Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 763 & 764, March/April 2005

The Resurrection of Daniel Mason by Patricia McFall

Patricia McFall’s new story for EQMM reintroduces Lane Terry, the twenty-five-year-old failed performance artist turned private eye who was first seen in the short mystery “The Just Missed Blonde,” published in the 2001 Private Eye Writers of America’s anthology Mystery Street. Ms. McFall is also the author of the well-reviewed novel Night Butterfly (Worldwide Library 1992/Pocket Books 1994).

Daniel Mason dumped me the summer after I graduated from high school, and I hadn’t heard from him since. But one cloudy Monday afternoon in January eight years later, his brother Sean phoned.

The unfamiliar voice asked, “This Lane?”

“Why not?” I said. “Lane Terry, licensed investigator, at your service. Who’s this?”

“Baby Dude,” he said, using as instant identification my old nickname for him. At the time, he’d been a squeaky-throated little blond surfer, but with a lot of urban swagger superimposed to copy his big brother. I smiled at the memory and waited to hear what he wanted. He sounded nervous. After claiming how great it was to be back in touch with me and how much he’d always liked me, and how bad he’d felt when Danny and I broke up, he added, “Um, Lane, like, he willed his body to medical research...”

What would someone Daniel’s age need with a will? He was only three years older than me, so he’d be how old now — twenty-seven? — no, twenty-eight.

A heartbeat later, I realized what Sean was telling me.

Southern Californians can sometimes deliver bad news in this inappropriately upbeat, even cheerful manner. It’s a protective flat surface to cover up life’s darkness, if not its depths. We natives shimmer like the Pacific off Dana Point on a cloudless day, never mind any storm gathering just be-yond the lifeguards’ range. So even as I registered the message of Daniel’s death, I couldn’t help judging his little brother as being a bit detached — and Laguna Beach standards aren’t high.

But what he said next changed my mind: “See, he OD’ed last year on New Year’s Day, and my family just got the ashes back from the med school, so we’re planning to have a burial at sea and, Lane, I’d really appreciate it if you’d be there.”

Okay, so enough time had passed for him not to still feel the shock wave, but as for me, I sank down into the spavined old rattan chair in my living room cradling my forehead in my left hand. I tried to listen to what else Sean was saying. Apparently, he had rented a yacht to take his parents out past Newport Bay to scatter Danny’s ashes that Friday morning. I was a good sailor and an old friend, and they wanted me to go. I agreed to join them. It took me a few false starts to find a pen and paper and write down the information in a madwoman’s scrawl.

“You still there, Lane?”

“Yeah. I’m just — I can’t talk.”

“Well, look, we can talk later, but I...”

“No, go on. It’s okay.”

“I just want to thank you for helping.”

“No problem. I have to go now, Sean. See you Friday on the dock.”

Only after I’d hung up and cried and blown my nose and calmed down did it occur to me to wonder why nobody had told me a year earlier. And Sean’s lack of curiosity about my occupation would have made me think if I hadn’t been so raw with the news. Most old friends — especially those who’d known me as a performance artist and actress — had been astonished.

My mind was in and out of focus as I tried to process the hard fact of Daniel’s death. He was only three years older than me. How could he be dead? Sure, I’ve worked several homicide cases as a licensed investigator, so I have probably seen more of death than most people have by twenty-five — Americans, anyway. Up until this point, though, it had only been strangers and my great-uncle Frank, who had smoked since he was fourteen and eaten red meat since the first day he could chew. Besides, he was eighty-four. What did he expect?

I put on a warm jacket and light hikers and followed Pacific Coast Highway downtown just to get away from being alone with my thoughts, but it was no good. As I looked beyond the boardwalk and the volleyball court at the January-gray convergence of sky and sea, I tried to believe Daniel Mason was dead. I realized that his self-inflicted habits had killed him, too, but much stronger and swifter bad habits than Uncle Frank’s: cocaine and heroin instead of tobacco, and either fast food or self-starvation instead of comfort sludge. I turned inland at Ocean and plowed along the virtually empty sidewalk almost angry, scuffing a trail through fallen leaves. It really bothered me that Sean had waited until now to contact me, because we’d once been pretty close. Even though I knew the family had moved to Lake Elsinore soon after our breakup, Daniel had been my first boyfriend, from my fifteenth to my eighteenth summer. Worse, I’d recently ended another relationship that at this point seemed even less mature, ending in mutual loathing and amazement that we’d ever wanted to be in the same time zone as one another, let alone make love.

As I passed the playhouse, feeling a light sprinkle that had apparently begun while I wasn’t paying attention, smelling the earth-spice of wet eucalyptus leaves, I looked across the street and remembered. Daniel and I had bought each other nose rings ($20 each, installed) from a vendor at the Sawdust Festival, an outdoor arts and crafts fair Laguna has in the summer. My mother had completely lost it over the nose ring, even though she’d always claimed to be a mellow ’sixties person, and overlooked the childish commitment implied by the occasion. I didn’t care. I was in love for the first time, with someone I knew was my spiritual twin. Of course, six weeks later, Daniel and I were all over. Don’t get me wrong; showing me to the off ramp was the greatest possible graduation present, since he was headed for a spectacular pileup and saw me as — how did he put it? — “sanctimonial.” Daniel might have been hip, but not overly well read outside of the Beat poets and some of Public Enemy’s more insolent lyrics. I admit that his opinion of me was more on the mark than his vocabulary, but I’m not going to apologize for being straight-edge. I lived healthy. I didn’t do drugs, smoke, eat meat, or sleep with strangers. Things haven’t changed. I drink alcohol only when it’s necessary on a case. Other than the one on my right ankle, I don’t even have any tattoos that show. Maybe that makes me a bore, but at least I’d survived.

And Daniel hadn’t. Looking through the veil of raindrops, I stood across the street from the abandoned fairgrounds and imagined his voice, my name carried on a cold gust of the oncoming storm.

The rain finally let up on Thursday, but Friday was still a great day for a funeral. Cold, damp, the wind moaning over the sea as insistent as a soul in distress. We got underway without discussion. I helped Sean cast off and made his mom comfortable, the box of ashes in her lap.

But Mr. Mason wanted to act in charge. “I’ll get the engine started and we’ll be off. Where the hell’s the pull on this thing?”

“It’s a button, Dad. Just let us take care of it. You’re not dressed to sail. Please?” Sean tried not to show his frustration, but so it went, his dad bellowing away, trying to run things but not knowing what he was doing. Sean restrained what must have been the urge to throw him overboard, and I have to say he acted pretty mature. Sean had the rugged appearance of full manhood now, not a trace of boy about him. He was only two years younger than me, but in the old days two years made a lot of difference. Now we seemed close to the same age. While he was busy reasoning with his dad, I quietly got the boat out of the harbor. We worked the boat without having to say much to each other, a good team by instinct, and I was glad to have something to do, since I’d remembered why I’d always liked Sean, and why I’d thought something less of his parents. Mr. and Mrs. Mason had nothing to say to me anyway, and never had thought younger people much worth talking to. It was sad to see how ungracefully the Masons had aged, how her cosmetic surgery only seemed to have made matters worse, how his suspiciously mahogany shade of hair did nothing to soften his authoritarian scowl. Though they hadn’t seemed glad to see me, Sean genuinely had. That helped me feel better about agreeing to come.

In time, the wind got too loud to hear much. After a shouted conference with his parents, from which he came toward me looking ashamed, Sean cupped his hands, leaned in to form a wind tunnel between his mouth and my ear, and said, “You’re great for doing this, Lane. Look, uh, my mom is too grossed out to scatter the ashes, and she wants me to, but I can’t, I just can’t. Will you?” The wind howled, the waves slapped the sides of the boat, and I tried to look at his face, but my hair blew across my eyes. He leaned in to my ear again. “Anyplace out here’s good. Let’s get it over with. When we’re through, there’s a few things I really need to tell you about.”

The guy could really pick a great time to act secretive, since I could barely make out what he was saying. I turned, tunneled, and said back, “Okay, give me the box.”

He staggered back and got it, opening and holding it for me. Meanwhile, his mother stared at the rolling black clouds over the rising and falling horizon, and his dad sat at the helm trying to look like he was the captain of his soul or master of his fate or however that goes.

I’d never done this before, so rather than just dump the whole box overboard, I began scooping ashes out in my hand and flinging them down over the side, trying to avoid the wind getting them in anybody’s face. The remains get pulverized into dust, and it wasn’t as disgusting as you’d think, just kind of fine powder. To get the last of the ashes out without having to beat on the bottom, I reached deep inside and Sean tilted the box while I dumped the last bit into my palm. I made a loose fist and as the wind sifted the ashes through my fingers, I felt something square and hard in the palm of my hand. I peeked at it through my blowing hair. It was a metal tag, something like a soldier’s dog tag, some kind of identifying label. I stuck it into my pocket to give to Sean later in case he wanted it.

The rain started falling again. We got back to shore wet, cold, and silent, heading for a nearby restaurant where the bar offered a blazing fire and an ocean view — actually, an increasingly black view of rain. We were led to a heavy table with captain’s chairs around it. After we had drinks — hot toddies for the three of them and cocoa for me — the Masons thanked me and left in their car as though running away, but I stayed behind to hear what Sean wanted.

He sat looking into the liquid he swished around at the bottom of his mug. I couldn’t help noticing his careless blond perfection, the black fringe of lashes, the sensitive mouth, the unexpectedly determined set of the square jaw. Fortunately, he chose then to talk. “Danny made me his executor. I guess that was because he was a user and knew he could die young.”

“Yeah, but that’s a lot of responsibility to lay on you, Sean. You were, what, twenty-two when he died?”

He shrugged his strong shoulders, somehow indicating he could handle weight, physical or symbolic. “Maybe he wanted to spare our folks. Maybe he knew they’d be too messed up to handle it. I was up to carrying out his wishes, but I felt a little strange right away about Nick Ludlow. He’s the guy in charge of body donations for the school,” he explained. “He didn’t seem real normal.”

“How not normal?”

“Just something not right. Anyway, I signed the donation papers, and the coroner’s office sent Danny’s body to the hospital over there after they were done with it. They did an autopsy, but the school could still use it. We never heard another word until just after Christmas. This Nick Ludlow calls me to ask me to meet him at the White House in Laguna at nine at night.”

“A restaurant? At night? Whatever happened to an office during business hours?”

“Just what I wondered. He shows up in an unmarked van, dressed in a long leather coat like a Satanist or heavy metal. Not big, maybe five eight or nine, but built like he trains. Kind of red-blond hair and a little devil goatee. About our age.” He paused to glance directly into my eyes.

I did a quick redirection of my eyes to the chocolate crude oil in the bottom of my mug. Our age, he’d just said. An intimate little encroachment, I’d say. Apparently Sean thought the gap between us had narrowed, too. I nodded, hoping he’d keep talking and miss hearing any respiratory uptick from my side of the table. Outside, the storm lashed at the windows, which also helped. Both the story and the storyteller were getting really interesting, and we could be there until closing for all I cared. “By the way, you’d make a good witness,” I encouraged. “What else happened at the restaurant?”

“So Nick Ludlow says there’s more papers to sign. He says I owe six hundred dollars for the cremation and returning the ashes. So I write out this check, but he tells me to make it out to some company called Academy Transport, not SCPU.”

“Yeah,” I said, slipping into professional mode, thank God. “That’s a little insensitive, but neither here nor there since the university could be using a contractor.”

“Oh. I didn’t think of that. But there’s this, too. He tells me to follow him out, and thanks me for the donation and tells me his assistant has the day off and can I help him pick up a donation.”

“Shut up!” I said, astounded. “That’s dis-gusting!” We exchanged an irresistible smile, though it wasn’t exactly funny. “To be fair,” I offered, “maybe it’s like with cops, and people get jaded in his business.”

“Guess so! He swings the back door open so I can see there’s this zipped-up body bag back there on a gurney. You know what I think? He was getting off on it. I wasn’t going anywhere with him. I told him I had to go, and you know what he says? ‘We all gotta go sometime, man,’ and starts to laugh. Then he slams the rear door, gets back in the front, and drives off.”

So that was why he’d called me to join them today, not for old times’ sake or out of family feeling, but because he already knew I was a private investigator. That’s why he hadn’t been surprised about my job when he called. He’d brought me in so he could find out why Nick Ludlow had been acting weird. I waited a long minute before I said, “So you wanted to ask me about it professionally. Is that it?”

Something about my tone must have made him feel sheepish, and he must have worried that I thought he wanted me to do it for free. “I know something isn’t right, but they’re not going to tell me anything. Of course, I can pay whatever you usually get. Okay?”

Hiding a little disappointment, I said, “No problem. You were right to get in touch, and you seem to be on to something. Besides that, I have something to show you I found in the box out there.” I glanced at the window, where I saw my own windblown wild-woman image in the dark glass. Afternoon was turning to evening.

I showed him the tag from the box of ashes, which read, “SCPU Anat. Waste 12/7/2003.” I waited while he did the obvious calculation I’d performed earlier in the ladies’ room, where I’d gone to check the engraving out in better light.

Sean blinked. “I don’t — this says they cremated him the month before he died,” he said. “Not possible. Can’t be right, Lane. This proves something’s off.”

Damn my guilty heart, this whole time I’d been thinking about juggling the workload at Lane Terry & Associates. I had just finished the undercover work for a swoop-and-squat insurance-fraud case. The only other nonretainer client we had was an unhappy mistress who thought her married lover was cheating on her — go figure — and that file was being handled by my associate, Ace Benoit, who was probably relishing every minute, the little pervert. I was free to take on a new case. I told myself it was for Daniel, and I heard someone with my voice say a little too fast, “So I guess you want me to check Ludlow out for you. Well, I’ll see what I can do.”

“You will?” he asked, relief crossing his face, and he grabbed my hand with both of his. Maybe it was only to shake on the deal, but the physical contact still had quite an effect. When he finally let my hand go, it was left feeling sad and lonely.

No doubt about it. My new client, once known as Baby Dude, had grown up to be Ooh, Baby, Baby.

Monday morning, I got up with the seagulls and channeled my wholly unprofessional lust into lots of productive work. After checking with the usual computer databases about a business license for Academy Transport — that was in the name of Darren Ford, person unknown — I looked for a criminal record for him and for a Nick or Nicholas or even Nikolai Ludlow. I came up nil and decided to go snoop around Southern California Pacific U’s medical school next and see what I could find out. Figuring I wouldn’t be very credible as a body donor, I decided to be a student, or a potential student.

The weather had turned hot overnight, the formerly rain-bearing wind shifting, then kicking into a dry, nasty Santa Ana, and here we were in February with a winter heat wave. I tried to look like a rich, plain-vanilla college student, with lots of product on the hair, retro horn-rimmed glasses, a tank top with full frontal couturier-of-the-week logo, a creamy strip of skin above the cropped hiphugger jeans, and a pair of designer-knockoff stiletto sandals convincing to all but the most devoted fashion slut. It was hot and gritty already at eleven A.M., and I was glad not to be back in the swoop-and-squat world of un-climate-controlled body shops and stuffy parking garages the insurance-fraud job had introduced me to.

The donation center was, appropriately enough, located in the basement, and I found a good lurking place just outside the row of burnished aluminum elevator doors flanked by large fan-shaped palms in architectural planters. Pretty fluffy, as my mother would say. The medical school must have been getting more donations than just cadavers. The plants offered sufficient cover for me to watch people come and go without attracting too much attention. Many of the medical students were identifiable enough, as they were younger and wearing those green pajama-looking scrubs, stethoscopes hanging around their necks as though to say, “Hey, check me out, I’m a freaking doctor!” Most of the real doctors, male and female, seemed to be wearing suits, a few fairly sporty outfits. Virtually nobody had the Marcus Welby shirt I remembered from my childhood, white tunic with a priest’s collar, made out of some creepy half-see-through material that showed the guy’s undershirt or worse, chest fur. Now, that’s best seen on purpose and in private or not at all, as far as this girl’s concerned.

Just after eleven by the brushed-nickel built-in clock over the opposite bank of elevators, a very elegant, cosmetically thin, silver-haired woman in a tailored blue pinstripe trouser suit, who had been up and down the elevator several times, stopped and offered to help me “find something.” She looked like somebody’s boss, and wondered if I were lost.

I smiled winningly. “Oh, no, I’m just waiting for a friend and it’s hot outside.”

She looked surprised. “It is?” She looked down at her wrist, where there was a thin platinum timepiece that must have cost her at least a day in consultation fees. “I do believe I worked right through the night and half the day again.” She shook her head and trotted away in her comfort pumps, looking too busy to worry about me, and I continued to lounge. Finally, just before noon, I saw a strawberry-blond guy in a long black leather coat stroll over to the elevator and, hands clasped waist high, index fingers straight, lean into the Up button. I hated the little hotdog already, but this was my elevator, and I was getting on. Fortunately for me, it was lunchtime, and several others crowded into the car ahead of me, so Ludlow never noticed me. I consider myself an excellent chameleon anyway, legs and arms pressed against the side of the elevator, turning pale silver and invisible.

I spent that afternoon shadowing the unmarked van in the firm’s black SUV, grateful that they’re now so common in Southern California as to be rendered as anonymous as a beige Honda Accord once was. I hated gassing it and parking it, but for visibility of the quarry, it was the P.I.’s car of choice. I hung way back and escorted Mr. Nick Ludlow from a discreet distance as he stopped in Fullerton to pick up a big blond ape with a droopy moustache who looked like a sweaty over-buffed bouncer. I made note of the address on my digital voice recorder, a priceless — and safety-conscious — substitute for pen and ink while driving. It was just possible that the ape was Darren Ford, DBA Academy Transport.

Ludlow’s van returned south to an upscale nursing home in Corona Del Mar, where the two went in with a wad of papers and came out with an occupied body bag. They took their delivery to the medical school’s loading area, where I couldn’t follow, but I waited on a hunch, and they came back in five minutes with an identical-looking bag. We took the freeway to an area north of San Pedro where there were several oil refineries and one Heritage Cremation Services, Inc., the same outfit that had cremated Daniel — well, what someone had passed off as Daniel, presumably. The men disappeared inside with the bag, and I sat and thought. It could have been an honest error, of course, but I trusted Sean as a judge of character — hadn’t he come looking for me? In any case, you had to wonder about a guy who won’t take off his leather coat when it’s over eighty-five degrees, or had friends who looked like that blond creep.

When they drove past where I waited outside down the block, I followed them onto the freeway ramp, staying well back, but then some pissy little worm in a rice rocket cut me off, and I lost them in the afternoon traffic going south. I got off at the next exit and sat in a strip-mall parking lot cursing the worm and myself until I calmed down to consider other options. On impulse, the SUV having blacked-out windows that facilitate quick wardrobe changes, I altered my image with the substitution of a black knit dress for the tank and jeans, black flats for the stiletto sandals. I kept the horn rims but added some pink lipstick, then wrestled my shoulder-length hair into something resembling a loose French twist. My own mother wouldn’t have picked me out of a lineup. I got back on the freeway going north, returned to the crematory, and strolled in. My business card claimed I was a reporter for the Orange County News Agency, a local concern that was acquired out of existence five years previous, now one of the bank of fictitious corporate voicemail systems created for the use of Lane Terry & Associates. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not illegal to impersonate someone if it isn’t a sworn peace officer. I only do that when I have to.

A severe-looking older woman with her hair slicked into a tight little bun that probably never got a vacation looked up, then came to the counter. If the place smelled like anything worse than hot bricks, fortunately the surrounding refineries covered it up with their industrial stench. She looked sour and thin-lipped. I thought she was going to be tough, like trying to pry a giant clam open with a set of blunt nail clippers, but when I handed her the card, she smiled brightly and asked what she could do for me. Maybe she didn’t get a lot of visitors — well, not the kind you could talk to. “I’m on a story about funeral options,” I explained. “With overpopulation and real-estate prices and all, so many people are going the cremation route—” I gestured globally — “and I wondered if you could tell me something about it — like, how’s business?” I smiled expectantly, and she shrugged.

“It’s steady,” she deadpanned, and I smiled appreciatively, wondering if she got a lot of mileage from that line at trade shows.

We talked about the expense of plots and the decline of some religious groups’ objections to cremation, talked about a few of the scandals like the place down in Georgia where they decided putting dead folks out in the fresh air was an economically sound alternative to getting their incinerator repaired, and I turned the conversation around to the local business, peppering her with questions: “Do you ever deal directly with families or individuals? Any institutional customers other than funeral homes?”

“All of the above. We have contracts with a couple of hospitals, you know, teaching hospitals attached to medical schools.”

“Oooh,” I said, “bet that’s interesting.”

“Well, not really. Most of ’em’s pretty straightforward, lots of paperwork for an entire body, the State of California requires it. Human remains get respect.”

“Good,” I gulped. “And the others?”

She made a wrinkle-nosed expression that brought out the rodent in her appearance. “That’s kind of, you know, icky.”

Icky? I waited, knowing that silence is a vacuum into which most people will pitch their darkest secrets if you let them.

“We get these sealed boxes from the hospitals, and we’re not allowed to look inside.”

“Really? What’s that about?”

“When they have various parts, like when medical students dissect an arm?”

I was getting greener and greener thinking about an arm lying there all by itself, maybe with its palm heavenward. It wasn’t easy, this death business, and I tried not to think of Daniel Mason, his arm.

The lady was saying, “When it’s all mixed up like that, different people’s body parts, they just throw ’em into a box labeled ‘Anatomical Waste’ to be incinerated, and it’s actually against the law to open the box. Not that I’d ever want to, but—”

The telephone rang, and I froze like a memorial statue in Forest Lawn. The lady cleared her throat, apologized that she had to get back to work, and I thanked her and almost ran to the door. Another time, I wished I could get a look at their records, wished I could get more out of her about how they documented the process. The heat outdoors was like an oven opening wide, but I was shivering and glad to get out of there. Daniel’s label had said “Anat. Waste,” not his name. Something was definitely wrong, at the very least the medical school’s record keeping, but possibly more.

Daniel had died by overdose, not murder, but — I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but — talk about the perfect crime. When you can cut people up and nobody can legally look at what’s in there before it’s burned beyond identification? I walked right past my car and caught myself and had to turn back.

I figured if I was going to go back to the medical school undercover, I’d need to look right to get Ludlow’s attention, so he’d see me as friendly to his weird personal style. Now, black leather can certainly mean different things to different people, and I didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot. I settled for a super-hip, semi-nihilistic, modified Goth/punk/vampire look. I spent the evening constructing it, and the heat wave broke as quickly as it had started, the Santa Anas out of breath in thirty-six hours. I returned to the basement elevators’ palm jungle in a short black leather dress and clumpy boots. I’d added some temporary Asian tattoos — a dragon curling around my left biceps, some calligraphy the box claimed meant “warrior spirit lives in this one” on my right calf, my newly recommissioned nose ring back in place, plus dark burgundy lipstick, very white face makeup, black charcoal eyes, and what I liked to think of as my white-girl dreadlocks, mouse brown rendered jet black with a temporary rinse. On the street in New York City, the look would undoubtedly have both a name and its own boutique, but I hoped the effect on Nick Ludlow would be to seem vaguely familiar but not too easy to pin down to an actual subgroup in a subculture.

I walked in at eight A.M. on the nose and introduced myself as Madison, the office temp sent to help him with the computer files.

He looked me up and down, his face a study of mixed emotions. “I didn’t ask for any office temp,” he observed.

“I know. I’m a surprise,” I said flatly. “They say you can use some help since you’re supposed to be so busy.” I implied he shouldn’t be wasting time arguing about it. I wished I’d got some gum, just to seem dumber and more sullen, and to have some stage business, but you can’t think of everything.

He frowned, and the dandruff revealed on his eyebrows didn’t improve his looks any. His haircut sort of looked like a strawberry-blond retro Beatles cut, but not as flattering. Of course, he might be a prince on the inside, but before I could find that out, I had to convince him I was legitimate. I handed him an official-looking work order from “temphelpfast,” all lower case and very avant-garde typography, another of the belly-up businesses my firm now operated. “You can call ’em if you want,” I said, looking like I got paid by the hour and didn’t give a flying whatever about who paid me.

He was reading it with suspicion. “I don’t see anyone’s name from here as the person who placed the order.” His eyes narrowed nastily. “Did Dr. Cannon do this?”

Whoever Dr. Cannon was, that was good enough for me. “I dunno,” I said. “It mighta been.”

“Well, let’s go ask her.” You could tell he hated this Dr. C. He started to leave, and I clumped daintily behind.

Dr. Gwen Cannon looked familiar. Then I recognized her as the woman who’d tried to help me find where I was going the day before. She was wearing a grey tone-on-tone dress with a matching jacket, exquisitely pieced and embroidered. As before, she looked tired, but she wasn’t looking at me. She gave Ludlow what you might call a withering look, then took me in with an “and you are?” lift of her aristocratic brows. I didn’t think she recognized me from my previous incarnation.

Ludlow handed her the work order. “If you thought I needed help, you might’ve asked me,” he said evenly, though I could see that his jaw was clenched.

The lady was smart. She read it, looked at him, looked again at me, a little longer. “Actually, there are several different assignments I had in mind for Ms. Madison.”

She was pretending she knew about it!

I was too nonplussed to tell her Madison was my first name, with the last name left blank. It was an anti-system statement by my persona, but that seemed somewhat moot here. Dr. Cannon waved Nick Ludlow to the door. “She should have reported to me first. Well, never mind. I’ll bring her in and explain it all to you in a few minutes.”

When he was gone, she shut the door and turned to face me, an intrigued smile on her face. “All right, young lady. For whom do you really work, pray tell? Are you still meeting a friend, or have you found her?”

Dr. Cannon arranged her clothes carefully as she sat down, and she gestured me to a chair. I couldn’t help noticing that gray was her color, and that she’d decorated the postmodern office in gray, with shades of black, white, and splashes of red on the window valance and pillows for more impact. The walls had all kinds of framed papers attesting to her success in life — licenses, certificates, and winning lottery tickets for all I could tell from where I sat.

Her voice was clipped but not angry when she asked, “Ms. Madison, what exactly are you up to here?”

When I’m on a case, I have a strict policy of keeping as much of the truth out of it as possible, no matter how much I instinctively trust someone, but I had nowhere to go this time. The lady was certainly nobody’s fool, and I didn’t want her for an enemy. “The family of one of the body donors hired me,” I said. “My real name’s Lane Terry. Here.” Figuring that she was going to check me out anyway, and that there was no point in getting thrown into a security mess while she decided what to do with me, I inserted my thumb and index finger down into the side of my right boot, extracted a laminated card, and handed it to her. She carefully recorded the pertinent information from my State of California investigator’s license before she handed it back.

I went on, “Apparently, there had been something strange about the way the body was handled—”

Her eyes shifted to a point down and to her left, signally visual memory. Maybe she’d seen something too, and she’d been wondering about the guy all along.

I hesitated, expecting her to say something, but when she didn’t, I told her this little lie to lead her off Sean’s scent: that Mr. Ludlow had picked up the remains at the rest home where my client’s loved one had passed away. He’d come in an unmarked van, and then told the family there were charges for transportation and for the return of the ashes, payable to some private company.

Dr. Cannon took all this data in, the only change in her expression a slight hardening around the mouth. In her efficient way, she held up a hand to signal that she’d heard enough. “This is what I was afraid of when we hired him. Our program director had just retired. Nick just seemed so convenient, young but well trained, and he convinced the interview committee that he had ‘extensive marketing experience’—” here she finger-hooked quotation marks in the air — “from his family’s funeral home. He said he could put these entrepreneurial skills to work in our service.” She sniffed. “We’ll have to see whether he used those skills in our service or, if not, in whose.” She sighed. “All right, Ms. Terry, I’m putting you to work. You go right on as Ms. Madison. But I don’t want anyone but the two of us to know. Fair? Nothing in writing, and I’ll pay you in cash. I assume the family won’t object?”

Since there wasn’t one, only this adorable younger brother I was trying not to obsess about, I assured her that the family would not object. I certainly understood why Dr. Cannon would like to avoid asking for a disbursement of university funds to conduct an outlandish investigation on an employee without any formal complaint being brought. It would only make her look ridiculous if she turned out to be wrong. I could see it from her point of view. Outlandish or not, she still wanted someone to get the goods on Ludlow, and I couldn’t have been more pleased. This way, I would be on a “real” case, uncomplicated by friendship. With Dr. Cannon’s protection, I’d have all the access and authority I needed to find out what happened to Daniel.

“That’s fine,” I said, “so long as you appreciate that my clients are also entitled to expect my discretion.”

She nodded and stood, glancing at her elegant wrist watch. I could see upside down that the band was definitely platinum, in keeping with her color scheme, and that the time was eight-twenty.

“Let’s get to work,” she said. “Tell me, are you actually any good with a computer?”

I admit that I smirked while nodding.

“Good. Then your ostensible assignment is to work on cleaning up Mr. Ludlow’s predecessor’s records, getting them in shape before we close the books. Then he won’t get the idea you’re checking up on him. His isn’t the only area I manage, so if he asks what else you’re doing, tell him I’m forming a task force on medical-malpractice insurance coverage. That’s completely out of his area, and it’s not likely to interest him. Your hours are eight to five, an hour for lunch. Every day, take a coffee break at ten sharp and come report to me.”

I shook her well-manicured hand with my vampire-manicured one and went to report to Nick Ludlow.

The next couple of days were tense but exciting. I kept Sean updated at two mostly unnecessary meetings he requested. At the first, he insisted on giving me a check right away, and it was all I could do, standing over him as he wrote it out, to keep from reaching out and touching the blond bangs, almost transparent, that spilled into the sunlight as he bent over the desk. Then there was his voice, the way his saying an ordinary word or phrase, say, “Be careful, Lane,” made me want to tear off clothing — his, mine, somebody’s. I was barely managing to ignore what I hoped was rampaging mutual attraction, and I had to go to the med school just to be able to concentrate.

Unfortunately, the hospital had its share of other distractions, though far from pleasant ones. There, when I looked up promising files like “Current Month Disposal Records” and “Heritage Crem. Svcs.,” I had to quickly change to another screen whenever I saw Nick Ludlow coming. Felt him coming, that is. Creepy little undertaker that he was, he sneaked around as if he had felt soles glued onto his shoes. He also expected slave service from me, things like, “Go down to the cafeteria and get me a double latte with plenty of chocolate sprinkles, Madison. I’ll, um, pay you when you get back.” Which he did the first time, but on the morning of the second day, he pretended to be out of change. No worries; that afternoon I found his cash stash, reimbursed myself, and instituted a money-up-front policy. There was no way that fool was going to get over on me.

The third day, I found some information about Daniel’s donation, but only some: inbox, no outbox. No internal tracking to say whether the remains had been used for dissection once they arrived, either. I developed a theory: Maybe Ludlow was just giving any old ashes to whoever asked for — read, paid for — ashes, remembering to remove the “anatomical waste” tag that identified a mix of bodies except in that one case. Or maybe he didn’t bother, and nobody made anything out of it. You know: Here’s a tag, but it’s dated six months after Grandma passed on, and so what if they call it something strange; they’re doctors, right?

That theory led to another possibility. Maybe Daniel was still on the premises. I didn’t like it, but I had to get into the refrigerated area where the actual cadavers were kept.

The next day, I told Dr. Cannon that I needed to check that the remains had been correctly labeled and routed from Point A to Point B, and out the door at Point C. An orderly person like her would certainly approve of this systematic approach, since even a cursory examination showed that Ludlow’s files were useless. Maybe the cadaver drawers were labeled alphabetically like files. I’d have to see, but I kind of doubted it, since you’d have to be reshuffling them all the time — never mind.

Trying to sound casual, I told Dr. Cannon, “I can’t tell from the files where anybody’s remains physically are. If the cadavers have documentation with them—”

“Sure,” she murmured, rummaging around in a desk drawer. Maybe she was so used to being around stiffs it meant nothing to her, but she barely looked up from the computer screen she seemed to be reading at the same time she talked to me. She pulled out a key tagged “Cold Room.” When she pressed it into my hand, I must admit, I shivered at the suggestion. Wasn’t the cold room where we all ended up? Except for the ones who burned in hell, I supposed.

I called Sean on my cell phone as soon as I could get some privacy, and arranged to meet him at Sudz, a brew pub in Laguna, at six-thirty for an update, telling him I had lots of news to report. “You’re amazing, Lane,” he said, “just amazing,” and I found myself slinking back to the office to wait with the anticipation of a lioness closing in on prey.

Around two that afternoon, Ludlow left to pick up a donation. Trying to look as casual as possible, I pulled on a ski sweater and covered myself with some scrubs. I put on a face mask and a pair of paper bootees — no small trick over boots — and unlocked the cooler with the key Dr. Cannon had given me. It let me into a foyer with big rubber-gasketed doors on the opposite side. When I stepped onto the welcome mat, they whooshed open, loud and unnerving, then whooshed closed behind me.

The place was like a huge refrigerated safe-deposit box vault, metallic and sterile and overlit once the motion detectors switched on the overheads. A smell like rotten meat kept getting worse as I walked inside. I pretended that it didn’t bother me. There must have been more than a hundred drawers, all labeled with identification numbers that didn’t correspond to anything on the lists I had printed out. Being systematic, I went straight over to the far left side, top row of five, using a wheeled ladder provided for the purpose. There were gurneys with lifters to get the contents of the top drawers out, but I didn’t try to understand how they worked because I wasn’t taking anything with me. I slid the first door open and was relieved that the occupant had been loaded head-in, with only a pair of small marble-white feet to look at when I opened the drawer.

Even if I didn’t have to look the cadaver in the face, I felt my throat tightening up on me, my eyes filling. This was not fun, and I pushed the door shut before I remembered what I was there to do. I reopened it, and saw that there was indeed a toe-tag, like the morgues use, hanging down with the name Pearl Jacobs, date of death and donation, and the same reference number as on the outside of the drawer. I checked my list for Pearl Jacobs, and it took a while since it wasn’t in alpha order, but there she was, waiting for dissection by a gerontological-medicine lab class in a couple of weeks.

I hurried across the first row, maybe twenty drawers, with all the names checking out where there was a toe tag, but some cadavers didn’t have any. Then I noticed something important: I could see from the dates that the only ones with toe tags were from the old administrator, before Ludlow took over. I also noticed that the typeface for the number-identification labels on the outside of the drawers was different for each of the two groups, which had been interspersed. Why? Out of laziness or incompetence, or to disguise a deception? At the end of the bottom row, several of the drawers from his regime were empty despite having identification numbers — with no record of disposition I could find. Bad record-keeping, to say the least. Something strange was being done, but I would need more time and information to sort it out.

A quick time check gave me at least fifteen minutes before Ludlow returned, if I didn’t freeze first. I now knew which drawers held bodies donated during his tenure, so I could skip the others and pull out the “possible” drawers far enough to look for Daniel. I steeled myself and rolled the first out as far as it would go, which was only halfway. There was nothing for it but to figure out how to use one of the hoists. It turned out to be not so big a deal because there were illustrated instructions printed on the side of the gurney contraption, but it did take a little maneuvering. My teeth were chattering full time, but I told myself it was only from the cold, and not about these things that had once been people.

In the middle of the third row, I found Daniel. A shock wave passed through me as I recognized him, saw what seven years of dissipation could do to a beautiful face, and I wobbled on the stepladder, sitting kind of fetal-sidesaddle to regroup, shivering and crying and thinking how much Sean and he looked alike, and wishing I’d never agreed to take the case. I pulled myself together to say a last goodbye and get out.

I knew I’d have to talk to Dr. Cannon, and if she didn’t want to involve the authorities, I would anyway. Sean would have to make a positive ID and decide what to do with the remains, but I was certain he’d want them back. I could leave for good now, case closed. I counted over to the location of the drawer so I could easily find it again, underlined the ID number on my list, and put everything back, wiping my kohl-lined eyes on the sleeve of the scrub as I turned to leave.

The doors went whoosh like hellfire coming down a tunnel.

Believe me, Nick Ludlow looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He was pushing a gurney with a long shape on it covered by a sheet. I guess my scrubs provided only a momentary disguise, because he said, “Madison! What are you doing in here?”

“Checking records for Dr.—”

“Since when do they need checking in here? What is this shit?” he almost screamed, his eyes bulging and his neck veins popping out. “Listen. This area is mine. Just get out of here, and keep out.” He didn’t need to ask me twice. I quick-stepped on out of there, but not before I heard him yell, “You understand the consequences for you?”

I understood his question as equivalent to “You die, bitch,” and ran, a little wobbly in the knees, to Dr. Cannon’s office to report everything. Unfortunately, according to the posted schedule, she and her assistant were both out for the rest of the afternoon. I realized I could keep my appointment with Sean and come back after Ludlow went off shift at eight. I decided to avoid Ludlow by pulling off the scrubs and heading for the employee cafeteria, where I could leave Dr. Cannon a voicemail that I wanted to talk to her later that evening. I could also use a stiff shot of caffeine — not that my nerves needed any more stimulation, but it helps you think.

Sudz was situated in a converted old building with several smaller rooms served by one big bar. I wound upstairs through a lively TGIF crowd of locals — in winter, the tourist population drops and the whole place relaxes — and found Sean looking gorgeous, a bit nervous, and happy to see me. But his smile faltered as I approached. He knew. He was a pretty sensitive guy doing a grad internship in counseling, and the first words out of his mouth were, “Lane, are you okay? What happened?”

I didn’t answer but gestured at the door to the next staircase. “Let’s go up to the roof patio.” I needed fresh air in the worst way; my nostrils could still detect the revolting smell of decomposition mixed with chemicals.

There wasn’t anyone up on the patio because it was cool, but they were serving. When we got settled outside on a wooden garden bench at a table near a gas heater, Sean kindly ordered a brew for himself, a plate of nachos for both of us, and turned to me to see what I wanted — a virgin tonic. When the server was gone, I looked right at him and said, “I’m sorry, Sean, but I found Daniel in the morgue.”

His face showed surprise, sadness, and pity. “Oh no. You poor kid,” he said, putting a strong arm around me and squeezing my shoulder a bunch of times. I couldn’t help smiling at how he was trying to protect me. Guys all have the instinct to herd, bless their little warrior hearts.

“Really, I’m fine,” I said, but I didn’t exactly wriggle out of it because I really wasn’t, and it felt so much better to be held than not. There’s a time for acting like a professional, and this clearly wasn’t it. We sat and communed in silence, Sean giving me time to put things together before I talked again.

After the server brought our order, I explained the whole business in the Cold Room up to when Ludlow threw me out.

Sean said, half to himself, “Why’d Ludlow be giving back these ashes from bits and pieces of several people?”

I answered, “To cover up the fact that the body’s still there?”

“Maybe it was a mix-up, and they were too embarrassed—”

I stopped him with a look. We both knew better. Ludlow’s anger had nothing to do with embarrassment. I considered picking up a nacho because I hadn’t eaten all day, but I didn’t feel hungry. I left the food where it was and said, “Look, I need to get back.”

He looked totally shocked. “You’re not going back there.”

I hadn’t told Sean, but I knew that the answer must lie in the computer. I happen to be a journeyman hacker — thanks for not passing that along to anyone with a badge — and I had been on the verge of uncovering some tracks the day before, just when Ludlow sent me on some stupid errand picking up a package of embalming supplies from across the campus. It gave me the creeps wondering if he was on to me, and I’d decided to start over when he wasn’t going to be around. And now, of course, I was thoroughly afraid of the guy. You don’t forget those rabid eyeballs overnight. Especially overnight. But it was already seven-thirty, and he’d be gone by the time I got back there.

I turned to Sean and tried to sound forceful. “The minute the cops come in, I won’t have another chance at the records. Don’t worry, he won’t be there.”

“Well, I’m going with you.”

I decided to let him. He could wait outside and watch for Nick Ludlow, just in case, while I dug.

To be cautious, Sean and I checked the lot where Nick Ludlow parked his private car, which wasn’t there. I gave Sean a good description of the car; he knew what Ludlow looked like because he’d met him. As soon as Sean spotted the car, he was supposed to call my cell, then follow Ludlow inside. I got down to the office and nobody was there, so I started working as soon as I checked phone and e-mail and found nothing from Dr. Cannon. Ludlow wasn’t any software genius, but it was nearly ten-thirty by the time I found the right trick, and up popped some interesting records.

It turned out that Nick Ludlow indeed had the marketing know-how that he’d claimed to Dr. Cannon in his job interview. He just hadn’t chosen to share the benefits of that expertise. Something called “University Anatomical Supply Division” was doing a brisk business in everything from frozen spines to fresh heads, shipping all over the States to teaching hospitals and medical schools, with Nick Ludlow at the helm. There was a reason he hid the records on a CD-ROM, and I felt pretty certain that the company wasn’t a “division” of the university — or of anything else, for that matter. My hunch was that the company was Nick, and Nick was the company. I started adding up the proceeds, and found that he must have taken in nearly a quarter of a million dollars in a bit over a year — not bad for a side job.

I sent copies of the files to Dr. Cannon and to myself at Lane Terry & Associates, just in case I ever needed them. Then I got on-line and did some quick research on the illegal traffic in organs and body parts, from its current very lucrative practice back to the days when medical students were obliged to do a bit of graverobbing in the eighteenth century in order to provide their own cadaver for dissection. Later, they hired professionals called “resurrection men” who had seen a market in sparing students this nasty rite of passage. A little dark humor for — I glanced at the clock — the stroke of midnight. I wondered if Sean waited faithfully outside, but somehow I knew he was still there. My eyes felt full of gravel. Probably that stupid Goth/vampire mascara on top of fatigue, and I was trying to remember if I’d already drunk the Red Bull I’d stashed away in the office fridge when I heard someone coming.

It might be Sean, or the cleaning crew, or a late-working student, or maybe that modern graverobber Nick Ludlow. I shut everything down and stepped away from the desk, knowing what it would look like with me at his computer. The last thing I wanted to do was go back There, but that was the obvious place to hide, being at the rear of the office suite, unless I wanted to brazen it out by sitting at my own desk, pretending to be working. I imagined that getting into one of the unoccupied drawers might work, if I could figure out how to close it — and open it again — from the inside. I started for the Cold Room.

“My, Ms. Terry — you’ve certainly been working overtime,” said Dr. Cannon’s familiar voice.

“You — scared — me,” I managed to gasp while hyperventilating. “Didn’t you get your messages?”

She looked amused, also well groomed despite probably being on her feet since eight A.M. — come to think of it, so had I. I wondered if some paranormal force handled her schedule and why I didn’t hate her on principle. I explained to her what I’d found. She looked impressed and smiled broadly. “To look at you, so young, you’d never guess that in this short time — well, let’s get this wrapped up. Why don’t you stay a little longer and put together a final report for me while I get some paperwork off my desk?”

“I was just starting to write one, and I can tough it out if you can,” I said bravely, even though I was dead on my feet. Fear and its release can really be exhausting.

She went straight to her office, where I could hear her rummaging around and clacking away on her keyboard.

I wrote the report as fast as my whacked-out mind could manage. Everything made sense now. The worse Ludlow’s records were, the easier it was for him to hide how many cadavers were being sold. Before I could pop the report off to her I felt Dr. Cannon behind me. She was in a hurry to wrap things up.

“I’ve been reading your other report off the screen,” she explained. “I think we’ll just leave it at that, and I’d like to handle Mr. Ludlow administratively rather than turn this into another medical scandal. I’m sure you understand.”

I kind of resented Dr. Cannon not wanting to bring charges against Ludlow, but of course it wasn’t my call. One of the crappy things about investigative work was that you couldn’t rat out your client and stay in business very long. You kept a lot to yourself, and moral compromises were part of the job. Still, she was letting a bad guy walk — and I was looking the other way.

My big mouth, acting on its own, hazarded an opinion: “I guess a lot of crime gets covered up because nobody at the top wants to be embarrassed. I think you ought to bring charges against Ludlow, show the world that you don’t share in his corruption.”

She seemed to give that some thought. “Well, yes, involving the authorities remains an option, but it will require some persuasion. You know how bureaucracies work.” She gave me a little smile, looking for the first time a bit vulnerable and tired, and reached into her pocket for an envelope. “I think this should more than cover your work,” she said as she handed it to me. “Now, I want to handle personally this individual matter of the other client’s donation. Can you tell me enough for me to help?”

I knew Sean would have no objections if it meant getting things straightened out. “Ludlow gave them someone else’s ashes. The person’s remains are still here, on the premises.”

She looked alarmed. “Where? In the Cold Room?”

“Where else? But I can tell you this much for sure. They’re going to want the body back so they can—”

“Of course, but are you certain? I knew Nick was dishonest, but this is beyond terrible. I’m sure the university will want to make a formal apology. And I’m ultimately responsible to them. If I hadn’t been distracted with other things—” she glanced at her expensive watch as though time were to blame — “I’d have kept a better eye on him. Now, I don’t wish to make you uncomfortable, but would you mind showing me which cadaver it is?”

“Don’t worry; Ludlow doesn’t know which one it is,” I said. “He isn’t going to get back in here, is he?” I was afraid he’d cause the body to disappear before Sean could lay claim to it, so he could deny the whole thing.

“Get back in? Ms. Terry, this is a serious matter. The first thing I’m going to do when we’re done is to notify security and human resources that he’s not to be permitted on the premises. I’ll put him on administrative leave without pay, then see that he’s discharged.” She sounded very righteous and determined, with a look in her eyes I was glad wasn’t directed at me. “Beyond all that, you’ve convinced me about the police. I will do whatever is in my power to see that he faces charges, but it has to be done through channels. All right. Let’s get this thing wrapped up, shall we?”

I tried to feel reassured, but when we went back in there, the cold lights glaring, I shivered my way across to where Daniel lay at rest.

I opened the drawer, and maybe I stood there a little too long, because she said with a touch of impatience, “I’ll keep you posted on the outcome of the proceedings against Mr. Ludlow. I guess that finishes it.”

“You’re forgetting me,” said Ludlow’s voice behind her. I think he’d been listening for a while, because I hadn’t heard the doors open a second time. He sure as hell looked pissed off enough to have heard everything. They say never put a suspect between you and the door, so I sidled toward it, the way you do if you think something nasty is about to unfold and you’d rather be somewhere else. I figured neither of them would notice, because they were getting ready to kill each other.

“You bitch, you think you’re going to lay it all on me?” he asked.

She said to Ludlow, “What are you talking about? You know better than to try to implicate me.”

“Implicate you? It was your—”

He stood there, blinking. I knew his astonishment was real. He was too stupid to be a good actor.

Oh, God. So she was in it, too!

I said, as much to myself as to him, “She’s going to sell you out.” I ran for the door, but she moved fast enough to intercept me. That’s when I saw the disposable scalpel in her hand. Like lightning, she had it at my throat, her other hand gripping my arm to keep me from moving.

I couldn’t hear much over the thundering bass drum beating in my ears, but made out Dr. Cannon saying, “Don’t say another word.” She gripped my arm tighter, and next I felt the faintest tingle quickly turning to a tiny burning spot at the base of my throat. But she stopped there. I couldn’t move to see if I had started to bleed, but it felt like it.

“You’re one fine little detective,” she said with contempt. “Too bad nobody will ever get to know how good you were.”

I noted her use of the past tense.

She eased up on my throat and arm, then gave me a little shove. “Now open that drawer. I have the scalpel right here, so please do cooperate, Ms. Terry.”

I knew self-defense, but she knew medicine, so I had to play along. I knew why she was doing it, and what she planned to do with me. Death from hypothermia, no blood, nice and neat, just like her. The perfect crime, anatomical waste, illegal to open the boxes she put me into. I saved myself the indignity of repeating the old line about how she wouldn’t get away with it, and thought of ways to leave behind some forensic evidence as I rolled the drawer open and set a clunky boot awkwardly inside, playing for a little more time.

She had a voice of command when she said, “Nick, get that ladder over here so we can keep the drawer closed.”

Ludlow was a little slow, but he got it. “What? Hey, I’m no murderer!”

Dr. Cannon turned to him just long enough for me to shift my weight and arc my booted foot out of the drawer, through the air, and smack into her ribs with a satisfying impact. She’d been asking for it. With a screech she went down, but I didn’t wait to see what happened next. I ran out the doors, and jammed a chair leg into the handles to keep both bad guys in while I went for help.

I ran to the elevator, but before I could hit the Up button, the doors opened on Sean, shaken at the sight of blood on my throat, ready to attack something, and utterly gorgeous. Also an eager, wiry little security guard with one hand on the gun protruding from his holster.

It was about six-thirty A.M. when the police were finished with us and I’d had the superficial cut bandaged. I changed clothes again in the SUV and met Sean at a chain coffee shop where, over steaming cups, we smiled like survivors.

“You were something, the way you talked to the cops, the way you handled yourself, everything. You were great. I think I was falling in love with you.”

I ignored that because my nervous system had had enough jolts for the last twenty-four hours and anyway, I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. “Look, I wasn’t great. In fact, I messed up big time. I ignored my own rules.”

“Like what?”

“Never trust your client completely — I mean her, not you. I missed so much of what I should have seen. She rolled over way too easy at the beginning, paying me under the table, all kinds of warning signs.” I shook my head, thinking how life was full of disappointments. Like Sean was going to fade back out of my world now that the case was closed. Like Dr. Cannon wasn’t going to get life without parole. It’s not nice, but I was kind of glad she cut herself so badly with her own damn scalpel — sweet irony — that she had to make her demands for a lawyer from a bed in the jail hospital ward.

Sean smiled and reached out and took my hand. “Hey, it’s all over now. Cash or check? And what are you doing after breakfast?”

That made me laugh. With some sense of entering unknown territory, I curled my fingers into his. “After breakfast,” I said, serious now, “I’m going to walk along the beach and remember Daniel. I don’t mind if you come along to help.”

Copyright ©; 2005 by Patricia McFall.