam admitted sheepishly.

She closed the folder. “Mr. DelVecchio, I think you’d be better off working for another private investigative firm, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

“Miss Russo, maybe we should start this interview again from the beginning. I’ve obviously gotten off on the wrong foot.”

“I’ve already told you that your experience as a profiler made your resume stand out, so that cat’s already out of the bag. Why don’t we cut to the chase and you just tell me flat out why you left the Bureau and why you’re reluctant to sell yourself on your profiling skills.”