We were quiet awhile.

Then Marino caught me off guard.

"Sounds like you been talking to Fortosis."

"Why?"

"The stuff about it escalating and the news stories stressing him, making his urge peak quicker."

"Is this what he's told you?"

He casually slipped off his sunglasses and set them on the dash. When he looked at me his eyes were faintly glinting with anger. "Nope. But he's told a couple people near and dear to my heart. Boltz, for one. Tanner, for another."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I got as many snitches inside the department as I got on the street. I know exactly what's going down and where it's going to end - maybe."

We sat in silence. The sun had dipped below rooftops and long shadows were creeping over the lawns and street. In a way, Marino had just cracked the door that would take us into each other's confidence. He knew. He was telling me he knew. I wondered if I dared push the door open wider.

"Boltz, Tanner, the powers-that-be are very upset by the leaks to the press," I said cautiously.

"May as well have a nervous breakdown over the rain. It happens. 'Specially when you got 'Dear Abby' living in the same city."

I smiled ruefully. How appropriate. Spill your secrets to "Dear Abby" Turnbull and she prints every one of them in the paper.

"She's a big problem," he went on. "Has the inside track, a line hooked straight into the heart of the department. I don't think the chief takes a whiz without her knowing it."

"Who's telling her?"

"Let's just say I got my suspicions but I haven't got the goods yet to go nowhere with them, okay?"

"You know someone's been getting into my office computer," I said as if it were common knowledge.

He glanced sharply at me. "Since when?"

"I don't know. Several days ago someone got in and tried to pull up Lori Petersen's case. It was luck we discovered it - a onetime oversight made by my computer analyst resulted in the perpetrator's commands appearing on the screen."

"You're saying someone could've been getting in for months and you wouldn't know?"

"That's what I'm saying."

He got quiet, his face hard.

I pressed him. "Changes your suspicions?"

"Huh," he said shortly.

"That's it?"

I asked in exasperation. "You don't have anything to say?"

"Nope. Except your ass must be getting close to the fire these days. Amburgey know?"

"He knows."

"Tanner, too, I guess."

"Yes."

"Huh," he said again. "Guess that explains a couple things."

"Like what?"

My paranoia was smoldering and I knew Marino could see I was squirming. "What things?"

He didn't reply.

"What things?"

I demanded.

He slowly looked over at me. "You really want to know?"

"I think I'd better."

My steady voice belied my fear, which was quickly mounting into panic.

"Well, I'll put it to you like this. If Tanner knew you and me was riding around together this afternoon, he'd probably jerk my badge."

I stared at him in open bewilderment. "What are you saying?"

"See, I ran into him at HQ this morning. He called me aside for a little chat, said he and some of the brass are clamping down on the leaks. Tanner told me to be real tight-lipped about the investigation. As if I needed to be told that. Hell. But he said something else that didn't make a whole lot of sense at the time. Point is, I'm not supposed to be telling anyone at your office meaning you - shit about what's going on anymore."

"What-"

He went on, "How the investigation's going and what we're thinking, I'm saying. You're not supposed to be told squat. Tanner's orders are for us to get the medical info from you but not give you so much as the time of day. He said too much has been floating around and the only way to put a stop to it is not say a word to anyone except those of us who got to know in order to work the cases.."

"That's right," I snapped. "And that includes me. These cases are within my jurisdiction - or has everyone suddenly forgotten that?"

"Hey," he said quietly, staring at me. "We're sitting here, right?"

"Yes," I replied more calmly. "We are."

"Me, I don't give a shit what Tanner says. So maybe he's just antsy because of your computer mess. Doesn't want the cops blamed for giving out sensitive information to Dial-a-Leak at the ME's office."

"Please…"

"Maybe there's another reason," he muttered to himself.

Whatever it was, he had no intention of telling me.

He roughly shoved the car in gear and we were off toward the river, south to Berkley Downs.

For the next ten, fifteen, twenty minutes - I wasn't really aware of the time -we didn't say a word to each other. I was left sitting in a miserable silence, watching the roadside flash by my window. It was like being the butt of a cruel joke or a plot to which everyone was privy but me. My sense of isolation was becoming unbearable, my fears so acute I no longer was sure of my judgment, my acumen, my reason. I don't think I was sure of anything.

All I could do was picture the debris of what just days ago was a desirable professional future. My office was being blamed for the leaks. My attempts at modernization had undermined my own rigid standards of confidentiality.

Even Bill was no longer sure of my credibility. Now the cops were no longer supposed to talk to me. It wouldn't end until I had been turned into the scapegoat for all the atrocities caused by these murders. Amburgey probably would have no choice but to ease me out of office if he didn't outright fire me.

Marino was glancing over at me.

I'd scarcely been aware of his pulling off the road and parking.

"How far is it?" I asked.

"From what?"

"From where we just were, from where Cecile lived?"

"Exactly seven-point-four miles," he replied laconically, without a glance at the odometer.

In the light of day, I almost didn't recognize Lori Petersen's house.

It looked empty and unlived in, wearing the patina of neglect. The white clapboard siding was dingy in the shadows, the Wedgwood shutters seeming a dusky blue. The lilies beneath the front windows had been trampled, probably by investigators combing every inch of the property for evidence. A tatter of yellow crime-scene tape remained tacked to the door frame, and in the overgrown grass was a beer can that some thoughtless passerby had tossed out of his car.

Her house was the modest tidy house of middle-class America, the sort of place found in every small town and every small neighborhood. It was the place where people got started in life and migrated back to during their later years: young professionals, young couples and, finally, older people retired and with children grown and gone.

It was almost exactly like the Johnsons' white clapboard house where I rented a room during my medical school years in Baltimore. Like Lori Petersen, I had existed in a grueling oblivion, out the door at dawn and often not returning until the following evening. Survival was limited to books, labs, examinations, rotations, and sustaining the physical and emotional energy to get through it all. It would never have occurred to me, just as it never occurred to Lori, that someone I did not know might decide to take my life.

"Hey…"

I suddenly realized Marino was talking to me.