She sat straight up in bed. Was it possible that someone in the Randall family could have known that Shannon had been alive all this time?

But who would keep such a secret, and why? And there was the matter of Eric Beale. Surely, if someone knew the girl had not been killed, they would have stepped forward before this, wouldn’t they?

Wouldn’t they…?

A chill ran up her back and into her scalp.

Yes, of course. Of course they would tell. She shook off the obscene possibility that anyone could have had such knowledge yet kept it to themselves. A young boy’s life had been at stake. Surely no one would have watched him go to his death and not said anything.

She closed her eyes again and thought about the role her father had played in this drama, of the irony that she had stood over Shannon Randall’s dead body twenty-four years after the girl had supposedly been murdered. Twenty-four years after her father had arrested Eric Louis Beale for her death.

She thought about the Beale family, and wondered if word had gotten to them yet. As difficult as it must have been for the Randall family to learn that Shannon had been alive all these years, how much more terrible it must be for the family of the young boy who’d been executed for a murder that had never been committed.

Dorsey tried her father again, and was almost relieved when he didn’t pick up. It would be difficult to speak with him tonight. It all weighed too heavily on her heart, Shannon and Eric, their parents, their siblings, along with so many unanswered questions.

She fell asleep with the light on, the possibilities playing free and loose in her head.

“Good morning,” Andrew said when Dorsey walked into the lobby at two minutes past eight the next morning.

“Hi.” She smiled and walked past the front desk to the door. “You driving or am I?”

“I’ll drive, if it’s all the same to you.”

She shrugged and followed him out the door and into the parking lot.

“So. Did you have your eggs and grits this morning?” He unlocked the car with the remote and walked to the driver’s side.

“I don’t do grits.” She opened the passenger door and got in, dropping her bag on the floor with one hand and slamming the door with the other.

Andrew laughed and started the car without comment.

“Do you know where we’re going?” she asked as the car turned left at the exit.

“Got directions from the police department. Seems Shannon and Edith were no strangers to the locals.”

“Their paths had crossed in the past?”

“On more than one occasion. Loitering, mostly. Solicitation a time or two.” Andrew checked his rearview mirror, then pulled into the lane of traffic that was headed downtown. “I thought we’d spend some time with the roommate this morning, then I want to head up to Hatton, talk to the family.”

“Sounds good.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes, then Andrew said, “You read the file last night?”

“Several times.”

“Then you know there’s no love lost between Edith and the cops. She had to have been royally pissed when her friend went missing and she couldn’t get the cops to give her the time of day.”

“Hey, what’s one less hooker in Deptford, right?”

“Exactly. So I was thinking, she sees us coming, she’s going to try to bolt. Our best bet is to wake her out of a sound sleep; at least we’ll know she’s there.”

“Maybe. Or maybe she won’t answer the door at all.”

“In which case, we’ll have to resort to plan B.”

“Which is?”

“I’m still working on it.”

He drove into the city, past block after block of nondescript neighborhoods, some slightly nicer than others, before stopping in front of a tan brick building that might have been a fashionable address in the 1920s. Out front, there was a small patch of grass overdue for a cutting and a single white pot with some dried flowers that might once have been geraniums in cement-hard dirt. Andrew parked in a spot marked Reserved and turned off the engine.

“Agent Shields, you do take me to the nicest places.” Dorsey stared out the window, taking it all in.

“Nothing’s too good for a fellow agent.” He un-buckled his seat belt. “Ready?”

She swung open her door and stepped out onto broken pavement. Candy wrappers and fast food bags lay on the ground close to the steps leading into the building, and chalked squares for hopscotch were barely visible on the sidewalk.

“Do kids still play hopscotch?” Andrew glanced down as he caught up with Dorsey.

“Guess so.” She started up the steps.

“You play when you were a kid, Dorsey?”

“No.” She pushed open the unlocked door. “Did you?”

“My sister played. She loved colored chalk, the brighter the better.”

“We didn’t have sidewalks where I grew up,” she told him as she read the names on the mailboxes.

“No sidewalks?” He frowned.

“ Hathaway Beach, where I was born, had sandy paths. No concrete.”

“I thought you were from around Philly.”

“How would you know that?” It was her turn to frown.

“I know that’s where your father lives. He’s on TV all the time, and he always mentions it. Besides, you have the accent.”

“I do not have an accent.” She tapped on one of the mailboxes. “Second floor, apartment 2G.”

She headed toward the steps and Andrew followed.

“We’ll knock on the door, and when she answers, you tell her you’re here to talk about Shannon,” he said.

“I thought I was supposed to stay in the shadows.”

“Like you did yesterday at the ME’s?”

She glared at him and went past him on the steps.

“Hey, that was the deal,” he reminded her. “You do have a way of getting yourself right in there.”

“Is that a problem for you?”

“Only if it gets you noticed by the wrong people.” He reached the landing first and held the door for her.

The hall was narrow, the carpet old, and the padding bunched in several places. Dorsey tripped twice between the stairwell and the door with 2G painted unevenly in black.

“This must be hell at night after a few drinks,” she muttered, looking down at the uneven floor covering.

Andrew pointed to the door, and Dorsey knocked three times and waited, listening for some movement behind the door. She knocked again, louder, then called, “Miss Chiong, are you in there?”

After a few moments of silence, they heard a shuffle from inside the apartment.

“Miss Chiong, are you there?”

“Who wants to know?”

“My name is Dorsey Collins. I’m with the FBI. I need to talk to you about Shannon.”

“You got some ID?”

“Yes.”

“Hold it up so’s I can see it.”

Dorsey pulled her badge from her pocket and opened it while a dead bolt was released on the other side of the door. A chain kept the door from opening more than three inches.

“Hold it closer,” Edith demanded.

Dorsey did as she was told.

“What is it you want to know?” Edith asked.

“I want to talk about Shannon.”

The chain came off and the door swung open.

“Better late than never, I suppose.” The woman stepped back to let Dorsey enter, then began to close the door when she saw Andrew. “Wait a minute, who’s he? I thought you were alone.”

“Special Agent Andrew Shields, Miss Chiong. We spoke on the phone the other day,” he reminded her. “I’m in charge of the investigation into Shannon ’s death.”

“What got the FBI all fired up? That sister of Shannon ’s being a senator? Is that what it took to get someone’s attention? Couldn’t be bothered looking for her when y’all thought she was just a hooker. But ooh-wee, once it started getting out that her family was big shots, yeah, now you’re interested.”

Edith Chiong drew her pale yellow robe tighter around her, and tied it snugly. She was short and slender, with straight dark hair to her shoulders, and dark, uneasy Asian eyes that smoldered in a pretty face. Dorsey guessed she was in her mid-thirties.