“Did your nephew know Terry Baker?”

Zahra shook her head. “No. He wasn’t Gordie’s whoadie. No way.”

The Lyle home was located in the Hilltop neighborhood of Tacoma, an entirely different zip code from the Baker residence—both geographically and culturally. Once the central part of Tacoma had been the province of drug lords and gang bangers, but its citizens had successfully teamed up with the police and other community organizations. Slowly but surely, they were reclaiming their neighborhood. Or so the feel good real estate brochures read.

The Lyles lived in a small refurbished home with a handkerchief-sized front yard and a badly dented Volkswagen on blocks in the driveway. Inside and out, the house was scrupulously neat.

“Gordie is an art student, is that right? He transferred in from Cornish after some problems there?”

Her face hardened. “That wasn’t Gordie’s fault. Those boys were jealous of him and that teacher was a cracker racist.”

Elliot let that go. He’d investigated a couple of color of law cases in his time at the Bureau and he was well aware that bias was a two-way street. “Why were the boys jealous of him?”

“Gordie was popular with a lot of girls. A lot of white girls. It wasn’t anything serious, he’s…” Zahra seemed to struggle for a moment with all that Gordie was. It was obvious to Elliot that she adored her nephew, to the extent that whatever problems he might have were inevitably someone else’s fault.

“I see. So Gordie was kind of a ladies’ man?”

Gordie’s aunt seemed torn between pride and defensiveness. “Maybe. A bit.” A reminiscent smile touched her mouth. “Even when he was a little boy, he had the mojo.”

“You raised him on your own?” Zahra didn’t look much older than himself. She didn’t wear a wedding ring, and the few photographs on the wall gave no indication of a husband or domestic partner.

“Since he was ten years old.” Her chin jutted pugnaciously, and Elliot abandoned that line of questioning. She was an attractive woman. Dark hair tightly and elegantly braided and a trim z-shaped body: big breasts, tiny waist, plump bottom. But he was forming the opinion that, with the exception of her nephew, Zahra had a slightly antagonistic attitude toward men. She was talking to him, but she clearly resented every minute of it.

“What about the hassle with one of his instructors? What was the problem there?”

“I told you. That man was a racist. He’s the one who should have been kicked out of that school, not Gordie.”

“What happened?”

She went into a long, convoluted explanation of what had happened. The gist, as far as Elliot could make out, was that Gordie had not liked the grade his project had been given.

“So Gordie accused this professor of being a racist and the professor threatened to have him expelled?”

Zahra nodded fiercely.

“And Gordie responded by saying he was going to have his homies whack the guy?”

She burst out, “He’s only a boy. It was only talk. Gordie doesn’t know any people like that. He never hung around that street scum. He was angry and flapping his mouth.”

“Sure,” Elliot said. “I understand. How’s he getting along at PSU?”

She settled reluctantly, her dark eyes still blazing with the desire to do battle in Gordie’s defense. “Good. They like him at PSU. His teachers like him.”

Elliot smiled. “I guess so. You hinted on TV that Gordie was romantically involved with one of his professors?”

Zahra blinked. Her expression grew wary. “So?”

“Do you have any proof of that?”

“Gordie said so.”

“Did he give the name of this professor?”

“No.” She tugged absently on her earring. “She called here a couple of times trying to find him, and when I asked him, he started laughing about this lady professor. He never said who she was.”

“And she didn’t leave a name?”

“She wouldn’t, would she?”

Probably not, if she had any brains. But if she had any brains, she wouldn’t be involved with a student.

“Did Gordie give you—or were you able to pick up any hint—about her? Do you know for sure that she was one of Gordie’s professors?”

“Do you think that honky bitch had something to do with this?”

Honky? Seriously? “So she was white? How old did she sound?”

Zahra shrugged. “She sounded all prim and proper. I don’t know. Those women over there all sound alike.”

“How often did they meet? Where did they meet?”

Zahra was shaking her head, looking more and more harassed.

“Okay, let me ask you this—has this woman called since Gordie disappeared?”

“Yes. Twice.” She added quickly, “She could be doing that to throw suspicion off her.”

“But you don’t know who she is, so why would she need to throw suspicion off?” Elliot studied her curiously. “Did Gordie ever indicate this woman might be dangerous?”

“No.” Zahra made a contemptuous sound. “Gordie can take care of himself.”

“But yet you seem sure that something has happened to him.”

“He wouldn’t stay away from home. He knows I worry. And he wouldn’t take a chance on getting kicked out of school again. Something happened to him.”

Elliot continued to question Zahra about Gordie’s friends and associates. He asked about Gordie’s classes, how he spent his free time and everything else he could think of.

In the end, he had to tell her, “I appreciate how concerned you are, but I don’t think there’s a real connection between these two cases.”

“I knew it! You don’t care about Gordie. You don’t care about anyone who isn’t lilywhite inside and out.”

“I’m not saying I don’t think you have cause for concern,” Elliot said, giving way to exasperation. “I’m saying that, at least on the surface, I can’t see what connection there is between these two boys. They don’t seem to have had anything in common. That’s good news for you, Ms. Lyle, because Terry’s dead. It looks like he killed himself, but if he didn’t, then the last thing you would want is his death to be connected to Gordie’s disappearance.”

She stared at him unblinking for several seconds. “Does that mean you don’t care about what happened to Gordie?”

“No, it doesn’t mean that.”

“You’re going to try and find out what happened to him?” she challenged.

“I can try…” Even as the words left his mouth, Elliot could feel the ground giving way beneath him. What was he doing? He wasn’t a PI, for God’s sake and he sure as hell wasn’t an FBI agent. He was a history professor.

Whether he liked it or not.

Maybe that was the point. Anne had been right. As much as he enjoyed teaching, he had loved law enforcement. He had loved believing that he was making a difference in the world, setting right a few wrongs. He had genuinely wanted to help the Bakers and Terry and it was painful to have failed. Maybe he could redeem himself with Gordie Lyle. Looking at it that way, maybe this was an unforeseen break. Terry’s death made his own continued involvement in any investigation problematic. He could agree to help Zahra Lyle and still stay within the letter of what Charlotte had asked of him, thereby justifying his inquiry.

“I’ll do what I can,” he conceded.

Some of the angry defensiveness left Zahra’s face. “Gordie’s special. Really special. You ask any of his teachers.”

“I know,” Elliot said. He asked to see Gordie’s room and Zahra led him to the back of the house. Whereas Terry Baker’s bedroom had been transformed into an anonymous guestroom about five minutes after he’d packed for college, Gordie was still inhabiting what looked like a shrine to his boyhood. There were Michael Jackson posters on the wall and children’s books on the shelves. It seemed clear to Elliot that Gordie did not spend a lot of time in this room—and probably not this house.

“Does he have a laptop?”

“It’s in the desk. He doesn’t use it a lot.”

Elliot found the Apple MacBook in a desk drawer. “Is it all right if I borrow this?”