Immoral

8

Bird Finch paced the shadows of the studio, lifting his stilt-like legs over the cables stretched across the floor. No one talked to him. They had all learned long ago that Bird never said a word in the last few minutes before a live broadcast. He was too high. His emotions were churning. He was psyching himself up.

Tonight the ratings would be sky-high again.

After three weeks of courting them since Rachel's disappearance, he had landed the first live interview with Graeme and Emily Stoner. For the first time, they were ready to talk about losing their girl. And they wouldn't be alone. Joining them on the set was another grieving family, Mike and Barbara McGrath, who had spent more than a year searching fruitlessly for their daughter Kerry. Two families would sit down with him, purge their emotions, and send the police a message.

There's a killer stalking the north shore and snatching teenagers off the street.

Find him.

Bird stopped and crossed his arms. On the brightly lit set, Graeme and Emily Stoner sat in comfortable chairs while two makeup artists fluttered around them, dabbing at their faces. He saw the McGraths walk up to the Stoners and watched the two families exchange awkward greetings.

"Two minutes," a voice on an overhead speaker announced.

Bird emerged out of the darkness of the studio and crossed the set with the grace of a large cat. He stood like a black tower over his guests, who stared up at him from their four chairs. He smiled at them, revealing paper-white teeth against his black skin. He grabbed each of their hands in turn in a crushing handshake.

"I want to thank all of you for joining me tonight," he told them in a sober, rumbling voice, which he reserved for victims. "I can only imagine how hard this is for each of you. But it's so very important that the rest of the people in this state hear your story. And, God willing, maybe your voices can reach out to your girls, or to whoever stole them away from you."

"That's very kind of you, Mr. Finch," Barbara McGrath said.

"Mr. and Mrs. Stoner, I will do everything I can to put you at ease," he said. "I don't want you thinking about the camera. Just talk to me. Tell me your story."

Bird squeezed his tall body into his usual chair. He rubbed one hand back over his shaved scalp and glanced at his suit to make sure his pockets, handkerchief, and cuffs were in place. He cleared his throat and draped one bent arm over the left side of the chair.

He gave his guests a last sympathetic smile. The red light went on.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," Bird said. "I'm Jay Finch, and tonight I bring you a very special interview with two families from Duluth, Minnesota. These four people only met for the first time tonight, but they share a bond that brings them closer together as each day passes."

The camera backed up to reveal the Stoners and McGraths sitting across from Bird on the set.

"Fifteen months ago, Kerry McGrath, the daughter of Mike and Barbara McGrath, disappeared off the streets of Duluth. Three weeks ago tonight, Rachel Deese, daughter of Emily Stoner and stepdaughter of her husband, Graeme, suffered the same terrible fate. Two teenage girls who went to the same school and lived only a few miles apart. Both missing persons. We all pray for their safety, and we all fear for their lives."

Bird's voice hardened. "The police will not tell you these crimes are related. They say simply that both investigations are continuing, although they release no evidence to suggest they are any closer to solving these awful mysteries. Meanwhile, the families of Duluth face another night of uneasy sleep. Each time one of their girls goes off to school, they wonder if she will return home safely. Each time their daughter leaves them to visit a friend, they call to make sure she arrived on time. This is what fear does. This is the price of not knowing. Because everyone in Duluth is whispering the same question: What happened?"

Bird focused his eyes into the camera, as if he were standing in the living room of every viewer.

"What happened? Is there a serial killer stalking the young women of Duluth? Is someone else in danger? Will a year pass this time between crimes, or has the killer's patience been exhausted? Is he back on the street tonight, cruising in a lonely vehicle, slowing down at each person he passes?"

The words burned on his tongue like sour candy. He could feel the fear like a tangible thing, and he knew he was spreading it throughout the state. Bird didn't feel guilty. They needed to be afraid.

"We don't know the answer to those questions," Bird said softly. "We don't know what really happened on those two nights a little over a year apart. God knows we all hope that Kerry and Rachel are both safe somewhere and that in the very near future we will see them back home with their parents. But in the interim, the citizens of this state are looking to the police for answers-answers that are long overdue."

Bird turned to Barbara McGrath. "Now let's hear from the other victims of these crimes, the families who suffer and wonder. Mrs. McGrath, do you believe in your heart that Kerry is still alive?"

Emily heard the woman answer. She said the expected thing. Yes, Kerry was alive; she felt it keenly in her soul; she knew her girl was out there somewhere; she would never give up hope as long as Kerry was missing. Then this stranger next to her, Barbara McGrath, turned and stared at the camera and spoke to it, pleaded with it.

"Kerry, if you're out there," Barbara said, "if you can hear this, I want you to know we love you. We think about you every single day. And we want you to come home to us."

With a sigh, her emotions overran her, and Barbara buried her face in her hands. Her husband leaned over, and Barbara let her head fall against his shoulder. His hand nestled in her black hair and caressed her gently.

Emily stared at them with a curious detachment. She felt far away. When she looked at Graeme, he was studying them, too, with an impenetrable expression on his face, devoid of emotion. She wondered if he was feeling what she felt-envy. She envied these people their pure, uncomplicated grief and their ability to find comfort and strength in each other. She had none of those things. That was why she had resisted the interview for so long, because she knew she would have to lie about so many things. She would have to say the expected things, even if she didn't feel them. She would say how much she missed Rachel, while wondering if she really did. She would hold Graeme's hand for support and feel nothing in his lifeless grip.

The only person who understood, who could help her, wasn't there.

Like a ghost, she felt herself floating above the set. She heard Bird Finch talking to her, his voice echoing from the end of a long tunnel.

"Mrs. Stoner, is there anything you want to tell Rachel?" Bird asked.

Emily stared at the camera and the red light glowing above it. She was frozen. It was as if she could really see Rachel, somewhere in the dark reflection of the lens, and as if Rachel could see her, too. She didn't understand what she was feeling now. The hostility had been an ache inside her for so long that she still didn't know how to live without it. Rachel was gone, and so was the bitter war. It was unimaginable that she could want it back.

Did she? Or was it really better this way?

There had been many times when she had wished that Rachel would disappear. She fantasized that her life would finally get better when the weight was lifted. Maybe she could have a marriage again. Maybe she could love her daughter better when she was gone.

What happened?

"Mrs. Stoner?" Bird asked.

Maybe she should tell them all the truth. If only they knew the secret, maybe they would leave her in peace. And the truth was that Rachel was evil.

Emily had been working two jobs in the years since Tommy died, grinding the debt down, climbing out of the hole in which he had buried them. From eight o'clock to five o'clock, she was a teller at the downtown branch of the Range Bank. Then she jumped in her car, hurried up Miller Hill, and sold romance novels and Playboy magazines from the bookstore until the mall closed at nine. The world was a perpetual haze, in which she felt drugged by stress and sleeplessness.

The only bright spot in her life had arrived three weeks ago, when she brought home a West Highland terrier from the pound. After years of coming home to silence, or to Rachel's quiet hostility, it was refreshing to have the noise and playfulness of the dog filling the house. Originally, Emily had bought the dog with Rachel in mind, but Rachel ignored him, and Emily was the one to take him into the backyard at night to chase down the blue chew-toy she threw for him again and again.

That was when she made a surprising discovery. The little white dog, with its cropped legs and scruffy fur, had cracked her own facade. She realized she looked forward to coming home again. The dog welcomed her maniacally, as if she were the best, most important person on the planet. He slept in her lap and in bed with her. On the weekends, they walked together, the dog leading the way, tugging at the leash, pulling her up and down the streets.

Rachel didn't offer any names. So Emily called him Snowball. He was small, white, and fast, and his cold nose on her face in the morning felt like winter.

Driving home, even half asleep, she began to smile. Thinking of Snowball did that to her. Only when she thought of Rachel did the lines of worry creep back into her face and the smile fade into a weary frown. In the early days, after Tommy's death, she had taken Rachel to a psychologist, but the girl refused to return after a few sessions. Emily talked to her teachers. She talked to Dayton Tenby at church. They were all sympathetic, but no one had been able to reach her. As far as Rachel was concerned, the hurt of Tommy's death would never go away, and the only solace seemed to be to punish her mother over and over again.

Emily pulled the car into the narrow driveway of their tiny house, two stories with two bedrooms upstairs, with a yard that had long been neglected. The driveway had deep cracks with grass sprouting in tufts through the cement.

Inside, she expected to hear the thunder of paws as Snowball pounded to greet her.

"Snowball," she called. Emily listened for a distant bark, assuming that Rachel had banished the terrier to the backyard.

She continued down the hallway to the kitchen. Her stomach growled. She retrieved a plastic tub of cut broccoli from the refrigerator and munched a few florets. Emily heard her daughter clump down the stairs. Rachel joined her in the kitchen but didn't greet her. The girl tucked her sweatshirt underneath her, slumped in one of the kitchen chairs, and sifted out a Victoria's Secret catalog from the pile of mail. She reached into Emily's bucket and retrieved a piece of broccoli.

"Looking for a Wonderbra?" Emily asked, smiling. Rachel looked up and gave her mother an unpleasant stare. Emily was feeling tired enough not to care what she said.

Emily pushed her nose up against the back window. "It's getting cold," she said. "You shouldn't leave Snowball outside."

Rachel turned a page in the catalog. "He's not outside. He got loose out front earlier."

"Loose? How?"

"He ran through my legs when I came home."

Emily realized she was frantic. "Well, did you look for him? Is he lost? I've got to go find him!"

Rachel glanced up from the catalog at Emily. "He ran into the street. A car hit him. Sorry."

Emily fell against the back door. Her hands flew up to her open mouth. A giant pit welled in her stomach, and she felt her chest heaving. Then the sting came to her eyes, and she sobbed uncontrollably, tears flooding down her cheeks and through her fingers. She bit her tongue and ran out of the kitchen. When she tried to suck air into her lungs, nothing happened. She staggered to the front door, tore it open, and fell against the porch railing. She hardly noticed the cold wind. Leaving the door open, she stumbled into the driveway, then felt her knees give way under her. She sank down on the cold pavement and leaned against the car, which was still warm. She closed her eyes.

Emily wasn't sure how long she lay crumpled in the driveway. By the time she thought to move, the car was cold again, and so was she. Her fingers were stiff. The tears had frozen into icy streaks on her face. It was only a dog, she told herself, but that didn't matter at all. At that moment, she felt worse than if she had come home and found that Rachel had been the one to die in the street.

She wandered aimlessly down the driveway. There was no evidence of the accident in the street. She slid back to her knees and stared vacantly ahead. She was so distracted, and the streetlight was so dim, that she barely saw the tiny thing nestled on the opposite curb. It was almost invisible, like a piece of junk that had fallen from a garbage can and been left there. She almost missed it, but something about it caught her eye and held it. Through her tears, a puzzled expression crept onto her face. Then the puzzlement turned to horror.

She knew what it was. But it couldn't be.

With a burst of strength, Emily pushed herself to her feet. She crossed the rest of the street hesitantly, not wanting to look into the gutter, but she couldn't tear her eyes away. Finally, she stood over it and shook her head, still not believing. Even when she bent down, picked the dirty thing off the street, and held it loosely in her hands, she wanted to be wrong.

Then her hand curled around it into a fist.

The grief subsided and became rage. She had never felt such basic hatred filling her soul. It wasn't just Snowball. It was years of cruelty coming to roost in a single crystallized moment. Emily trembled, almost washed away by the flood of anger inside her. Her jaw clenched. Her lips tightened into a thin line.

She screamed, dragging the name out into a wail. "Rachel!"

Emily sprinted back across the street, up the driveway, and into the house, slamming the door behind her with such ferocity that the whole frame of the house shook. She didn't care if the neighbors could hear. She kept bellowing her daughter's name. "Rachel!"

With deadly intent, she stormed into the kitchen, where Rachel was still calmly flipping pages in the Victoria's Secret catalog. The girl looked up, utterly unfazed by Emily's screams. She didn't say anything. She just waited.

"You did this!" Emily shouted in an agonized voice. "You did this!"

Emily stuck out her hand and uncurled her fingers, in which lay the grimy blue chew-toy that Snowball happily fetched on command. "He didn't get loose," Emily hissed. "You let him out in front. And then you tossed the toy for him when the car was coming. You killed him!"

"That's ridiculous," Rachel said.

"Don't give me that innocent shit," Emily exploded. "You killed him! You heartless fucking little bitch, you killed my dog!"

The years of restraint gave way. Emily bent down and yanked Rachel bodily out of the kitchen chair. She swung her arm back and slapped the girl fiercely across the face. "You killed him!" she screamed again, and then hit Rachel again, harder. "How could you do this to me?"

She hit her again.

And again. And again.

Rachel's cheek was beet red and streaked with the imprint of Emily's fingers. Blood trickled from her lip. She didn't fight back. She stood there, her eyes cold and calm, not flinching as each blow pounded her face. She absorbed the punishment until Emily finally ran out of fury. Emily staggered backward, staring at her daughter, then turned away and buried her face in her hands. The room was suddenly quiet again.

Emily nursed one hand in the other. She felt Rachel's eyes boring into her back. Then, without another word, her daughter stalked out of the kitchen. She heard Rachel climb the stairs, then heard the clanging of pipes as she ran water in the bathroom.

It was the one thing Emily had sworn to herself she would never do, no matter how bad things got between them.

And she had done it.

"Mrs. Stoner?" Bird Finch repeated. "Is there anything you'd like to tell Rachel right now?"

Emily stared hollowly into the camera. Tears filled her eyes and burst onto her cheeks. To everyone watching on television, it was the pain of a mother faced with the ultimate agony-the loss of a child. They didn't need to know the truth.

"I guess I'd tell her I'm sorry," Emily said.

9

Stride sat alone in his basement cubicle at city hall on Friday night. The chrome desk lamp cast a small circle of light over the files he was trying to read. He had returned to his office in order to catch up on paperwork and review reports on the other crimes that had occurred in the weeks since Rachel disappeared. Most were straightforward domestic disputes, auto thefts, retail break-ins-the kind of investigations he could delegate to the seven sergeants he supervised. But the sheer volume was catching up with him. He couldn't see the pockmarked wood of his desk underneath the files and papers.

The downstairs headquarters of the Detective Bureau was quiet. His team had gone home. Stride liked it here at night, when the silence was complete and the phone didn't ring. He only had to worry about the buzzing of his pager, like a mosquito biting him to alert him to bad things happening in the city. He didn't spend much time in his office during the day. The bureau was small, and he had to share the weight of serious investigations himself. That was fine. He liked being in the field, doing the real work. He squeezed in the administrative half of his job at odd hours when he wouldn't be interrupted.

The city didn't pay for plush quarters anyway. The foam tiles over his head were water-stained from the many times that pipes had leaked and dripped down onto his desk. The industrial gray carpet carried a faint aroma of mildew. His cubicle was large enough to squeeze in a visitor's chair, which was the only real difference between a lieutenant's office and a sergeant's office. Stride didn't bother personalizing his space with posters and family photos the way most of his team did. He had only one old picture of Cindy tacked to the cork bulletin board, and even that photo was half covered by the latest advisories from Homeland Security. It was a messy, cold place, and he was happy to escape from it whenever he could.

He heard the ding of the elevator a few feet away. That rarely happened at night. It meant someone from above, in the real city offices, was coming downstairs. He waited for the doors to open and recognized K-2's dwarflike silhouette.

"Evening, Jon," Deputy Chief Kyle Kinnick said in a reedy voice.

K-2 used an open-toed walk and strolled through the open door of Stride's cubicle. He looked down, frowning, at the pile of papers in the empty chair. Stride apologized and moved the stack to the floor so the chief could sit down.

"So you think she's dead?" Kinnick asked, cutting straight to the point.

"That's the way it looks," Stride said. There was no point in sugarcoating what both men knew. "Nine out of ten don't come back alive at this point."

Kinnick yanked on the knot of his tie. He was dressed in a charcoal suit, which was baggy on his tiny frame, and looked as if he were just coming from a city council meeting. "Shit. The mayor's not happy about this, you know. We're getting queries from the national press. Dateline. They want to know if this is a serial killer story, something they can run with."

"There's no evidence of that."

"Well, since when did evidence mean a damn thing to these people?" Kinnick warbled. He dug a finger in one of his ears. They flapped from the side of his small head like cabbage leaves.

Stride smiled. He was remembering the leprechaun parody of K-2 that Maggie did at a bureau party the previous St. Patrick's Day.

"This funny to you?" Kinnick asked.

"No, sir. Sorry. You don't have to tell me about the media. Bird's all over me."

Kinnick snorted. He was gruff with his lieutenants and an easy mark for jokes, but Stride liked him. K-2 was an administrative cop, not a field detective, but he defended his department fiercely with city officials, and he made a point of meeting with every interest group in the city, from kindergarten classes to the Rotary, to talk up the police force. He was loyal to his team, and that went a long way with Stride.

"You realize we don't have a lot of time here?" Kinnick asked. He kicked his black wingtip in the direction of Stride's overflowing desk. "You're doing way too much work on this yourself already."

Stride knew there was no point in reminding the chief that he had been the one to ask Stride to lead the case personally. It was all political and bureaucratic calculation with K-2. The city wanted this to go away-fast. "The perps are cooperating," Stride said. "There's nothing big here that needs me."

"And we both know that we're already outside the zone on this one. Odds are it's not going to clear. I'm going to have to pull you and Maggie. Give the lead to Guppo. He can take this going forward. If we find something, you're back in."

"That'll just give more ammo to Bird," Stride protested. "It's too soon. Give us a few more weeks. We don't want to look like we're walking away from the investigation."

"You think I like this?" Kinnick asked. He scratched his forehead and patted down the gray hair that stretched across his skull from one big ear to the other. "Stoner's a friend of mine. But you're not making any headway."

"I need another three weeks. You said yourself, the mayor's hot on this one. If we don't have anything by then, I agree, it's a cold case. Guppo can take the lead. He's already got Kerry."

Kinnick shook his head and frowned. He sighed as if he were making an enormous concession. "Two weeks. And if we get anything else in here, I pull you early. Got it?"

Stride nodded. "I appreciate that. Thank you, sir."

The chief pushed himself out of the chair and wandered back to the elevator without saying anything more. The doors opened immediately and swallowed him up. The machinery hummed as it returned to the fourth floor.

Stride took a deep breath. He knew how it worked. K-2 hadn't come down here to pull him off the case. It was too soon for that. But he wanted Stride to know that the clock was ticking.

"What should I do?" Maggie asked. She stared down at three cards, adding up to twelve. The dealer's up card was a six.

Stride propped his cigarette in an ashtray, where its smoke curled up and merged into the gray cloud hovering over the blackjack tables. The haze clung to the low ceiling. When he inhaled, he tasted stale smoke. His eyes burned, partly from the unventilated air and partly because it was now after midnight, more than eighteen hours after his day began. He had stayed at city hall until Maggie called and threatened to haul him out by force.

"Stand," Stride said.

"But I'm only at twelve. I think I should take a card."

Stride shook his head. "Odds are the dealer's got a ten. He'll have to draw at sixteen, and he's likely to bust. Stand."

"Hit me," Maggie said. The dealer slapped a king of hearts on the table. "Shit."

Stride waved a hand over his cards, which showed fourteen. The dealer flipped his hole card, which was a jack, then dealt another card to his hand. It was a ten.

"Asshole," Maggie said.

Stride laughed as the dealer added two more chips to his stack.

The tiny casino reeked of sweat, collecting on the skin of a hundred people crammed into its claustrophobic quarters. Most were dressed in flannel for the winter night but sweltering in the heat generated by bodies and machines. It was close and loud. The slots pinged with electronic noises and the clatter of coins plinking into the trays. The room burbled with conversation and the occasional scream as a jackpot hit.

They had been playing for almost an hour, and he was up forty dollars. Maggie was down twenty. He took two chips and slid them into the betting area.

"You're winning," Maggie said. "Why not let it ride? If you bet more, you'll win more. You always bet two dollars every single time, even when you're on a streak." Maggie made a face, then clucked like a chicken. She took ten chips and dropped them on the table in front of her. "No guts, Stride."

"Big talk from a gal who's losing her shirt."

"Don't tempt me," she said, winking.

All day long they had reinterviewed people who knew Rachel. The late-night jaunt to the casino was a way to forget the case that had obsessed them for three weeks. But they couldn't escape. Bird Finch's interview showed up on the television suspended over the bar. They didn't need to hear the sound. It was bad enough to read Bird's angry body language.

"Maybe Bird is right," Maggie grudgingly acknowledged. "Maybe we have a serial."

Stride glanced at Maggie out of the corner of his eye. Then he shook his head, not convinced. "The two just don't feel the same."

"Don't they? Or do you not want them to be the same? We've got two teenage girls who lived within a couple miles of each other, both disappearing without a trace."

"The method doesn't feel right," Stride said. "We both agree that Kerry was either a stranger perv or a hit-and-run, right?"

Maggie nodded. "Except I don't really buy the hit-and-run. They just run, they don't hide the body. I think someone grabbed her."

"Fair enough. That's what I think, too. But can you imagine the same guy stalking the inner streets of Duluth, where he can be seen from dozens of houses? It just doesn't feel right. A stranger's going to look for opportunities, a girl alone in the middle of nowhere. He's not going to drive up and down residential streets. The risk is too great."

The blackjack dealer, who sported long black hair and a wimpy mustache, assessed them nervously. He caught Stride's eye, then pasted a sober expression on his face and kept dealing cards.

"So it's just coincidence?" Maggie asked.

Stride shrugged. "We're not a small town anymore. Shit like this happens. My bet is that whoever stalked Kerry isn't still in the state. And Rachel-the more I see of this case, the more I feel like the answer's at home."

"Emily and Graeme both passed the polygraphs," Maggie reminded him. "And the background checks came up clean."

"I don't care," Stride said. "There's something in that triangle that smells like trouble. You've got Emily and Rachel at each other's throats and Graeme walking into the middle of it. I want to know why-and what happened."

"We could get some heat about this," Maggie said. "If we push the family too hard without any evidence, what's K-2 going to say?"

"K-2 wants answers. Let's talk to the minister again. Dayton Tenby. Someone had to know what was going on inside that house."

"Okay. That's fair." Maggie pumped her hand as she landed another blackjack. She took a careful sip from her drink, avoiding the pineapple slice and frowning as the umbrella kept bumping her face.

"Hello, Detective."

Stride didn't know where the voice came from. It was suspended somewhere in the noise of the casino, yet close by, like a faint strain of music. He wheeled around to look behind him.

A woman stood there smiling at him. She wore a thigh-length black leather coat with a belt tied at the waist. Her blonde hair was wind-tossed. Her cheeks were flushed.

"It's Andrea," she said. "Remember me? From the school?"

"Sure," he said awkwardly, coming out of his trance. "I remember."

Maggie shifted in her chair and stared at both of them. She caught Stride's eye and cleared her throat conspicuously. Stride realized that he hadn't introduced her, and he saw, too, that Andrea suddenly realized that Maggie and Stride were together. She instinctively took a step backward, not wanting to intrude.

"I'm sorry," Stride said. "Andrea, this is my partner, Maggie Bei. We decided to play a few hands to unwind after pounding the pavement all day. Maggie, this is Andrea Jantzik. She teaches at Duluth High."

"Charmed," Maggie said slyly. "Why don't you join us? Take third base. Let Stride here teach you all he knows about blackjack, which is how to win and not have fun."

Andrea smiled and shook her head. "Oh, no, I don't want to intrude."

"You're not intruding at all." Maggie hesitated and concluded that subtlety wasn't working. "I'm just his partner in crime. That's all."

"Oh," Andrea said. She repeated, "Oh."

"In fact," Maggie said, "I think I'm going to try my hand at the slots. There's one here called the Big Pig, and it's supposed to oink when you hit the jackpot. I'd like to hear that. So why don't you take my place?"

"Are you sure?" Andrea asked.

Maggie was already out of her chair and guiding Andrea forcefully into it. She finished off her drink in two loud gulps, then took the umbrella and put it in her pocket. She waved at both of them. "Have fun, you two. I'll call you tomorrow, boss."

Stride nodded at her, smiling sarcastically. "Thanks, Mags."

Maggie gave him a broad wink while Andrea was settling into the chair next to Stride. Then, before she walked away, Maggie leaned over and whispered in his ear.

"She wants you, boss," Maggie said. "Don't blow it."

10

Andrea slipped her leather coat off her shoulders and draped it over the nearest stool. She was dressed to kill. Her black skirt strained to cover her thighs. Her legs were athletically curved and sleek under black stockings. She wore a pink satin blouse, which glinted under the casino lights. The top two buttons were undone, revealing a hint of bare skin that swelled as she breathed. Her makeup was impeccable and had obviously taken time to apply, from the pale gloss on her lips to the delicate streak of eyeliner above her long, light lashes. A thin gold chain graced her neck, and she wore sparkling sapphire earrings that accented her eyes.

It was a vampish look, full of invitation, but Stride realized that Andrea simply couldn't pull it off. She was uncomfortable. She tugged at her skirt, trying in vain to pull it farther over her legs. Her smile was shy and awkward, not at all confident. She played with her necklace, twisting it between her fingers, doing everything possible to avoid looking directly at him.

He realized she was nervous and didn't know what to say. Neither did he. It had been a long time since he had been on his own, dancing the delicate dance with the opposite sex. He tried to remember what it was like, but he had been with Cindy for so long that he couldn't remember anything that sounded clever. The last time he had dated was in high school, and he assumed that nothing he had said then would sound clever now.

Finally, the dealer coughed and gestured at the cards.

"Do you play?" Stride asked.

Andrea shook her head. "I'm afraid not."

"Do you prefer the slots?"

"Well, to be honest, I've never gambled," Andrea admitted. She turned and very briefly met his eyes. "Sometimes I'd come here or go to Black Bear with Robin, but I always watched him. I never played myself. This is my first real visit."

Stride saw the dealer sigh.

"Why did you come?" Stride asked.

Andrea nodded her head in the direction of the nearest row of slots. Stride turned and saw two women, pretending to play but obviously more interested in observing them at the blackjack table. The women were whispering and smiling. He recognized one as another teacher from the high school.

"My cheering section," Andrea explained. "They told me that it was Friday night, and as an eligible divorcee, I needed to strut my stuff in public. And I guess this is about as close as Duluth gets to a hot nightspot if you're over thirty."

"Well, I'm glad they did," Stride said.

"Yeah," Andrea said. "Yeah, I guess I am, too."

"Do you want to play?" Stride asked. "I'd be happy to help you lose some of your money."

Andrea shook her head. "The noise is giving me a headache."

"Would you like to go somewhere?" Stride asked. "I know a place by the water that serves the best margaritas in town."

"What about your partner?"

Stride smiled. "Mags can take a cab."

Stride glanced at his watch. It was almost one-thirty in the morning. They drove down into Canal Park; the parking lots of the bars and restaurants were still jammed with cars. He steered onto the street that led across the canal bridge.

"I don't recall any good bars on the Point," she said.

Stride glanced at her, embarrassed. "Well, actually, I'm the one who makes the best margaritas," he said. "And my place is on the water."

"Oh," Andrea said. He sensed her sudden hesitation.

"I'm sorry, I guess I should have explained. Look, I don't have any intentions here. You said you hated noise, and my porch is quiet, except for the waves. But we can go somewhere else."

Andrea glanced out the window. "No, it's okay. I'm with a cop, right? If you get fresh, I can always call-well, you." She laughed, comfortable again.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. But those margaritas better be good."

He reached his house a few blocks after the bridge and pulled into the strip of sand that counted as a driveway. When they got out, the street was still and dark. Andrea studied Stride's tiny house and the jumble of skeletal bushes out front with a puzzled smile.

"I can't believe you live on the Point," she said.

"I can't imagine living anywhere else. Why?"

"It's so rough out here. The storms must be brutal."

"They are," he admitted.

"You must get buried in snow."

"Sometimes the drifts go up to the roof."

"Doesn't it scare you? I think I'd feel like the lake was going to swallow me up."

He leaned across the roof of the car and stared at her thoughtfully. "I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes I think the storms are my favorite part. They're the reason I'm here."

"I don't understand," Andrea said, confused. She shivered as a gust of wind blew past them.

"Let's go inside."

He put an arm around her to warm her as they walked toward the door. She let her body drift against his, and it felt good. He could feel her shoulder through the sleeve of her leather coat and feel her hair brush against his face. He let go long enough to fumble for his key. Andrea wrapped her arms around herself.

He let them inside. The hallway was dark and warm. He heard the ticking of the grandfather clock. They lingered silently together after Stride closed the door. He realized now that Andrea was wearing perfume, something soft, like rosewater. It was strange to catch the aroma of a different woman's perfume inside his house.

"What did you mean about the storms, Jon?"

Stride took her coat and hung it inside the closet. In her skimpy outfit, she was obviously still cold. He hung his own coat up and closed the closet door. He rested his back against it. Andrea was watching him, although they were both barely more than shadows in the hallway.

"It's like time hangs there suspended," Stride said finally. "Like I can get sucked inside the storm and see anything or anyone. There are times, I swear, I've heard my father. Once I thought I could see him."

"Your father?"

"He worked on one of the ore ships. He was washed off the deck in a December storm when I was fourteen."

Andrea shook her head. "I'm so sorry."

Stride nodded quietly. "You still look cold."

"I guess this was a stupid outfit, huh?"

"It's beautiful," Stride said. He felt an urge to take her in his arms and kiss her, but he resisted.

"That's sweet. But yes, I'm cold."

"You want a sweatshirt and jeans to put on? I'm afraid that's the height of fashion in this house."

"Oh, I'll be okay. It's warm inside."

Stride smiled. "But I was going to suggest we sit on the porch."

"The porch?"

"It's enclosed, and I've got a couple good space heaters."

"I'm going to freeze my ass off, Jon," Andrea said.

"That would be a shame, because it's a very cute ass."

Even in the darkness, he felt her blush.

They walked into the kitchen. Both of them blinked as Stride turned on the light. He realized to his dismay that the last three weeks of the investigation had left his house in chaos, particularly the sink, which was stacked with dishes. The dinette hadn't been cleared in at least two days. In addition to dirty glasses and plates crusted over with the remains of spaghetti, stacks of research notes littered the table.

"Nice," Andrea said, smiling.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about this. I'm not used to having my house visitor-friendly. Except for Maggie, who doesn't care. She lords it over me. I guess I should have thought of this before I asked you over here."

"Don't worry about it."

"The porch is clean, I promise. Let me grab you a blanket. You can warm your toes by the space heater, curl up under the blanket, and I'll get you plenty drunk with the strongest margarita you've ever had."

"Deal," Andrea said.

When the pitcher of margaritas was half empty, they barely noticed the cold anymore.

Andrea lay propped in a wicker chaise, her stocking feet poking out from under a multicolored Spanish blanket. A space heater glowed in front of the chaise, warming her toes. The blanket bunched at her waist. Above it, she wore only her silk blouse. From time to time, she rubbed the gooseflesh on her bare forearms. For the first hour, she had kept the blanket tucked under her chin, but eventually she let it slip down.

She held a bowl glass in her hand. Every minute or two, she extended her tongue to lick a trace of salt from the rim, then took a swallow of the green drink. Despite the dim light, Stride could see her do this, and something about the glimpse of her tongue on the glass was very arousing. He watched her from his own chaise a few inches away.

The porch was nearly dark. A faint glow from the house lights behind them cast shadows. Where the frost had not crept onto the glass, they could see through the tall windows to the inky darkness of the lake, illuminated only by a handful of stars and a half moon giving off a pale glow. For long minutes, they lay next to each other. It was late, but they were wide awake, keenly attuned to the sounds around them: the crash of waves, the hum of the space heater, the in and out of their breathing. Their conversation came in fits and spurts between stretches of silence.

"You're pretty calm about the divorce," Stride said. "Is that an act?"

She stared at him. "Yeah."

A few streaks of water appeared on the windows. Stride could see texture in the rain, a light mix of sleet and snow. They heard the patter increasing on the wooden roof above their heads and the whip of wind against the house. The frame rumbled. He reached for the pitcher of margaritas and refilled their glasses.

Andrea swirled the ice in her drink. A sad smile crossed her lips.

"I had to visit my sister in Miami. Denise had just had a baby. I got back, and there was a note. He needed some time alone, he said. To write. To 'find himself creatively' again. He never had the courage to call me. Not once. Just postcards. Goddamn postcards, for the whole world to see. Next thing I know, he's in Yellowstone. Then Seattle. He's still writing great stuff. But somewhere along the way, he's realized that he just can't be himself around me anymore. That I'm stifling his genius. So maybe it's better if we call it quits."

"Shit," Stride murmured.

"It took five weeks and ten postcards for Robin to officially declare our marriage over and tell me he'd met someone else in San Francisco. On the back was a photo of the fucking Golden Gate Bridge."

"I'm sorry," Stride said.

"That's okay. I don't miss him so much as I hate being alone."

"It's the little things I miss," Stride murmured. "I'm cold in the mornings. Sometimes I wake up and try to roll over to get close to Cindy, like I used to. She'd always complain about my cold hands, but she was like a heater warming me up. But she's not there anymore. So I lie there freezing."

He heard his words die away. He was aware of the lingering silence. Without Andrea asking, he knew she wanted him to tell her more. Earlier, in a passing comment, he had mentioned Cindy's death, not going into detail, not wanting to cast her shadow over their evening. Andrea reacted with shock and grief, but like everyone else, she had no idea what to say or how to comfort him.

Even one little detail, a memory of warming up next to her in bed, made him want to tell all his stories. But he was stubbornly silent.

It was now actively snowing outside. The streaks of ice, slowly slipping down the window glass, obscured the view. Stride glanced at the Parsons table next to the chaise and realized the pitcher of margaritas was empty. He glanced at his watch but couldn't read the time in the shadows.

"You have succeeded," Andrea declared finally.

"At what?"

"I am now drunk. Thank you."

Stride nodded. "You're welcome."

Andrea looked over at him. Or he thought she did. He could barely see her.

"Tell me something," she said. "Do you want to fuck me?"

It was the kind of question that called for an immediate answer, although this was the first time since Cindy died that Stride had faced it. He knew what half a pitcher of margaritas and his stiffening crotch told him to do, but he still felt unfaithful. "Yes, I do."

"But?" she said, hearing it in his voice.

"But I'm drunk, and I don't know if I can, uh, rise to the occasion."

"You're a liar."

"Yeah."

"You haven't had sex since she died."

"Nope."

Andrea slid out of the wicker chair. She staggered to her feet. "Tough," she said.

Stride didn't move. He watched her hike up her skirt and yank down the black stockings and floral panties underneath. She peeled them off and tossed them aside. She was a real blonde, with a wispy patch of pubic hair nestling between her slim thighs. With clumsy fingers, she undid the buttons of her blouse, then unsnapped the bra inside. She pushed aside the fabric, exposing her small breasts with erect pink nipples.

Andrea bent over him and yanked down the zipper of his jeans. Her fingers squirmed inside his pants and found his erection.

"Looks like you rose to the occasion."

"Looks like it."

She extracted his penis with some difficulty. In one swift motion, she swung her leg over the chaise and straddled him. Using one hand to spread her vaginal lips, and the other to hold his cock, she lowered herself onto him. Stride felt his penis sinking into her wet folds, and he groaned.

"You like?"

"I like."

"Good."

He reached up to her breasts and caressed her nipples with his fingertips.

"Harder," she said.

He pinched them, then squeezed her whole breasts in his large hands. Andrea gave a loud shout of pleasure and sank forward, kissing him, forcing her tongue inside. Her buttocks rose and fell as she pumped up and down on top of him. Stride squeezed his hand onto her mound and found her clitoris and began to rub it in circles.

The porch creaked and whined. So did the chaise, complaining under the pounding of their combined weight.

Stride felt himself swelling. She was bringing him quickly to a marvelous, drunken orgasm. And it looked like she was having one, too. Her head rose back, and she had a wild smile on her face. Stride leaned forward and took her nipple in his mouth. She held his head tightly against her breast. He licked and tugged at the nipple, and the feel of her erect areola on his tongue sent him over the edge. Stride's hips rose up to meet her as he spasmed. He came with his mouth still closed over her breast. Strangely, Andrea started laughing.

"God," she murmured, half to herself. "And the bastard said I was cold in bed."

11

"Well?" Maggie asked.

She kicked the snow off her boots on the floor mat of Stride's truck, then folded her arms and stared at him expectantly.

"What?" Stride asked, smiling despite himself.

Maggie whooped. She punched Stride in the arm. "I know that smile," she said, beaming. "That's the smile of a man who got lucky last night. Did I tell you? Was I right?"

"Mags, give me a break."

"Come on, boss, details, details," Maggie insisted.

"All right, all right. We stayed up late, we got drunk, we ended up in bed. It was great. Are you satisfied?"

"No, but you obviously are."

Stride shot her an irritated glance, then swung the truck out of the parking lot at Maggie's building. The tires slipped on the fresh snow. Only a couple of inches of heavy, wet snow had fallen overnight, enough to make the roads treacherous but not enough to get the snowplows out of the garage. Stride blinked. His eyes were red.

"So how do you feel?" Maggie asked.

Stride clenched the wheel a little tighter and fluttered the brake as he edged up to a stop sign. "Guilty as hell, if you must know."

"Look, you're not cheating on Cindy," Maggie said. "She'd have been pissed off that you waited this long."

"I know," Stride acknowledged. "That's what I've been telling myself. But my heart doesn't really believe it."

In fact, he had dreamed of Cindy, and then, when he had awakened and felt a warm presence next to him for the first time in a year, he had enjoyed a brief moment when he thought it really was Cindy beside him. In his drowsy state, he believed that the tragedy of the past year had been the real dream and that life was still sweet and normal. Then he saw Andrea, and he felt a twinge of sorrow. It wasn't fair. Andrea was pretty and sweet. Her naked body, half exposed above the blanket, was arousing to him. But he had to blink back tears.

"It was your first time," Maggie said. "You're back on the playing field. The more you date, the more comfortable you'll get."

"Maybe. Andrea and I are getting together again tomorrow night."

Maggie smiled slyly. "Oh, yes? I get it. Once you take the gun out of the holster, you can't stop firing, huh?"

Stride shot her a sideways glance. "You're crude, Mags. Who taught you to be so crude?"

"You did."

"Yeah, yeah," Stride said, chuckling.

"Just don't get carried away, okay?" Maggie said. "You're getting over Cindy's death, and she's getting over a divorce. You're both on the rebound."

"When did you become the expert on relationships?" Stride asked sourly, regretting the edge in his voice.

"Let's just say I know a little about taking a fall, all right?"

Stride said nothing. They drove on silently.

Their destination was on the south end of the city. They passed close to the harbor on their left and crossed a web of railroad tracks that led in and out of the docks. There was little development down here, other than a few windowless saloons, off-sale liquor stores, and gas stations. Another mile took them to the outer edge of town, where a large cluster of older houses clung to the land near the interstate. Most of the houses dated back before the 1940s, when they were modest but comfortable units serving ship workers. The houses were mostly ramshackle now, and the neighborhood was a magnet for the handful of drug dealers who called Duluth home.

"Marrying Graeme was quite a step up the social ladder for Emily," Maggie said. "You have to give her credit for landing him. I wonder how she did it."

"Well, the good reverend says she was quite a dish just a few years ago."

"He said that?"

"I'm paraphrasing. But Emily is obviously still close to Dayton, and it looks like he knows more about her and Rachel than just about anyone."

"But will he tell us anything?" Maggie asked.

"He agreed to see us. That's a start."

Stride navigated a series of snow-covered streets through the quiet neighborhood. The parked cars were lumps of little white hills to steer around on the narrow streets.

The church in which Dayton Tenby served as pastor was a beachhead from which the neighbors were battling back crime and vandalism. The churchyard was meticulously clean and landscaped with neatly trimmed bushes, sporting white snowcaps, carefully planted across the wide lawn. There was a large swing set and a cedar jungle gym for children. The church itself boasted a fresh coat of paint and bright red trim around the tall narrow windows.

They made the first set of tire tracks in the lot as they pulled in and parked. When they got out of the car, the air was crisp and cold. They kicked through the snow to the main door of the church. The wide lobby inside was chilly, with the heat vanishing into the high ceiling. They hugged themselves and looked around. Stride noticed a bulletin board crowded with notices about drug rehabilitation, abuse prevention, and counseling for divorce. In the middle of the board was a missing-person notice, with Rachel's photo prominently displayed.

"Hello?" Stride called.

He heard movement somewhere in the church, then a muffled voice. A few seconds later, appearing out of the shadows of a long hallway, Dayton Tenby joined them in the lobby.

Tenby wore a pair of dark dress slacks and a gray wool sweater with leather patches on the elbows. He greeted them with a nervous smile, and his handshake, as it had been when Stride first met him, was damp with sweat. His forehead, too, was lined with moisture. He had a yellow pad, crammed with spidery writing, under his arm and a pen wedged behind one ear.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here to greet you," Tenby said. "I was in the midst of writing tomorrow's sermon, so I'm a little distracted. Let's go in the back where it's warmer."

He guided them down the hall. Tenby's church apartment was boxy and small, furnished in dark wood, with a large oil painting of Christ hung above the mantel of a modest fireplace. A fire burned there, making the room pleasantly warm. Dayton seated himself in a green upholstered chair by the fire and laid his yellow pad on the ornate end table beside it. He gestured at an antique, uncomfortable-looking sofa. Stride and Maggie sat down. Maggie fit perfectly, but Stride wriggled to find a position that suited his tall frame.

"When we first met, you told me you thought Rachel had run away," Stride said. "Do you still feel that way?"

Tenby pursed his lips. "This is a long time to carry a joke, even for Rachel. I would never say so to the Stoners, but I'm beginning to fear this may be more than a childish game."

"But you have no idea what else it could be?" Maggie asked him.

"No, I don't. Do you feel she was abducted?"

"We're not ruling anything out," Stride said. "Right now, we're trying to find out more about Rachel's relationships and her past. We're trying to construct a picture of her. Since you've known her and her family for a long time, we thought you could help."

Tenby nodded. "I see."

"You sound reluctant," Maggie said.

He folded his hands in his lap. "It's not reluctance, Detective. I'm trying to decide what I can say and what I can't. There are things I've learned in my role as a religious advisor that naturally must remain confidential. I'm sure you can understand."

"You mean you counseled Rachel?" Stride asked.

"Briefly. A long time ago. I've worked with Emily much more. She and I have tried to work through the problems with Rachel for many years. Without a great deal of success, I'm afraid."

"Anything you can tell us would help," Maggie assured him.

"In fact, I did talk about your visit with Emily," Tenby said. "I had a suspicion this kind of topic might come up, you see. Emily was gracious and gave her permission for me to talk about our conversations freely. Naturally, I don't have Rachel's permission, but perhaps, under the circumstances, I would be doing a disservice to keep things hidden. Of course, I have to say that Rachel told me very little that shed much light on her soul."

"Maybe if you started at the beginning," Stride suggested.

"Yes, indeed. Well, you know that many of the problems between Emily and Rachel date back to her first marriage to Tommy Deese. He drove a wedge between Rachel and Emily, and the gap only widened after Tommy's death. Of course, I only learned about most of this in retrospect. I knew both of them from church, but neither one made an effort to confide in me."

"They lived near here?" Maggie asked.

"Oh, yes. Right down the street, in fact."

"Did Rachel have many friends?" Stride asked.

Tenby drummed his fingers on the end table. "She was never really close to anyone. Except, perhaps, for Kevin. He always had quite the crush on her, but it was a one-way thing."

"This is the same Kevin who was with her in Canal Park on that last night? Kevin Lowry?" Maggie asked.

"Oh, yes. Kevin and his family still live here. I expect he'll be a lawyer or vice president someday, a real success story. I'm afraid his one weakness is Rachel. He always seemed to want to save her, but Rachel didn't have much interest in being saved. Well, that's all right, he's better off with that girl Sally he's dating now. I'm sorry, that sounds rather cold, doesn't it? It's not that I have any ill feelings toward Rachel, but she would never have been right for Kevin."

Maggie nodded. "I take it you don't believe Kevin could have had anything to do with Rachel's disappearance."

Tenby's face revealed real shock. "Kevin? Oh, no, no. Impossible."

"Let's talk about Emily and Graeme," Stride said. "Did Rachel resent Graeme? Did she resent Emily bringing a new man into their lives?"

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Tenby said. "But it didn't seem that way. They seemed to get along, at least for a while. I think Rachel thought she could use Graeme as a wedge against Emily, just the way Tommy did with her. Turn Graeme and Emily against each other, you see. And maybe it worked. It hasn't been a very happy marriage."

"How so?" Maggie asked. "Fights? Infidelity?"

Tenby held up one hand. "I'm afraid I'm getting thirsty. I need a glass of water. I can't afford to have a sore throat before my sermon! Can I get the two of you anything?"

Stride and Maggie both shook their heads. Tenby smiled and excused himself, disappearing into another room. They heard his footsteps tapping on a hard floor, then the bang of pipes as he turned on the water. He returned a few seconds later, sipping from a red plastic cup.

"I'm sorry," he said, sitting down again. He looked more relaxed. "Where were we?"

"Emily and Graeme," Maggie said.

"Yes, yes. Well, I don't think there's been any violence in the marriage. I think it's the opposite problem. No passion. There just doesn't seem to be much love between them."

"Then why did they get married in the first place?" Stride asked.

Tenby frowned. "Graeme is very successful. I think Emily may have been a little blinded by all those dollar signs on his paycheck. When you've struggled to make ends meet your whole life, it can be very tempting to imagine a world in which you've got considerably more leisure. She may have allowed some of her dreams to get in the way of reality."

"And Graeme?" Maggie asked. "No offense, but Emily doesn't seem to be much of a catch for a bank honcho."

Tenby studied Maggie with an unusual smile, as if he found the question very amusing. "Well, who knows why anyone is attracted to anyone else? Emily is a lovely woman. Rachel didn't get her good looks exclusively from Tommy, despite what Emily might say. Plus, there are a lot of men who are attracted to women who need to be taken care of. That may have been the case with Graeme."

Stride didn't think that sounded like Graeme at all. "How did they meet?" he asked.

"Oh, it was rather sweet, as Emily tells it," Tenby said. His voice was suddenly louder, almost boisterous. It sounded forced. "Graeme had been at the bank for about a year, and I gather that most of the female staff considered him to be a very eligible bachelor. Good looks, a lot of self-confidence, and a high-paying position in the bank. What's not to like? But he didn't seem to take an interest in anyone. Emily mentioned him to me a couple of times, but she never dreamed he would look her way. She never even bothered trying to approach him. She was one of the few who didn't try. Maybe that worked in her favor. He may have seen her as the only one who was immune to his charms. In any event, one day, Graeme approached her in the parking lot after work. He asked if she'd like to have a drink. It seems he had been attracted to her for some time and hadn't had the courage to ask her out. Funny, isn't it? But you never know."

"I guess not," Stride said. He glanced at Maggie, who frowned.

"And not long after, they were married," Tenby continued. "It was a whirlwind romance."

Maggie shook her head. "And a few years later, there's no passion left?"

"It happens," Tenby said. "I see it all too often."

Stride nodded. "Forgive me, Reverend, but I'm still having trouble here. Even if Graeme asked Emily out, I find it hard to believe they found so much in common that he was ready to dive into marriage. This may sound callous, but did Emily lay a trap for him?"

Tenby bit his lip and looked uncomfortable. "I don't know what you mean."

Maggie smiled. "A trap. You know, women are awfully good at manipulating men to make them do whatever they want. Why, Stride here will do anything I tell him to do. It's an art."

Tenby smiled nervously. "Well, I don't think Emily had any kind of strategy. She was too dazzled. As I say, the money may have caused her to overlook the fact that she really didn't feel much passion, but I don't believe she intentionally deceived him."

"Reverend, we really need to know the truth," Stride told him. "There's obviously something more."

Tenby nodded. "Yes, I know. It doesn't have anything to do with Rachel, though, so I don't see why anyone needs to bring up this kind of dirty laundry."

"If we don't have all the pieces, we can't solve the puzzle," Maggie said. "It's that simple."

"I suppose so." Tenby wiped his face, which was moist. "Well, you see, after they had been dating a few weeks, Emily found out she was pregnant. That was what really led to the marriage."

"I'm sure Graeme was thrilled," Stride murmured.

"Hardly," Tenby said. "He wanted her to have an abortion. She refused. I think he would have liked the whole thing to go away, but in a town like Duluth, in a position like his, you can't have a scandal coming out in public. So he married her."

"And the baby?" Maggie asked.

"Miscarriage at six months. Emily nearly died."

"Graeme didn't try to work out an amicable divorce?" Stride asked.

"No, he didn't," Tenby said. "He seemed to have resigned himself to the marriage. And I suppose he thought a divorce would have been extremely expensive. So he held up his end. But make no mistake, he didn't pretend to have his heart in it. It was simply a convenience to be married. For a while, that was okay for Emily, too. Love doesn't seem so important when you've struggled for years just to get by."

"For a while?" Maggie asked.

"Well, money is no cure for loneliness," Tenby said.

"So how do they deal with it now?" Stride asked.

"I think you'd better talk to each of them about that, Detective."

"Meanwhile, Rachel was in the middle of this happy scene?" Maggie asked.

Tenby sighed. "All three of them in that house," he said. "And not very much happiness among them. It's a terrible thing. That's why I was so convinced that Rachel ran away. She had a lot to run away from."

"Did she ever talk to you about running away?" Stride asked.

"No, she never confided in me. I think she saw me as being on Emily's side, so that made me the enemy."

"And there's nothing else you can think of that might shed light on her disappearance? Anything you observed or overheard?"

"I'm afraid not," Tenby said. "I wish there was."

They all stood up. They shook hands awkwardly, and Stride felt that the minister was now anxious for them to be gone. He guided them back down the corridor into the cold lobby of the church. When the door closed behind them, Stride and Maggie paused on the porch, buttoning their coats and swinging scarves across their faces. The wind had blown away their footprints in the snow.

"What do you think?" Maggie said.

Stride squinted at the cold sun. "I think we could use a break."

12

Heather took a sip of tea from a chipped china cup and replaced it on the end table at a safe distance, where a spill would not be disastrous. Then she gingerly picked up the prints she had developed in the cold basement a few hours earlier.

First snowfall always made for beautiful work. She had found a giant, perfect spiderweb stretched between two trees in the woods behind the cottage. The snow crystals coated each diaphanous strand, just enough to make a patchwork, like lace. She had caught the image quickly, and even as she snapped the pictures, a puff of wind splintered the ice and sent the web fluttering away. One of the prints showed the web just as it separated, the snow gently tearing it apart.

Heather took off her half-glasses and laid them beside her. A Brahms concerto was in its final notes on the stereo. She closed her eyes, enjoying the lilt of the piano. As it faded away into silence, she realized how tired she was. She had spent most of the day tramping about in the cold and snow with her camera, until her feet were wet and her fingers were numb. Lissa had been with her the whole time, but the cold didn't bother the girl at all. Heather kept telling her to wrap her face up in her scarf, and Lissa kept pulling it off when Heather wasn't looking. They had taken a hot bath together when they got home, but Heather could still feel some of the coldness of the day inside her. She was ready to tuck her body into a long flannel nightgown and bury herself in a mound of blankets.

She clicked the lamp off and eased out of the recliner. She turned the overhead light off, and the house was dark, but the living room kept a reflected glow from the moon shining on a fresh white bed of snow outside. Heather tip-toed down the hallway, not wanting to awaken Lissa. As was her custom, she edged the girl's door open and peeked inside. Lissa always slept with a night-light. The room was filled with shadows. Her daughter was sleeping soundly on her stomach, her face lost in the pillow. She had thrashed out of the blankets, leaving half her body exposed.

Heather approached her, wanting to pull the blankets up around her again. The night was going to get even colder. She lingered at Lissa's bedside, studying the girl's tranquil face and smiling at the occasional murmurs she made in her sleep. Heather bent over and brushed her lips against her daughter's forehead.

She tugged the blanket up and fitted it around Lissa's shoulders. As she did, something tumbled out of bed and landed softly on the carpet. Heather looked down, seeing something glint in the shadows. She bent over, confused, and picked it up. It was a gold bracelet.

Heather hadn't purchased it for Lissa and didn't remember seeing it before. She wrinkled her brow, wondering where Lissa had found it and surprised that her daughter hadn't mentioned it. Knowing Lissa, that probably meant it had come from some illicit source.

She left the girl's room, taking the bracelet with her.

Heather continued to her own bedroom. She put the bracelet on top of a rickety five-drawer bureau and studied it thoughtfully for a moment. Then she shrugged and turned away. She unbuttoned her red plaid shirt and tossed it in the laundry basket. She wasn't wearing a bra. She yanked off her jeans, left her panties and socks on, and quickly pulled a nightgown over her head.

She tugged her six blankets down and crawled under them. She clicked on the radio, looking for music. Instead, the hourly headlines were winding down. She paid little attention to the stories, which were too depressing. A farm house south of town had burned, killing an elderly woman. The girl from Duluth, Rachel, was still missing. The Trojans had lost a big game.

Heather reviewed the wall of framed photographs beside her bed. She had just added one of the prints from her photo shoot at the barn. The waning sun that had lingered behind her on the edge of the treetops cast shadows in the barn's sagging crevices. Dead leaves scattered over the earth like a carpet. The sky on the horizon was steel gray. She had been aiming for an image filled with decay, and she had achieved it.

As Heather stared at the photograph, she finally remembered.

In her mind, she saw Lissa running around the corner of the barn toward her, shouting about something she had found. Heather had been distracted, concentrating on her camera, but she remembered Lissa showing her a gold bracelet, and she remembered telling the girl to put it right back where she found it. Now a few weeks later, here was Lissa with a secret gold bracelet hidden in her bed.

"That little sneak," Heather said aloud, peeved.

She got out of bed with a sigh and retrieved the bracelet from the bureau. It was not particularly heavy or expensive. She guessed that a high school girl had lost it in the middle of a tryst behind the barn.

Heather looked at the bracelet and saw letters inside.

T loves R, she thought to herself. Right. She suspected R was a pretty sophomore, and T was a football player who figured jewelry was a great way to get into the girl's jeans. Heather laughed. She put the bracelet on her nightstand and clicked off the light.

In the darkness, she tried to sleep, but instead she tossed and turned. A few minutes ago, she had barely been able to keep her eyes open. Now she was awake. A jumble of thoughts flitted idly through her brain. High school. Pretty girls making out behind the barn. An old woman dying in a fire. Football games. Gifts of gold bracelets. Young love. Young lust.

Initials.

She saw them in her head again.

That was when Heather's eyes flew open, and she stared sightless into the black room. Under the blankets, a chill rippled through her flesh. She scratched blindly for the light, then blinked as it flooded the room.

She looked at the bracelet but didn't dare touch it.

T loves R, she thought again.

R.

13

Stride stood on the dirt road outside the search area near the barn. The snow had been matted down into a slippery gray streak by the coming and going of police cars throughout the day. He dug in his boots, stiffening his body against the swirling wind. The cold felt like knives on the sliver of his face where the wool scarf left his skin exposed. He had a red cap pulled low on his forehead and the hood of his parka pulled over his head and tied closed at his neck. His hands were buried inside leather gloves. The wind chill was ten degrees below zero.

Nature wasn't cooperating. Neither was Stride's luck.

They had been searching since noon, and five hours later, it was almost night. All they had to show so far for the painstaking, backbreaking work in the bitter cold was dozens of overlapping tire tracks, broken glass, used needles, and a dizzying range of common trash. All of it went into plastic bags, carefully labeled to reflect the exact square yard within the grid where each item had been found.

If the tip from Heather Hubble had come two days earlier, they would have been able to search the field surrounding the barn with relative ease. Instead, the evidence, if there was any, lay hidden beneath three inches of snow. As his men searched each square in the checkerboard, they had to carefully brush away the powdery snow into a section of the grid that had already been searched. With each gust of wind, the snow drifted back. It was slow, cold work, but they had no choice but to proceed inch by inch, looking for details as small as a hair trapped beneath the white blanket, somewhere in the dirt and brush.

That wasn't what really bothered Stride, though. The worse stuff lay ahead. More snow was predicted by morning, a storm that could dump another ten inches all over the northern woods. If that happened, they wouldn't see the ground again until April, when there would be little evidence left to find. They had to work quickly. He had ordered in portable overhead lights, which were being set up now, so they could sift through the search area throughout the night. Even so, it wasn't much time to do a thorough job.

Plus, of all places, it had to be the barn.

Anyplace else in the wilderness, they would have found nothing but birch bark and dead leaves. Here, they might as well have been in the parking lot behind the high school. He could only guess how many teenage couples had left behind irrelevant evidence that would have to be meticulously analyzed, researched, typed, and ultimately excluded. On the walkie-talkie, Guppo kept up a litany of the bizarre items they had already found. They had started near where the little girl, Lissa, thought she had found the bracelet and begun working their way outward. Along the way, they had already found a pair of panties (four sizes too large for Rachel), an orthodontic retainer, a cherry Life Saver, a king of spades with a naked blonde woman wearing a crown, and nine condoms.

He knew the odds of tying anything directly to Rachel were slim. Even so, Stride felt a sense of excitement. The Stoners had definitively identified the bracelet as belonging to Rachel. The initials cinched it: "Tommy loves Rachel." The bracelet had been a gift from her father years earlier.

Kevin Lowry had already reported in his original statement that Rachel was wearing the bracelet when he last saw her in Canal Park. Now it had been found here, near the barn, their first solid evidence of where Rachel had been after her disappearance. But he tempered his professional satisfaction with the grim reality of what the discovery meant.

Emily Stoner's face had gone white when she saw it. Stride understood. All along, she had still been harboring the hope that Rachel had gone off by herself, a runaway, part of a cruel practical joke. As Emily held the bracelet in her hand, that hope vanished.

"She would never have left it behind," Emily said simply. "Never. Tommy gave it to her. She wore it everywhere. She wore it in the shower. She never took it off." Then, with her husband looking on, she disintegrated into sobs. "Oh my God, she's dead," Emily murmured. "She's really dead."

Stride didn't try to fill the moment with empty hope. He could easily have told her that finding the bracelet meant nothing in and of itself, but the truth was clear to all of them. For weeks, they had been searching for a live girl, trying to unravel the mystery of her life, hunting for answers to a riddle.

Now, they would begin a different search. For Rachel's body.

Stride heard the slam of the van door and the shuffling of footsteps in the snow behind him. He glanced back. Maggie wore a black winter bowler cap over a pair of furry earmuffs. A red wool coat draped to her ankles. She trudged through the snow in her leather boots with square two-inch heels. She didn't wear a scarf, but her golden skin seemed unaffected by the bitter assault of the wind.

Maggie stood next to Stride, reviewing the work of a dozen policemen hunched over with brooms, walkie-talkies, and evidence bags.

"You must be freezing your balls off out here," Maggie said. "Why don't you come back to the van?"

"Guppo's in the van, right? I'm safer out here."

Maggie wrinkled her nose. "I made sure he didn't have any raw vegetables, and I cracked the window so we've got fresh air when we need it."

"No, thanks. I've got to do the media circus soon anyway. It's almost evening news time."

Stride glanced down the dirt road. The police cars blocked travel about fifty yards away, sealing off the area. Beyond the roadblock, he could see the glow of media lights, where at least two dozen reporters waited for him, shivering, complaining, and shouting for attention. He couldn't hear much above the wind.

He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes before five o'clock. He had promised them a live interview to kick off the news.

"So, you ever come out here when you were a kid?" Maggie asked.

"What do you mean?"

Maggie grinned. "Well, the woman who found the bracelet, she said this has been a hot make-out spot for years."

Stride shrugged. "I took my girls to nice, safe dirt roads near the lake, thank you very much."

"Then who came out here?" Maggie asked.

"The easy ones."

"Is that a sexist remark I should be reporting as harassment?" she teased him.

"If you could convince a girl to take a romantic drive with you along the lake, well, maybe you stood a chance of getting to second base."

"Tell me again what second base means," Maggie said. She playfully caressed her teeth with her tongue. "We didn't play baseball in China. Is that breasts, nipples, what?"

Stride ignored her. "But if you suggested going to the barn, and the girl agreed, you knew exactly what you were going to get. On the other hand, you didn't suggest it unless you knew what kind of girl you were dealing with. Otherwise, you got your face slapped."

"And you?"

"I recall mentioning the barn in passing to Lori Peterson," Stride said. "She threw a Coke in my face."

"Good for her," Maggie said. "Does this mean Rachel was easy?"

Stride bit his lower lip. "That's what everyone tells us."

"Except we still haven't found a boy who admits sleeping with her," Maggie said.

"Yes, that's interesting, isn't it? Although who wants to step up to the plate and declare himself a suspect when the girl disappears?"

"So you think it was a date?" Maggie asked.

"Maybe," Stride said. "She left Kevin just before ten o'clock and told him she was tired. Rachel doesn't strike me as a girl who gets tired early on a Friday night."

"So maybe she was meeting someone else. Someone who picked her up at her house."

Stride nodded. "They go for a little romp at the barn. But something goes wrong. Something gets out of hand. And suddenly the boyfriend has a body on his hands."

"We're assuming she's dead?" Maggie said.

Stride sighed. "Aren't we?"

"So who is this mystery stranger? Another boy at school?"

"That's the first place to start, Mags. Time to reinterview anyone who even smells like a boyfriend."

Maggie groaned. "A whole day interviewing high school jocks with overactive hormones who think they're God's gift to everyone with a pussy. You give me the nicest jobs, boss."

"Dress for the occasion, Mags. You'll get more out of them that way."

"Great," Maggie murmured. "It's not like I've got any cleavage to show off."

"You'll think of something."

Maggie punched him in the arm, then turned and stalked back toward the van. Stride smiled. He started walking toward the media crowd down the road, bringing up his walkie-talkie in his gloved hand and shoving it up under his hood.

"What have we got, Guppo?" Stride asked.

Guppo's voice boomed through the walkie-talkie. "What the hell is this place, Lieutenant?" he called. "Shit, we've got more crap in each grid box than I'd expect to find in a New York crack house. You had to pick this place as a crime scene?"

He heard something else, and then Maggie complained in the background. "Son of a bitch, Guppo, I'm back in the van for five seconds, and you have to do that."

Stride chuckled. "Tell her to quit whining, Guppo. Ask her what she's going to wear to work tomorrow."

He heard a voice crackle in the background. "Fuck you, Stride."

Stride transmitted again. "Look, Guppo, do we have anything that suggests a connection to Rachel?"

"Could be all sorts of things. Could be nothing. We won't know until this stuff is tested. There's plenty of evidence of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but without fingerprints and blood work, it's all speculation."

"Nothing like a confession from a murderer tied around a rock?"

"Not yet. We're still looking." Guppo belched.

"Okay," Stride said. He shoved the walkie-talkie back in his coat pocket. He approached the police cars and talked briefly with the two officers who were entrusted with the thankless job of keeping the media and spectators out. On the other side of the yellow tape, it was a mob scene, much as it had been on the night Rachel disappeared. Stride squinted as a series of floodlights illuminated him. The hum of voices escalated into a roar.

Stride pointed at one of the television reporters he knew. "Can your crew do the lights?" When the reporter nodded, Stride continued. "Okay, we'll have one team light me up, and the rest of you, keep the flashbulbs off, all right? If I hear shouting, I'm out of here. You want to ask a question, you raise your hand, I call on you, you ask one question."

"When did you get elected president, Stride?" Bird Finch retorted from the front of the crowd.

Stride grinned. "Listen up, everybody. Bird has already asked his one question. Move him to the back of the crowd."

The reporters laughed derisively. A few of them tried to push in front of Bird and take his place at the edge of the tape, but the muscular ex-basketball player wasn't giving an inch. He shot Stride an icy smile.

Stride felt the heat of the television lights burning on his face. It was the first time that day he had felt relief from the cold. Only his feet, damp and in shadow, still felt chilled. "You guys ready?" he asked. "I'll make a brief statement, then take questions."

He saw red lights flash on a dozen handheld television cameras. A few flashbulbs burst, despite his prohibition, blinding him.

"Let me tell you what we know right now," he said. "Early this morning, we received a call on our hotline from a woman who had in her possession a bracelet she believed might be connected to the disappearance of Rachel Deese. We retrieved the bracelet, and Rachel's mother positively identified it as belonging to her daughter. We believe that Rachel was wearing the bracelet on the night she disappeared. According to the witness who found the bracelet, it was behind the barn at this location. We are currently conducting a grid search of about one hundred square yards around the area where the bracelet was discovered. That's all I have at this time."

Three people shouted questions simultaneously, and Stride stared them down, not moving or answering. Bird Finch dramatically raised his hand. He was already a head taller than everyone else, and with his arm in the air, he looked like a black Statue of Liberty.

May as well get it over with, Stride thought. "Bird?" he said.

"Do you now believe Rachel is dead?" Bird asked. He put just enough of an edge on the word "now" to suggest that Stride had been delinquent in understanding what everyone else had known all along.

"I don't want to speculate on anything like that," Stride said.

Before anyone else could get a hand up, Bird injected a follow-up question into the silence. "But you are going to be searching for a body now, aren't you?"

"We are currently in the midst of a grid search for evidence. This is an intense, highly focused exercise that will take many more hours. Our next steps will be determined by what we find here, if anything. But the full analysis will take weeks."

Another hand went up. Bird had shown them the way, and the others followed. "When you complete this search, you'll also be searching the surrounding area, right? Are you hoping to find a body?"

"I'm hoping we don't find a body," Stride snapped. "But we do plan to begin a search of the woods around this area for any other evidence we might find."

"They're predicting more snow. Will that slow things down?"

"Of course," Stride said. "This is Minnesota. That's going to make any search harder at this time of year."

"Are you looking for volunteers to help in the search?" one reporter asked.

"I'm sure we'll be able to use any extra help that's offered to us. We'll be posting details on our Web site about how volunteers can help us and where they should go. What we don't want is people combing through the woods by themselves. All that will do is harm the investigation. If people want to help, they need to let us coordinate their efforts."

Hands shot up. "Have you found anything else to suggest Rachel was here?"

"Not yet," Stride said.

Another hand. "Do you have any suspects at all?"

"No," Stride said.

Bird Finch didn't wait to be called upon again. "You've been at this more than three weeks, and you have no suspects at all?"

"The evidence so far has not suggested any persons of interest."

"What about sex offenders?" asked a reporter from Minneapolis.

"We have interviewed all individuals with any history of sexual violence in the surrounding area. But I want to make it very clear again. We have no evidence linking any specific person to Rachel's disappearance."

Bird again. "Are you now more inclined to see a connection to Kerry McGrath's disappearance? A crime in which you also seem to have no suspects?"

"We have not established any connection between the two incidents. We're not ruling it out, but there's no evidence at this time to suggest the disappearances are related."

"Does this break in the case leave you more encouraged that you will find out what happened to Rachel?"

Stride couldn't even see the woman who asked the question, just her arm in the air. He hesitated, framing his words in his mind. "Yes, I am encouraged. We now have a link, a location, that may finally bring some answers. I also want to make an appeal to anyone who is watching: If you were anywhere near this area on the night of Rachel's disappearance, and you saw or heard anything, please call us. We know Rachel was here. We want to know how she got here. We want to know what happened."

He pointed at another raised hand.

"How long are you going to be out here?" a woman from the St. Paul newspaper asked.

"It could be all night," Stride said.

It was.

As the police finished each grid, the evidence bags came back to the van, and Stride and Maggie examined each one before filing them away in a series of banker's boxes. Stride didn't see anything that suggested a connection to Rachel, although he could have been looking right at it and never known. The lab would eventually tell them more.

Stride checked his watch, which told him it was nearly four in the morning. A pizza box lay on the floor of the van, empty except for two square crust pieces that remained uneaten. Stride didn't know how Guppo had missed them. Maggie sat opposite Stride, her head nodding as her eyes blinked shut. She propped her elbows on her knees and cupped her face in her hands.

Stride, frozen and tired, allowed his thoughts to drift to Andrea. She had understood when he called to cancel their date, although he was pleased to hear disappointment in her voice. He was disappointed, too. He wasn't sure if it was the sex or just the opportunity to be close to a woman's body again, but he was anxious to see her. Andrea was very attractive. It wasn't like it was with Cindy, of course, but nothing would be. Andrea was different, and he couldn't expect her to live up to a ghost.

Stride jumped as the speaker in the van crackled. He wondered if he had fallen asleep for a few seconds. "It's starting to snow," one of the officers outside reported.

"Well, that's just fucking great," Stride said.

He pushed himself to his feet in the cramped van. His muscles ached, and he felt a twinge in his back. Normally he did a series of stretching exercises each night to keep his back limber, but for several nights he had skipped it. Now he was paying the price. His arm hurt, too, where he had taken that bullet several years back. It was always worse in the cold.

He peered through the van's frosty rear window. In the glow of the lights they had erected for the search, he could see huge flakes floating peacefully to earth. Each one looked small and harmless, and together, he knew, they would soon bury his crime scene.

"How bad?" Maggie asked quietly.

"Bad enough," Stride said.

Stride stared at the shadows of the forest. He tried to imagine the scene again as it must have been that night. Rachel in the passenger seat. Someone pulling a car in behind the barn. Just the luck of the draw that no one else was there. How did the bracelet get outside? They wouldn't have had sex outside, not when it was a cold night. Maybe they simply went outside to stare at the woods, like he was doing. And then the boy tried to pull her back to the car, and the bracelet slipped off, and they struggled, and then-what?

Or maybe things started to get rough in the car, and she tried to run. He followed her. The bracelet came off in the struggle. He hit her. Strangled her. Then what would he do with the body? Take it deeper into the woods? Take the car and go somewhere else to hide her?

Stride heard the speaker come to life again.

"Any of you guys remember what Rachel was wearing that night?" one of the officers radioed from outside.

Stride and Maggie looked at each other. Maggie recited from memory. "Black jeans, white turtleneck."

The speaker was silent. Then, a few seconds later: "You said a white turtleneck?"

Stride spoke up. "That's what we said."

Another pause, longer this time. "Okay, guys. We may have something."

The triangular piece of fabric was small and jagged, about six inches in length, with frayed edges. Despite the dirt caked over it, the fragment was obviously white. Along one side, where the cloth had torn from the rest of the garment, was a reddish-brown stain soaked into the fibers.

14

Emily believed she was going insane. Not since she had attacked Rachel on that one terrible night had she felt so out of control. She was drifting at sea, alone, without hope of rescue.

She paced frantically back and forth, wearing a path in the carpet. She grasped her forehead in her hand, fingers outstretched, squeezing it like a vise. Her dirty hair spilled over her face. Her eyes were wide, her breath loud. She was hyperventilating. The pain in her head throbbed, like a tumor growing inside her.

"I'd like to show you this bracelet," the detective had said. She took one look and screamed.

Emily never really believed the day would come. She knew what the other mother, Barbara McGrath, had told her during the broadcast. How she was afraid of that one day when the police would be at her door, somber expressions on their faces. But Emily didn't believe it. She believed Rachel was alive. One day, the phone would ring, and the familiar, mocking laughter would be on the other end.

She believed it right up until the second she saw the bracelet. Now she knew. Rachel was dead. Someone had killed her.

It was as if the police had pulled the ground from under Emily's feet. Hours later, she was still consumed by despair.

The quiet sounds of the porch thundered in her head. The furnace hummed, pumping warm air into the room. The wooden branches of the spirea plants outside made squeaking noises as they rubbed against the windows. The timbers in the house creaked, shifting under the weight of an unseen ghost.

And the worst sound of all, tap tap tap, was Graeme working on his laptop a few feet away, oblivious to her agony.

Tap, tap, tap.

She had never believed the two of them could sink so far. What was worse, she knew she had brought it all on herself.

"I'm pregnant," Emily said.

She tensed, waiting for his response. She was seated on the sofa in her tiny living room, her hands folded awkwardly in her lap. Graeme was in the upholstered chair opposite her. He held a drink in his hand. It was his second since dinner, and she had already plied him with champagne to go along with the prime rib she had roasted in the oven.

Now, with both of them relaxed, she had blurted it out.

"You said you were taking precautions," Graeme said.

Emily winced. This wasn't what she wanted to hear. Not love, not excitement. Just vague recriminations.

"I'm on the pill," Emily told him. "But nothing's fool-proof. It was an accident. It was God's will."

"I'm not sure we're ready," he said.

"I'm not sure anyone's ever ready," Emily replied.

"I mean, I'm not sure we should keep it."

Emily felt tears welling inside her. Her breath was heavy. She spoke in a quavering voice. "I won't kill my baby."

Graeme said nothing.

"I won't do it, Graeme," Emily repeated. "How can you ask me to? This is your baby, too."

Emily got off the sofa. She went around the coffee table and knelt in front of him, taking his hands in hers.

"Don't you want to give our baby a home together?" she asked him.

He seemed stricken for a few interminable seconds, his eyes focused over her shoulder. Then he nodded, just the barest movement of his head.

Emily felt a huge grin of relief and joy spread across her face. She threw her arms around Graeme's neck and hugged him tightly. She kissed him all over his face. "Let's get married now," she said. "Right away. This weekend."

Graeme smiled. "All right. We'll drive up the coast this weekend and find some little small-town church. We can bring Rachel, too."

A cloud passed briefly across her mind. She had almost forgotten her daughter in the excitement of the moment. Then it, too, passed. She felt strong and confident. This would be the right thing. For her. For Graeme. Even for Rachel. It might finally make them a family again. A family that would never have to worry about money.

"Yes, let's do it," Emily told him.

Emily leaned back and began unbuttoning her blouse, watching his eyes follow the movement of her fingers. As the flaps of fabric fell away, his hands reached inside, squeezing her breasts.

Graeme's pager beeped, a high-pitched whine filling the room. Both of them jumped. Emily fell back on her butt, her breasts spilling out of her shirt. Graeme reared out of the chair and grabbed for the pager. He plucked it off his belt and stared at it.

"I have to go."

Emily straightened herself, smoothing her hair and quickly attending to her open blouse. She shrugged and smiled at him. "That's all right."

She walked him to the door and stayed there, with the night air blowing in, while he backed his car out of the driveway. She watched the car until she couldn't see it anymore, and still she stayed there, enjoying the breeze on her face.

Emily closed the front door quietly. She headed for the kitchen, humming to herself.

"You looked pretty funny with your tits hanging out," she heard someone say.

Rachel was sitting on the top step of the short stairway to the second floor. Her long bare legs dangled over the stairs. She wore short shorts and a black halter top that fit snugly around her full breasts. Her black hair was wet, as if she'd just come out of the shower. Her skin glowed.

"You were spying on us?"

Rachel shrugged. "Graeme saw me. I didn't want to interrupt your big moment."

Emily didn't want to get sucked into Rachel's games tonight. She headed for the kitchen without another glance at her daughter.

Rachel called after her. "Up to your old tricks, huh?"

Emily stopped. "What does that mean?"

Rachel screwed up her face and mocked her mother's voice. "'I'm on the pill, darling. It was an accident. It was God's will.'"

"So?" Emily retorted.

"So what do you call these?" Rachel said. She held up a tiny pocket-purse, then flipped it open to reveal an unopened wheel of small green pills. "They look like birth control pills to me. What happened, Mother? Did you fall a little behind?"

Emily's hands flew to her mouth. Her face went white. Then she steeled herself, her mind working furiously. "You don't understand."

Rachel jabbed a finger at her mother. "Don't I? You're the manipulative bitch I always thought you were. Just like Daddy said you were."

Emily said nothing. Rachel was right-she had deceived Graeme. But it was for a greater good, for both of them. To finally have a little security. To not have to work. She wasn't trying to trap him, only to make him realize he loved her.

"I suppose I should thank you," Rachel said. "Didn't you pull the same trick on Daddy? Isn't that why I'm here? You knew you could never keep him on your own."

Emily bit her lip. She wanted to scream a denial. But the long pause was enough to convince Rachel of the truth.

"You're becoming predictable," Rachel said.

"Are you going to tell Graeme?" Emily asked. She knew the answer. Rachel wouldn't miss an opportunity to drive a knife into her mother's heart. All the carefully laid plans would unravel.

But Rachel surprised her.

"Why would I do that?" Rachel said. "It's the first time I ever thought we had something in common."

The girl turned and disappeared into her room.

Emily wished they would have let her keep the bracelet. She had only been able to catch a quick glimpse of it in the plastic bag, enough to see the inscription from Tommy. Then the detective had whisked it out of sight. Evidence, he said.

She'd get it back after the trial. If there ever was a trial. If they ever found out what really happened to her.

She continued pacing. The headache got even worse as she tried to squeeze it out of her head with her hands. The reality was too terrible to bear. She needed someone to hold her and tell her it was all right, or just let her cry endlessly into his arms. When she stopped and stared at her husband, she shook her head in mute rage. He worked on his computer as if she weren't even in the room. He ignored her moans, her cries, the sound of her feet shuffling back and forth on the carpet.

Tap, tap, tap. Fingers on the keyboard. Her daughter was dead, and he was playing with spreadsheets.

How did she miss it? How did she fool herself into thinking she loved him, or that he could ever love her?

Her eyes burned into his back. She asked herself again how they had come so far. Rachel was gone, and all she could think of was that her whole life was hollow, starting with her marriage. Everything was gone.

Her silence finally attracted his attention. He turned around, catching her eye as she stared fiercely back at him. Her eyes were wild. She didn't know how to deal with all the grief exploding out of her. The cork had come out of the bottle. She stood there, trembling.

"Emily, sit down," Graeme said. "Relax."

Funny how he always said the wrong thing. How she hated the sound of his voice now. The calm delivery, each word without emphasis. She couldn't handle it anymore.

"Relax?" she hissed. "You're telling me to fucking relax?"

They stared at each other. His eyes were dead, staring right through her. He was patient and pleasant. A stranger.

"I know how you feel," Graeme told her, as if he were speaking to a hysterical child.

Emily put both hands on her forehead. She closed her eyes, grimacing. Tears streamed down her face.

"You don't know how I feel, because you don't feel a goddamn thing! You just sit there in your chair, and you smile at me, and you pretend like we're this loving couple, and all the while I know you don't feel anything for me."

"You're just being irrational."

"Irrational?" She squeezed her fists open and shut. "God, why ever would that be? What would make me irrational?"

He didn't answer.

She shook her head, not believing it. "She's dead. Do you understand that? She's really dead."

"They found her bracelet. It doesn't necessarily mean anything."

"It means everything," Emily said. "I don't have Rachel. And I don't have you, either, do I? I never did."

"Emily, please."

"Please what, Graeme? Please go away? Please don't bother you with my petty problems?"

He didn't reply.

"Why did you marry me?" Emily whispered. "You could have given me money. I wouldn't have told anyone the baby was yours. I would have left town if you wanted. Why marry me if you felt nothing for me?"

Graeme shrugged his shoulders. "Did you give me a choice?"

Emily barely heard him. But he was right. Her fault. Her guilt.

"I guess I should have had the abortion," she said. That would have been so much easier, a simple procedure, vacuuming away the life inside her. Easier than losing the baby months later in a river of blood.

"That would have made it all right, wouldn't it, Graeme? No need to marry me then. No need to marry anyone at all. You could be happy, playing with your little spreadsheets, dialing up your phone-sex girlfriends."

Graeme looked up sharply. This time she had struck a nerve. He was staring at her. He even looked a little afraid. Good.

"You didn't think I knew, did you? I followed you downstairs once. I saw you in here, on your knees, pumping your cock, panting into the phone. I heard you tell that girl how much you wanted to fuck her. That's better, isn't it? Better than having to pretend you enjoy fucking me."

Emily stared at the ceiling. "All of you would have been better off. You and Tommy and Rachel. I've done nothing but screw up all of your lives, haven't I? If only I'd had the abortion. If only I'd done it the first time, too."

She sank to her knees, then onto all fours on the plush white carpet. She pounded the floor over and over with her fist, then rolled over onto her back, pulling her knees to her chest, hugging them. "God knew what he was doing, didn't he? He didn't want me to have another baby. Look what a fucking mess I made of the first one."

She saw Graeme kneeling over her. He had pasted an expression of concern on his face. It was false, like everything else in their life.

"Don't touch me. Don't you touch me! Don't pretend, all right? Don't pretend!"

"Emily, why don't you go upstairs? Take a pill. It will help you sleep. This has been a terrible day, and you're out of your head."

Emily lay on the carpet. She had run out of fire and anger. She had run out of everything. They had won, all of them. Tommy, Rachel, and now Graeme. She had fought them all for so long, but it wasn't worth the pain and misery.

She could almost see them standing over her.

Tommy, next to Graeme.

Rachel, in the doorway, a child again.

Graeme, still kneeling near her. "Take a pill," he repeated. It wasn't a dream. He really said it.

Emily smiled. He was right, of course, because Graeme was always right, always exactly balanced. It was time to go upstairs, and she knew he wouldn't follow her. It was time to sleep. Asleep, she could forget all of it. All of them. She pushed herself to her feet and brushed by Graeme. In her imagination, Tommy and Rachel still lingered there. She could hear the echoes of their laughter.

"Okay," she said. "You win."

Take a pill, she thought. That's what she would do.

15

"You must be cold," the bartender said, casting an eye over the bar at Maggie's bare legs.

Maggie's black leather skirt extended to midthigh, and when she sat down, she kept her legs glued shut to avoid giving the world a glimpse of her bright pink panties. Her red wool coat was draped over the barstool next to her. She wore a sleeveless burgundy silk blouse.

Yes, she was cold.

"What'll you have? Cup of hot tea?" the bartender asked, smiling.

Maggie smiled back and ordered a tall mug of tap beer.

When the bartender returned, he laid the beer in front of her. Ice clung to the side of the glass and floated inside. "What are you, a model or something?" he asked.

Maggie laughed. "That's a good line. I like that one. In fact, I'm a cop."

"Yeah, right."

Maggie reached over and flipped the flap of her red coat on the bar stool. Her shield, pinned inside, gleamed up at the bartender. He raised his arms, surrendering. "Okay, you win. Isn't there something about cops not drinking on duty?"

"Who said I was on duty?" Maggie asked.

In fact, she was still on duty, but she needed a drink.

Maggie sipped the beer slowly. It was Monday night, and the bar was half empty. All day long, she had suffered under the leering stares of teenage boys. And it all resulted in nothing. Nada. Zip. She didn't find a single boy who would admit that he or anyone else had ever fucked Rachel behind the infamous barn. Each one of them had plenty to say when Maggie was casually crossing and uncrossing her legs, but they clammed up tight at Rachel's name. No one wanted to paint a target on his chest for the police.

She noticed a nervous teenager standing next to her.

"Are you Ms. Bei?" Kevin Lowry asked.

Maggie gave him a quick once-over. He was a solid kid, heavy and strong, with blond hair shaved almost down to his scalp. He wore the basic uniform of the restaurant's waiters, including black jeans and a red T-shirt that barely stretched around his barrel chest. Like all the other boys, Kevin let his eyes travel quickly up and down Maggie's body, taking note of her legs.

They chose a small table in the corner of the bar, away from the smoke and noise. Maggie brought her beer with her. She asked if Kevin wanted a soft drink, but he shook his head. Maggie relaxed, leaning close to Kevin with her elbows on the table. Kevin sat uncomfortably across from her.

"I don't bite," Maggie said with a warm smile.

Kevin responded with a smile that came and went quickly. "How's Mrs. Stoner?" he asked quietly.

"It was touch and go, but the latest word from the hospital is that she'll be fine."

"I feel bad. She's had a tough time."

"Because of Rachel?" Maggie asked.

Kevin shrugged. "Sometimes. Parents and kids always have some kind of problems."

"Seems like they had more than their share," Maggie said.

A ghost of a grin. "Maybe."

"Why do you think she took the pills?"

"I guess she couldn't take it anymore," Kevin said.

"Take what?" Maggie asked.

"All of it."

Maggie waited until Kevin looked up. "People tell me you're close to Rachel. They said Rachel would have been better off with you, but she never really appreciated you. That must be frustrating."

Kevin sighed. "Rachel has always been kind of a fantasy. I never really expected anything to come of it."

"So what about that last night?" Maggie asked sharply. "You told us that Rachel came on to you."

"That was nothing. She can be cruel that way."

"Could she have been meeting someone else that night? Another boy?"

"Maybe. Rachel dated a lot. We didn't talk about it."

Maggie nodded. "You know, it's funny. I talked to dozens of guys at the high school today. No one admitted going out with Rachel."

"Big surprise," Kevin said. "Everyone's scared. They know what you found at the barn."

"So they're lying."

"Sure," Kevin said. "I bet she dated all of them."

She could hear the bitterness in his voice.

"How about you?" Maggie asked.

"I already said no."

"Except for that night," Maggie said. "That's kind of weird, don't you think? She comes on to you, and that night, she disappears."

She saw anxiety instantly bloom in his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"You said Rachel made a date with you for Saturday night. But when you arrived at her house, she was gone."

Kevin nodded.

"You're sure the date wasn't for Friday night? You didn't make plans to go to her house later?"

"No!" Kevin told her, his voice rising.

"You didn't go back?"

"No, I didn't. I went home. The police talked to my parents. You know that's what happened."

Maggie smiled. "I know a lot of kids who are pretty good at slipping out without their parents knowing. Look, if Rachel wanted to disappear, you would have helped her, wouldn't you? You would have done anything she asked."

Kevin bit his lower lip and said nothing. He looked around as if he were hunting for an escape.

"So did you? Did you help her run away?" Maggie said.

"No," Kevin insisted.

"Did you go back later anyway? Did she have another date? That would have pissed you off, right? I can understand, Kevin. You've loved her your whole life. She's your fantasy. And then she starts playing games with you. That must have made you mad."

Kevin shook his head fiercely.

"It didn't? You didn't go over and wait for her? Try to convince her that she was wasting time with all those other guys? They weren't right for her. You were. But she rejected you."

Kevin was angry now. "I didn't see her. I didn't go to her house."

"You have to admit you've got a great motive."

"Cut it out," Kevin said.

"Maybe you two went out for a drive. Just to talk. And maybe you ended up at the barn. Maybe the talk didn't go so well."

Kevin clenched his fists. "That's a lie."

"We found blood and condoms at the crime scene, Kevin. What are we going to find when we do a DNA analysis?"

Kevin stood up. He was trembling with rage. "You'll find out it's not mine! Because I wasn't there!"

Maggie stood up, too. She touched his arm softly, but he yanked it away. She tried to coax him into looking at her. "Sit down, Kevin. I know you weren't there. But most of the time, I don't know-not until I push people. The guilty ones don't push back. Please. Sit down."

"Rachel's the last person in the world I would ever hurt," Kevin said.

"I know. But it looks like someone did hurt her. So, if you didn't go to Rachel's house, who did?"

Kevin shook his head. "Don't you think I'd have told you if I knew?"

"You don't remember anything Rachel said? You didn't hear any rumors at school? From what I understand, the barn was a popular place. It's hard to believe there weren't stories going around."

"Oh, sure, everyone knows about the barn. Lots of people talk about it. But who knows what's real and what's just locker room bullshit, you know?"

"But you're sure she went there," Maggie said.

"I don't know it for a fact. But I can't believe she didn't."

"Why?"

Kevin spread his arms in exasperation. "She talked about having sex all the time."

"Was it just talk?" Maggie asked. "Or did she really do it?"

"I don't know. She didn't mention names."

Out of the corner of her eye, Maggie saw a plump teenage girl with chestnut hair standing in the doorway of the bar. Hands firmly on her hips, the girl swiveled her head, studying each table like a velociraptor. When she spotted Kevin in the corner, her face lit up in a smile. Then she saw Maggie, assessed her outfit in a single glance, and frowned. She marched toward them.

"Hello, Kevin," the girl said loudly.

Kevin glanced up, surprised. "Sally!"

He leaped to his feet and planted a kiss on Sally's lips.

"I came in with my parents for dinner," Sally said. "Paula said you were in here. She was sort of pissed." Then she added bluntly, "Who's this?"

"This is Ms. Bei," Kevin said. "She's with the police."

"The police?" Sally said, her eyebrows raised.

Maggie stood up and extended her hand, which Sally shook limply.

"We've both talked to the police already," Sally said.

"I know. Kevin was just telling me he didn't really know any of Rachel's boyfriends," Maggie said. "We're thinking someone must have gone over to her house after she left the two of you. Can you think of anyone?"

"I don't think anyone was special to Rachel," Sally said. "She used people up and threw them away."

"That sounds like a good way to get people pissed off," Maggie said. "Anyone sound like he was obsessed with Rachel? Did she ever complain about someone who wouldn't leave her alone?"

"Complain?" Sally said. "Not hardly."

"Okay, let's forget about Rachel for a while. What about other girls at school? They ever talk about boys who were giving them a hard time?"

Kevin scratched his chin. He looked at Sally. "What about Tom Nickel? Remember how Karin said he was always sending her those creepy notes? Real prick."

Sally shrugged. "Sure, but that was two years ago. He graduated last year."

"But he goes to UMD," Kevin said. "He's still in the area."

"I suppose."

Maggie wrote down the name in her book. "Anyone else?"

"Most of the guys in school are jerks," Sally said. "That's why I'm so lucky." She slung an arm around Kevin's waist, and he kissed her hair.

"How about girls who had a bad time at the barn?" Maggie asked.

There it was.

It lasted only a split second, but Maggie saw the look in Sally's eyes. Her whole demeanor changed, the cool arrogance replaced by fear. Then, just as quickly, the moment passed. Sally turned and kissed Kevin again, not looking at Maggie. When she turned back, she had pasted a mask on her face.

"I don't hang out with girls who go to the barn," she said.

Maggie nodded. "I understand."

"Kevin!" Someone shouted from the doorway to the bar. A fifty-something woman with a hassled scowl waved a stack of menus at them. "We're dying out here. I need you now, you hear me? Right now!"

Kevin turned to Maggie. "Was there anything else? I have to go."

Maggie shook her head. Kevin kissed Sally again and rushed out of the bar. Sally began to follow him, but Maggie tugged gently at her arm.

"Can you spare me another minute?" Maggie asked.

Frowning, Sally sat down where Kevin had been. Maggie sipped her beer and kept her eyes on Sally. The girl watched her nervously. When Maggie put the mug down, she put a hand over Sally's on the table. Sally looked at her, confused and afraid. The feisty jealous girl was gone.

"Do you want to tell me about it, Sally?" Maggie asked quietly.

Sally tried to act surprised. "I don't understand. Tell you what?"

"Come on," Maggie said. "Kevin's not here anymore. Your parents aren't around. It's just us girls. You can tell me."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Maggie gripped her hand tightly now. "Something happened to you. I mentioned the barn, and you practically fainted. You've been there, haven't you? Look, I'm not judging you. But if you were out there and someone took advantage of you, I have to know."

Sally shook her head. "It wasn't like that."

"You don't need to make excuses for me. I'm a sister, okay? I know what men can be like."

"I don't want to get anyone in trouble," Sally said. "I never thought it was anything important. I mean, I'd pretty much forgotten about it. And even when they said Rachel's bracelet was found at the barn, well, I didn't think there could be any connection."

"Tell me what happened," Maggie urged her.

Sally sighed. "I never told Kevin. I never told anyone."

"That's okay. You can tell me. I can help, you know?"

She watched the tangled emotions in the girl's face. "Do you really think it could be important?" Sally asked. "It's just too crazy."

Maggie wanted to tear the words out of the girl's throat, but she patiently caressed Sally's hand and waited.

Sally's lower lip trembled. "About six months ago, I was biking out in the countryside north of town. I drive out there sometimes and park, so I can bike on the back roads. It's always really deserted on Sunday mornings, so I thought it would be all right."

Maggie leaned forward. Oh, God, it wasn't a boyfriend. It was a psycho. Damn, damn, damn. She thought about Kerry McGrath, and she tried to let her eyes communicate the message. That was stupid, girlie.

"And?" Maggie said.

"My bike busted a chain. Someone picked me up."

"Someone?"

Sally nodded. "I mean, I knew him, so I wasn't scared."

"You went with him voluntarily?" Maggie asked.

"Yeah. I was miles from my car."

"Did he try something on you?"

Sally hesitated. "Sort of. Well, no, not really. But he stopped at the barn."

Bells began going off in Maggie's head. She could feel goose bumps rising on her skin, the way they always did just before a case blew wide open. Finally, finally, they were going to get answers.

"What happened, Sally?"

Sally swallowed hard. She stared down at her hands folded in her lap. Suddenly, she seemed very young. It was strange, Maggie thought, how these teenagers could pretend to be so adult and mature, and then when you scratched the surface, they became children again.

"We were just talking. He told me how nice I looked. He said it was a really hot outfit I was wearing, that I was obviously in great shape. He just seemed way too-serious, I guess. It started out harmless, but after a while it got creepy."

Maggie nodded. "Okay, what happened next?"

"Well, we were getting near the road that led to the barn. He asked me if I'd ever been there. I said no, I hadn't He was teasing, saying we should check and see if anyone was making out there. And then he really turned. He started heading there. I was freaking out."

"Did you say anything?"

Sally shook her head. "I was too scared."

"So he drove you to the barn," Maggie said.

"Yeah. He pulled in behind it. I was ready to run. But he didn't try anything. He just kept talking, small talk, you know. It was like he was trying to decide if he was going to make a move on me."

"Were you afraid he was going to rape you?" Maggie asked.

"I don't know what I thought. I mean, it was really weird."

"But nothing actually happened."

Sally nodded. "Another car pulled in behind us. So he took off. It was like he didn't want to be recognized, you know? He hardly said a word to me the rest of the way, just took me back to my car and dropped me off. That was it."

"Nothing actually happened between you?"

Sally shook her head. "No. Like I said, I was sure he was going to try something. But after it was over, I began to think I was just being stupid."

Maggie took one of Sally's hands. "I really need you to tell me who it was."

"I know," Sally said. "I thought about coming forward before, but-I didn't really think it was important. I guess I had just convinced myself I was crazy, you know? He didn't really mean anything."

"Now you don't think so."

"I don't know. I really don't know."

"Okay," Maggie said. "Did anyone see the two of you together? Did you recognize the car that came in behind you?"

Sally shook her head. "We were out of there so quickly."

"Tell me, Sally. I won't let him hurt you. Who was it?"

Sally bent closer and whispered a name in Maggie's ear.

Maggie immediately pulled her cell phone out of her coat and dialed Stride's number.

16

Stride left city hall and stopped by the hospital on Monday night, but he discovered that Emily Stoner had been released an hour earlier, accompanied by Dayton Tenby. He wasn't surprised when he heard of her suicide attempt. He knew this was the most dangerous time, right after a parent or a spouse found out the truth, after weeks or months of fruitless longing for a miracle. The reality, hitting like a wrecking ball, sometimes was too much to bear.

He chose not to visit the Stoner household that night. There was nothing more he could tell them now, and he assumed the doctors would have ordered Emily straight to bed. He had already told Graeme by phone of the one significant discovery at the barn, a piece of bloody fabric that might be linked to Rachel.

He headed for home.

The roads were thick with slush. Snow had been falling all day, piling up on the streets and in the woods surrounding the city. The search at the barn continued, but at an agonizingly slow pace. His officers worked with ice hanging from their mustaches and cold seeping into the leather of their boots. They dug, scratched, and cursed the snow. They had begun another, more ominous search, too. Working with a cluster of volunteers from the surrounding area, they began fanning out into the woods around the barn, searching for Rachel's body. They penetrated the snow with ski poles and dug down whenever they found something unusual hidden below. Using walkie-talkies, they communicated their progress to Guppo in the police van. He mapped out a new search grid on a laptop.

Stride held out little hope they would find anything. The vastness of the northern woods worked to the benefit of murderers, who had thousands of square miles of forest in which to dispose of a body. Most of the time, the victims disappeared, and that was that. Like Kerry McGrath. They were out there somewhere, either buried or simply dumped far from the nearest road, easy targets for the animals that would come and desecrate their corpses. He shuddered to think of Rachel suffering the same fate. But the scope of the land and the crush of snow made him doubtful that they would ever find anything except that one scrap of white cloth to prove that Rachel was dead.

Stride pulled out his cellular phone. He noticed the battery was nearly gone. He had forgotten to take an extra battery from his desk, but he was almost home anyway. He punched in the number for his voice mail and listened to his messages.

The first one was from Maggie, at about two o'clock in the afternoon. It was short and sweet. "You suck, boss."

He laughed, imagining how her interviews at the high school had gone.

The second message was from the lab, about an hour earlier. They had confirmed the stain on the fabric was human blood, and they had matched it to type AB, Rachel's blood type. The DNA tests were still to come.

The last message on his voice mail was at eight o'clock in the evening, only about five minutes ago. He expected it to be Maggie again, reporting in at the end of her day. But it wasn't.

"Hello, Jon," said a soft, nervous voice. "It's Andrea. I didn't really expect you to be there, but I guess I kind of wanted to hear your voice. That sounds silly, I suppose. And maybe it sounds a little silly to say I miss you. But the truth is, I do. Looks like you made quite an impression on me, huh? Anyway, the thing is, I'm still at work over at the school. I've got a pile of tests to grade, so I was working in the lab, but I was thinking a lot about us. And about Friday night. I know your time's not your own, but I hope we can see each other again soon. I'd really like that. Okay, fine, I've made a fool of myself, so what else is new? Well, give me a call sometime. Bye, Jon."

At the next intersection, Stride turned the truck around and headed back up the hill toward the high school.

He pulled into the lot, with the panorama of Duluth spread out on his left, and found a parking spot close to the building. Hurrying across the concrete, which had accumulated a couple more inches of snow since the plows had gone through, he jammed his hands in his coat pockets and blinked as the snow fell over his eyelids.

The school door was locked. Stride rapped his knuckles on the window, but no one was nearby to hear him. He swore. He pushed his face against the cold glass, peering inside. Nothing.

Stride took out his cell phone again, but he saw that his battery had gone completely dead. He swore again and trudged through the snowy grass around the side of the school. He was near the rear door when he saw Andrea emerge from a classroom door at the far end of the hallway. She was dressed in gray sweats that emphasized her long legs, athletic shoes, and a loose-fitting blue V-neck sweater. She didn't notice Stride, but instead made a beeline for a pop machine in the corridor. She fed in a bill, then retrieved a can of Diet Coke, popped it open, and took a long swig.

Stride banged on the door.

She stopped, turned around, and saw him. Her face lit up in a broad smile. She began jogging down the hall toward him, spilling her Coke and laughing as a geyser of brown liquid spurted onto the floor. She put the can on the floor, wiped her hands on her sweats, and hurried to the door. She opened it, grabbed Stride's hand, and pulled him inside. As the door crashed shut, blocking out the wind, she reached her sticky fingers around his neck and pulled him into a deep kiss. He was too surprised to respond at first, but then wrapped his arms tightly around her, and their lips explored each other.

"I'm glad you came," she said. "I don't have too much more to do. Why don't you come in and talk with me, and then we can go have a late dinner?"

"That sounds perfect," Stride said.

Her arm went around his waist as they retraced her steps to the chemistry laboratory.

"It won't take me more than another half hour. These are multiple choice tests. I don't have to think, just grade."

"How are they doing?" Stride asked.

"Oh, I've seen better," Andrea said. "The attention span gets less and less each year. It's hard to keep it exciting for them."

"Well, science was never my strong suit either."

"Really? I would have thought a detective would enjoy all the forensic details, solving scientific mysteries, that kind of thing." Andrea scanned a test as she talked, wielding a red pen to mark errors.

"I let the lab technicians do the scientific analysis," Stride said. "I worry about figuring out the art of the possible."

"What do you mean?" Andrea asked.

"Most human acts leave some kind of trail. You have to get from place to place. You have to eat, buy gas, go to the bathroom, sleep. You leave behind skin, hair, fingerprints, fluids. All of those things can be tracked, assuming you can sift through the things that everyone else leaves behind and find the person you want."

Andrea smiled. "Like it or not, Jon, that sounds a lot like the scientific process. You couldn't have slept through all of your classes."

"I wouldn't have slept through yours," he said.

She blushed and looked down at her exams again. They were silent for a while. The only sound was the scritch-scritch of Andrea's marker on the page and the rustle of paper as she shuffled the tests. Stride let his eyes wander around the classroom, then found himself staring at Andrea, her head down, her narrow fingers nervously pushing her blonde hair back behind her ears. He could see smile lines at the edges of her mouth, like crescent moons. The sleeves of her sweater were pushed up, and he saw her bare, tapered forearms, slim but strong.

She felt his stare and looked up. They held each other with their eyes, but they didn't say anything.

He wondered what she saw when she looked at him. He knew, because Cindy had always told him so, that women found him attractive, although he never really understood it. He didn't have smooth, perfect features, but the look of a seaman who had squinted into too many storms. Like his father. Each time the barber cut his hair, he saw more gray littering the floor. He ached when he moved, and he felt the twinge of his bullet wound more intensely now than when he had been shot eight years ago. He was getting older, no doubt about that. But something about Andrea's honest stare peeled away the years from his mind.

She leaned back in her chair, covering her mouth with both hands, still staring at him.

"I'm a little embarrassed," she told him quietly.

Stride was puzzled. "Why?"

Andrea laughed and looked at him with a tiny smile. "I hope you don't think I go around picking up men in casinos and sleeping with them."

"Oh," Stride said. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let that happen. You were drunk. It wasn't fair."

"We were both drunk," Andrea said. "And we both wanted it. You don't have anything to feel guilty about. But the next day, I was scared. I thought I'd made a terrible mistake."

"You didn't," Stride said.

"Do you want to hear something terrible?" she said. "I resented it a little when you told me your wife died."

Stride looked at her strangely. "I don't understand."

"Cindy died, and there wasn't anything you could do about it. It wasn't about you. At least you can still feel good about yourself. That's what my husband took from me."

Stride shook his head. "That isn't your fault. It's his. He sounds like a selfish son of a bitch."

"I know. But I still miss him. You must think I'm a fool."

"Join the club," Stride said. "Look, how about we go to dinner right now? I'm hungry as hell, and Briar Patch makes a one-inch steak that melts in your mouth. And the beer is ice cold."

Andrea nodded. "I'd like that. I think I've had enough for the day. Let me lock these in the department office, and then we can head out."

They walked out together into the empty hallway of the school. He heard distant sounds, like the thump of a basketball, but he didn't see anything or anyone around them. The lights seemed dim and shadowy, and the night outside yawned in at them through the windows like a giant black creature.

They climbed the stairs to the second floor of the school and found themselves in another dark, empty hallway. Andrea unlocked the door opposite the stairs and flicked on the light switch inside. The office was crowded with metal desks and filing cabinets and bookshelves lined with science textbooks. She chose the desk closest to the window, opened the bottom drawer, and dropped the stack of tests inside. He saw a photograph of a man on the wall beside her desk, and he assumed it was her ex-husband.

"All set," she said.

They turned off the lights, and Andrea locked the door behind them.

As they headed for the stairs, Stride saw a crack of light glowing from one of the offices at the far end of the hallway.

Andrea saw him hesitate. "What's up?"

"Probably nothing." But he suddenly felt a wave of anxiety. It came that way after a few years, a sixth sense that something wasn't right.

"Is that light coming from Nancy Carver's office?" he asked.

Andrea noticed the light in the hallway for the first time. "Looks like it."

Stride's eyes narrowed. "This sounds odd, Andrea, but just wait here, all right? I want to check something out."

"If you say so."

Andrea leaned against the wall, waiting. Stride took soft steps down the hallway, approaching the point where the office light shone into the corridor. As he got closer, he confirmed what he had suspected, that the door to Nancy Carver's office was ajar. He waited, listening, but heard no sounds from inside.

Stride coughed deliberately.

He expected to hear whoever was inside react. But the same silence pervaded the hallway.

He edged toward the doorway, close enough to peer inside and see part of the closet that served as her office. All he could see was a corner of her desk, enough to see a woman's shoulder and arm. She seemed to be sitting in her chair, not moving.

"Hello?" he called out.

He watched, but the woman didn't move. Stride gave the door a push. It swung open with a loud creak and thudded against the wall. He moved closer, filling the doorway.

Nancy Carver was inside, sitting motionless at her desk. As he entered, she looked up at him with hollow eyes, rimmed in red. The angry passion he had seen in her brown eyes was gone. Her cheeks were drawn. Her red hair was matted. She looked through him as if he didn't exist.

Stride was so taken aback by her appearance that he didn't notice for several seconds that she had a handgun lying in front of her on her desk, inches from her fingers.

"What the hell is that?" he said and leaped for the gun. He expected her to reach for it before he could get there, and point it either at herself or at him, but Nancy Carver didn't move. She just stared at him as he scooped it up in his hand and spilled the bullets on the floor, where they rolled crazily.

Stride leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. The gun dangled in his hand.

"Do you want to tell me what the hell is going on?" he asked.

He didn't add, Do you want to tell me why two women in Rachel's life are trying to kill themselves? Because he had no doubt that was what Nancy Carver was planning to do.

Carver shook her head vacantly. "I could have stopped him," she whispered.

Stride bent over the desk. "Stopped who?"

She looked up and met his eyes. "I thought she ran away," she said.

Stride said nothing.

Tears began creeping down her cheeks. "But instead, she's dead. And I could have stopped him. I knew all about it."

"I have to go," Stride told Andrea.

They were seated in his Bronco in back of the school, near her car. The radio was turned down low, playing a song by Patty Loveless.

"Will you get any sleep tonight?"

"Probably not."

"Why don't you spend the night at my house tomorrow? It doesn't matter what time you come. It felt so good sleeping beside you on Friday. I felt better just having you near me."

"It could be late. I don't know when I'll be done, and I probably won't be much company."

She smiled. "I'll leave a light on."

Andrea opened the truck door. As she got out, snow shook off the roof and dusted her blonde hair with flakes of white. She blew him a kiss, slammed the door shut, and ran to her own car. He watched her climb inside, then saw a match flare as she lit a cigarette. Her car started up on the first try. She waved as she pulled away.

Stride drove home, navigating the empty, slippery streets with less care than they demanded. Twice he lingered at a stoplight, motionless while it turned green, his eyes vacantly staring out of the streaked windows. The windshield wipers squeaked in a determined rhythm that hypnotized him.

I knew all about it.

He thought again about Nancy Carver and tried to quell his anger. She could have confirmed their suspicions weeks ago. Maybe there would have been something more they could have done. They would have been so much closer.

What if Emily Stoner had died, not knowing? Then again, he wondered if Emily had suspected all along.

There were times when it felt like a game, a puzzle they had to solve. And there were times when he hated knowing everything he did about the dark side of the human heart.

Stride crossed the bridge leading onto the Point. He drove two blocks to his home and pulled into the driveway. Maggie's car was parked on the street. He saw a light inside the house and guessed she was waiting for him. It saved him a phone call. He was going to need her tonight, and they had a long evening ahead of them at city hall.

He let himself into the house.

Maggie was in his kitchen, her feet propped up on a chair. She was eating a grilled cheese sandwich and reading the newspaper.

"You didn't answer your goddamn phone," she told him pleasantly.

"The battery's dead. Sorry about that."

"I've been waiting here for over an hour."

"Lucky for you I came home alone," he said. He wondered how he was going to break it to Maggie that she would need to be a little more cautious about using his house as a second home. He didn't think Andrea would understand their relationship.

He looked at her skirt, which was bunched up almost to her waist. "You look hot."

"I'm freezing," she said. "And it's your fault."

"Well, it was worth it if you got anything out of the boys."

Maggie smiled. "Nothing from the boys. But it turns out we were heading in the right direction all along. Family first."

Stride sat down opposite Maggie. "Graeme?"

She nodded. "Sally gave him up. Turns out Graeme took her on a little field trip to the barn last summer."

"Was she raped?"

"No, they were interrupted. But she thought that's where things were going."

"There's more," Stride told her. "How's this? Rachel told Nancy Carver she was sleeping with Graeme. She said it happened a few times, and then she cut it off, but Graeme wanted more."

Maggie's eyebrows shot skyward. "No shit? Do you think Emily suspects?"

"I'll bet she does, but she won't admit it to herself."

"Graeme's a cool customer," Maggie said. "Everything about him came up clean, right down to the polygraph. He's going to be hard to nail."

"Yeah, but him and Emily? No way. I think he was after Rachel from the beginning. And Rachel probably thought that fucking Graeme would be the perfect punishment for her mother. These two were made for each other."

"Except how do we prove it?" Maggie asked.

"We've got Carver's story. That's a start."

"It's hearsay," Maggie said. "We'll never get it in."

Stride nodded. "I know. But it'll get us a warrant."

17

Stride swore his team to silence as they prepared for the search, but it didn't help. As a battery of police cars pulled up outside the Stoner house, Bird Finch took to the airwaves, painting Graeme Stoner as a Jekyll-and-Hyde who had seduced his teenage stepdaughter and then killed her. Stride heard it on the radio and turned off the news in disgust.

Maggie, seated next to him, shook her head. "How the hell did he do that? No one knows about this."

Stride shrugged. "Let's go," he told her.

They headed up the long walkway to the front door of the Stoner house with a swarm of uniformed officers. Stride gestured to one of the cops, pulling him closer.

"The word is out," he said. "You can expect the press to begin descending on this place in droves. I don't want them anywhere near here, okay? Tape it off, and keep them away. No curious neighbors, either."

The officer nodded and retreated to one of the squad cars, motioning for three other policemen to join him.

Stride whispered to Maggie. "Let's keep a close eye on the search, okay, Mags? I want everything by the book and witnessed. No screwups. If we end up charging this guy, he's already got Archie Gale in his corner, and you can bet everything we do is going to be second-guessed."

"Signed, sealed, and delivered," Maggie said. "Count on it, boss."

Stride didn't need to ring the doorbell. As he climbed the steps, Graeme Stoner swung the door open. Stride could see icy fury in the man's eyes.

"Hello, Lieutenant," Graeme said. "I see you've brought a few of your friends with you."

"Mr. Stoner, we have a valid warrant to search these premises for any evidence related to the disappearance and possible murder of Rachel Deese."

"So I gathered. And is it ordinary police practice to engage in character assassination before you have any evidence? My phone is already starting to ring, thanks to Bird Finch's little report a few minutes ago. I called Kyle personally to complain."

Stride shrugged. Graeme's contacts at city hall weren't going to help him now. "I'll stay with you while my officers conduct the search."

Graeme turned on his heel and retreated through the living room without looking behind him. Stride followed him, and Maggie gathered the officers in the foyer, issuing instructions. Guppo would lead the team in the basement, she would handle the rooms upstairs, and they would do the first floor and the exterior and vehicles last.

"By the book," she told them, reiterating Stride's warning. "Stay in pairs at all times. Find it, photograph it, bag it, label it. You got all that?"

The sturdy police officers, all of them a foot and a half taller than the tiny Asian detective, nodded meekly and set about the search. Their footsteps sounded like thunder as they took different paths up and down the steps.

On the porch, Stride felt the chill in the room, emanating from the two people he found there. Emily Stoner sat where she had been when he first met her, in a recliner by the fireplace. She looked frail, her skin drained of color. Her body had shrunk, and her skin seemed to hang loosely on her frame. Her hair fell limply across her face. She was years older than she had been just a few weeks ago.

Emily didn't move and didn't say anything, but her eyes followed Graeme as he sat down in the recliner opposite her. Stride had always sensed tension between them, but this was different. Emily had heard the news along with everyone else. Stride knew what she was thinking-that the man sitting calmly a few inches away, who had shared her bed for five years, might be a monster.

It was Graeme's demeanor that surprised him.

Stride had dealt with criminals many times in the first moments after the truth came out. Most made angry protestations of innocence, denying the obvious. Others crumbled and confessed, releasing the burden of guilt that had been weighing on their souls. But he had never seen anyone look as calm and confident as Graeme Stoner. The man was furious but utterly controlled, and he still had a look of detached amusement, as if this whole process were nothing but a sideshow attraction.

Stride didn't know how to read him. He usually believed he could tell a man's guilt or innocence by watching for the truth written in his eyes and face. Graeme was a mask.

"You realize you've destroyed my reputation in this town," Graeme told him with a determined stare. "I hope the city can afford to pay the damages when I sue you."

Stride ignored him. He turned to Emily. "Please accept my apologies, Mrs. Stoner. If there had been any way of making this easier for you, I would have done it. I know what you've been through."

Emily nodded but said nothing. She kept staring at her husband, doing what Stride was trying to do-see the truth. Graeme's face revealed nothing.

"Mr. Stoner, I have to read you your rights," Stride said.

Graeme raised an eyebrow. "Are you arresting me?"

"No, but you are a suspect in this investigation. I want to make sure you understand your rights before we go any further." Stride rattled off the Miranda warnings, watching Graeme frown in disgust as he did so.

"Knowing that you don't have to say anything, are you willing to answer some questions, even though Mr. Gale is not present?"

Another shrug. "I have nothing to hide," Graeme said.

Stride was surprised-rich suspects never talked-but he wasn't about to question his good fortune.

"The leak regarding this situation was regrettable, Mr. Stoner. I apologize for that. I don't know how it happened." Stride didn't want to leap into the tough questions and have Graeme realize he was better off staying quiet. He wanted to worm his way slowly toward the ugly details.

"I suggest you find out how it happened, Lieutenant." Something in the man's eyes made Stride believe that Graeme was perfectly aware of the detective's strategy.

Stride nodded. "You can understand, however, that some of the details we have uncovered raise a lot of questions for us. We'd like to get your side of the story. That's why I'm here."

"I'm sure."

"Were you sleeping with Rachel?" Stride asked.

There was a heavy silence in the room. Emily seemed to hold her breath, waiting for Graeme's answer. Stride watched the man set his jaw and saw anger creep into his face. There was no hint of guilt in his expression, only contempt. His conviction made Stride wonder if they were making a mistake. Or was the man simply a consummate actor?

"What an offensive question. But the answer is no. Never. I would never have slept with my stepdaughter, Lieutenant. It did not happen."

"Rachel said it did," Stride said.

"I can't believe that," Graeme retorted. "The girl may not have had the best relations with either of us, but I cannot believe she would make up such an outrageous lie."

"She told a school counselor, Nancy Carver, that you started having sex with her shortly after you married Emily."

Stride heard Emily wince and suck in her breath. Graeme glanced at his wife, then back at Stride.

"Carver? No wonder. That interfering little bitch. Do you know she actually called and interrogated me? But she never came out and made any accusations like that. I think she's the one you should be investigating, Stride. It's obvious the woman is a lesbian. As I recall, I even called the school to complain."

Stride jotted a reminder in his notes. He wanted to check if there had really been a complaint lodged against Nancy Carver.

"Why would Rachel make up such a story?"

"I can't believe she did. Carver probably made up the whole thing."

"Rachel told someone else, too," Stride lied.

This time he caught a glimmer of hesitation in Graeme's eyes, but the moment quickly vanished. "I find that hard to believe. But if Rachel did that, all I can think is that she was having problems. Maybe the girl was having fantasies about me. Or maybe she was trying to drive a wedge between me and Emily. Who knows?"

"But you never slept with her?"

"I told you, no."

"You never touched her or had any kind of sexual contact with her?"

"Of course not," Graeme snapped.

"And she never touched you."

"I'm not Bill Clinton, Lieutenant. No sex means no sex."

Stride nodded. A definitive denial would help them in prosecution, if they could find any evidence to back up a relationship between Rachel and Graeme, but he knew that was a big if.

He doubted Stoner would be so adamant in his denial if there were any way of proving the two had been involved.

Or he was telling the truth.

"Do you know a friend of Rachel's named Sally Lindner?" Stride asked.

Graeme furrowed his brow. "I think so. She goes out with that boy Kevin, as I recall. Why?"

"Have you ever given her a ride in your van?"

"I really don't remember," Graeme said. "Maybe."

"Maybe?"

Graeme scratched his chin. "I may have given her a ride to her car one day. Her bike was broken. This was several months ago, and honestly, I can't even remember if it was her."

"Where did you pick her up?"

"Oh, somewhere north of town, as I recall. I had been visiting one of our branches."

"And where did you take her?" Stride asked.

"Like I said, back to her car."

"Did you stop anywhere?"

"Not that I recall," Graeme said.

"She says you took her to the barn."

"The barn? No, certainly not. I picked her up and dropped her off at her car. That's all, Lieutenant."

"It didn't happen?" Stride asked. "You never went there with her?"

"It didn't happen," Graeme told him firmly.

"Then why would Sally say it did?"

Graeme sighed. "How the hell would I know, Lieutenant? Maybe Rachel put her up to it."

"Rachel?" Stride said. "Why would Rachel do that?"

"She's a complicated girl," Graeme said.

Maggie pointed at a three-drawer oak filing cabinet. "You start there. I'll take the desk."

The other officer, a gangly twenty-five-year-old rookie who hadn't outgrown his pimples, nodded and chewed his gum loudly. His name was Pete, and he had been in private security for several years before joining the force a few months ago. Maggie liked his cocky confidence, but he had a lot to learn. Pete had made the mistake of blowing a bubble with his gum and popping it with his gloved finger. Maggie nearly took his head off, reading him the riot act about contaminating the scene. Besides, the noise really bugged her.

Pete stopped blowing bubbles, but he kept chewing the gum, just to annoy her. That was exactly the kind of thing she would have done, and she liked that.

They were in Graeme Stoner's upstairs office. He kept it impeccably organized. There was a monitor and keyboard on the big, custom-built oak desk, a small array of books arranged by subject, and two stacks of compact discs. Maggie glanced at them. One set of discs reflected Graeme's taste in music, which ran to loud Mahler symphonies. The other set included discs labeled as confidential and bearing the stamp of Graeme's bank.

"We'll have to get Guppo to look at all the discs and the hard drive," she said. "Make sure we label them and take them all with us."

Pete grunted. He dug his gloved hands into the first drawer of the file cabinet.

Maggie glanced around the room, absorbing Graeme Stoner's tastes. The walls were papered in a dark blue pattern, with a gold fleck that matched the rich gold color of the carpeting. Several original watercolors hung on the walls, mostly nature scenes, and to Maggie's untrained eye, they looked professional and expensive. The desk and its elaborate leather chair were the main furnishings, supplemented by the filing cabinet, a wall of built-in bookshelves lined with hardcovers, and an overstuffed chair with matching ottoman. A slender brass lamp with a globe light sat on the corner of the desk.

It was a rich, sterile room, full of money and devoid of character. The same had been true of the master bedroom-the kind of elegant space in which it was hard to believe people actually lived. She and Pete had spent nearly two hours in the bedroom and bathroom, sifting through drawers and searching for secrets. They found little. The rooms were as interesting for what they didn't find as for what they did. No birth control. No sex toys. No adult videos. She wondered when Graeme and Emily had last had sex.

It didn't really matter. The question was whether Graeme and Rachel had ever had sex. They had turned up nothing yet in either room to prove Nancy Carver's allegation, and Maggie knew from their original search of Rachel's room after the disappearance that she had left nothing behind as physical evidence of an incestuous affair.

Maggie shuddered. She tried to imagine Rachel alone with Graeme in this house. Was it in the bedroom? In her room? On the bathroom floor? Did he take her on top, or did he make her straddle him? Did he take her from behind? Did he force her to her knees and make her suck him off?

Evidence. That was the troublesome part. Graeme was safe in denying the affair, as long as Rachel never showed up, because little proof ever remained that two people had been having sex. All they had was what Rachel told people-which was worthless in court.

"What's in the filing cabinet, Pete?" Maggie asked.

The cop shrugged. "Tax records. Warranties. The guy saved everything."

"Check every file, and box up the tax records. We'll want to copy those."

Maggie focused on the desk. She took each book from the desk, flipped through the pages, and returned it. She opened the drawers one by one, examined them from front to back, then got down on her knees and checked the bottom of each drawer to make sure nothing was taped underneath.

She booted up the computer. She didn't have time to examine the hard disk byte by byte-that was Guppo's job-but she at least wanted to do a search for e-mails and review the pages Graeme had been visiting on the Internet. To avoid accidentally altering the evidence, she first printed out a full directory listing on the laser printer, noting the details of every file on the hard drive. Then she hooked up a jump drive to the machine's USB port and copied Graeme's hard disk. When she was done, she swapped the drive to the laptop she had brought with her and called up a mirror of Graeme's computer on her own machine.

When she called up Internet Explorer, she was surprised to find that the history of sites visited had been deleted and there was no listing at all in the Favorites box.

"This is interesting," Maggie said aloud. "Looks like Graeme has been cleaning up after himself."

"Huh?" Pete said.

"No Web sites at all. And yet the man is head of e-commerce at his bank. Does that make any sense? He doesn't want anyone to see where he's been surfing."

Maggie loaded Outlook. The e-mail software was equally clean, nothing in his in-box, nothing sent, nothing saved. It was as if the man had never sent an e-mail on the computer, although Maggie knew that was absurd.

Something felt wrong. She wondered if Graeme had a drop box stored on one of the public Web sites like Yahoo or Hotmail, where he could send and receive personal e-mails without leaving a trail on his computer. That was going to be a lot harder to find.

Her walkie-talkie crackled, and Maggie picked it up. "Yeah?"

It was Guppo. "We've covered the basement."

"Anything?"

"Clean as a whistle. Even the garden implements shine like brand-new. I don't think he spends a lot of time down here."

"Damn," Maggie said. She was hoping they might find evidence of the murder itself, even if they couldn't prove that Rachel and Graeme were having sex. Based on the evidence at the barn, though, she realized it was unlikely that he had killed her in the house. It was more logical that they had gone to the barn and that something had happened between them there-something that ended in Rachel's death.

"Okay, Guppo, you and Terry go after the minivan outside, and work it over. Check out every inch, pull up the carpet, run the UV search for blood residue. Hair. Fiber. Semen. Fingerprints. Anything. I want to know if Rachel was in that van."

"Gotcha."

The next voice that crackled over the walkie-talkie belonged to Terry. "Son of a bitch, Maggie, you want me locked up in a van with Guppo? It was bad enough being in the basement with him."

Maggie laughed. "Hey, I put up with it at the barn, Terry. You don't get any sympathy from me. Over and out." She hooked the walkie-talkie onto her belt again.

"I'm going to start on the bookshelves," Maggie said, eyeing the wall of hardcovers with distaste.

"The computer's clean?" Pete asked.

"At least on the basic stuff, yeah. Looks like Graeme kept it tidy. We'll have to have Guppo do a more thorough search."

"How about pictures?" Pete said. "You know, GIFs, JPEGs, that kind of stuff. Maybe he kept some dirty photos or other X-rated stuff around."

Maggie nodded. She did a search of the jump drive. First she typed in "Rachel" and did a global search for any file that might include the girl's name. That would have been too easy, she figured, and she was right. The search came up empty. She tried again with files starting with R but was overwhelmed by the results. She searched for "sex," then "fuck," then "porn," but found nothing.

Then she had another idea. She narrowed the search list to identify any file that had been created or edited in a two-week span surrounding Rachel's disappearance.

The search turned up only a handful of files. She scrolled down slowly, ruling out the system files and checking out anything that looked like a word processing document or spreadsheet. Everything seemed work-related, full of details about online mutual fund transactions and branch profit-and-loss statements. She went through the files one by one, mentally crossing them off her list, doubting this search was going to be any more productive than the others. Graeme was too smart.

And then she saw it.

Fargo4qtr.gif. A picture file created two days before Rachel disappeared.

The name sounded like a business file, but it was in the wrong directory. And she hadn't seen any other GIFs among Graeme's work files. She moved the mouse over to highlight the file, and she hesitated before clicking on it. She held her breath. With a flutter of her fingertip, she clicked and watched the screen go blank. The picture seemed to take forever to load, although she knew that it was only a second or two as she heard the laptop's hard drive whirring. Then the screen refreshed, and a photo jumped onto the screen, filling it in full color.

Maggie gasped. "Oh my God."

She heard Pete turn curiously behind her. Then, seeing the screen over her shoulder, he exhaled, too. "Shit."

It was one of the most amazing pictures she had ever seen. Maggie considered herself a staunch heterosexual, but even she found herself wetting her lips with her tongue. Rachel's eyes drew hers like a magnet.

In the photo, Rachel was naked. She was in the wilderness somewhere, with trees out of focus behind her. The rain was falling, coating her bare skin, running in silver rivulets down her body. The photo captured drops of water on her breasts and little streams of water running into her damp crotch and slipping to the ground. Rachel's knees were bent. She had one hand between her legs, two fingers pushed out of sight into her slit. Her other hand cupped her right breast, reaching up to graze her nipple. Rachel's mouth had fallen open in pleasure, but her bright green eyes were open, staring into the camera.

Maggie realized Pete was beside her, practically panting. "God, I hope the girl's not dead," he said. "What I wouldn't give to fuck that."

"Shut up," Maggie said sourly. She fed the photo to the printer. It printed slowly, line by line, inking out the image of the teenager masturbating in the woods.

"That son of a bitch," she murmured.

The porch was silent. Emily and Graeme sat in dueling recliners. Emily stared vacantly into space, motionless, her hands folded in her lap. Graeme examined a file through his half-glasses, studiously ignoring Stride. When the detective had run out of questions, Graeme had simply gone back to work, as if he had nothing at all to be concerned about.

Stride knew that at least part of Graeme's calm demeanor was an act, because the insinuation alone would be enough to destroy his reputation. Like it or not, Graeme Stoner was finished in Duluth. And the man knew it. The only question was whether he would be free to go somewhere else or whether they would find what they needed to put him away for a long time.

The waiting game got old as the hours dragged by. Stride heard Guppo and Terry trudge back upstairs, then heard them disappear through the front door. He assumed Maggie had directed them to search the van, although he didn't hear the conversation. He had turned off his walkie-talkie rather than let the Stoners hear their dialogue.

He stared at Graeme, studying the man's face. He knew that Graeme could feel his stare even as he turned pages in the file, but the banker didn't flinch. It would be interesting to watch Dan Erickson do battle in court to put the man behind bars. Assuming they ever made it to court.

More time passed.

Stride heard Maggie's footsteps. She marched into the room, a piece of white paper flapping in her hand. This time, Graeme looked up with genuine curiosity and a faint nervousness.

Maggie whispered in Stride's ear. "Check this out."

Stride looked at the photo and blinked at the sight of the naked girl. He had to remind himself this was the teenager who was missing and presumed dead.

He looked up from the paper to find Graeme staring back at him. Stride suddenly felt he had an edge over the arrogant bastard.

"Tell me, Mr. Stoner, do you own a digital camera?" Stride asked.

Graeme nodded. "Of course."

"We'll need to take it with us," Stride said. "Do you recognize this photograph?"

He handed the paper to Graeme. Stoner's reserve cracked, and Stride saw his hand tremble as he tried to hold the paper steady. Emily saw what was on the page, and her hand covered her open mouth as she stifled a scream.

"Where did you find this?" Graeme said, trying to keep his voice even.

"On the computer in your office," Stride told him.

"I have no idea how it got there. I've never seen this before."

"Really?" Stride asked. "You didn't take the photo?"

"No, of course not. I told you, I had no idea it was on the computer. Rachel must have put it there. As a joke."

"A joke?" Stride asked, his eyebrows climbing. "Quite the joke."

"Who knows why she did it?" Graeme said.

Stride nodded. "You have no idea where or when this was taken?"

"None at all."

Maggie studied the man with cold eyes. "The file was added to your computer two days before Rachel disappeared."

"Two days?" Graeme asked.

"That's quite a coincidence," Stride added.

"Well, as I say, Rachel must have left it there. Maybe it was her way of saying a bizarre good-bye before she ran away."

Stride stepped closer to the man. "But she didn't run away, did she, Mr. Stoner? You and she went out to the barn that night. You went to have sex with her, like you had been doing for years. Did she say no this time? Did she try to run away? Did she threaten to tell your wife?"

"Graeme," Emily begged him in a weak voice. "Please tell me none of this is true."

He sighed and looked at her. "Of course not."

"We know Rachel was at the barn that night, Mr. Stoner. We know she made it back to your house, and that you were the only one here. Would you like to tell us what happened then?"

Graeme shook his head. "I never heard her come in. And I think that's all I have to say until Mr. Gale gets here."

He looked dazed. Stride was pleased to see that the man was capable of human error after all, that he could make mistakes, leave clues behind, and not know how to react when his lies were uncovered.

"Keep searching, Mags," Stride told her.

Maggie was about to return upstairs when her walkie-talkie squawked. Everyone in the room heard Guppo's voice.

"Maggie, Stride, we need you out here. There's residue of blood on the floor under the carpet in the back and on a knife he's got in a toolbox."

Maggie quickly switched off the handset, but it was too late.

Emily screamed.

Stride and Maggie both watched her, feeling the raw pain that sliced her voice.

She bolted up from the recliner, her face ashen. She turned and stared in horror at Graeme, who sat with a curious smirk frozen on his face, like a cat who had swallowed a canary. Emily sank to her knees.

Stride jumped forward, ready to catch her if she crumpled into a faint.

Instead, Emily moaned, then got down on all fours and vomited over the white carpet.