I was in this position when Brian brought Cody and Astor home at around nine o'clock. Technically, this was pushing the envelope a bit, since nine o'clock was bedtime and now the kids would be at least fifteen minutes late climbing into their beds. But Rita didn't seem to mind, and it would have been churlish of me to object, since everyone had so clearly had a very good time. Even Cody was almost smiling, and I made a note to find out what conceivable Chinese restaurant Brian might have taken them to in order to get that kind of reaction.

I was at a bit of a disadvantage, since I was holding Lily Anne, but as Rita hustled the two older kids off to pajamas and teeth brushing I stood up for a friendly word with my brother. "Well," I said as he stood by the door with an air of quiet satisfaction, "they look like they had a good time."

"Oh, they did," he said with his dreadful fake smile. "Remarkable children, both of them."

"Did they eat the spring rolls?" I asked, and Brian looked extremely blank for a moment.

"The spring-Oh yes, they devoured everything I put in front of them," he said, and there was such an ominous happiness in the way he said it that I was absolutely certain we were not talking about food.

"Brian," I said, but I got no further as Rita came whirling out.

"Oh, Brian," she said, snatching Lily Anne from my arms. "I don't know what on earth you did, but the children had a wonderful time. I've never seen them like this."

"It was entirely my pleasure," he said, and it made small icicles blossom along my spine.

"Won't you sit for a few minutes?" Rita said. "I could make some coffee, or a glass of wine…?"

"Oh, no," he said happily. "Thank you very much, dear lady, but I really must be going. Believe it or not, I have an appointment this evening."

"Oh!" Rita said with a guilty blush. "I hope you didn't-I mean, with the children, and you might have-You shouldn't-"

"Not at all," Brian said, as if it had all made sense. "I have plenty of time. But I must take my fond farewells now."

"Well," Rita said, "if you're sure that-And I really can't thank you enough because it's-"

"Mom!" Astor called from down the hall.

"Oh, dear," Rita said. "Excuse me, but-thank you so much, Brian." And she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

"Entirely my pleasure," Brian said again, and Rita smiled and hurried away to Astor and Cody.

Brian and I looked at each other for a moment, and while there was a great deal I wanted to say to him, I did not really know what it was specifically enough to say it. "Brian," I said again, but it stopped there, and he smiled that terrible fake, knowing smile.

"I know," he said. "But I really do have an appointment." He turned and opened the front door, and then glanced back at me. "They truly are remarkable children," he said. "Good night, brother."

And he was out the door and gone into the night, leaving me with no more than the afterglow of his dreadful smile and a very uncomfortable sense that something very wrong was going on.

I was more than a little curious to find out what had actually gone on with my brother and the kids, but Rita hustled them into bed before I could speak to them. I went to sleep unsatisfied, and in the morning there was no chance to speak to them away from their mother. This was a very necessary condition, since if anything had happened other than Chinese food, I most certainly didn't want Rita to hear about it. And the kids had probably been warned not to say anything, if I knew Brian-which I really didn't, come to think of it. I mean, I thought I knew how he would think and act in certain matters, but beyond that-who was he? What did he want from life, beyond the occasional slash-happy play session? I had no idea, and I did not find one in spite of pondering it all the way through breakfast and the drive to work.

Happily for my self-esteem, I did not get a great deal more time to worry about my inability to figure out my brother, because when I arrived at work the second floor where Forensics was located was buzzing with the kind of whacked-out frenzy that only a really interesting crime can cause. Camilla Figg, a square forensics tech in her mid-thirties, went dashing past me clutching her kit and she barely even blushed as she brushed against my arm. And when I walked into the lab, Vince Masuoka was already jumping about stuffing things into his bag.

"Have you got a pith helmet?" he called to me.

"Thertainly not," I said. "Thilly quethtion."

"You may want one," he said. "We're going on safari."

"Oh, Kendall again?" I said.

"Everglades," he said. "Something really wild went down last night."

"Ungowa," I said. "I'll pack the bug spray."

And so only an hour later I climbed out of Vince's car and stood beside Route 41 in the Everglades, just a couple of miles from Fortymile Bend. Harry had brought me camping in the area when I was a teenager, and I actually had some happy memories here involving several small animals that had contributed to my education.

Aside from the official vehicles parked by the road, there were two big vans pulled onto the small dirt parking area. A little trailer was hooked onto one of them. A flock of about fifteen teenage boys and three men in Boy Scout uniforms huddled uncertainly around the vans, and I saw two detectives talking to them, one at a time. There was a uniformed cop standing beside the road, waving the traffic to keep moving, and Vince tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hey, Rosen," Vince said. "What's up with the Scouts?"

"They're the ones that found it. Got here this morning for a camping trip," Rosen said, adding, "Keep moving," to a car that had slowed down to look.

"Found what?" Vince asked him.

"I just wave at the fucking cars," Rosen said sourly. "You're the ones that get to play with the bodies. Keep moving, come on," he said to another gawker.

"Where do we go?" Vince said.

Rosen pointed to the far side of the parking area, and turned away. I guess if I had to stand in the traffic while someone else got to play with the bodies, I would have been surly, too.

We walked toward the trailhead, past the Scouts. They must have found something awful out there, but they didn't look terribly shocked or frightened. In fact, they were chuckling and shoving one another as if this were a special kind of holiday, and it made me sorry I had never joined the Boy Scouts. Perhaps I could have earned a merit badge for body-part recycling.

We went down the trail that led south into the trees, and then curved around to the west for about half a mile until it came out into a clearing. By the time we got there, Vince was sweating and breathing heavily, but I was almost eager, since a soft voice had been whispering to me that something worth seeing was waiting for me.

But at first glance, there seemed to be very little to see except a large trampled-down area surrounding a fire pit and, to the left of the fire, a small heap of something or other that I could not quite see past Camilla Figg's hunched-over form. Whatever it was, it caused a leathery whir of interest from the Dark Passenger, and I moved forward with just a trace of eagerness-forgetting for the moment that I had forsworn such Dark Pleasures.

"Hi, Camilla," I said to her as I approached, "what have we got?" She instantly blushed furiously, which was, for some reason, her usual habit when I talked to her.

"Bones," she said softly.

"No chance they're from a pig or a goat?" I asked.

She shook her head violently and, in one gloved hand, held up what I thought I recognized as a human humerus, which was not all that funny. "No chance," she said.

"Well, then," I said, noticing the charred marks on the bones and listening to the happy sibilant chuckle from within. I could not tell if they had been burned after death, as a way to get rid of the evidence, or I looked around the clearing. The ground had been stamped flat; there were hundreds of footprints, indicating a large party, and I didn't think it could have been the Scouts. They had arrived only this morning, and hadn't had time to do something like this. The clearing looked like a lot of people had been very active for several hours. Not just standing here, but moving around, jumping up and down, getting rowdy. And all centered around the fire pit, where the bones were, as if I closed my eyes, and I could almost see it as I listened to the rising tide of reptilian sound from my soft and deadly inner voice. Look, it said, and in the small window it showed me I saw a large, festive group. A solitary victim tied up by the fire. Not torture, but execution, done by one person-while all the others watched and partied? Was that possible?