“Five minutes from the time they got the call,” she said. “The ME thinks Tracey was gone before the firefighters even got the call. The firefighter who brought her out risked his own life.” Olivia thought about the gaping hole that went four floors down. If David had stepped the wrong way when he climbed through the window to get Tracey… She couldn’t think about it. “Everyone did everything they could.”

“Thank you. When can I take her home?”

Val voiced his question and Olivia wanted to sigh. She hated child cases, but the heartache was made worse when there was shared custody of a minor child.

“Your wife will arrive tomorrow,” Kane said, stepping in. “You two will have to decide the final arrangements.”

Mullen’s face went as hard as stone. “I understand.” Then he marched from the room, his body trembling, from grief or fury Olivia didn’t know. Probably a mix of the two.

“Will you be available tomorrow?” Olivia asked Val. “We’ll want to ask the parents a few more questions, when they’re sitting together in the same room.”

“You can request me,” Val said. “I’ll let the office know.”

“We may need you all morning,” Olivia said, thinking of their visit to the deaf school. “We’ll have some interviews to conduct.”

“I’ll clear my calendar.” Val sighed heavily. “Now, if it’s all right, I’d like to leave.”

Olivia knew the feeling. The morgue was not her favorite place. “Sure.”

When they’d signed out both the interpreter and Mr. Mullen, Olivia turned to Kane. “She went to camp.”

“He hesitated before he told us that,” Kane said. “What is Camp Longfellow?”

“Let’s find out.” They went to Ian’s office and found him coming out of the cold room, having put Tracey’s body away. “Ian, can we use your computer for a minute?”

“Sure,” Ian said. “What’s up?”

Olivia slid into the chair at his desk. “Tracey Mullen went to camp this summer.”

Ian nodded. “Where she could have met a boy her parents didn’t know she knew.”

“Oh, the things parents don’t know their kids know,” Kane murmured.

“I know I gave my mom a million gray hairs,” Olivia said ruefully as she paged through the Google results for Camp Longfellow. “Here it is. It’s a camp for deaf high school students. I wonder why Mullen hesitated about that.”

“Maybe Mrs. Mullen didn’t know he’d sent Tracey,” Kane said. “Sounds like they didn’t agree about much when it came to raising her. Ian, how long ago were those fractures made and the damage you mentioned to her left hand?”

“Sometime in the last three months, I’d guess.”

Olivia sighed. “So it could have been dad, mom, mom’s new husband, anyone at camp, or anyone Tracey met on her way to Minneapolis. No help toward finding who beat her or in finding our eyewitness either. Tomorrow should be an interesting day.”

And tonight an interesting night. The day was finished. She’d been anticipating and dreading this moment in equal measures. Get up. Go. At least you’ll know.

Ian cleared his throat. “As much as I know you love my morgue, I’m going to have to run you out. I still have one more autopsy before I can go home. So be gone.”

Embarrassed, she pushed to her feet wearily. “Sorry, Ian.”

Kane waited until they were at the front door before speaking. “I do want my field glasses back,” he said mildly. “Just in case you were thinking of canceling on Hunter.”

Her cheeks heated. “I wasn’t. Exactly.”

“Look, I don’t know what happened and I don’t need to. But if you need to talk…”

Touched, she patted his shoulder. “I’m okay, but thanks.” She was almost to her car when she heard him yell from the other side of the morgue’s parking lot.

“Don’t forget the lipstick,” he called, and made her smile.

Monday, September 20, 8:30 p.m.

David’s jaw clenched as he cast his line off the end of Glenn’s dock. With quick, vicious jerks he reeled the line through the dark water of the lake, knowing he was never going to hook a fish as angry as he was, and not giving a damn.

Olivia hadn’t come. Hadn’t called or texted. Nothing.

Maybe this was her way of getting back at him. If so, he deserved it.

Sweat dampened the back of his shirt, despite the cooler temps of the fall night. He’d rolled his sleeves up his forearms, tossed his shoes into the dirt at the other end of the dock, and now stood in his bare feet casting for a walleye he’d never catch, going over each minute of that one night again and again, and trying very hard to stay calm.

Then his shoulders jerked forward. He’d hooked one. A damn big one. Reflex had him reeling-just as he heard the low roar of a vehicle approaching. He kept reeling as he listened, wondering if it would keep going, like all the cars had up until this point.

It didn’t. It stopped out front, the engine idling. Minutes ticked by and the engine continued to idle. Turn off the car, Olivia. Then he let out the breath he’d been holding when she did. A door slammed in the stillness of the night.

Two very long minutes later he heard the gentle slam of the back door and let out another breath. His hands continued to reel as he heard the crunch of fallen leaves and, finally, detected the faint aroma of honeysuckle. She was here.

“I didn’t think you would come,” he said, not turning around.

“I said I would,” she said quietly.

He turned then, looking into the face that had captured his imagination the moment he’d seen her. But it had been her eyes that had drawn him that first night. He found they still did. Round and blue, they’d been by turns sharp and intelligent, soft and understanding. And, later, hot and needy as she’d looked up at him, her head on his pillow. He swallowed hard.

“I’m glad,” he said simply and her lips turned up. Not quite a smile. He dropped his eyes to her throat and could see the pulse beating there, fast. Nervous, he hoped. Not scared. Please don’t let her be scared.

“I’m sorry I’m late. I needed to pick up my dog and go home. Clean up a little.”

His eyes dropped to the dress she wore. He’d seen it before. The first night he’d met her, at Mia’s rehearsal dinner. The night they’d sat and talked about everything under the sun until the small hours of the morning. He had to wonder if she’d chosen the dress on purpose, or if it was simply a favorite.

Blue like her eyes, it was made of something diaphanous that gave him teasing glimpses of her curves as the fabric rippled in the breeze. She’d left her hair down, as he liked it best. He wanted badly to touch, but his hands were filthy, so he kept them where they were, clutching his rod and reel for dear life.

He looked at his own clothes ruefully. “I was. Cleaned up, that is. Sorry.”

“It’s my fault. I should have called. Time got away from me. It sometimes does that.”

He stared another long moment, wondering how to ask the question that had burdened him for two and a half years. Why did you leave? What did I do? “I’ve hooked a fish. Hook’s set hard in his mouth. If I cut the line…”

“He’ll suffer. So reel him in. It’s nice out here, with the lake. Who lives here?”

He reeled, impatiently now. He wanted to wash his hands so that he could touch her. “A friend who’s staying in my apartment building. The one I’m rehabbing.”

“I didn’t know you’d opened it for tenants already.”

“I didn’t plan to. They just needed a place to stay. Now I’m half full.”

Something moved in her eyes and he wished he could interpret it. “That was kind.”

“So is your work with runaways. That night in Chicago, you said you wanted to do something, to give kids like your sister a chance before they ruined their lives. Lots of people talk about making a difference, Olivia. You do. You’re there at the teen shelter almost every weekend.” Even at the height of her work with the victims in the pit, she’d kept her commitment. That had profoundly impressed David.