"Not a damn thing."

"Well," I said, "I think you'd better find him. And I'll tell you something else. I don't think Emily took the shortcut around the lake on her way home from the church."

"Shit," he complained.

"I hate it when you get like this. Just when pieces start to fall in place you shake the hell out of them like a damn puzzle in a box."

"Marino, I took the path around the lake myself. There's no way an eleven-year-old girl-or anybody else, for that matter-would do that when it's getting dark. And it would have been almost completely dark by six p.m." which was the time Emily headed home. "

"Then she lied to her mother," Marino said.

"It would appear so. But why?"

"Maybe because Emily was up to something."

"Such as?"

"I don't know. You got any Scotch in the room? I mean, there's no point in asking if you got bourbon."

"You're right," I said.

"I don't have bourbon."

I found five messages awaiting me when I returned to the Travel-Eze. Three were from Benton Wesley. The Bureau was sending the helicopter to pick me up at dawn. When I got hold of Wesley he cryptically said, "Among other things, we've got rather a crisis situation with your niece. We're bringing you straight back to Quantico."

"What's happened?" I asked as my stomach closed like a fist.

"Is Lucy all right?"

"Kay, this is not a secured line."

"But is she all right?"

"Physically," he said, "she's fine."

The next morning I woke up to mist and could not see the mountains. My return north was postponed until afternoon, and I went out for a run in the brisk, moist air.

I wended my way through neighborhoods of cozy homes and modest cars, smiling as a miniature collie behind a chain link fence raced from one border of the yard to another, barking frantically at falling leaves.

The owner emerged from the house as I went past.

"Now, Shooter, hush up!" The woman wore a quilted robe, fuzzy slippers, and curlers, and didn't seem to mind a bit walking outside like that. She picked up the newspaper and smacked it against her palm as she yelled some more. I imagined that prior to Emily Steiner's death, the only crime anyone worried about in this part of the world was a neighbor stealing your newspaper or stringing toilet paper through your trees. Cicadas were sawing the same scratchy tune they had played last night, and locust, sweet peas, and morning glories were wet with dew. By eleven, a cold rain had begun to fall, and I felt as if I were at sea surrounded by brooding waters. I imagined the sun was a porthole, and if I could look through it to the other side I might find an end to this gray day. It was half past two before the weather improved enough for me to leave. I was instructed that the helicopter could not land at the high school because the Warhorses and majorettes would be in the midst of practice. Instead, Whit and I were to meet at a grassy field inside the rugged stone double-arched gate of a tiny town called Montreal, which was as Presbyterian as predestination and but a few miles from the Travel-Eze. The Black Mountain Police arrived with me before Whit appeared, and I sat in a cruiser parked on a dirt road, watching children play flag football. Boys ran after girls and girls ran after boys as everybody pursued the small glory of snatching a red rag from an opposing player's waistband. Young voices carried on a wind that sometimes caught the ball and passed it through the fingers of trees huddled at borders, and whenever it spiraled out of bounds into briars or the street, everybody paused. Equality was sent to the bench as girls waited for boys. When the ball was retrieved, play went on as usual.

I was sorry to interrupt this innocent frolicking when the distinctive chopping noise became audible. The children froze into a tableau of wonderment as the Bell Jetranger lowered itself with a roaring wind to the center of the field. I boarded and waved goodbye as we rose above trees. The sun settled into the horizon like Apollo lying down to sleep, and then the sky was as thick as octopus ink. I saw no stars when we arrived at the Academy. Benton Wesley, who had been kept informed of our progress by radio, was waiting when we landed. The instant I climbed out of the helicopter, he had my arm and was leading me away.

"Come on," he said.

"It's good to see you, Kay," he added under his breath, and the pressure of his fingers on my arm unsettled me more.

"The fingerprint recovered from Ferguson's panties was left by Denesa Steiner."

"What?" He propelled me swiftly through the dark.

"And the ABO grouping of the tissue we found in his freezer is 0-positive. Emily Steiner was 0-positive. We're still waiting for DNA, but it appears Ferguson stole the lingerie from the Steiner home when he broke in to abduct Emily."

"You mean, when someone broke in and abducted Emily."

"That's right. Gault could be playing games."

"Benton, for God's sake, what crisis? Where's Lucy?"

"I imagine she's in her dorm room," he replied as we walked into the lobby of Jefferson.

I squinted in the light and was not cheered by a digital sign behind the information desk announcing WELCOME TO THE FBI ACADEMY. I did not feel Welcome this night.

"What did she do?" I persisted as he used a magnetized card to unlock a set of glass doors with Department of Justice and National Academy seals.

"Wait until we get downstairs," he said.

"How's your hand? And your knee?" I remembered.

"Much better since I went to a doctor."

"Thanks," I said dryly.

"I'm referring to you. You're the only doctor I've been to recently."

"I might as well clean your stitches while I'm here."

"That won't be necessary."

"I need hydrogen peroxide and cotton swabs. Don't worry." I smelled Hoppes as we walked through the gun-cleaning room.

"It shouldn't hurt very much." We took the elevator to the lower level, where the Investigative Support Unit was the fire in the belly of the FBI. Wesley reigned over eleven other profilers, and at this hour, every one of them had left for the day. I had always liked the space where Wesley worked, for he was a man of sentiment and understatement, and one could not possibly know this without knowing him.

While most people in law enforcement filled walls and shelves with commendations and souvenirs from their war against base human nature, Wesley chose paintings, and he had several very fine ones. My favorite was an expansive landscape by Valoy Baton, who I believed was as good as Remington and one day would cost as much. I had several Baton oil paintings in my home, and what was odd was that Wesley and I had discovered the Utahan artist independent of each other. This is not to say that Wesley did not have his occasional exotic trophy, but he displayed only those that held meaning. The Viennese white police cap, the bearskin cap from a Cold Stream Guard, and silver gaucho spurs from Argentina, for example, had nothing to do with serial killers or any other atrocity Wesley worked as a matter of course. They were gifts from well-traveled friends like me. In fact, Wesley had many mementos of our relationship because when words failed I spoke in symbols. So he had an Italian scabbard, a pistol with scrims hawed ivory grips, and a Mont Blanc pen that he kept in a pocket over his heart.

"Talk to me," I said, taking a chair.

"What else is going on? You look awful."

"I feel awful." He loosened his tie and ran his fingers through his hair.

"Kay" -he looked at me"-I don't know how to tell you this. Christ! "

"Just say it," I said very quietly as my blood went cold.

"It appears that Lucy broke into ERF, that she violated security."

"How could she break in?" I asked incredulously.