The Haunted Air

Gia saw his throat working as he looked away. She couldn't think of anything to say except, You poor man, that poor boy. But that sounded condescending, so she waited in the leaden silence.

Finally Joe Portman sniffed and said, "You know, you can keep hope alive for only so long. When we hit the five-year mark and no Tara, we had to… we had to accept the worst. Maybe if I'd been with her more that fifth anniversary day, Dot might have got past it, and she'd still be up and about today. But everything must have looked too black to go on—maybe just for a few minutes or an hour, but that was enough. So now Jimmy was motherless and his father still wasn't paying attention to him, what with all that Dot needed." Portman rubbed his face, as if massaging his jowls. "Jimmy's first bust—the first of many—was at age thirteen for selling marijuana and it was all downhill from there."

Gia felt a growing knot in her chest. The pain this man, this family had been through… no wonder he was on medication.

"Then I learned I had to divorce Dot."

"Had to?"

"To save the house and—so I hoped at the time—to save Jimmy, I had to divorce her. That way she'd be without support and could qualify for welfare and be covered by Medicaid. The irony of it is, if I'd waited a couple of years it wouldn't have been necessary."

"You mean they changed the law?"

"No." He smiled, but it was a painful grimace. "I stopped going to work. Jimmy was in a juvenile detention center at the time and I was alone in the house, and I just couldn't get myself out of bed. And if by some miracle I did, I couldn't leave the house. I kept the shades down and the lights off and just sat in the dark, afraid to move. Finally the bank let me go. And then I lost the house, and wound up on welfare and on Medicaid, just like Dot."

Almost numb from the torrent of pain, Gia placed the photos back in the trunk and looked around for something that might elicit happier memories. She picked up a short stack of vinyl record albums. The cover of the first featured a close-up of a cute red-haired girl with a wistful stare.

Gia heard Joe Portman let out a short laugh, not much more than a "Heh."

"Tiffany. Tara's favorite. She played those records endlessly, from the moment she got home."

Gia flipped the top one over. She remembered Tiffany, how she toured shopping malls at the start of her career. What were her hits? She did new versions of old songs. Hadn't she redone an early Beatles tune? Gia scanned through the song list…

She gasped.

"What's wrong?" Portman said.

"Oh, nothing." Gia swallowed, trying to moisten her dry tongue. "It's just that I'd forgotten that Tiffany remade 'I Think We're Alone Now.'"

"Oh, that song!" Portman groaned. "Tara would sing it day and night. She had a great voice, never missed a note, but how many times can you listen to the same song? Drove us crazy! But you know what?" His voice thickened. "I'd give anything in the world—my life—to hear her sing it again. Just once."

If Gia had harbored any subconscious doubts that the entity in Menelaus Manor was Tara Portman, they'd vanished now.

She dug deeper into the trunk and came up with a plush doll she immediately recognized.

"Roger Rabbit!"

Portman reached past her and took the doll, He turned it over in his hands, staring at it with brimming eyes.

"Roger," he whispered. "I almost forgot about you." He gave Gia a quick glance. "I haven't been in here in a while." He sighed. "The movie came out the summer she disappeared. She made me take her three times, and I swear every time she laughed harder than before. Probably would have had to take her a fourth time if…"

He handed back the doll.

Gia stared at its wide blue eyes and felt tears begin to slip down her cheeks. She quickly wiped her eyes, but not quickly enough.

"I'll be damned," Portman said.

"What?"

"A reporter with feelings. I can't tell you how many reporters I've talked to since 1988, and you're the first who's ever shown any real emotion."

"Maybe they were more experienced. And maybe this hits a little too close to home for me."

"You've got a daughter?"

Gia nodded. "She's eight… and she just discovered Roger Rabbit on video. She loves him."

The tears again. Gia willed them back but they kept flowing. What happened to Tara Portman—plucked out of a happy life and killed or worse. It was too cruel, just… too cruel.

"Don't you let her out of your sight," Portman was saying. "Stay on top of her every minute, because you never know… you never know."

Terror spiked her. Vicky was far away, at camp. Why on earth had she let her go?

But she couldn't raise Vicky in a bubble. Part of her wanted to, but it wouldn't be fair.

Gia replaced Roger in the trunk and rose to her feet. She felt lightheaded. "I… I think I've got enough now."

"You'll send me a copy?" Portman said.

"Sure. If I sell it."

"You'll sell it. You've got heart. I can tell. I want it published. I want Tara's name out there again. I know she's gone. I know she'll never come back. But I don't want her forgotten. She's just a statistic now. I want her to be a name again."

"I'll do my best," Gia said.

She felt terrible about lying to him. There'd never be an article. Scalding guilt propelled her toward the door to escape this hot smelly box where the walls seemed to be closing in.

Portman followed her. "Do you know what Tara might have been, where she could have gone? She could sing, she could play piano, she could ride, she was smart as a whip and she loved life, every moment of it. She had two parents who loved her and a great life ahead of her. But it was all snuffed out." He snapped his fingers. "Just like that. And not by some freak accident, but on purpose. On purpose! And what about Jimmy? Who knows what he could have been? Better than the junkie he is now. And what about me and Dot? We could have grown old together, had grandkids. But that's never going to happen." His voice broke. "You let people know that whoever took my Tara didn't kill just a little girl. He killed a whole family!"

Gia only nodded as she stepped into the hall, unable to push a word past the invisible band that had a death grip on her throat.

5

"So, Freddy," Eli said. "I understand you think I'm crazy."

Strauss had stopped by with news about his investigations—he tended to prefer to report in person than on the phone—but Eli was more interested in straightening out this popinjay vice cop who thought he had all the answers.

Strauss stiffened. "I never—" The wiry cop turned toward Adrian and shot him an angry look. "I see someone's been shooting his mouth off."

"Just as you wanted him to do, am I correct?"

"Listen, you gotta understand—"

"What I understand, Detective Strauss, is that you are a faithless man. I offer you virtual immortality and how am I rewarded? By you whispering behind my back. I'm of half a mind to disband the Circle and continue on by myself, as I used to."

"You can't be serious!" Strauss said. "Just because of a little remark I happened to—"

"More than a little remark! It challenges the integrity of the Circle!"

Eli could tell by Strauss's expression that he didn't want to be held responsible for breaking up the Circle. One could only imagine what the other members would do to him. But a defiant look came over his face. He straightened his narrow shoulders and glared at Eli.

"I ran checks on you, Eli," Strauss said. "Hell, I ran half a dozen on you, from every angle, and nowhere does it say you weren't born in Brooklyn in 1942."

Eli smiled. "I've had centuries of practice hiding my origins. I'm very good at what I do."

"And so am I. And ay, don't think some of the others ain't thinking the same thing as me. You tell us you've lived this charmed life for over two hundred years, how you're as good as immortal as long as you keep performing the Ceremony, and then some guy strolls up to you and stabs you with your own knife."

"I told you—"

"I know what you told me, but what am I supposed to think? What's anyone supposed to think?"

What indeed? Eli thought.

He had to put a stop to this. Immediately.

He turned to Adrian. "Go to the kitchen and get me one of the carving knives."

Adrian gave him a strange look but did as he was bid and returned with an eight-inch Wüsthof-Trident Culinar carver. It looked small in Adrian's huge hand. Eli took it from him, gripping it by the dull edge of the carbon steel blade, and proffered it to Strauss, stainless-steel handle first.

"Take it."

Strauss looked uncertain. "Why?"

"Just take it and I'll tell you."

The cop hesitated, then reached out and took the knife. "Okay. Now what?"

Eli unbuttoned his shirt and bared his chest. "Now, you stab me."

"Eli!" Adrian cried. "Have you gone crazy?" He turned to Strauss. "Don't listen to him! It's the painkillers! He's not—"

"Et tu, Adrian?" Eli said, feeling a pang of regret. Didn't anyone have faith anymore? "You don't believe me either?"

"Of course I do!" He looked flustered now. "It's just—"

"Do it, Freddy. Do it now. I demand it. And after you see that I'm perfectly all right, you can tell the rest of your faithless crew that you're the crazy one, not me!"

Strauss hefted the knife, his gaze flicking back and forth between the blade and Eli's chest. Eli had no fear. He knew he was invulnerable to injury from Strauss or Adrian or anyone else except the mystery man. And this would prove it.

Strauss stepped closer, his lips set in a tight line. Eli closed his eyes…

"Don't!" Adrian cried. "Eli, listen to me! What if the man who attacked you interfered with your invulnerability? What if the wounds he inflicted somehow put your powers on hold until they're renewed by another Ceremony?"

"Don't be ridiculous!"

"It's a possibility, isn't it? Nothing like this has ever happened to you before, right? Do you really want to risk it?"

Eli went cold as Adrian's words seeped in. No… it couldn't be. It was unprecedented. And yet, so was what happened Monday night. If what Adrian said were true…

I have to perform another Ceremony right away! Before the window of this new moon closes!

He glanced at Strauss and noticed a new uncertainty about him.

Do I dare?

Yes. He had to.

"Perhaps you're right, Adrian. But the only way to find out is to see what happens after Freddy stabs me." He looked Strauss in the eye. "Go ahead, Freddy. This will be an experiment."

"Uh-uh," Strauss said, shaking his head and backing away. "Too risky. I'm not experimenting myself into a murder rap."

"Thank God!" Adrian said, and slumped against a wall.

Eli felt exactly the same but couldn't show it. He simply sighed and said, "Perhaps you're right, Adrian. Perhaps we should try to perform the Ceremony as soon as possible."

"But there's no time!" Adrian said. "The Ceremony window is three nights before and after the new moon. That means we have to secure a new lamb—"

"By Friday night," Eli said. "In a way that can't ever be linked back to us." It seemed impossible. But he had to remain calm, and above all, appear calm. "We'll ask around the Circle for any good prospects. In the meantime…" He turned to Strauss. "Any progress on finding our attacker?"

Strauss shook his head. "Nope. But I did track down that broad who made those comments last night."

"Excellent. So glad to see you contributing something positive for a change. How did you find her?"

"Pretty easy, actually. Gregson got me a copy of the unedited videotape. Seems they had the lady on camera when she said it but she blew off signing the release. Nice looking babe, by the way. We got lucky 'cause the cameraman followed her right to the cab she left in. I got the cab's number, made a few calls, and found out it dropped her off at home."

"Marvelous," Eli said. He'd put this woman on the back burner, but now he was remembering what she'd said and his anger flared anew. "Who is she?"

Strauss pulled out a note pad. "Name's Gia DiLauro. Works as some sort of artist. But things don't add up with her. I ran a check on her state income tax and she doesn't make the kind of money that would put her anywhere near the ultra-tony neighborhood she lives in."

"An artist, hmmm?" Eli said. "Well, we'll find out where she sells her paintings or who she works for and see that her showings and sources of income dry up. That'll be for starters. Then—"

"She's got a kid," Strauss said.

Eli caught his breath. A child. Oh, this was too good to be true.

"Go on."

"It's another of the weird things about her. She's got a daughter she claims as a dependent but the kid's got a different last name: Westphalen. Victoria Westphalen."

"And her age?"

Please say under ten, Eli prayed. Please.

"Eight."

Silence in the room as the three men exchanged glances.

"Eight," Adrian breathed. "That's… perfect."

More than perfect, Eli thought. If they could get hold of the child in time, she could become the lamb for the next Ceremony. And her sacrifice would offer the lagniappe of crushing her bitter-tongued mother.

How wonderful. The mere possibility made his blood tingle.

"Find out everything you can about this child, Freddy. Everything. Immediately. We don't have much time."

6

Jack reached the office of Kristadoulou Realtors a little ahead of schedule. Since it was on Steinway Street he'd decided to get a two-fer out of the trip by stopping by his Queens mail drop on the way. He rented boxes in Hoboken and Manhattan as well, but every two weeks they forwarded all his mail to the Astoria drop. With a pair of manila envelopes under his arm, he figured he'd kill the ten minutes to appointment time by checking out the hood.

Kristadoulou Realtors sat in an old stone building in the heart of one of Steinway's most commercial blocks; its windows were filled with photos of properties they had listed. The rest of the street was lined with triple deckers—stores at ground level, two floors of apartments above.

He walked south on the west side, passing little old Greek ladies with shopping bags, lots of guys with black mustaches yammering into cell phones, couples laughing and talking, hardly anyone speaking English.

The businesses were like a poster for ethnic diversity: a storefront touting "Immigration Medical Exams" next to the Kabab Cafe next to the Nile Deli, then an oriental rug merchant, and something called Islamic Fashion, Inc. A little farther on was the Egyptian Cafe, the Arab Community Center, and the Fatima Pediatric Center; farther still was a Colombian bakery and a Chinese Qi Gong center specializing in back and foot rubs.

He crossed the street and turned back north, passing Sissy McGinty's Irish pub, the Rock and Roll Bagel restaurant, an Argentinean steak house, an Egyptian coffee shop right next door to an Italian espresso place. He stopped before the window of an Islamic religious shop offering prayer rugs, incense, and a special clock: "5-Full Azan Talking Alarm Clock—Jumbo Display With 105-Year Calendar." Jack had no idea what any of that meant.

He spotted Lyle getting out of a cab. He looked every inch the African today—blue-and-white batik kaftan, white cotton pants, sandals, and a brightly colored knitted tarn. He blended in with the rest of the exotically dressed locals. Jack was the stick-out in his Levis and golf shirt.

"You made it," Lyle said when he spotted Jack. "I wasn't sure if you got my message."

"I got it." He gestured at the surrounding stores. "Do all these folks get along?"

"Pretty much."

"Ought to bring the UN here for a look-see. Find out how they do it."

Lyle only nodded. He didn't look so hot. Even with his eyes hidden behind dark glasses, his face looked strained.

"You okay?"

"Me? Okay? Not even close."

"Uh-oh. What happened?"

Lyle glanced at his watch. "Tell you later. Right now we're due to see Mr. K. But before we go in, I want you to know how I'm going to play this, okay?"

"Sure. This is your show. Shoot."

"I'm going to let him think that I think the house is haunted."

"Well, it is, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but I don't want him knowing how haunted. And no mention of Tara Portman or whatever it's calling itself."

"Tara Portman was a real person," Jack said. "Gia and I looked her up on the Internet last night."

" 'Was'?"

"She was nine when she was abducted in the summer of '88. Never seen again. Her picture matches the girl Gia saw."

"Oh man!" Lyle clapped his hands and grinned. "Oh man, oh man, oh man!"

Jack had expected astonishment, or at least a touch of awe or wonder. Not this outright glee.

"Why is this good news?"

"Never mind," Lyle said. "Let's go see the Big K."

Jack wondered what was going on in Lyle's head. He seemed to have developed a personal agenda. That was okay with Jack—he had an agenda of his own. He just hoped they didn't cross each other.

Inside, Konstantin Kristadoulou was expecting them and a secretary led them to a rear office where they met the head man. Jack fully appreciated the 'Big K' remark as Lyle introduced him. They seated themselves in the two rickety chairs on the far side of his desk.

Kristadoulou Realtors looked to be a no-frills operation. Maybe because its owner ate all the frills. At least he looked like he did. Konstantin Kristadoulou dwarfed even Abe in the waistline category. Jack figured he was pushing seventy, but the puffy face and quadruple chins stretched out all the wrinkles, so it was hard to tell. His longish, thinning gray hair was combed straight back to where it flipped up at the collar.

"So," he said, glancing at Jack with his dark, heavy-lidded eyes, then fixing them on Lyle. His voice was lightly accented. "You wish to know about the house you bought, Mr. Kenton. Why is that? No trouble, I hope?"

"We took some damage from the earthquake," Lyle said.

"Serious?"

"Just some minor cracks."

Minor? Jack thought. A cellar floor cracked in half isn't minor.

But he caught a quick glance from Lyle that he read as, Let me handle this.

"The reason I'm here," Lyle went on, "is that we've been hearing strange noises in the house lately. Voices… but no one's there."

Kristadoulou nodded. "Lots of people think Menelaus Manor is haunted—not because they've ever witnessed anything, mind you, but because of its history. I hope you remember that I told you all this before you bought it."

Lyle raised his hands. "Absolutely. I'm not here to complain, I'm here to try and understand. I need more in-depth information on the house's history. I mean, if Menelaus Manor 'went wrong' somewhere along the way, I'd like to figure out where. Who knows? Maybe I can fix it."

"'Went wrong,' " Kristadoulou said. "An interesting way of putting it." He leaned back—the only direction his gut would allow—and stared at the ceiling. "Let's see… if anything 'went wrong' with the Menelaus house, I'd say it happened during Dmitri's ownership."

"Who's Dmitri?" Jack said.

"Kastor Menelaus's only son. Kastor built the place back in the fifties. That was when Astoria was known as Little Athens, a bit of Hellenic heaven in the heart of New York because of all the Greeks who moved here after the war. I arrived after the house was built but I know something of the family. Dmitri, he was younger than me, so we never socialized, but even if we were the same age, we wouldn't have mixed. A strange one, that Dmitri."

"How strange?" Jack asked. "Strange cults? Strange beliefs?"

Kristadoulou gave him an odd look. "No. I mean he was always keeping to himself. No girlfriends, no boyfriends. If you happened to see him at a restaurant, he was always alone."

Jack had been hoping for some indication of involvement with the Otherness. Or maybe with Sal Roma, or whatever his real name was. He'd also been on the lookout for one of Roma's cutesy anagrams—the last Jack had recognized was "Ms. Aralo"—but Dmitri wasn't one. Not even close.

Lyle said, "Why do you say the house might have gone wrong during Dmitri's ownership?"

"Because of his renovations. Old Kastor died in 1965. Cancer of the pancreas. After Dmitri inherited the place—his mother had died in '61—he came to me for advice. I was working as an agent for another firm then and he wanted me to recommend carpenters and masons to redo his basement. He hired a couple off the list I gave him. I felt somewhat responsible so I stopped in every so often to check on them—make sure they were doing a good job." He shook his head. "Very strange."

Gimme, gimme, gimme, Jack thought. "How so?"

"He was lining the basement with these big granite blocks he'd imported from Romania. He told me they came from what he called 'a place of power,' whatever that means. He said they'd originally been part of an old dilapidated fortress, but if you ask me, I think they were from a church."

"Why's that?" Lyle said.

"Because some of them were inlaid with crosses."

Jack glanced at Lyle and saw him sitting ramrod straight in his chair.

"Crosses? What kind?"

"Funny you should ask. They weren't regular crosses. They were almost like a capital T with the crosspiece brass and the upright nickel."

"Tau," Lyle whispered.

"Exactly!" Kristadoulou said, pointing a knockwurst digit at him. "Like the letter tau. How did you know?"

Lyle's eyes shifted toward Jack. "We've spotted a few around the house. But let me ask you about those blocks with the tau crosses. Do you think they might have come from a Greek Orthodox church?"

Kristadoulou shook his head. "I've traveled a lot, been in many, many Orthodox churches, and I've never seen any crosses like that." Another head shake. "Bad business stealing church stones. It's like asking for trouble. And that's just what Dmitri got."

"You mean his suicide," Jack said, remembering this from when Gia had read to him from Lyle's brochure.

"Yes. He'd just been diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas. He'd seen how his father suffered. I guess he couldn't face that ordeal, so…"

"When was that?" Jack asked.

"Nineteen ninety-five, I believe."

Owned the place for thirty years, Jack thought. The span covered the year Tara Portman disappeared. Dmitri had to be involved.

"Dmitri didn't bother to leave a will," Kristadoulou went on, "and that caused problems. With no children or wife, the estate wound up in probate. After years of legal wrangling Menelaus Manor went to one of Dmitri's cousins who wanted nothing to do with it. He called me and told me to sell it as soon as possible."

"And Dr. Singh bought it, right?" Lyle said.

"Only after lots of other potential buyers passed it by. The cellar was the sticking point. All those strange granite blocks I mentioned. And speaking of those blocks, when I inspected the house before putting it on the market, I went down to the cellar and noticed that all the crosses had been removed."

"Any idea why?"

"No more idea than why he left a dirt floor."

"Wait," Jack said. "Dirt floor?"

"Yes. Can you imagine? Dmitri went to the expense of importing all those blocks, and then didn't finish the floor."

Maybe because it makes it lots easier to bury things you want no one to see, Jack thought.

"The nephew was unwilling to sink in any money for renovations so we kept lowering the price. Finally a vascular surgeon named Singh bought it for a song."

"A rather short song, as I recall," Lyle said.

Kristadoulou nodded. "He and his wife modernized the interior and refinished the basement with paneling over the granite blocks and a concrete floor. One day he doesn't show up for surgery or his office. Police investigate and find him and his wife in bed with their throats cut."

Jack remembered that too. "Who did it?"

"No one was ever caught. The police didn't even have a suspect. Whoever did it left not a clue."

"No wonder people think it's haunted," Jack said.

Kristadoulou smiled. "It gets worse. The executor of the Singh estate directed me to sell it. I thought, a suicide and a double murder—I'm never going to sell this place now. But lo and behold, this young couple walks in and wants to buy Menelaus Manor."

"In spite of its history?" Jack said. "Or because of it?"

"You must understand," Kristadoulou said, patting his belly. "I didn't delve into the Loms' motivations, because I didn't exactly dwell on the house's history. It was not what you'd call a selling point. I remember Herb, he was the husband, saying that he wasn't the superstitious sort, but it was his wife Sara, a pretty thing, who seemed to be pushing the deal. They were planning on adopting a child and wanted a house for the family to live in. So, I sold it to them." He leaned back again and gazed toward the ceiling. "I wish I hadn't."

This was the point where Gia had refused to read him any more of the house's history, calling it "sick."

"Don't tell me," he said. "Someone slit their throats too?"

"Worse," Kristadoulou said with a grimace of distaste. "They'd been moved in only a short while when the little boy they'd just adopted was found horribly mutilated in the upstairs bedroom."

Jack closed his eyes. Now he understood Gia's reaction.

"Any reason given?"

Kristadoulou shook his head. "None. Herbert was found in a daze in the house and later died in the hospital."

"'Later died'?" Jack said. "What's that mean?"

"That's what I was told," Kristadoulou replied. "I checked with the hospital—he was taken to Downstate Medical Center—but no one would tell me how he died. They said I wasn't a relative and had no right to know, but I sensed more than ethics involved there. They were afraid."

"Afraid of what?" Jack said.

Kristadoulou shrugged. "Of a lawsuit, perhaps. But I sensed it went deeper than that. I got the feeling it had to do with how he died." He raised his hand in a stop gesture. "Don't waste any more breath on Herb Lom. I've told you all I know."

Lyle said, "What about his wife?"

"Sara was never seen or heard from again. As if she vanished from the face of the earth. Or never existed. No one could find a single relative of hers, and Herb left no will, so the house stood vacant for years before it came back to me like an old debt and I had to sell her again. But this time no one wanted her at any price." He smiled and pointed to Lyle. "Until you came along."

Lyle grinned. "I wanted the place because of its history."

"But now you're not so happy, is that right?"

"It's not a matter of happy. I'm just trying to get a handle on what might be going on there."

They made small talk for a few more minutes, then thanked Kristadoulou for his time and left.

"Dmitri is a player in this," Jack said as soon as they hit the bright hot sidewalk. "Got to be."

"But he's dead."

"Yeah," Jack said, squinting in the sunlight. He pulled out his shades. "Too bad. Well, what's your next step?"

"I think I'm going to derenovate that basement."

"You mean tear down the paneling to see what's behind?"

Lyle nodded. "And tear up that concrete slab to see what's under it."

"Who's under it, you mean."

"Right. Who."

"You'll let me know what you find?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Aren't you the guy who said he's the one who kicked this whole thing off?"

"Well…"

"Well then maybe you could lend a hand and find out firsthand. You up for that?"

Besides making life miserable for Eli Bellitto and his buddy Adrian Minkin, Jack had no pressing demands on his time for the next few days, but he was curious about something.

"Let's just say we find a child's skeleton under the slab. What then?"

"I call the cops, they bring in their forensics team, and maybe they catch the guy who did it. And then maybe the spook goes back to where it came from."

"And maybe along the way the world hears about Ifasen and his dealings with the ghost of Tara Portman?"

Lyle nodded. "That's a distinct possibility."

Jack had the picture now. "I guess I can give you a day or two of hard labor, but on one condition: If and when you go public, my name is never mentioned."

"You mean Ifasen will have to face the spotlight alone?" Lyle's lips twisted into a wry smile. "It won't be easy, but he'll handle it." The smile faded. "Be a cakewalk compared to some other things."

"Like what?" Jack said, remembering how troubled Lyle had looked before they'd met with Kristadoulou. "What happened at the house?"

"Tell you later." He glanced around at the passersby. "Probably not a good idea for Ifasen to discuss it in public."

"Okay. I guess I can wait. I'll head home and change and see you in the cellar. Give me an hour."

"Great." Lyle straightened as if trying to shrug off a burden. "I'll pick up some picks and ripping bars."

"I'll pick up some beer."

Lyle smiled. "Welcome to the demolition business."

7

"All right, Charles," Reverend Sparks said as he dropped into the chair behind his battered desk.

The springs in the old chair gave out an agonized squeal under his weight. The desk seemed too small for him. In fact the cluttered little office, with its sagging shelves loaded with books and magazines and scribbled drafts of sermons, its walls studded with yellow sticky notes, seemed too small for him as well.

He pointed to the rickety chair on Charlie's side of the desk. "Sit. And tell me what you needed to see me about."

Charlie sat and folded his sweat-slick hands in front of him. "Need advice, Rev."

Did he ever. He and Lyle had had four sittings scheduled for the morning. Lyle started acting throwed off after the first one, then getting further and further off the hinges with the next two, finally eighty-sixin' the fourth and all the others they'd booked for the rest of the afternoon and night. He wouldn't say why, but looked spooked.

Spooked… yeah, you got that right. House spooked. Charlie was spooked too.

He'd tried to pry Lyle about what was going down but Lyle clammed, lips tight, eyes somewhere else. No talking to him. Not mad. Scared. Lyle never got scared. Seeing big bro like that had shook Charlie, right down to his toenails.

He'd tried reading scriptures but that hadn't cut it. He needed to talk. So he come to the rev.

"Is it about your brother?"

"Not exactly."

"Then what?"

"I ain't 'xactly sure how to put it…"

The rev let out a sigh. Charlie sensed his impatience.

"A'ight," he said. "It's like this. We allowed to believe in ghosts?"

"Allowed?"

"I mean, are there any teachings 'bout them?"

The rev leaned back and stared at him through his thick rimless glasses. "Why do you ask?"

"Here come the hard part." Charlie took a breath. "Our house is haunted."

The rev continued his stare. "What makes you think that?"

Charlie gave him a quick walkthrough of the spookfest going down at the place.

"So what I'm axing," he said as he tied it up, "is what I do about it?"

"You leave," the rev said, leaning forward and resting his forearms on the desk. "Immediately. Your brother was reason enough to leave before, now you must flee. Do not walk, run from that house."

Charlie didn't feature no cut-and-run action, but he was glad the rev wasn't looking at him like he was off the hinges.

"So… you believe me."

"Of course I believe you. And after what you've told me about your brother, it's obviously his fault. He has called up this demon."

"Not a demon, Rev. A ghost. She say her name Tara Portman and…"

The rev was slowly shaking his massive head. "There are no such things as ghosts, Charles. Only demons pretending to be ghosts."

"But—"

"The dead do not come back to visit the living. Think about it: The faithful are with Jesus and when you are in the presence of the Lord you want for nothing. You do not miss the living you left behind, no matter how much you loved them in life, because you are basking in the love of God, you are in the blinding Holy Presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember Corinthians: 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.' To abandon that Presence would be… why, it would be completely unthinkable."

Charlie nodded. He could get down with that. "A'ight, then. What about someone who ain't among the faithful?"

"They burn in hellfire, Charles. Oh, the damned would dearly love to return, every single one of them. They'd give anything to come back, even for a second, a fraction of a second, but no matter how much they want to, they cannot. They aren't allowed. They're in hell for all eternity, and they must spend every second of forever in torment. 'The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night.'"

"Then what—?"

"A demon, Charles." The rev nodded gravely. "You see the simple logic of it, don't you. An angel wouldn't bear false witness to the living by pretending to be a dead person who's returned. Only a demon would engage in such a fiendish endeavor."

"But why?"

"To seduce the faithful away from the Lord and lead them onto the path toward eternal damnation. Your brother attracted the demon, but it is you it is after, Charles." He stabbed his finger across the table. "You! It lusts after your fragile soul so that it can serve it to its evil master on a silver platter!"

The target of supernatural evil… not me, Charlie thought, terror rising like a flood tide. Please, Lord, not me.

Charlie jumped as the rev slammed his palm onto his desktop. "Now will you leave your evil brother?"

"He's—" Charlie cut himself off.

The rev's eyes narrowed. "He's what? Are you going to tell me again he's not evil—after he's called up a demon?"

He'd been about to say just that. And Lyle didn't call up no demon. Least not on purpose. He wasn't evil, just off track. He hadn't seen the light yet. But Charlie knew the rev wouldn't accept that.

"He's in danger too, Rev. His soul, I mean. Shouldn't we try to save his soul too?"

"From what you've told me I fear you brother's soul is lost forever."

"I thought you always said no soul was lost forever long he still had a chance of accepting Jesus Christ as his personal savior."

The rev's gaze flickered. "Well, that's true, but do you really believe your brother will do that? Ever?"

Lyle? Not very likely, but…

"Miracles happen, Rev."

He nodded. "Yes, they do. But miracles are the Lord's province. Leave the miracle of your brother's salvation to Him and see to your own by leaving that house."

"Yes, Rev."

"Today. Do I have your word on that?"

"Yes, Rev."

But not without Lyle. Charlie wasn't going to leave his brother in the clutches of no krunk demon.

The rev hoisted himself out of his chair. "Then you better get to it."

Charlie rose too. "I will." He hesitated. "Um, is Sharleen round about?"

The rev fixed him with a stern gaze. "I've seen the way you've been looking at my daughter. And I've seen the way she's been looking back at you. But I want you to steer clear of her until you've removed yourself from this evil. Right now you're at a dangerous crossroads. I want to see which path you choose before you involve yourself with Sharleen. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes." Stung, Charlie backed away. "Very."

Reverend Sparks thought he was a danger to his daughter. He'd have to prove himself worthy. Okay. He'd do that. Today.

8

"I still don't believe you did it," Jack said.

Gia sipped her green tea and tried to read his expression: Shock? Dismay? Anger? Fear? Maybe a mixture of all.

"I'm fine, Jack. Besides, it wasn't as if I had much choice."

"Of course you had a choice." He'd settled down from his original outburst and now wandered her kitchen, circling the breakfast table with his hands jammed into his jeans pockets. A barely touched beer sat on the table, condensation pooling around its base. "You could have said to yourself, 'Going alone to visit the possibly psycho father of a murdered girl and not telling anyone where I'll be is a dumb idea. Maybe I'll just skip it.'"

"I had to know, Jack. It was going to drive me crazy if I didn't find out about her."

"You could have told me what you were doing."

"You would have thrown a hissy fit, just like you're doing now."

"I don't throw hissy fits. I would have tried to talk you out of it, and if you still insisted I could have gone along as backup."

"Who are you kidding? You've become so superprotective since I told you I was pregnant, you'd have probably locked me in a closet and gone yourself."

"Maybe I'm suddenly superprotective because you're suddenly Repairwoman Jane."

This was getting nowhere. Another sip of her tea—too sweet. She'd overdone the honey.

"Do you want to know what I found out?" she said.

"Yes, I do." He grabbed his beer and quaffed a few inches. "I just wish you hadn't found out the way you did." He sat on the end of the table. "Tell me. Please."

Gia told him about Joe Portman, about Tara's mother and brother and what had befallen them since her abduction. She told him about the day of her disappearance, how she'd been wearing the exact same clothes, how she'd left the stable area to go down the block for a pretzel and was never seen again.

"She did that every Thursday?" Jack said.

Gia nodded. "Why? Is that important?"

"Could be. Means she had an established pattern of behavior. That says to me there's a good chance it wasn't a random snatch. Somebody had been watching her. She'd been marked."

Gia felt a chill. An innocent child, walking the same route every Thursday afternoon, just going for a snack, never realizing she was being stalked. How many pretzel runs had her abductor watched before deciding to pounce?

She rubbed her arms to smooth the gooseflesh. "That's so creepy."

"Because you're dealing with creeps. Just like…" His voice drifted off as he frowned.

"What?"

"Just like Bellitto and his buddy. The kid they snatched the other night—"

"Due."

"Right. He had a pattern too, at least according to his mother. Down the block for ice cream every night around the same time. The kid was already in the store when Bellitto and Minkin arrived and parked outside. They knew he was coming out. They were waiting for him."

"Just like someone was waiting for Tara between the stables and the pretzel cart. A pattern of behavior?"

Jack stared at her. "You mean a pattern of behavior in the abductors of looking for victims with a pattern of behavior?"

"You don't think this Bellitto could be responsible for Tara too, do you?"

"Be a hell of a coincidence if he was."

"But—"

"Yeah. I know." Jack's expression was grim. "No more coincidences."

"I still don't see how such a thing could be."

"Neither do I. Let's face it, just because some crazy old lady said it doesn't mean it's true." He could still hear the old woman's Russian-accented voice as he leaned over Kate's grave. Is not coincidence. No more coincidences for you. He shook his head, willing the memory away. "What else did you learn?"

Gia snapped her fingers. "Oh, I learned that the sixties tune was really an eighties tune. Tiffany—"

"Right! Tiffany covered 'I Think We're Alone Now'! How could I have missed that? Especially after she was in Playboy."

"She was? When?"

"Don't remember. Heard it on the radio or something."

"Well, according to her father Tara sang the song all the time. But you know what really creeped me out? She was a Roger Rabbit fan."

Jack didn't exactly go white, but his tan abruptly became three shades paler.

"Jeez."

"What's wrong?"

He told her about the locked display cabinet in Eli Bellitto's shop, how it was filled with kids' knickknacks that he wouldn't part with at any price, and how one of them was a Roger Rabbit key ring.

Gia's skin crawled. "Do you have it with you?"

"No. It's back home. Let's not go jumping to too many conclusions here. Probably sold a million or two Roger Rabbit key rings back in the eighties."

"You could take it to the police and—"

He blinked. "The who?"

"Sorry." What was she thinking? This was Jack. Jack and police didn't mix.

He said, "I wish I had a way to connect Tara and the key ring… so I could know for sure. Right now I can only suspect Bellitto."

"Why not take it to the house. See if she reacts."

Jack stared at her. "What a great idea! Why didn't I think of that?"

"Because you're merely Repairman Jack. Only Repairwoman Jane could come up with that."

"Touche," he said with a smile and toasted her with his beer. "You think she'll respond?"

"Only one way to find out. When do we bring it over?"

"'We'?" He rose, shaking his head. "'We' are not going back to that house. Oh, no. One half of 'we' stays here while this half goes alone and returns with a vivid eyewitness account of whatever happens."

Gia had expected this. "Not fair. It was my idea."

"We've been over this already, Gi. We don't know this thing's agenda."

"That 'thing' is a little girl, Jack."

"A dead little girl."

"But she appeared to me. Not you, not Lyle, not Charlie. Me. That's got to mean something."

"Exactly. But we don't know what. And that's why you shouldn't get within miles of that place. It's got an unhealthy pedigree, even stranger and weirder than what's in Lyle's Menelaus Manor brochure."

Worse than the part about the mutilated child? Gia didn't think that was possible.

"What? That real estate agent told you something, didn't he."

"He told me lots of things, and I'll tell you later, but right now we have to agree that you're staying away from that place."

"But I'm the one she contacted."

"Right. She sent a message and you received it. Now we're going to dig up what might be her grave. If we find her, and she can be linked to Bellitto, you'll have done plenty. You've pointed the way."

"But what if there aren't any clues?"

"Well, then at least she gets a proper burial. And maybe that's what her father will need to kick start his life back into motion."

Gia wasn't concerned with Joe Portman right now. It was Tara who consumed her. Her need was like a noose around Gia's neck, drawing her toward Menelaus Manor. If she didn't yield to it she felt sure it would strangle her.

"She wrote 'Mother,' Jack. I don't think she meant her own mother—Dorothy Portman is brain dead. I think she meant me. It may be twenty-some years since Tara was born, but she's still a child. She's still nine years old and she's frightened. She needs a mother. That's a comfort I can provide."

"How do you comfort a ghost?" Jack said. He slipped his arms around her and pulled her close. She caught the lingering scent of his soap, felt the afternoon stipple of whiskers on his cheeks. "I guess if anyone could, you'd be the one. But tell me: If Vicky were here instead of away at camp, would you be so anxious to go back to that house?"

What was he saying? That this need she felt burning through her veins was simply displaced yearning for her own child? She had to admit it wasn't such a far-fetched notion, but she sensed that the longing within her went beyond that.

"Maybe, maybe not, but—"

"One more question: If Vicky were here, would you take her along?"

That caught her off guard. Her reaction was immediate: Of course not. But she didn't want to voice it.

"That's not the point. Vicky's not here, so—"

Jack tightened his hug. "Gia? Would you?"

She hesitated, then, "All right, no."

"Why not?"

"I'm not sure."

"I am. Because it's an unstable situation, and you wouldn't want to expose Vicky to an unpredictable outcome. Right?"

Gia nodded against his shoulder. "Right."

"Then why expose your second child to that same unstable situation?"

She sighed. Trapped by unassailable logic.

"Please, Gia" He backed away to arm's length. "Stay away. Give me a couple of days to help Lyle find her bones. Then maybe the circumstances won't be so unstable or unpredictable and we can reassess the whole situation."

"Oh, all right," she said. She didn't like it but she'd been backed into a corner. "I suppose a couple of days won't matter."

"Great." He let out a whooshing breath. "That's a relief."

"For you maybe. How about me?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if that house is potentially dangerous for me, what about for you?"

Jack smiled. "Did you forget? Danger is my business."

"I'm serious, Jack."

"Okay. I'll check in regularly."

"Leave your phone on in case I need to get in touch."

"Will do." He wriggled it out of his pocket and pressed a button. She heard a beep as it activated. He glanced at the clock. "Got to go. Pick a place for dinner—anyplace but Zen Palate—and I'll tell you all about Konstantin Kristadoulou's history of the Menelaus cellar and the findings of our archeological dig down there."

Gia sighed. All secondhand, but she supposed it would have to do.

"And the key ring," she said. That was what she wanted to know most of all. "You've got to tell me what happens when you cross the threshold with that."

"Yeah," Jack said softly. "That could be very interesting. But how do you top an earthquake?"

9

"What?" Lyle said. He couldn't believe what he'd just heard. "You're joking, right? You're pulling my chain, is that it?"

Charlie shook his head as he pulled clothes from his dresser and dumped them on his bed. He concentrated on what he was doing, not making eye contact.

"Nope. This is on the fo' real, bro. I'm geese."

First the craziness this morning with the first three sitters, seeing into their lives, their pasts, their futures—what little there was for each of them. Now this. He felt as if his world was coming apart.

"But you can't leave. We're a team. The Kenton brothers have always been a team. Who brung ya, Charlie?"

Finally Charlie looked at him. His eyes glistened with tears. "You think I want to? I don't. We still a team, Lyle, but not in this game, yo. And not in this house."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean we bust outta here together and start all over, givin' value for value, like Jack said."

Jack… for a moment Lyle wished he'd never heard of him.

"You mean dump the game?"

"Word. And yo, the way you playin' the game lately, y'know, cancelin' sitters up and down, ain't gonna be a game left, know'm sayin'?"

Lyle winced. Charlie had a point. Lyle had canceled the morning's fourth sitting along with the whole afternoon. He couldn't handle any more. He hadn't told Charlie why.

Should he tell him now? No. It would only reinforce his determination to leave.

"But we don't know anything else, Charlie. We'll starve!"

"No way. We two smart guys. We get by."

"Get by? Since when is getting by enough? I want to make it, Charlie. So do you."

"Not no more. 'What profit it a man if he gains the whole world but loses his immortal soul?' I wanna save my soul, Lyle. And yours too. That's why I want you to come with me."

"And if I don't?"

"Then I got to roll on my own."

"Roll on your own?" Lyle gave in to a blistering surge of anger. "Why don't you think on your own?"

"Say what?"

"This isn't you talking. This is that preacher down that brimstone-breathing, tongue-speaking, snake-handling wacko church you found, right?"

"We don't do no snake handlin'."

"You're such a sucker for these guys. It was the same back in Dearborn when that Reverend What-his-name—"

"Rawlins."

"Right. Reverend Rawlins. He's the guy who told you to boycott the Harry Potter movie."

"That's because it promotes witchcraft."

"How would you know? You never saw it. You never read a line of one of the books. And neither did Rawlins. He got the word from someone else who hadn't read or seen them either. But you all fell in line, marching lockstep against Harry Potter with not a scrap of firsthand knowledge."

Charlie lifted his chin. "Don't gotta do a drive-by to know it's wrong."

"Reading a book to make an informed decision is hardly the same as shooting someone. But you're doing the same thing here. It's this preacher at this new church, right? What's his name?"

"Reverend Sparks."

"It's him, right? He's the one who's put you up to this."

"Didn't put me up to nothin'! He told me this ain't no ghost, it's a demon and it's after our souls!"

A demon? Good thing Lyle hadn't mentioned the morning's strangeness. Charlie would probably think he was possessed and try to drag him off to an exorcism.

"Has he been here, Charlie? Has he seen and heard and experienced what we have? No. Has he sifted all the evidence that points to this being the ghost of a girl murdered back in the eighties? No. He hasn't moved his ass from his church down there in Brooklyn but somehow he's got a lock on what's happening in our house, knows it's not Tara Portman but Beelzebub instead. And you fall right in line and go along." Lyle shook his head, dismayed. "You're a bright guy, bro, but you put your brain on standby whenever one of these ministers opens his mouth."

"Don't have to listen to this." Charlie turned away and returned to emptying his dresser.

Lyle sighed. "No, you don't. But what about that pin on your shirt? WWJD. What Would Jesus Do, right? So why don't you ask yourself that? Would Jesus run out on his brother?"

"Jesus didn't have no brother."

Lyle almost said that some experts thought the apostle James was Jesus' brother, but he wasn't going to get into that now.

"You know what I mean. Would he?"

"Who you to talk 'bout Jesus?"

"Come on, Charlie. Answer me. You know he wouldn't. So how about you putting up with me for two more days?"

"Why?" Charlie didn't look up. "Why should I risk even one more minute?"

"Because I'm your brother. Because we're blood and we're the only family we have. How long've we been a team now?"

He shrugged. "Who knows."

"You know. Tell me."

"A'ight." He looked up, his face a mask of resentment. "Fifteen years."

"Right And how long've we been in this house?"

"'Bout a year. So what?"

"So, with all that behind us, why can't you give me two more days?"

"What for? Where's it go? We on a dead-end street, Lyle."

"Maybe not. Think for yourself a moment instead of letting the Reverend Sparks do it for you. Help me dig around that cellar."

"No. Uh-uh. That's the demon's crib."

"Says who? Some guy who's never been here?"

"Reverend Sparks knows about these things."

"But he's not infallible. Only god is infallible, right? So Sparky could be wrong. Go with that a moment. What if he's wrong and what we've experienced here isn't a demon but really the ghost of a murdered child? What if we find her remains and give them back to her folks for a proper burial. Won't that be doing god's work?"

Charlie snorted and looked away. "Yeah, right. You doing God's work."

"Take it a step further: What if those remains lead the cops to her killer and bring him to justice? Won't that be a good thing? Won't that be doing god's work too?"

Lyle wanted to ask Charlie why the hell god would let a child be murdered in the first place, but sensed his brother wavering and didn't want to blow it.

"Two days, Charlie. I bet if Jesus had a wayward brother he'd give him a couple of days if he asked for them."

Charlie shook his head as his lips twisted into a reluctant smile. "Dawg, I hear talk 'bout a silver-tongued devil, and now I see I'm related to him. A'ight. Two days and not a minute more. But this gotta be a two-way deal: Nothin' crackin' by Friday night, I'm geese and you with me. Deal?"

Lyle hesitated. Me too? He hadn't figured on that being part of the deal, but then, he couldn't go on as Ifasen without his brother. And if what had happened this morning was the start of a pattern, he wasn't sure if Ifasen had any future at all, at least in this house. So he could see no downside in agreeing to Charlie's terms.

But they were going to find Tara Portman, or what was left of her. He could feel it.

He stuck out his hand.

"Deal."

10

"Mr. Bellitto!" Gertrude cried in her booming voice as Eli stepped through the door. "You should be upstairs resting!"

She was so right. Barbed wire raked across his groin as he shuffled toward the Carrera marble sales counter. He should have stayed put, but he'd been feeling better after lunch and a nap, and so he'd given in to the urge to see his store, examine his stock, peruse the sales book. By the time he'd reached the sidewalk he realized his mistake but by then he was beyond the point of no return: Unable to face, even with Adrian's help, the prospect of turning and challenging the narrow Everest between him and his bed, he'd pushed on.

"Nonsense, Gert." He leaned heavily on his cane as he neared the counter. "I'm fine. But do you think you could bring that stool around front?"

"Of course!" Her tightly pinned-back hair gleamed like polished onyx in the light of the overhead fluorescents. She lifted the stool as if it weighed an ounce or two and bustled her hefty frame out from behind the counter and set it before him. "There."

She gripped one arm and Adrian the other as he eased himself back onto the seat—not sitting, merely leaning. He wiped the cold sweat from his face with his shirtsleeve. The new clerk—what was his name? Kevin? Yes, Kevin—came over, feather duster in hand, and gawked at him.

"I'm so sorry about what happened," he said, and sounded as if he meant it.

But did he really?

Eli hires Kevin and a few days later Eli is stabbed. A connection?

Somehow he doubted it, but it never hurt to examine all possibilities.

Eli suffered through a barrage of questions from his two hirelings about the attack; Adrian gave his spiel about loss of memory, leaving Eli with the task of supplying answers. He tossed off curt, oblique responses until he'd had enough.

"I realize this is our slow season," he said, "but surely you two must have something better to do."

Both immediately buzzed off—Kevin to continue dusting the stock, Gert to continue entering new inventory into the computer. Adrian wandered away, browsing the aisles.

"How are receipts, Gert?" Eli said.

"About what you'd expect." She picked up the black ledger and extended it toward him. "As you said, it's the slow season."

August was always sluggish, and sputtered to a dead stop by Labor Day weekend when the city became a ghost town.

Eli opened the old-fashioned ledger—he preferred seeing handwritten words and numbers on paper rather than a computer screen—and scanned through the day's scant sales. His eyes lit on one item.

"The sturgeon? We sold it?"

He'd had that stuffed monstrosity sitting in the window since he'd opened the shop. He'd started to believe it would be there when he closed the place.

"I not only sold it, I got the tag price for it." Gert beamed proudly. "Can you believe it? After all these years I do believe I'm going to miss that ugly old fish."

Eli flipped back to Tuesday, the day the green clerk had been here alone, literally and figuratively minding the store.

He was almost afraid to look. To his surprise he saw a fairly long list of sales. It seemed Kevin had risen to the occasion. Maybe the boy—

Eli froze as his gaze came to rest on a line that read: Key chain—$10—Jack.

No! It's not… it can't… it's…

Gripping the counter for support, Eli levered himself off the stool and began a frantic walk-shuffle toward the rear, toward the display cabinet—his display cabinet.

"Mr. Bellitto!" Gert cried behind him. "Be careful. Whatever it is you need, I'll get it for you!"

He ignored Gert, ignored the flashes of pain strobing through his pelvis, and kept moving, leaning on his cane as he rode the desperate edge of panic, trying to stay on this side of it by telling himself that the entry was a mistake, an antique watch fob that that dolt Kevin had mistaken for a key ring.

But urging him past that edge was the memory of the oddly dressed red-haired man who had come in Sunday night and offered him ridiculous sums for a silly trinket. He hadn't given much thought to the incident, writing the man off as someone killing time and playing the dickering game: If it's for sale, find out how low it will go for; if it's not, find out what it will take to make the owner part with it.

But now… now the incident loomed large and dark in his brain.

He rounded a corner. The cabinet was in sight. The lock… he allowed himself a thin smile… the lock, the dear, dear brass padlock was still in place and snapped closed, just like always.

And the key ring, that cartoon rabbit key ring was—

Gone!

Eli sagged against the cabinet, gripping the oak frame, sweat from his palm smearing the glass as he stared at the empty spot on the second shelf.

No! He had to be dreaming! This had to be a mistake!

He grabbed the padlock and yanked on it, but it held firm.

The air seemed full of shattered glass, every breath shredding his lungs.

How? How could this be? He had the only key. Objects don't move through solid glass. So how—?

"Mr. Bellitto!" Gert's voice behind him.

"Eli!" Adrian. "What's wrong?"

And then they had him surrounded, Gert, Adrian, and the silent Kevin. Yes… Kevin, the weasely, sniveling little shit.

Eli glared at him. "You sold something out of this cabinet, didn't you?"

"What?" Kevin paled and shook his head. "No, I—"

"You did! A key ring with a rabbit! Admit it!"

"Oh, that. Yes. But it couldn't have come from here. I don't have the key."

"It did!" Eli shouted. "You know damn well it came from here! Tell me how you got it out!"

"I didn't!" He looked ready to cry. "The man brought it up to the counter. When I saw that it didn't have a price tag—"

"There!" He raised his cane and shook it in Kevin's face. He wanted to beat his head to a spongy pulp. "Right there that should have told you something! How do you sell something without a price tag? Tell me!"

"I-I-I called you at the hospital about it."

"That's a lie!" He raised the cane higher. He'd do it. He'd kill him, right here and now.

"It's true!" Kevin had tears in his eyes now. "I tried to ask you about it but you said to figure it out for myself and hung up on me."

Eli lowered the cane. Now he remembered.

"That was why you called?"

"Yes!"

Eli cursed himself for not listening.

"What did this man look like? Reddish hair, long in the back?"

Kevin shook his head. "No. He had brown hair. Brown eyes, I think. Very average looking. But he called you by your first name and said you were friends. He even left his name."

Yes, Eli thought sourly. Jack. Useless. He knew no one named Jack.

Whoever it was must have picked the lock on the cabinet. But then… why pay for it? Why not just walk out with it in his pocket?

Unless he wanted to make sure I knew.

He's taunting me.

Just as his attacker had taunted him before stabbing him.

One man tries to buy the key ring Sunday night, another man attacks me and frees the lamb Monday night, a third man virtually steals the key ring the following morning.

Could they all be the same man?

Eli felt a sheet of ice begin to form along the back of his neck. Just as he stalked the lambs, was someone stalking him?

"Get me upstairs," he said to Adrian. "Immediately."

He had to get to his phone. He had a number he needed to call.

11

Jack approached the Menelaus house warily, the Roger Rabbit key chain tight in his fist. He stepped past the dead bushes onto the front porch and stopped, waiting for something to happen.

After half a minute or so of nothing happening except his feeling a little foolish, he rang the doorbell. When no one answered, he rang it again. Through the screen he heard the faint clank and clatter of banging wood and steel on stone. Sounded like Lyle and Charlie had started without him.

He pulled open the screen door and hesitated, remembering the first time he'd crossed this threshold—the unearthly scream, the earthly tremor. What would happen this time, now that he was holding something that might have belonged to whatever had invaded this house?

Better play it safe, he thought.

He tossed the key chain into the waiting room and stepped back.

No scream, no tremor. Nothing.

Jack stood and watched Roger lie spread-eagle on the floor, grinning and staring at the ceiling.

A little more waiting, accompanied by a lot more nothing.

Disappointment veered toward anger as Jack stepped through the door and snatched the key chain from the floor. He suppressed the urge to turn and drop kick it onto the front lawn. He'd been so damn sure.

Ah, well. It was a good try. And he had to admit he was somewhat relieved not to have to face proof that Bellitto was connected to Tara Portman. He'd come to fear coincidences.

He stuffed Roger into a pocket and followed the work noises into the kitchen and down the cellar stairs. Along the way he heard another sound. Music. Jazz. Miles. Something from Bitches Brew.

Jack reached the bottom of the steps and stopped to watch the brothers Kenton at work. They'd ditched their shirts and looked surprisingly muscular for a couple of guys in the spook trade. Their black skins glistened from the effort as they pried at the sheets of paneling and hacked at the studs behind them. A ten- or twelve-foot span had been stripped away, exposing dull gray rows of granite block. Neither had any idea he'd arrived.

"Started without me, I see," Jack said.

Lyle jumped and turned, raising his pry bar. He huffed out a breath and lowered it when he recognized Jack.

"Don't do that!" he said. "Not in this house."

"Yo, Jack," Charlie said, waving. "S'up?"

"Lots. Gia paid a visit to Tara Portman's father."

"By herself?" Lyle asked.

"Without telling me."

"That girl got game," Charlie said. "She learn anything?"

Jack gave them a brief rundown of what Joe Portman had told Gia.

"So," Lyle said slowly, "the riding clothes she was wearing when Gia saw her match the clothes she was wearing when she was snatched."

"Don't be fooled," Charlie said. "It's not Tara Portman."

Lyle rolled his eyes. "Not this again."

"You won't listen, maybe Jack will. You had your doubts too, right, Jack?"

"Yeah, but…" What was he stepping into here?

"I spoke to my minister and he says there are no ghosts, only demons pretending to be ghosts to lure the faithful away from God."

"No worry in my case," Lyle said. "I'm not among the faithful."

"That's because you don't believe in anything," Charlie said with some heat. "Only thing you believe in is your disbelief. Disbelief is your religion."

"Maybe it is. I can't help it. I was born with a skeptical mind." He turned to his brother. "Now I ask you, is that fair? If God gives me a skeptical nature and you an accepting one, then you're going to be a believer and I'm not. If belief is a ticket to eternal happiness, I'm definitely handicapped. God gives me a mind capable of asking questions and what?—I'm damned if I use it?"

Charlie's dark eyes were sad. "You just gotta give your heart to Jesus, bro. 'Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.'"

"But I can't. That's my point. I'm the type who needs to know. I didn't ask to be this way, but that's how it is. I am simply not capable of adjusting my whole existence to accommodate something that must be accepted on faith, on the word of people I've never met, people who've been dead for thousands of years. I can't live like that. It's not me." He shrugged. "Hell, I'm still not sure I believe in this ghost."

"Wait a sec," Jack said. "What's this about not believing in your ghost? Why are you doing this demolition work then?"

He shrugged. "I'm caught between. Certain aspects of this situation don't jibe."

"Like what?"

"Well, like that song, for instance. I heard what sounded like a little girl singing. But how can a ghost sing? Or talk, for that matter?"

"If it can smash mirrors and write in dust, why shouldn't it be able to sing and talk?"

"It's got no vocal cords, and no lungs to push air past them if it did. So how does it make noise?"

Jack thought he knew the answer. "Last I heard, noise is nothing more than vibrating air. If this thing can smash a mirror, I'd think it should be able to vibrate air."

Lyle nodded, grinning. He turned to Charlie. "See? That's what I need. An explanation I can sink my teeth into. Not simply saying 'It's God's will.' That won't cut it."

"It will, bro," Charlie said. "When that final trumpet blows, it will."

"So you believe."

"I know, Lyle."

"That's just it: You don't know. And neither do I. Neither of us will ever know until we die."

This was getting a little heavy. Jack walked over to the exposed granite blocks and ran a hand over the stone. Cold. And clammy. He pulled his hand away. For a moment there it felt as if the surface had shifted under his touch. He looked at his hand, then at the stone. Nothing had changed. He tried it again and felt that same strange, squirming sensation.

"Looking for something?" Lyle asked.

"Just checking out these blocks."

As he moved to another stone, he glanced back and noticed Lyle staring at him. More than staring—squinting at him, as if trying to bring him into focus.

"Something wrong?"

Lyle blinked. "No. Nothing."

Jack turned back to the stones. He found one with a cross-shaped pocket and noticed scratch marks in the granite around the depression.

"Didn't the Greek say some of the stones had inlaid crosses?"

"Right," Lyle said, moving closer. "Brass and nickel."

Jack ran a finger over the gouges. "Looks like Dmitri was none too gentle in digging them out."

"Yeah, I noticed those before. I wonder what he did with them?"

"Maybe he used them as grave markers."

"Maybe he wanted to make the place more hospitable to demons," Charlie said. "They can't bear the presence of a cross."

In an effort to head off another argument that wasn't going to settle anything, Jack grabbed a pry bar and held it up.

"What say we take down the rest of the paneling?"

"Why bother?" Charlie said. "Probably just more of the same."

Jack jabbed the straight end of the bar through a section of paneling and felt the tip strike the stone beyond. He reversed the bar, shoved the curved end into the opening, and ripped away a chunk of the laminated wood. Despite the nagging tug of discomfort in his flank, it felt good. Sometimes he liked to break things. Liked it a lot.

"Maybe not. We look hard enough, we might find that some of these blocks aren't mortared like the others. That they slide out and there's some sort of hidey hole behind them. Who knows what we'll find there? Maybe what's left of Tara Portman."

Charlie said, "It's not Tara Portman, I tell you, it's a—"

"Wait." Lyle held up a hand. "Something's happening."

Jack looked around. He hadn't heard anything.

"What?"

"Don't you feel it?"

Jack glanced at Charlie who looked just as confused.

"Feel what?"

Lyle turned in a slow circle. "Something's coming."

Then Jack felt it too. A chill, a sense of gathering, as if all the warmth in the room were being sucked into its center to drain away through an invisible black hole there, leaving a steadily growing knot of cold in its place.

Cold stabbed Jack high on his right thigh, so cold it burned. He clutched at the spot and felt a frozen lump in the pocket. The key ring! He clenched his teeth as he dropped to his knees—God, it hurt—and clawed at the pocket, reaching in, trying to grab the key ring but the skin of his fingers stuck to it like a wet tongue to a frozen wrought iron fence. He peeled his fingers away, losing some skin, and yanked at the fabric, pulling it out, inverting the pocket. Finally the Roger Rabbit figure appeared and tumbled toward the floor.

But it never landed. Instead it dipped and then rose and darted toward the center of the cellar. There it hovered in the air. Jack saw a rime of frost form along the figure's limbs, then the head, finally engulfing the trunk.

A high keening wail began to echo the air, growing in pitch and volume as Jack pushed himself back up to his feet. The frost thickened on the Roger Rabbit figure, and Jack thought he heard the plastic creak and crinkle as it became brittle from the intense cold.

Suddenly the wail became a screech of rage as Roger's head snapped off and hurtled across the cellar. It struck one of the granite blocks and shattered into powder that scattered and swirled like drifting snow. Then an arm snapped off and flashed in the opposite direction, just missing Charlie's head. Jack ducked as an arm narrowly missed him.

More pieces flew as the frenzied screech rose in pitch and volume. And then there were no more pieces and yet still the enraged howl rose until Jack had to cover his ears. The sound became a physical thing, battering him until…

It stopped.

As suddenly as the sound had begun, silence returned. The sense of presence dissipated as well until Jack felt that the cellar was again occupied by just the three of them.

He shook his head to relieve the ringing in his ears. It didn't work.

Lyle and Charlie looked shaken, but Jack felt oddly calm. Deadly calm.

"What the hell was that all about?" Lyle said.

"Yeah," Charlie said. "What'd you have in your pocket? Looked like that cartoon rabbit…"

"Roger Rabbit."

"Yeah."

Lyle snorted a laugh and shook his head. "Roger Rabbit. Just the sort of thing to drive the average demon into a frenzy."

Charlie took a step toward his brother. "Warning you, Lyle—"

Jack jumped in. "Tara Portman's father told Gia that Tara was a Roger Rabbit fan. I was wondering if that key ring might be hers."

"Judging from what just happened," Lyle said, bending and rubbing his finger through the powdery remains of one of Roger's legs, "I think she answered you with a very big yes."

"That she did," Jack said, nodding. "And she also identified her killer."

But his satisfaction at solving the mystery was marred by the unanswered question of how and why he'd come to be involved.

12

Gia sat in a pew three-quarters back from the altar under the vaulted ceiling and waited for peace.

She'd taken a slow walk from Sutton Square down to St Patrick's Cathedral. She wasn't sure why she'd come, hadn't consciously headed this way. She'd simply gone for a walk as a break from painting and found herself on Fifth Avenue. She ambled past St. Pat's and then doubled back to visit, hoping to find some of the serenity and inner peace religion was supposed to bring. So far it remained elusive.

The sense of isolation was welcome, though. Here in this huge, stone-wrapped space she felt cut off from the bustling reality just beyond the tall oak doors and insulated from the need that called to her from that house in Astoria.

She sat alone and watched the gaggles of tourists wandering in and out, the Catholics blessing themselves with holy water and lighting candles, the rest standing around and gawking at the gothic arches, the stations of the cross spaced along the side walls, the larger-than-life statues, the giant crucifix, the gilded altar.

The images drew Gia back to her years in Our Lady of Hope grammar school in Ottumwa. Not a particularly Catholic town, but then Iowa wasn't a particularly Catholic state. There'd been enough Catholic kids to fill the local church school though, and keep the nuns of the convent busy as teachers. Of all that black-robed crew, she best remembered Sister Mary Barbara—known to all the kids as Sister Mary Barbed-wire. Not because she'd liked the nun; quite the opposite: she'd scared the hell out of Gia.

Sister Mary Barbed-wire had been the Catholic equivalent of a Baptist hellfire preacher, always harping on the awful punishments awaiting sinners, all the horrors the God of Love would inflict upon those who disappointed Him. Everlasting suffering for missing mass on Sunday, or failing to make your Easter duty. Little Gia bought the whole package, living in terror of dying with a mortal sin on her soul.

Luckily Our Lady of Hope hadn't had a high school; that allowed Gia to escape to the secular den of iniquity known as the public school system. But she'd still remained a practicing Catholic, attending CCD classes and CYO dances.

Sometime during the eighties, however, she drifted away and never returned. Not that she stopped believing in God. She couldn't buy into atheism, or even agnosticism. God existed, she was sure. She was also pretty sure He didn't care much about what went on here. Maybe He watched, but He certainly didn't act.

To her child's eyes the Old Testament God had appeared stern and imposing; now He seemed like a cranky, petulant adolescent with poor impulse control, creating cataclysms, sending plagues, striking down an entire nation's first-born males. She found the New Testament God much more appealing, but somewhere along the way the whole redemption and damnation thing had stopped making sense to her. You didn't ask to be born but once you were you had to toe the belief line or spend eternity suffering in hell. Easy to believe back in the Old Testament days when He burned bushes, parted seas, and sent commandments on stone tablets. But these days God had become remote, no longer weighing in on human affairs, yet still demanding faith. It didn't seem fair.

Of course, if You're God, You don't have to be fair. You hold all the marbles. What You say goes.

Still…

Gia had tried to come back to the church after Vicky was born. A child should have some moral foundation to build on, and the church seemed a tried and true place to start. In the back of her mind too had been the idea that if Gia returned to the fold, God would protect Vicky.

But Gia couldn't make it work. And it was terrifyingly obvious that God did not protect children. They died from brain tumors and leukemias and other cancers, from being run over, shot, electrocuted, dropped from buildings, incinerated in house fires, and in other uncountable, unimaginable ways. Clearly innocence was not enough to earn God's protection.

So where was God?

Did the Born Agains have it right? Jesus was their personal savior who watched their every move and answered their prayers? They prayed to Jesus that their old jalopy would start on a cold morning and if it did they praised Him and gave Him thanks for the rest of the day. Gia couldn't get comfortable with a view of God that turned the Creator of the Universe into some sort of cosmic errand boy for His True Believers. Children were starving, Tara Portmans were being abducted and murdered, political prisoners were being tortured, wives were being abused, but God ignored their pleas for relief in order to answer the True Believers' prayers for good weather on the day of the church picnic. Did that make sense?

Yet when she considered the Born Agains she knew—only a few, but good people who seemed to practice what they preached—and saw their serenity, their inner peace, she envied them. They could say, "Let go, let God," with a true, unshakable confidence that God would take care of them and everything would work out in the end. Gia wanted that tranquility for herself, craved it, but the ability—perhaps the hubris—to believe she mattered to the Creator of the Universe and could have His ear remained beyond her.

At the other extreme was the God who ignited the Big Bang, then turned His back and walked away, never to be seen again.

Gia sensed the truth lay somewhere between. But where?

And where did Tara Portman fit in all this? Had she come back on her own, or had she been sent back? And why? Why did Gia feel this connection to her?

Gia sighed and rose. Whatever the reasons, she wasn't going to find them here.

She stepped out into the bright afternoon sunshine and headed home. When she reached Sutton Square she ran into Rosa, the Silverman's maid. Their townhouse was two doors down from Gia.

"Did that policeman find you?" Rosa said. She had a broad face and a thick body, and was dressed in her after-work street clothes.

Gia's heart froze. "What policeman?"

"The one who knock on your door little while 'go."

Oh, God! Vicky! Something's happened!

She fumbled in her bag for her keys. "What did he say? What did he want?"

"He ask if you home. He ask if you leave you little girl home alone when you go out."

"What?" She found the keys, singled out the one for the front door. "Did he say why he wanted to know?"

"No. I tol' him no, never. I say little miss away at camp. He ask what camp, I say I don' know."

Gia's knees weakened with relief. For a moment there she'd thought the camp had sent a cop to deliver terrible news about Vicky. But if he hadn't even known she was away…

Wait a minute. What was he doing here then? Why was a cop asking about Vicky?

"Rosa, are you sure he was a cop?"

"Oh sure. He have cop car and…" She moved her hands up and down the front of her body. "You know…"

"Uniform?"

"Uh-huh! Tha's it. All blue. He was cop, yes."

"Did you happen to see his badge number?"

The maid shook her head. "No. I no think to look." She narrowed her eyes. "Now that I think, I don' remember seeing no badge."

"Did he mention me or Vicky by name?"

"No… I don' thin' so."

"Thank you, Rosa." Gia missed her first try on inserting the key, made it on the second. "I'm going to look into this."

Once inside the first thing Gia did was call the camp. No, they hadn't called the NYPD. Vicky and everyone else at the camp were fine.

Next call, her local precinct, the Seventeenth. No, they hadn't had any calls to send someone over to Sutton Square. He might have come from another precinct, but no one could say why.

Gia hung up, relieved that Vicky was safe, but unsettled by anyone, cop or not, asking about her daughter.

Had he been an impostor? No, Rosa had said he'd arrived in a cop car.

Gia thought of Tara Portman. What if Tara had been picked up by a police car? A cop saying her mother had been hurt and he'd take her to her. Vicky would fall for that. Any kid would.

Whoever the cop was, he hadn't learned anything other than the fact that Vicky was away at camp. And he didn't know which camp because Rosa couldn't tell him.

She wanted to call Jack, but what could he do? He was the last person on earth to have an inside line into what the NYPD might be up to.

All she could do was pray that—

Gia frowned. Pray… that was what you did when trouble came knocking. Even if you'd lost your faith, old habits died hard.

She'd pray that it was all a mix-up and the cop had the wrong address.

That would do until Jack got home.

13

"Let me see if I've got this sequence down right," Lyle said.

They had just about all the paneling stripped from the wall now, and were working on the bracing studs. They still hadn't found any loose stones. Every one so far had been mortared tight to its neighbors.

Something about these stones gave Jack the creeps. They gave off an alien vibe that made him want to cover them again, hide them from human sight. They didn't belong here, and it almost seemed they knew it and wanted to be back where they'd come from—Romania, wasn't it? The ones that had had their cross inlays ripped out were the worst. The empty pockets looked like dead eye sockets, staring at him.

As they'd worked Jack had told them how he'd come into possession of Tara Portman's key ring—leaving out names, of course, and sidestepping mention of his knife fight with Eli Bellitto.

Lyle began counting off on his fingers. "First you meet Junie Moon, you bring her here, you step across the threshold, and awaken Tara Portman. Two days later someone hires you to watchdog someone he says is his brother but who you later learn is an only child. In the course of guarding the brotherless man you snag a key ring off him which just happens to belong to Tara Portman." He shook his head. "Talk about wheels within wheels."

And no more coincidences, Jack thought glumly, wondering at the purpose behind all this. And why was Gia involved? This whole situation was giving him a very unsettled feeling.

Lyle pried a Frisbee-size remnant of paneling from a two-by-four stud and scaled it onto the growing junk pile at the back end of the cellar.

"But just having Tara's key ring doesn't make this guy her killer. He could have found it on the sidewalk or picked it up at a garage sale."

Jack wondered how much he could tell these two. Since they lived on his side of the law, he decided to trust them with a little more.

"What if I told you that I saw him snatch a kid while I was watchdogging him?"

Charlie gave him a wide-eyed stare. "You frontin' me, right?"

Jack shook his head. "I wish. And if that's not enough, this guy has a whole cabinet full of kids' junk. Like a trophy case."

"Oh, man." Lyle had a queasy look. "Oh, man. What happened to that snatched kid?"

"I unsnatched him."

"Yo! Yo!" Charlie pointed a waggling finger at Jack. "The Vietnamese kid! That was you?"

"I'd rather not say."

"It was you!" Charlie grinned. "You a hero, G."

Jack shrugged and turned back to the stud he'd been prying loose from the blocks. Words like "hero" made him uncomfortable. Like "art," it tended to be thrown around a little too easily these days.

"You'd've done the same. Anybody would have." He shifted the talk away from himself. "I'll bet anything there's a link between this guy and the late, great Dmitri Menelaus. If I'm right, I'm afraid we can count on finding more than just Tara Portman's remains down here."

Which would work right into Lyle's PR plans.

Lyle leaned against the wall. "A serial killer." He didn't sound happy.

"More than one," Jack said. "A ring of them maybe. If I can establish a link with Dmitri…"

"What then?"

He found a groove between two blocks behind the two-by-four and slipped the pry bar into it. To the squealing accompaniment of protesting nails and the crackle of splintering fir, he wrenched the stud free with a vicious yank.

"A few people are going to wish they'd never been born."

Lyle stared at him. "Someone hire you to do that?"

"No."

Jack still wanted to know who'd hired him to watch Eli Bellitto, but no, no one would be paying him for what was going to happen to Bellitto and his crew.

"Then why're you going after them? I thought you were a pay-or-play guy. Fee for service, and all that. Why the freebie?"

"Because."

"That's not an answer."

"Yeah, it is."

"Praise the Lord!" Charlie said. His eyes glowed like a miniature sun had lit in his head. "Praise the Lord! You see what's goin' down here, don'tcha?"

Lyle said, "I'm almost afraid to hear this."

"Jack, you an instrument of God."

"Yeah?" He'd been called a lot of things since he'd started his fix-it business, but never that.

"True that! The guy hired you to hound this killer? A messenger from God, yo. He point you at the killer so you be there when that little kid need you."

"Really. What about all those other kids this guy's done? The ones like Tara Portman and who knows how many others?"

"Dawg, don't you see? God sent you here to even the score."

"You think so," Jack said.

Lyle laughed. "Hey, that's one ass-backwards god you've got there, bro. Where was he when Tara needed him? I mean, he's not paying attention. If he was, there'd be no score to even. Too little, too late, if you ask me."

Charlie glowered at his brother. "Didn't ask you."

"And what happened to this demon you were talking about?" Lyle said. "First you tell us we've got a demon sent by Satan, and now we've got Jack sent by god. Which is it?"

Jack wanted to tell Lyle to ease up on his brother, but it wasn't his place. What was it with Lyle anyway? He seemed wound as tight as that clock Jack had bought yesterday.

"That's it." Charlie threw down his pry bar. "I'm outta here."

"No way. We have a deal. Two days."

"Yo, I ain't standin' here listenin' to you trash the Lord. Blasphemy wasn't no part of the deal."

Jack watched them, wondering what the hell they were talking about.

Lyle held up his hands. "All right, I'm sorry. My bad. I was out of line. It's been a tough day. Truce, okay?"

"Truce sounds good," Jack said. "Let's keep at this. We've only got a little ways to go before it's all down."

"A'ight," Charlie said. "We keep at it."

"If we're going to do that, can we change the music?" The endless progression of cuts from Miles and Bird and now Coltrane was getting on his nerves.

Lyle frowned. "Don't tell me you don't like 'Trane."

"I guess I'm not cool enough for jazz. Or maybe not smart enough."

"How 'bout Gospel?" Charlie said with a sly grin. "I got a whole collection upstairs."

Jack leaned on the wall. "You know… if it's got words and melody, I'm willing."

"Why not a break from music?" Lyle said. "Just the sound of men hard at work."

Jack attacked another stud. "I can handle that."

After a minute or so Jack sensed eyes on the back of his neck and turned to find Lyle doing his stare-squint thing again. This was the third or fourth time he'd caught him.

"Do you find me attractive, Lyle?"

Lyle blinked. "Not at all. You're not my type."

"Then why do you keep staring at me?"

Lyle glanced at Charlie, then back to Jack. "If you must know, I'm trying to bring you into focus."

Jack's turn to blink. "You want to run that by me again?"

"When I look at you you're… fuzzy."

"Maybe you ought to invest in some glasses."

"It's not like that. I look at Charlie here and I see him bright and clear. I look at you and your features and most of the rest of you are clear and sharp, but around the edges… I don't have a better word for it than fuzzy."

Jack had to smile. "Is this a character assessment?"

"It's not funny, man." Lyle's eyes held a haunted look.

"When did it start? I didn't notice you staring at me when we were meeting with the Greek."

"It wasn't happening then. Maybe it's this house. I know it's done some weird shit to me."

"Yo, like what?" Charlie stepped forward, staring at his brother, the animosity of a moment ago giving way to brotherly concern. "This got to do with you canceling all those sittings?"

Lyle nodded, his haunted look growing. "Something's happened to me. I think it was that blood bath yesterday. It… did something to me."

"Like what?" Jack said.

"I can see things, know things I have no way and no right to know."

He told them about the morning's sitters, about seeing one woman's runaway husband, about another's lost pet—dead pet, roadkill on Twenty-seventh Street. He couldn't contact another's dead wife; yeah, she was dead but she was gone. No messages from beyond her grave.

"It's as if someone or something's playing games with me. Some of the powers I've been faking all these years… I really seem to have them now. At least while I'm in this house."

"And I look fuzzy to you." Jack didn't know what to make of that, but he didn't see how it could be good.

Lyle nodded. "Not when we were down at Kristadoulou's, but here, in the house… yes. There's more. With the sitters this morning… I think I could have handled what I was seeing and feeling from them if that had been all. But I was seeing into their futures as well. At least it felt like I was, but…" He shook his head. "I don't know. What I was seeing didn't seem right or… possible."

"You got that right, bro," Charlie said. "Only God can peep the future."

Again that haunted look in Lyle's eyes. "I hope you're right, because if what I saw has any validity, there's not much future left."

"What's that mean?" Jack said.

Lyle shrugged. "Wish I knew. The three sitters today… when I touched them I saw what their lives would be for the next year and a half or so, and they were each different up to a certain point, but after that it was all the same: darkness. And when I say darkness here I don't mean just the absence of light, I mean a cold, hard, living blackness that just seems to gobble them up."

Jack's gut gave a twist as he remembered someone he loved talking about something very similar, telling him with her final words about a coming darkness that would soon "roll over everything," how only a handful of people would stand in its way, and that he'd be one of them.

Could Lyle's darkness be the same?

"When did you see this happening?"

"Not long," Lyle said. "I got the impression with all three of them that it happens in less than two years."

"Three random people," Jack said, "all buying it around the same time, in the same way. Maybe the explanation could be this new second sight of yours has a limit, or…"

"Or one hell of a cataclysm is heading our way."

"Praise God!" Charlie said, his eyes glowing again. "It's the Rapture! You seen the Rapture! It's like when God takes the faithful to heaven, leaving the rest behind in the darkness! Those sitters you touched, Lyle, they ain't been saved—if they were they wouldn't be foolin' 'round with no spirit medium. You touched lost souls, Lyle."

"If that's what you want to believe—"

"The End Times! Reverend Sparks been talkin' 'bout all the signs pointin' to the end comin' soon! Praise God, he's right!" He held out his hand. "Here. Touch me, bro."

Lyle didn't actually move, but he seemed to shrink back. "Hey, Charlie, I don't think so. And anyway, I thought you didn't believe in this stuff."

"Who can figure how God works?" Charlie stepped closer. "The Book say the dead'll rise come the End Times. Maybe this is where it starts. Come on, Lyle. Try me."

Jack watched Lyle hesitate, then reach toward his brother's outstretched hand. A shock of alarm shot through him, urging him to warn Lyle off, tell him not to do it. But he bit it back. Lyle and Charlie were brothers. Where was the harm? What could happen?

Lyle's fingers gripped Charlie's in a firm handshake. The two stood staring into each other's eyes.

"Well?" Charlie said.

Lyle's mouth worked, then he let out an anguished cry. His eyes rolled back as he sagged to his knees and started coughing. He clutched at his throat with his free hand as if he were choking.

"Let go!" Jack shouted to Charlie.

"Can't!" Charlie's eyes were wild as he pulled at Lyle's fingers, trying to loosen them. "He crushin' my hand!"

Lyle was kicking and writhing now, looking like a man in his death throes. This was scary as hell. Jack stepped forward, ready to help Charlie break contact, when Lyle suddenly quieted. His rasping breaths stopped for an agonizing moment, then restarted with a cough and a gasp. Finally he released Charlie's hand and slumped the rest of the way to the floor.

Jack bent over him. "Lyle! Lyle, can you hear me?"

Lyle rolled over and opened his eyes. They looked dull, bloodshot. He looked around and blinked as if he'd just stepped out of a cave. His gaze came to rest on his brother standing over him, frozen in shock.

Charlie's voice was very small. "Lyle? You okay?"

"Dumb question," Lyle croaked as he propped himself up on one elbow. "Do I look okay?"

His tongue worked in and out of his mouth as he sat up.

"What's wrong?" Jack said.

"My mouth. Tastes like dirt."

"It bad, ain't it," Charlie said in that same small voice.

Lyle bent his knees and rested his forehead against them. "It started out bad, I can tell you that. It's mostly a blur, but I know for a moment there I felt as if I was suffocating, really and truly choking to death, but then the feeling passed. After that it all became pretty vague and jumbled for a while, but then I came to that same hungry darkness I saw with the others." He looked up at his brother. "But we come through it, the both of us. I mean, it seems like we do because we're still together when it's all over."

"Praise God!" Charlie said, his voice stronger now. "That can only mean you get yourself saved before the Rapture." He lifted his arms and looked up. "God, you are so great and good to have mercy on my brother and I."

Lyle glanced at his brother, sighed, then held out a hand for Jack to help him up.

Jack hesitated. "You sure you want to do that?" Jack was sure he didn't want anyone looking into his future. And they could stay out of his past and present too while they were at it.

"You've got a point there." Lyle pushed himself to his feet. He staggered a step when he was fully upright. "Man." He shook his head. "Maybe we'd better call it a day."

"Probably a good idea," Jack said. "We haven't found one loose stone in the whole damn wall. That means tomorrow we start on the floor. Probably should have started there in the first place."

Lyle nodded. "Yeah. If Dmitri was involved with Tara Portman, and maybe more missing kids, I can think of only one reason for a dirt floor all those years."

Jack walked over to the gap in the floor and examined the edge of the concrete.

"Shouldn't be too bad a job. Looks like it's only two inches thick. You could rent a jackhammer and make short work of it."

Lyle shook his head. "Rather not if I can avoid it. Too much noise. I'm not looking to attract attention."

Jack glanced at him. "Not yet, anyway."

A flat smile. "Right. Not yet. You mind if we try by hand first?"

"Sure. If you think you'll be up for it tomorrow, so will I."

"I'll be up for it. But only till mid-afternoon. I'm speaking to a women's club in Forest Hills tomorrow." He held up a pinky and pursed his lips. "Pre-dinner speaker to the ladies, don't you know."

"Hoping to expand your clientele?"

He sighed. "Yeah. That was the case when I arranged the gig." He glanced at his brother. "Now, maybe I'm just wasting my time." He perked up as he faced Jack, but it seemed to take effort. "Anyway, I'll cancel tomorrow's sittings and we'll start off bright and early. If nothing else, it'll be a good workout."

A good workout… right. What would also be good, but far from pleasant, would be finding Tara Portman's remains and putting her to rest. Maybe then Gia would put the little girl behind her. And maybe then Jack could find out what all this meant and why he was involved.

Maybe.

14

Jack loped down Ditmars toward the subway, passing rows of ethnic stores propping up gray-stone triple-decker apartments. Rush hour was in full swing with the sidewalks cramped and the streets stop and go. He turned onto Thirty-first Street and was headed toward the looming elevated N line when his phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket and hit the send button.

"Hey, hon. What's up?"

But it wasn't Gia on the other end.

"Am I speaking to Jack?" said a faintly accented male voice that cracked his name like a whip.

Jack stopped walking. "Who's this? Who're you calling?"

"I'm calling the one who tried to kill me Monday night. Would that be you, Jack?"

Bellitto! How had he got this number? That bothered him, but the scalding fury of realizing he was speaking to Tara Portman's killer engulfed his concern. He looked around, then backed into the doorway of a gyro-souvlaki shop.

"Eli!" Jack said. He felt his lips tightening, pulling back from his teeth. "If I'd wanted to kill you, you'd be making this call from your grave. I didn't recognize your voice. Maybe that's because last time I heard it you were whining like a frightened child. You know what a frightened child sounds like, don't you?"

"Just as you do, I'm sure."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, come now, Jack, or whatever your real name is. Don't take me for a fool. I know more about you than you think I do."

Unease blunted Jack's fury. Was Bellitto bluffing? He knew Jack's name—no, wait. Jack had had Eli's clerk write Jack next to Tara's key-chain entry in the sale book. That was how he'd got the name. But somehow Eli had found Jack's Tracfone number. What else did he know?

"Such as?"

"I know you're a practitioner."

"Really?" Where was this going? "Of what?"

An instant's hesitation, as if Bellitto was unsure of how much he should say, then, "The Ceremony, of course."

The word meant nothing to Jack, but Bellitto's tone had loaded it with so much portent he knew he had to play along.

He feigned a gasp of shock. "How… how did you know?"

Bellitto laughed softly. "Because I've been a practitioner so much longer than you, so much longer than anyone. And your designs are pathetically transparent."

"Are they now?"

"Yes. You want to take over my Circle."

Jack had no idea what he was talking about but wanted to keep him going, maybe find out what made him tick and use some of that as a point of attack. Because Eli Bellitto was going down. Hard. Only a matter now of when and where.

"I have my own circle, so why would I want yours?"

"Because mine is so much more powerful. I've been performing the Ceremony for hundreds of years and—"

"Wait. Did you say 'hundreds'?"

"Yes. Hundreds. I am two hundred and thirty-two years old."

Jack shook his head. This guy was Froot Loop city.

"I had no idea."

"Now you see what you're up against. My Circle extends into all areas of power and influence. And you want it for yourself, don't you."

"My circle runs pretty deep and wide itself, and—"

The voice hardened. "Yours is nothing! Nothing! You caught me by surprise Monday night, but that won't happen again. I have my Circle casting its net for you. You're clever, but you're no match for me. We have your Tracfone number and soon we'll have your name, and once we have that, you're finished!"

Jack had a pretty good idea of how they'd got his phone number. He'd made only one call since his tête-à-tête with Bellitto, and that had been to 911 to report the kid. EMS would have recorded the number on caller ID. Figuring out from there that it was a Tracfone was no big deal, but to get the number in the first place did indicate a certain amount of suck with officialdom, maybe even the NYPD itself.

Maybe Bellitto wasn't blowing smoke. Maybe he was as well connected as he said.

And maybe he was trying to keep Jack talking instead of the other way around. If his "circle" had a couple of tracking cars riding around, tracing this call, could they triangulate on Jack's position and move in?

Lucky for him he was far from home.

Jack stepped away from the building and rejoined the pedestrian flow toward the elevated tracks. He'd keep the call going for a while longer, then step on a train and zoom away.

"What's the matter?" Bellitto said. "Cat got your tongue?"

Jack forced a laugh. "How typically unoriginal. You haven't a clue as to who I am or what I'm up to. And you never will. Your time is finished, Eli. Time for a new generation to take over. Step aside or die."

"Never! The Ceremony is mine! I don't know how you found out about it, but no Johnny-Come-Lately is going to usurp my power!"

Johnny-Come-Lately? Usurp? This guy was too much.

But this Ceremony he was ranting about… Jack had a sick feeling it might involve killing children. If he was right, maybe he could turn it on its head to give Bellitto a swift kick in his already cut-up balls.

"The old original recipe Ceremony might be yours, Eli, but I've done my own variation on it. The Ceremony, Version two-point-oh, is all mine."

"What?" An uncertain note here. "What are you talking about?"

"I've reversed the Ceremony, Eli."

"I don't understand."

"I can bring them back."

"What? Nonsense! That's impossible!"

"Is it? That was me in the store on Sunday trying to buy the Roger Rabbit key ring."

"You? But… but why would you want it?"

"Not me. I didn't want it. Tara wanted it."

"Who?"

"Tara Portman." Jack swore he heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end. "You remember her, don't you. The pretty little nine-year-old blonde you snatched by the Kensington riding stables back in eighty-eight." Jack fought to keep the growing rage out of his voice. Had to sound cool, play it like someone as sick as the guy on the other end of the line. "She's back, and she wanted her key ring. So I went and got it for her. Tara's back, Eli. And is she ever pissed."

With that Jack broke the connection and gave the off button a vicious jab, damn near punching it out the back side of the phone as he cut the power.

Chew on that for the rest of the night, scumbag.

15

"Slow down." Eli said, peering through the passenger window into the growing darkness. "It's just a little ways ahead. Number seven-thirty-five."

Adrian had the wheel of Eli's Mercedes, a black 1990 sedan. Despite its age its mileage was low. Eli used it infrequently and only for short trips. He preferred this old classic for its room and comfort and lines. The new models held no appeal for him.

Eli's wounds were feeling much better tonight, but not well enough to drive. Moving his leg back and forth to work the brake and gas pedals would flare his pain, so he'd given Adrian the keys. Adrian was still having some trouble with his knee, but fortunately it was his left that had been injured, so he could still drive.

Just as well that Eli had a physical excuse for not driving, for he wasn't up to it emotionally either. Not tonight. Too rattled, too distracted… why, in his present mood, he might very well drive into oncoming traffic without realizing until it was too late.

But he couldn't let Adrian and Strauss see his unease, his uncertainty. He had never been in a situation like this, and found this inexplicable turn of events almost overwhelming. Everything had been going so well for so long, and now…

Initially he'd been delighted to make contact with his attacker, the mysterious "Jack." He'd called with the intention of shaking him up, of letting him know that he hadn't got away clean with his vicious, underhanded act, that he was being hunted and would be found.

Instead, it had been Eli who had been left shaken.

The man knew that he'd abducted Tara Portman, knew that the key ring had been hers. How? He didn't believe for a second that the Ceremony could be reversed, and yet… how did the man know about Tara?

The questions had plagued Eli until he'd given into a yearning to return to the house where the Portman child had died. Just for a look…

"I still think this is a lousy, stupid idea," said Strauss from where he slouched in the rear seat. "Lousy because this whole deal could be a trick to get us to come back to this place, which we're doing. And stupid because Tara Portman ain't back and she ain't never coming back. Did we or did we not cut up her heart and eat it? No way that kid is back and looking for her key ring."

Eli winced at Strauss's casual mention of these Ceremony details. They were never to be spoken.

"First of all," Eli said, "we are not going back to Dmitri's house, we are simply driving by. Just another car passing on the street. As for the other matter, I fully agree that Tara Portman cannot be back, but we must find out how this man knows about her."

"Easy," Strauss said, the edge still on his voice. He leaned forward and jutted his head over the back of the front seat. His breath reeked of garlic. "Somebody talked."

"No one talked," Eli said. "I've spoken to our other members, all ten of them, since this afternoon. No one has been kidnapped and tortured into a confession. Everyone is fine and looking forward to the next Ceremony. And think about it: If someone did talk, why talk about Tara Portman? Why not last year's lamb, or the year before? Tara Portman was ages ago."

"Perhaps," Adrian said. He'd been strangely silent all day. "But she was the first lamb we sacrificed in Dmitri's house."

"You're right," Eli said. "And oddly enough, I found myself thinking about Tara Portman just the other night."

That was why he'd been so shocked when the stranger had mentioned her name. It had to be a coincidence, but what a strange one.

"Really?" Adrian said. "Out of so many lambs, why her?"

"I've been asking myself that same question since my talk with our attacker this afternoon."

"Maybe it was because this mystery man tried to buy the key ring."

"No, that wasn't it. At the time I'd forgotten who that key ring belonged to. To tell the truth, I doubt I could match many of the little souvenirs in that cabinet to their original owners. And besides, I'd thought of Tara Portman days before."

"When?" Strauss said.

"Friday night."

He remembered he'd been reading in bed, deep into Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, and feeling drowsy, when suddenly she leaped into his mind. The briefest flash of her face, calm in the repose of deep anesthesia, and then her thin pale etherized body, still and supine on the table, awaiting the caress of Eli's knife. As quickly as the memories had come, they fled. Eli had written them off as random reminiscences, triggered perhaps by Proust's prose.

"There's the house now," Adrian said.

They lapsed into silence as they glided past Menelaus Manor. The lights were on. Who was home?

With a pang of melancholy Eli experienced a Proustian moment, caught up in a swirl of memories of Dmitri Menelaus, the brilliant, driven, tortured man he had brought into the Circle back in the eighties.

Dmitri had started off as just another customer in Eli's shop, but soon proved himself a man with a connoisseur's eye for the rare and arcane. He began to suggest sources where Eli might order rarer and stranger objects. As he and Eli got to know each other socially, Dmitri told of how he'd traveled the world investigating what he termed "places of power." He'd been to the usual locales—the Mayan temples of Chichen Itza in Yucatan, Macchu Picchu in the Andes, the tree-strangled temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia—but had found them dead and cold. Whatever power they'd once held had been leached away by time and tourists. Along the way he'd heard tales of other places, secret places, and had also searched them out, all to no avail.

But then came whispers that fired his imagination, tales of an old stone keep in an obscure alpine pass in Romania, an ancient fortress that once had housed unspeakable evil. No one could give him the exact location of the pass, but by collecting and comparing notes based on the whispers, Dmitri narrowed his search to an area where these tales appeared to converge. He followed old trails through steep gorges, fully expecting this search to end as had so many others over the years, in despair and disappointment.

But this time was different. He found the fortress in a ravine near the ruins of a peasant village. As soon as he stepped through a gap in its crumbling foundation and let its walls enfold him, he knew his search had ended.

Immediately he'd arranged for a quantity of its loosened stones to be shipped back to the States and installed in his basement. He said the stones had absorbed the power of the old keep and now he had some of it for himself. His own home was now a place of power.

Eventually Eli learned the reason for Dmitri's obsession with these matters: He was terrified that he would die of pancreatic cancer like his father. He'd watched the man rot from the inside out and had sworn that would never happen to him.

Eli knew a better way to protect him, far better and more reliable than importing stones from Old World forts. Slowly, slyly, he felt out Dmitri about how far he'd be willing to go to protect himself from his father's fate. When he'd ascertained that there was nothing Dmitri would not do, no lengths to which he would not go, he introduced Dmitri to the Circle. He became Eli's twelfth disciple.

Dmitri quickly evolved into Eli's right-hand man, for Eli sensed that his motives were pure. For too many members of the Circle, Eli suspected that the abducted children and what was done to them were almost as important as the Ceremony and the immortality they'd eventually gain from it. They might be men in high places, but he sensed their motives were low. Year after year he'd seen the lascivious light in their eyes as the deeply anesthetized lamb was stripped naked upon the ceremonial table. It had disturbed Eli so deeply that he'd begun leaving the lambs fully clothed, baring only the minimum amount of flesh necessary to slit open the chest and remove the still beating heart. None of the Circle looked away during the bloody procedure. Some went so far as to suggest that the lamb be strapped down and conscious during the Ceremony.

How dare they? The Ceremony was to be performed without pain to the lamb. That would debase the ritual. The point was not pain but to gain life everlasting. The annual death of a child was an unfortunate but necessary price that had to be paid.

How lamentable that he had to ally himself with such creatures, but in these increasingly Big Brotherish times, he needed their power and influence to safeguard the Ceremony and guarantee its annual performance.

But Dmitri was different. His focus was on the end, not the means. He soon became an indispensable member, especially once the Ceremony was moved to the basement of his home. It was perfect. The stones did indeed resonate with a strange power, and the dirt floor was a perfect resting place for the lambs. Disposing of a body, even once a year, had always been a perilous chore.

Eli would be performing the Ceremony at Menelaus Manor to this day were Dmitri still alive. But his doctors discovered that he had his father's cancer—too early to be helped by medical science, and too early to be saved by the Ceremony, for Dmitri had participated in nowhere near the twenty-nine he needed for immortality and invulnerability.

Unable to face the same agonizing death as his father, he'd seated himself on the dirt floor of his cellar and put a bullet through his head. What a loss… a terrible, terrible loss. Dmitri had been like a son to Eli. He still mourned his passing.

"I wonder who's living there now?" Adrian said as he drove on.

"I checked that out already," Strauss said. "Couple of brothers named Kenton. Bought it a year ago."

Eli felt a surge of excitement. Could they have tracked down his nemesis? "Do you think one of them could be our 'Jack'?"

"Doubt it. I ain't got much in the way of contacts here in the one-fourteen, but I did learn that not only are these two guys brothers, but they're also brothers—if you know what I mean."

Excitement dipped toward disappointment. "They're black?"

"'S'what I'm told. You said your attacker was white. No chance you could be wrong?"

"I wouldn't know," Adrian said. "I can't remember. The last thing I remem—"

"He was white," Eli said, jumping in before Adrian could launch into his litany. "So that leaves them out."

"Who knows?" Strauss said. "A guy who can raise Tara Portman from the dead can maybe turn himself white too."

Eli was about to tell Strauss that this wasn't a joking matter when Adrian spoke.

"I don't care who they are as long as they don't dig up the cellar."

The remark brought silence to the car. That had been the great fear after Dmitri's death: the new owners would excavate the cellar. Eli had wanted a member of the Circle to buy the place so they could go on using it, but no one wanted his name connected with a house that held the remains of eight murdered children.

"The possibility of that is so small," Eli said, "I've ceased to worry about it. Step back and consider it objectively. How many homeowners, no matter how extensively they renovate a home, tear up their cellar floor?"

"Virtually none," Adrian said.

Strauss said, "Just lucky for us the people who bought it poured a cement floor over the dirt down there."

"It didn't bring them much luck, though," Eli said.

Strauss barked a laugh. "Yeah! Two slit throats and still nobody has a clue. If you don't close a murder in forty-eight hours, chances are you'll never close it. It's been years for that one. Guess by now you could call it a perfect crime."

Eli had been shocked when he'd read about the dead couple, and worried that the crime scene investigation might venture too deeply into the cellar.

And then there'd been the mutilation of the little boy adopted by the next owners. Eli had begun to wonder if a combination of the Ceremony and those strange stones lining the basement could somehow have laid a curse on the place.

"The other thing I'm worried about," said Adrian, "is that key ring."

"So am I, Eli." Strauss tapped Eli on the shoulder. "It connects you to the girl, and you can be connected to me. That's not good. Not good at all."

Adrian stopped at a red light. He continued to stare straight ahead as he spoke. "I've had nightmares about something like this happening because of that trophy cabinet of yours, sitting out there in your store for all to see. I always thought it was risky and… and arrogant as well."

Eli stared at him. Had he just heard correctly? Had Adrian, so deferential despite his size and strength, actually dared to call him arrogant? He must be furious, and very frightened.

Arrogant? Eli couldn't dredge up any anger. Adrian was right. Displaying the trophy cabinet had been arrogant and even foolhardy, but not half as arrogant and foolhardy as what Eli had done on Saturday.

Maybe the impetus had been the unbidden thoughts of Tara Portman the night before, perhaps it was nothing more than mere ennui, but whatever the reason, Eli had yielded to an urge to flaunt his invulnerability. So on Saturday afternoon he had told someone that he had killed hundreds of children, and that another would die with the next new moon, all but daring him to do something about it.

Eli permitted himself a fleeting smile. Adrian would shit his pants if Eli told him.

Instead Eli said, "Be that as it may, the trophy cabinet had nothing to do with our current predicament."

Strauss leaned back and returned to his slouch in the rear seat. "Maybe it did and maybe it didn't, but it was a bad idea all around. That kind of in-your-face shit threatens us all. Maybe you don't care, but we do."

"I sympathize, and I'll try to take your feelings into account in the future," Eli said. If the Circle had a future.

They lapsed again into silence as the car moved into traffic, then Adrian cleared his throat.

"Eli, am I the only one bothered by you thinking of Tara Portman for no good reason on Friday night, and then this stranger popping into your shop on Sunday to try and buy the key ring? Then someone—possibly the same man—attacks us Monday night, and steals Tara's key ring on Tuesday. And today he claims that Tara is 'back'—whatever that means. Could he have brought her back on Friday night?"

"She's not back!" Eli said, his voice rising of its own accord.

"Then why, of all possible lambs, did you think of Tara Portman?"

"What time was this?" Strauss said, leaning forward again and refouling the air of the front seat with his breath. "That you thought of her, I mean."

"I don't know. I wasn't watching the time. Late, I'd say."

"You know what else happened late Friday night? The earthquake."

Eli remembered reading something about that. "I didn't feel a thing."

"But locals around here did. The paper said it was centered in Astoria."

"Dear God," Adrian whispered.

"Oh, come now," Eli said. "You can't seriously believe one has anything to do with the other. That's absurd!"

But was it? Eli felt an Arctic chill blow through the chambers of his heart. He couldn't let on how deeply the scenario Adrian and Strauss were describing disturbed him. It only heightened his feelings of being at the mercy of chance as well as the forces of nature itself.

"Perhaps it is," Adrian said. "But you can't help wondering, can you."

No, Eli thought. You can't.

He realized the only thing that would assuage this mounting malaise and uncertainty was another Ceremony to bulwark his defenses.

"For the moment," he said, "let's turn away from lambs of the past and focus on a lamb for the present." He glanced at Strauss. "Any progress in the matter of Ms. DiLauro's child, Freddy?"

"Some. I spent a little time watching her place today." He laughed. "I was wearing my old blues—they still fit me, y'know—and I waltzed them up to her door after I seen her leave her place alone. I figured if the kid was there, I'd pull the old your-mommy's-been-hurt routine, but she wasn't home. Learned from a neighbor's maid that she's away at camp."

"Really?" Eli said. He felt a surge of hope.

"Why are you fixated on her?" Adrian said. "We can snatch a child anywhere—"

"We've succeeded in lasting this long because we don't take chances. This situation has interesting possibilities. Think: A child disappears from a camp in the woods and the first thing everyone assumes is that she wandered off. They waste precious time beating the bushes for her when all the while she could be miles away, unconscious, in a car speeding toward the city…"

"Yes," Adrian said, nodding. "I see. Which camp?"

"That's the problem. This maid didn't know."

Adrian groaned. "Do you know how many summer camps there are in the tri-state area? We'll never find her."

Eli's mood sank. Adrian was right. There were hundreds, maybe thousands.

Strauss slapped the back of the front seat. "Never say never, my friend. I'm working a few angles. I've already recruited Williamson. He'll be full speed on the trail of little Victoria Westphalen tomorrow."

Wesley Williamson was a longtime member of the Circle and deputy director of the state banking commission. Eli didn't know how he could help, but he'd leave that to Strauss.

"He'd better hurry. If we don't complete the Ceremony by midnight Friday, we'll have to wait until next month."

Eli couldn't bear the thought of spending a whole month in his current state. Not just the fear and uncertainty, but the vulnerability, which was so much worse. His nameless enemy would have all that time to move against him.

"I'm doing my best, okay? This is short notice, but we'll get her. So sharpen up your knife for Friday night."

IN THE IN-BETWEEN

The entity that was Tara Portman floats in darkness and frustration. The one she was sent for has stayed away. She has something Tara wants, something Tara desperately needs.

She must find a way to bring her here. She thinks she knows a way. Tara touched her while she was here, perhaps she can touch her in another way, beyond these walls. Touch her and make her return.

And then what? What will happen to Tara after her purpose is finished? Will she be returned to nothingness? Anything, even this half-existence, is better than that.

Stay here. Yes… but not alone. She does not want to stay here alone…

THURSDAY

1

Break time.

Jack glanced at the clock above the Kentons' kitchen sink: 10:15. Was that all? Seemed as if they'd been working a lot longer than two hours. He sipped his Gatorade and considered the progress they'd made.

When he'd arrived, Lyle and Charlie had already started chipping away at the concrete along the edges of the crack. If there'd been a gap in the earth below after the quake, it was gone. Just a groove in the dirt now. Jack had brought along some blues CDs as a compromise between his kind of music and the Kentons'. He heard no objections when he put on a Jimmy Reed disk, so he picked up a pickax and joined in, swinging in time to the beat, chain-gang style.

He started off stiff and achy. Yesterday he'd worked muscles he rarely used and they awoke today tight and cranky; but ten minutes of swinging the pick loosened them up.

Two hours later they'd widened the gap to maybe four feet. Slow, hard work. And hot. The cellar had started out cool but the heat thrown off by the exertions of three bodies soon raised the temperature. Like a sauna down there now. Jack could see he was going to need lots of Gatorade before the day was through, and lots of lager after.

He and Lyle sat and sipped at the kitchen table in their damp T-shirts. The faint breeze through the windows and open back door carried little cooling power. Charlie had grabbed a paper and a donut and retreated to the shade of the backyard with the morning paper. He'd said little all morning.

"Something wrong with Charlie?"

Lyle's eyes gave away nothing. "Why do you ask?"

"Pretty quiet."

"He's just going through a phase. Not your worry."

Right. Not Jack's business why the brothers Kenton weren't getting along. But he liked these two, and it bothered him.

He dropped the subject. He lifted the front of his T-shirt and wiped his face. "Ever hear of air-conditioning?"

"Not much use when the windows and doors won't stay closed."

"Still?"

Lyle nodded. "Still. If I close them they don't reopen as fast as they used to, but eventually they do."

"Tara, you think?"

Another nod. "I get the feeling she's trapped here. She wants to get out—maybe she keeps trying—but can't."

Just then Charlie burst through the door, waving the morning paper. "Yo, Jack! Peep this!" He had the Post folded back and then in half, commuter style. He dropped it on the table and pointed to a headline. "Is this you, dawg? This yo' setup?"

Jack picked up the paper. Lyle came around and peered over his shoulder.

SHE SHOULD'VE KNOWN BETTER Elizabeth Foster, better known as psychic advisor Madame Pomerol, has had her second brush with the NYPD in one week. Just last Sunday morning she and her husband Carl were found wandering the financial district unclothed; but the charges are more serious this time: the Federal government is involved. Foster and her husband Carl were picked up yesterday afternoon trying to pass phony hundred-dollar bills at La Belle Boutique on Madison Avenue. The Treasury Department is investigating.

But things get worse. A search of their Upper East Side apartment—also known as "Madame Pomerol's Temple of Eternal Wisdom"—not only turned up thousands more of the funny money, but provided indisputable evidence that this particular psychic medium is little more than a scam artist.

Jack had to grin as the article went on to describe the eavesdropping devices found in her waiting room, the electronic ear pieces hidden in her hats, the monitors, the trapdoors, and most damning of all, the files on her clients, filled with xeroxes of driver licenses, Social Security cards, bank statements, and notes containing more than a few scathing comments about their weaknesses, predilections, and obsessions. As a result, the Manhattan DA was preparing to add charges of fraud and conspiracy to defraud to the federal counterfeiting rap.

"They're done!" Lyle cried. "Gone! Fried! Fini! Madame Pomerol will be reading palms for cigarettes in either Rikers or a federal pen! Is this your fix?"

"I do believe it is."

"The queer? How'd you manage that? You plant it on them?"

"Trade secret, I'm afraid."

"You done it, G!" Charlie said, grinning for the first time all morning. "You nailed her!"

Jack shrugged. "Sometimes things go according to plan, sometimes they don't. This one did."

He stared at the article, basking in the sunny sensation of a job well done. He'd set the Fosters up for a fall and had known they'd tumble sooner or later. He was glad it turned out to be sooner.

The big if in this particular fix-it had been how they handled their cash. Did they deposit it and write checks, or spend it? Jack had banked on the latter. With a good cash flow—real cash, not checks and charges—that they probably didn't declare, they'd tend to pay for things in cash to leave less of a money trail should the IRS come sniffing.

Lyle clapped Jack on the shoulder. "Remind me never to get on your wrong side, Jack. You are not a man to mess with!"

If Jack had his way, Eli Bellitto would soon feel the same, only worse. Much, much worse.

As they all headed back down to the cellar, Jack sensed a better mood than when they'd started the break. They retrieved the pickaxes and renewed their combined attack on the concrete slab, tossing the broken chunks onto the pile of paneling.

By midday they'd broken up half the slab. After a quick lunch of juicy gyros at a Greek deli up on Ditmars, they returned to work.

"You know what?" Lyle said as he surveyed the rubble mat had once been a basement. "I think two of us should start digging in the dirt while the other keeps after the concrete."

Jack kicked at the hard packed, red-brown soil. Not a hell of a lot softer than the concrete.

"You mean, start looking for Tara."

"Right. The sooner we find her, the sooner we can stop pretending to be day laborers and go back to being gentlemen of leisure."

"How will we know it's her?"

Lyle stared at the dirt. "You still think she's got company down there?"

"I'd bet on it."

"Well, we'll cross that bridge whenever." Lyle looked up at Jack. "You game to dig a little dirt?"

"Not exactly my idea of a fun treasure hunt," Jack said, "but I'll give it a go."

Lyle turned to his brother. "How about you, Charlie? Dirt or 'crete?"

Charlie shrugged. "I'll stick with the slab."

"Okay. We'll rotate around if anybody wants to switch." He leaned toward Jack and spoke in a stage whisper. "And if you should happen to find the remains of the Missing Link while you're digging, don't let Charlie know. He doesn't believe in evolution and it would upset him."

Charlie said, "Step off, Lyle."

My sentiments exactly, Jack thought.

Lyle grabbed the shovel and jammed the spade into the dirt. "Well, it's true, isn't it. You believe the universe was created in six days, right?"

"That what it say in the Bible, so that what I believe."

"So did Bishop Usher, who ran down all the dates in the Bible and the ages of all people mentioned. According to his calculations, the earth was created on October 26, 4004 BC." He tossed a shovel full of dirt aside and struck a pensive pose. "I wonder if that was a.m. or p.m.? Anyway, seems to me the earth's packed an awful lot of growth and development into six thousand years."

Jack grabbed a shovel. "Fascinating. Let's dig."

"That what it say, then that what I believe. We talkin' the word of God, yo."

"Are we?" Lyle raised a finger. "Well, I've got a few words of my own—"

Oh, no, Jack thought. They're off.

"Hey, what is all this?" he said, cutting in. "I didn't always pay my bills doing fix-its. I've done landscaping and worked with nonunion wrecking crews, and all I ever heard guys talk about was booze and broads. But you two—what is it with you guys, anyway?"

Lyle grinned. "Maybe it's because Charlie doesn't drink and we've both been celibate far too long."

"Ay, yo, how 'bout you, Jack?" Charlie said. "What you believe?"

"About what?" he said, although he knew exactly what.

Lyle said, "Faith, god. All that."

That was a little too personal for Jack. He didn't even tell anyone his last name, so he wasn't about to discuss religion with a couple of guys he hadn't known a week. Besides, it wasn't a subject he gave much thought to. In his world, the unseeable and unknowable simply hadn't much mattered.

Until lately.

"I'm pretty much for whatever gets you through the day, as long as you don't start insisting it's the way everyone should get through the day."

"That ain't tellin' nothin'."

"Okay, then, I can tell you that whatever I did believe has been pretty much turned upside down in the past few months."

Lyle looked at him. "All that stuff you told us about the Otherness?"

Jack nodded.

"Here's my problem," Lyle said. "I have just as much trouble believing in your Otherness as I do in Charlie's personal God."

"How about Tara Portman?" Jack said. "And what's been going on in this house? That's not hearsay. You've been here. It's your own experience."

Lyle's cheeks puffed as he let out a breath. "Yeah, I know. This is terra nova for me. I never believed in ghosts or life after death, or even the soul. I assumed when you died you were gone forever. Now… I'm not so sure."

Jack said, "Then maybe we should stop jawing and dig up this terra nova."

Lyle laughed. "Excellent idea!"

The Best of Muddy Waters was in the boombox tray. Jack turned up "Mannish Boy" loud enough to make conversation a chore, then went to work.

By late afternoon, with another Gatorade break somewhere in the middle, they'd pocked the surface of the dirt with holes but hadn't come across a single bone.

"We've only been going down three feet or so," Lyle said. "Maybe that's not deep enough."

Jack leaned on his shovel. "Hate to think they went the full traditional six."

"Might have. Especially if they wanted to be sure of not having any telltale odors. Which means we have to go down six."

Jack's T-shirt was soaked. He looked around. The pile of smashed paneling and broken concrete already took up one end of the cellar. They'd added some of the dirt to it, but they'd be running out of room soon.

"You're talking a lot of dirt."

"Tell me about it. Look, I know it's been a long day, but I'd like to keep after this."

"There's always tomorrow," Jack said.

Charlie stopped digging and looked at his brother. "No there ain't."

Jack opened his mouth but Lyle cut him off.

"Don't ask. Look, why don't we take another break and see if we can come up with a systematic way of going about finding her."

Jack glanced at his watch. "I've got an errand to run, but I should be back in an hour and a half or so."

"I'm going to have to bail soon myself. That Forest Hills women's club thing."

"That's right," Charlie said. "Everybody run off and leave baby brother to do all the work."

Jack laughed. "I'll be back to help out as soon as I can."

"Where're you off to?" Lyle said.

"To make sure the last piece of the Tara Portman puzzle fits where I think it does."

2

As Jack rode the N train back to Manhattan he debated stopping off at his place or Gia's and taking a shower. He damn sure needed one. By the time he reached the decision point at Fifty-ninth Street, he decided it would take too much time. He stayed on the train as it turned downtown. When he reached SoHo he made a quick pass by Bellitto's store and noted the sturgeon was no longer in the window. Too bad; he'd kind of liked it. Took a peek through the glass of the door and saw the older woman with the jet-black hair helping a customer. She was the one he wanted to talk to. He'd got the impression she'd grown old with the store. But Kevin was there too, behind the counter.

He moved on, frustrated.

Damn. He'd hoped this would be the kid's day off. No sign of Bellitto or the gorilla-armed Minkin though, which was good. Doubted they'd recognize him after their encounter in the dark, but didn't want to take the chance. This was primarily an information-gathering trip, with maybe a little cage-rattling bonus thrown in. He knew he'd eventually have to deal with those two before they zeroed in on another kid. But Bellitto was laid up for the present, so Jack had some time to plan his course.

Jack found a shady doorway with a view of the front of the shop and waited, watching the shadows lengthen and the traffic thicken. Evening was edging into the picture and he didn't have all that much time, but there was always a chance Kevin would clock out or make a Starbucks run. He needed to talk to the lady alone. If he couldn't do it face to face, he'd try the phone, but that would be settling for second best.

He thought about what Gia had told him about the mystery cop from the unknown precinct. He didn't like anyone, maybe cops especially, knocking on Gia's door and asking the whereabouts of her daughter. Nobody's damn business but Gia's. And Jack's too, sometimes.

He pulled out his Tracfone and called her to see if the cop had stopped back. She said no. All quiet on the East Side. He told her they hadn't found anything yet at Menelaus Manor and not to wait dinner for him—he'd be late tonight. She sounded tired. She hadn't been sleeping well. He told her to take a nap and she said she might just do that.

After saying good-bye, Jack turned off the phone. Didn't want Bellitto calling him again. Let him wonder. Let him stew.

Jack's patience finally was rewarded by the sight of Kevin stepping out and hurrying down the sidewalk. Didn't know how long he'd be gone so Jack hustled over to the shop.

"Yes, sir?" the woman behind the counter boomed as he entered. She had a mannish build, with broad shoulders and a hefty frame. Above her Richard Belzer face her black hair looked spit shined. She eyed his sweat-stained T-shirt, dirty jeans, and grimy hands with poorly disguised disdain. Obviously he didn't look like a typical Shurio Coppe customer.

Knew I should have showered, he thought.

He decided to adopt a personality to go with the look. He rounded his shoulders and made only the briefest eye contact.

"Um…"

"Are you looking to buy something, sir?"

"Uh, well, no, y'see," he said in a meek, faltering voice, "I was kinda like wondering if—"

Jack heard the bell on the door tinkle behind him and turned to see a big no-neck guy with outlandishly long arms limp through. Adrian Minkin, in the flesh. Jack tensed and looked away as he approached.

"Eli wants the book again," Minkin said as he brushed past Jack and stepped to the counter.

He wore black slacks and a long-sleeve white dress shirt.

The woman made a face. "That's the third time already," she said. "Why doesn't he just call down?"

Minkin leaned on the counter, just a couple of feet away, giving Jack his first close-up look at Minkin's hands in good light. Massive, with wiry black hair crawling all the way out to the third knuckle on the long thick fingers.

"You know how he is, Gert." Minkin leaned closer and lowered his voice. "He's very tense, waiting for a call, plus I think he's bored out of his mind."

"Bad combination," Gert said, handing him a black ledger. "Just get it back to me as soon as he's finished."

"Will do."

When he turned he came face to face with Jack. He stopped and stared for a few heartbeats that seemed to stretch into minutes. Jack met his cold blue eyes, looking for signs of recognition and readying to make a move the instant he saw the first hint. But Minkin only blinked, nodded, and moved on.

"Sorry for the interruption, sir," Gert said. "What can I help you with? Looking for anything in particular?"

"Yes, well, I…" Jack shuffled closer to the counter, killing time until he heard the bell chime and the door close behind Minkin. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure he was gone, but he made it into a timid gesture. "I'm looking for Mr. Menelaus. Mr. Dmitri Menelaus."

Gert blinked. "Mr. Menelaus? What would you want with him?"

Jack wished she'd cut her volume. Wouldn't be surprised if Bellitto and Minkin could hear her upstairs.

"I, um, did some masonry work for him some years ago, y'know, in his cellar, and he said I should meet him here."

Gert's eyes narrowed. "Did he now? And when was this?"

"Oh, um, just this morning, on the phone."

"This morning? Oh, I doubt that very much. He's been dead for years."

"Get out! You're lying!"

"Sir, I do not lie. He was a regular customer. He and the owner were quite close."

"I figured that."

Jack took a deep breath and let it out. There it was. The final link between the Menelaus house, Tara Portman, and Eli Bellitto.

Gert shook her head. "Tragic the way he died."

"Not tragic at all," Jack said, dropping out of character. "I'm pretty sure it was long overdue."

Gert's eyes widened as she straightened her wide shoulders. "What?"

Jack turned and strode for the door. "Thanks lady. Tell Eli I was asking after Dmitri."

"You know Mr. Bellitto? Who are you?"

"Just tell him. He'll know." Jack hit the sidewalk and headed straight for the subway.

3

"This is not to be borne!"

Eli slammed the phone down. He could barely speak. The brazenness of the man! The absolute gall!

"What is it?" Adrian said, hovering.

"It was him! The mysterious 'Jack'! He was just in the shop asking Gert about Dmitri!"

Adrian gaped at him. "Just now? Then I saw him. I looked right at him and didn't recognize him. But then of course I wouldn't recognize him since I still don't remember what happened Monday night. The last thing I remem—"

"What did he look like?"

"Like… like a common laborer. He was dirty and he smelled sweaty. I can't believe—"

"Believe it! He said he'd had a call from Dmitri telling him to meet him in the shop."

Adrian paled. "But Dmitri's dead."

Eli glanced at him. What had always impressed him most about Adrian, besides his size, was his swift mind; but since those blows to his head his mental functions seemed to have slowed to a walk.

"I'm well aware of that. He's just trying to rattle us." Though Eli said us, he meant me. "He wants to keep us off balance."

"But why?"

Suddenly Eli saw it all, comprehended the mystery man's plan in all its terrible simplicity.

"He wants to prevent us from performing the Ceremony during this cycle. That will put terrible pressure on us because we'll have to complete the Ceremony during the next cycle, the last new moon before the equinox, or…"

His words dried up as he contemplated the consequences.

Adrian was staring at him. "Or what? What will happen?"

"To you? Nothing much. Your string of Ceremonies will be broken and you'll have to go back and start at one again."

Adrian groaned. "Oh, God, no."

"But for me it will be much, much worse. If I fail, all the diseases and traumas I've been shielded from for the past two centuries will rush upon me and crush me."

Terror squeezed his shuddering heart in a cold fist. He'd die slowly and in unimaginable agony. And then the interloper would be free to take over the Circle.

That was why this Jack hadn't killed him Monday night. He wanted Eli to suffer a month of pain and anxiety before a horrible death.

"And to think I was that close!" Adrian gritted through clenched teeth. "If only I'd known I'd have…" He balled his hands before him, crushing huge fistfuls of air.

"He won't win!" Eli cried. "He thinks that by stealing our lamb he's sabotaged our Ceremony for this cycle. He can't know about the DiLauro woman's child—we didn't know ourselves until yesterday. We can still beat him."

He snatched up the phone, punched in Strauss's beeper number, and left a message to call back. The phone rang minutes later.

"Progress?" Eli snapped as soon as he recognized Strauss's voice.

"Some. Not moving as fast as I'd like. What's wrong?"

He filled Strauss in on the mystery man's latest stunt without getting into his theory of what the man was planning. "What's the hold-up? What are you doing?"

"I'm not sure I want to say," Strauss said. "With all this guy seems to know, how can we be sure your line's not tapped?"

Eli felt his chest tighten. The possibility had never occurred to him.

"Can you check the line?"

"Yeah, but not today. We got some situations here that won't allow me to get down there till late tonight."

Not good enough. Eli needed to know now. Then he had an idea.

"Fax it to me."

"What?"

"You heard me. Jot it down or type it out. Be as oblique as you wish—I'll understand—and fax it. You destroy the original, I'll burn the copy at this end, and no one but we will know."

A pause on the other end, then, "All right. That might work. Just make sure you burn it right off."

"I'll have the matches ready."

He gave Strauss his personal fax number, then hung up. Twelve minutes later the machine rang, then started printing out a brief, scrawled message.

Our financial friend got the ladys checking account records but no check written to a camp. Looking into credit cards but that takes longer. Will know by tonight and fax results ASAP.

BURN THIS!

Strauss, ever paranoid, hadn't signed it.

Eli handed it to Adrian. "Find some matches and do what the man says."

Checking accounts and credit cards… how clever. Why comb through the rosters of a thousand summer camps looking for a particular child when you can use the mother's own records to find out. Big Brother certainly had his drawbacks, but in this instance, he could be a Godsend. Eli felt better. They'd know the lamb's location by tonight and could then determine the best way to acquire her. If all went well, by dawn she would be theirs.

4

Lyle struck a pose on the bottom cellar step. He'd shaved, showered, and donned his black silk suit. Ifasen was ready for Forest Hills.

"How do I look?"

Charlie glanced up from his digging. "All G'd up like a wolf huntin' him some sheep."

"Thanks loads."

Not at all the image Lyle wanted to cut, but he knew Charlie's perception was tinted toward the cynical where he was concerned.

Lyle said, "Jack called. He's been delayed. He's going to grab a bite before he comes back. Why don't you take a break till he gets here. I should be back shortly after that and then the three of us can give it a couple more hours."

Charlie shook his head. "Nuh-uh. Told you I'd give you two days and that's what I'm doin'. Don't want you sayin' I shorted you. You go. I'll keep workin'."

"Charlie—"

"Go, man. I find somethin', I call you. We find nathan by midnight, we gone, right? That was the deal, right? Right?"

Lyle sighed. "Right."

He realized he should have rescheduled his women's club talk, or canceled it altogether. What good was wooing new sitters, no matter how well-heeled, if he wasn't going to be in business after tonight? He never should have struck that deal with Charlie, or at least should have insisted on three days instead of two.

Cool it with the negativity, he told himself. We're going to find Tara tonight. I know it.

And then these Forest Hills ladies would be cat fighting to book sittings with him.

5

The foil-wrapped sandwich was cool under Jack's arm as he stepped into Julio's. The after-work crowd was building and smoke hung thick in the air. As Jack headed for one of the rear tables he waved to Julio and flicked his thumb above his fist in a pop-me-one gesture.

A minute later Julio plunked an open Rolling Rock long neck onto the table and stood watching as Jack unrolled his sub from the greasy foil. A vinegary odor seeped into the air. He'd swung into Costin's mom and pop on the next block and grabbed it on the run from the cooler; a pre-fab construction of spongy bread filled with sliced meat byproducts topped with a cheeseoid substance that had never been within a hundred miles of a cow. But it was fast and promised to fill the void.

"Hey, meng, people see you they gonna think this some kinda bring-your-own-food place."

Jack took a long pull on the beer. Damn, that tasted good. He'd stopped home to shower and change. A clean pair of jeans, a fresh shirt—an Allman Bros, concert T he'd picked up at a secondhand store—and he felt halfway to a new man, ready to dig again.

"Nobody's watching and I'm too hungry and too short on time to deal with those wings and other finger foods you serve."

The little man bristled and flexed his considerable biceps. "Hey, we serve the best food money can fry."

"Your message said you had something for me?"

As Julio fished an envelope out of his back pocket, Jack bit into his sandwich. A pasty texture that tasted like oil and vinegar. Swell. At least he wouldn't be hungry when he finished.

"Old guy drop it off this morning." He ran the envelope under his nose. "Mmm. Smells like money."

"Old guy?"

"Yeah. He meet you here Sunday."

Jack almost choked on his sandwich as he came half out of his seat, looking around. "He still here?"

"Nah." Julio snapped his fingers. "He come and go like that. Like he don' wanna be seen."

"Shit!"

"You lookin' for him?"

"Yeah. Big time."

"He short you?"

Jack opened the envelope and flipped through the bills. The amount looked about right.

"No. But he owes me some answers."

Like why he hired me and why he lied about who he is. Probably never know now.

Jack spotted a slip of yellow paper among the bills. He pulled it out, unfolded it, and read the handwritten note.

Thanks for taking care of my brother. Edward

Was he mocking him or sincere? Jack couldn't tell. Despite his frustration he resisted the urge to ball up the note and fling it across the room. Instead he refolded it and put it back in the envelope.

"Y'know," Julio said. "I think Barney recognized him. I think I hear him say something like, 'My-my-my, look who's here.' Or son'thing like that."

"Barney?" Jack scanned the room. He usually hung at the bar with Lou. "Where is he?"

"Working. Night shift this week. He be back in the morning."

"Then so will I." Jack shoved the remains of the sub into his mouth, washed it down with the rest of the beer, then rose.

"Gotta run. Don't let Barney leave before I get here tomorrow. Feed him, buy him drinks on me, whatever you have to do to keep him here till I arrive."

Jack headed for the street. Time to dig again. He felt a certain amount of satisfaction. Two more questions left: Was Tara Portman truly buried beneath Menelaus Manor, and who had hired him to watch Eli Bellitto? By this time tomorrow he expected to know the answers to both.

6

Even through the heavy beat of Point of Grace's music Charlie heard the noise. He stopped digging. From upstairs. A slamming, banging sound, like some rhythm-impaired giant beating the house with a two-by-four.

He dropped his shovel and scrambled up the steps. He reached the kitchen in time to see the windows shut themselves with a bang. Then the back door slammed closed.

For one panicky moment Charlie thought he might be locked in. He jumped for the knob, gave it a pull, and it swung open. He let out a relieved breath. When he released he knob, the door swung shut again.

How 'bout that? Whatever used to want everything open must've had a change of heart. Now it want everything closed up tight.

Well, not everything, he thought as he checked the front room. The windows were down, but the front door stood open. He pushed it closed but it unlatched itself and swung open again.

Weird how this sorta thing had spooked him a couple days ago but was just everyday stuff now. Showed you can get used to 'most anything.

Charlie wondered why this door was left open while everything else shut up tight, then decided, no matter. After tonight it wasn't his worry. Lyle's neither.

He went back to the cellar and the hole he'd been digging. He'd got down maybe four feet and so far he'd come up with the same as all the other holes: nathan. He figured on giving this one another foot or so before calling it quits.

As the shovel bit into the dirt, the music stopped.

"You're getting warm."

Charlie yelped in terror at the sound of the little-girl voice behind him. He dropped his shovel and snapped around so quick his feet got tangled and he sprawled onto his back.

"No!" he cried as he lay in the cool dirt and looked up at the blond girl in riding clothes standing over him. He knew who she was and what was pretending to be her. "Demon! Sweet Jesus, save me!"

"From me?" she said, smiling and twirling a strand of her golden hair. "Don't be silly."

"Stay away!"

Charlie's heart was a boot kicking inside his chest. He dug in his heels and palms and scrabbled away like a backward crab.

The little girl's face crinkled up and her blue eyes danced as she giggled. Her laugh was sweet and musical. "You look funny!"

"You can't fool me! I know what you are!"

She stepped closer. "You do?"

Charlie kept backing away, and then he banged his dome against a wall and that was it. Nowhere to go.

"You—you a demon!"

She laughed again. "Now you're really being silly!"

His mind screamed, What do I do? What do I do?

He couldn't think. He hadn't expected this, wasn't prepared, never believed that the demon would appear to him. Shoulda listened to the rev, shoulda took his advice and packed his gear and geesed.

Pray! Of course! Words from the Twenty-third Psalm jumped into his brain.

He raised his voice. " 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of death I shall fear no evil. Thy rod and thy staff they—'"

"'Valley of death'," she said, looking around and nodding. "Yes. That's where we are." She pointed to the hole he'd been digging. "You're only seven inches from my head. If you keep digging you'll find me."

Charlie slashed the air with his hand. "No! You can't fool me! You're not Tara Portman!"

The child frowned. "Then why are you digging?"

The question took Charlie by surprise. Why was he digging? Because he'd made a deal with Lyle. And because…

"Because Tara Portman may be buried here, but you're not her."

Her blue eyes turned cold. "Oh, but I am. And I'm not the only one down here. There." She pointed to a hole Jack had dug half a dozen feet to Charlie's left. "Another foot deeper and you'd have found Jerry Schwartz. He was only seven. Right where you're sitting, five feet down, is Rose Howard. She was nine, like me."

Charlie wanted to jump off the spot but couldn't bring himself to move.

Suddenly she disappeared, but immediately flashed back into view in a far corner.

"Jason Moskowski is here."

Charlie blinked and she was in another corner of the cellar.

"Carrie Martin is here."

She flashed to three more locations, naming another child each time. And with each name her eyes grew icier and the cellar colder.

Suddenly she was in front of him, not three feet away.

"Eight of us," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Lord forgive him, he was starting to buy her line. Maybe the rev was wrong. Maybe this wasn't no demon. Maybe this was the furilla ghost of a murdered child.

Or maybe that was just what the demon, kin to the Father of Lies, wanted him to believe.

Real cold in here now. His puffing breaths were smoking the air. He rubbed his bare arms. His sweaty T-shirt was freezing his spine. He saw his sweatshirt balled up by the junk pile.

He rose uncertainly. "I'm gonna get my shirt, okay?"

"Why are you asking me?" she said.

Good question. She hadn't threatened him or nothin', but just seeing her had turned him into a scrub.

He grabbed the hoodie and pulled it on. Better, but still cold.

"You want us to find your body and the others. That it, ain't it? That why you back, right?"

She shook her head.

"Then why?" Sudden fear slammed Charlie like a truck. "You want my soul!"

She laughed like that was such a wack idea, but the sweet sound didn't match up with her ice eyes.

Charlie's hand brushed against the pin on his shirt. He looked down at it. wwjd—what would Jesus do in a case like this?

Simple: He'd tell this spook or demon to get back where it belonged. But Charlie didn't have Jesus' power. Still… it was worth a try.

"Go back where you came from!" he cried.

The little girl blinked. "But I don't know where I came from."

That shocked him. "Lie! You were in heaven or hell, one or the other! You gotta know!"

She shook her head. "I don't remember."

Maybe she was telling the truth, maybe she was lying, but Charlie wasn't hangin' around to find out. If she wouldn't go, then he would. Right up those stairs. That was what Jesus would say: Highside evil. Don't even give it the time of day.

He started to step around her but she flashed out of sight and reappeared by the cellar stairs.

"You can't leave. Not yet."

"Why not?"

"You might ruin things."

He could make a run at her, but what then? Could he knock her down? If she was a real kid, no problem. Couldn't be more than seventy pounds soaking wet. But she wasn't. Was there even anything there to knock aside? Or would he pass right through her—or her through him? That would put her inside him. He couldn't handle that. What if she stayed in?

Charlie shuddered and backed off a step. This little girl had him down and whipped. Couldn't scrap a lick against her.

"What you want with me?" He didn't like the way his voice sounded—all high up and scrub whiny.

She stared at him. "With you? Nothing."

"Then—?"

She raised a hand and his voice died. He tried to speak but couldn't make a sound.

"Quiet now. I'm waiting for someone else, and I don't want you scaring her away."

Point of Grace's vocals blared to life again.

7

Gia hears the voices as soon as she steps through the door. Children's voices, whimpering, sobbing… lost sounds that tear at her heart. She recognizes the waiting room of Menelaus Manor but the voices are coming from the second floor. She rushes up the stairs and finds herself in a long hall lined with doors. Eight of them. The voices are louder here, and grow louder still as she moves down the hall. All the doors but one are open and as she passes each she sees a child, a boy or a girl, standing alone in the center of an empty room, sobbing. Some cry out for their mommies. Pressure builds in Gia's throat as she tries to enter the rooms to comfort them, but she can't stop. She must keep moving down the hall toward the closed door at its end. She stops before it and reaches for the knob, but before she touches it the door slams open and there's Tara Portman, the front of her blouse all bloody and her eyes wide with fear, and she's screaming, "Help! Help! Someone's hurt! You've got to come! Come now! NOW!"

Gia awoke with a start and the word NOW! echoing through her head. She looked around the darkening bedroom. Through the window she saw that the sun was down and twilight fading fast.

A nap. She hadn't slept well last night. She'd kept waking from dreams, remembering little of them except that they were disturbing. Being pregnant probably added to the fatigue. But as tired as she'd felt all afternoon, she'd fought Jack's suggestion of a nap until she could barely keep her eyes open. Finally she'd allowed herself a quick lie-down on the bed, just for a few minutes… She'd just had another disturbing dream. What had it been about? She seemed to remember something about Menelaus—

Gia lunged to her feet as it all rushed back to her: Tara's terrified face as she screamed about someone being hurt and how Gia had to come now. Now!

"Jack!"

A bolt of alarm shot through her chest as she ran downstairs through the dark house to the kitchen where she had Jack's cell phone number magneted to the refrigerator door. She found it, dialed, but was told by a mechanical voice that he wasn't available. She flipped on a light, grabbed her pocketbook, and dumped it onto the counter. She rummaged through the mess until she found the Ifasen brochure she'd picked up at Menelaus Manor. She punched in the number and hung on through the rings until the Kentons' voice mail picked up. She hung up without leaving a message.

Gia didn't know if someone was really hurt or if the dream had been nothing more than that, but she had this awful feeling that something must be wrong. Whatever the case, she couldn't simply sit here. She knew she'd promised to stay away, but if Jack was hurt she wanted to be there; if he wasn't, she could hang out and visit for a while. Promise or no promise, she was heading for Menelaus Manor. Now.

She picked up the phone again and called for a cab.

8

Giving in to an impulse to stop in at Gia's, Jack stepped off the N train at the Fifty-ninth Street station and walked over to Sutton Square. He hadn't seen her all day.

He had a key but he knocked anyway. And knocked again when she didn't answer. Odd. He saw lights on inside. He used his key and entered. When he saw that the alarm was armed he knew Gia wasn't home. He punched in the code and stood in the foyer wondering where she could be. He'd told her he wouldn't make dinner so maybe she'd gone out by herself. But dinner alone in a restaurant… that wasn't Gia.

He stepped down the hall to the kitchen to see if she'd left him a note but stopped cold when he found one of Lyle's Ifasen brochures on the counter instead.

Aw, no. She'd promised she'd stay away from that place. Had she…?

He picked up the phone, hit redial, and eventually heard Lyle's outgoing message.

That was it. She was heading for Menelaus Manor. Could be there already.

Jack dashed for the front door. He didn't like this. Gia wouldn't break a promise without a damn good reason. Something was very wrong.

9

Gia hesitated when she saw a shadowy form standing halfway down the walk to the Kentons' front door. The sky was moonless but the house was lit up like they were throwing a party. The figure was too small for Jack or Lyle or Charlie.

Then she spotted the dog.

Oh, no, Gia thought. Not her again.

"Please stay away," the woman said in a voice at once rapid-fire and lilting. In the faint wash of light from the house Gia could see she wore an orange sari tonight. Her nostril ring had been replaced by a tiny jeweled stud. "I have warned you before but you did not heed. This time you must listen."

Gia's annoyance got the better of her as she edged past. She needed to be in that house, not out here listening to a woman who probably wasn't all there.

"What's your problem? Why are you telling me this?"

Her silver-ringed fingers twisted the long braid hanging over her shoulder. "Because that house is dangerous for you."

"So you've said, but nothing's happened."

The woman's black eyes bore into her. "If you won't think of yourself, think of the baby you carry."

Gia stumbled back a step, shaken. "What?" How could she know? "Who are you?"

"I'm your mother." She spoke flatly, as if stating the obvious. "A mother knows these things."

That clinched it. Gia's mother was in Iowa and this woman was crazy. She had her going for a moment with that remark about the baby… a wild lucky guess.

"Thank you for your concern," she said, backing away toward the house. Never confront a crazy person. "But I've really got to get inside."

The woman stepped closer. "Oh, please," she said, her voice thick with anguish. She clutched her braid with both hands now, twisting it back and forth. She seemed genuinely upset. "Don't go in there. Not tonight."

Gia slowed her retreat as something within her cried out to listen. But she couldn't stay out here when Jack was inside, possibly hurt. She forced herself to turn and run up the steps to the porch. The front door stood open. Without knocking she hurried inside and closed it behind her and felt…

… welcome.

How odd. Almost as if the house were overjoyed to see her. But that wasn't possible. Just relief from escaping that crazy woman.

"Hello?" she called. "Jack? Lyle? Charlie?"

Then Gia heard the music. She couldn't catch the words but it sounded upbeat and soulful. And it was coming from the cellar. She hurried down the steps but stopped when she saw the devastation. It looked like a bomb had gone off—the paneling and concrete floor had been torn to pieces and scattered; random holes had been dug into the dirt beneath.

And then she saw Charlie, huddled against the far wall. He looked terrified and was gesturing to her. His mouth worked, forming words, but he wasn't speaking. What was he trying to tell her? He looked crazy. First the Indian lady, now Charlie. Had everyone gone mad?

"Charlie? Where's Jack?"

The music stopped. And with that Charlie started to speak.

"Gia!" He pointed to her left. "She—it's here!"

Gia stepped into the cellar and gasped when she noticed the little girl.

"Tara?" After visiting her father, seeing her photo collection, hearing her story, Gia felt as if she knew this child. "It's really you, isn't it."

She nodded her blond head. "Hello, mother."

Mother? There seemed to be a lot of confusion about that going around.

"No, I'm not your mother."

"Oh, I know."

"Then why—?"

Charlie pushed away from the wall and edged closer. "Get out, Gia! She been waiting on you."

"That's okay, Charlie." Despite the cellar's cool dampness, Gia felt warm and welcome. "I'm not afraid. Where's Jack?"

"He and Lyle left me here alone." He pointed to Tara. "Then that showed up."

"My mother…" Tara frowned. "She doesn't think about me anymore."

"That's because she can't, honey. She—"

"I know." The words came out flat, with no feeling.

Charlie had reached her side now. He gripped her arm with a cold, trembling hand. His voice sounded ragged, barely above a whisper.

"We gotta get outta here. If she let us."

Gia looked at Tara. "You're not holding us here, are you?"

The child smiled wistfully. "I'd like the mother to stay for a while."

"Not right!" Charlie said. "Dead and living don't mix!"

"Why don't you go," Gia said. "I'll stay."

"Nuh-uh." Charlie shook his head. "Not without you, I ain't. This is bad—she bad. Can't you feel it?"

Gia felt sorry for him. He was so frightened he was shaking. Oddly, she felt perfectly calm. Hard to believe she was talking to the ghost of a murdered child and didn't feel the least bit afraid. Because she knew this poor lost soul, understood what she needed.

"I'll be fine."

He shook his head again. "We both go or we both stay."

"Tell you what." She took Charlie's arm and led him toward the steps. "We'll both go up and then I'll come back down, just for a few minutes."

But as they reached the steps Gia stopped—not because she wanted to, but because something was blocking her way. An invisible wall.

With a chill of foreboding she turned. "Tara?"

"You can't go," Tara said with a pout. "I need the mother to stay."

That's the heart of it, Gia thought. She wants a mother—needs a mother.

She felt the nurturer within her responding, reaching out to quell that need. But she had to be realistic here.

Gia spoke softly, slowly. "Look, Tara, I know you want your mother, but she can't come. I can't take her place, but •f there's something I can—"

Tara shook her head. "No. You don't understand. I don't want a mother."

Gia stared at her, baffled. "Then what—?"

And then everything changed. A wave of cold slammed through the air as Tara's expression shifted from sweet innocence to rage. She bared her teeth.

"I want to be a mother."

The earth suddenly gave way under Gia's feet. She screamed as she and Charlie tumbled into the black pit that opened beneath them.

10

As soon as Lyle stepped out of the taxi he sensed something was wrong.

Then he saw someone running toward him along the sidewalk. He tensed, ready to jump back into the cab until he recognized Jack.

"Hey, Jack. What's the hurry?"

Jack stopped before him, puffing, but not too heavily. "Gia. I think she's here."

"Why would—?" He stopped himself. "Never mind. Let's go see."

As they walked toward the house Lyle said, "You run all the way from Manhattan?"

"Just from the subway."

"Why didn't you take a cab?"

"Subway's faster this hour."

Lyle looked at Jack and noticed that his outline was no longer blurred. Maybe his strange new awareness was gone, or maybe it only worked in the house. But the nearer Lyle drew to the house, the stronger the sense of wrongness. He couldn't place his finger on it until—

"I'll be damned!" He stopped, staring.

Jack stopped beside him. "What?"

"The windows… the doors… they're closed!" He laughed. "This is great! We can put on the AC now."

"I don't like it," Jack said, moving again.

"Why not? Maybe it means whatever's been there has gone home."

"I doubt it."

Lyle followed Jack, saw him go to step up onto the front porch, then fall back.

"What the—?"

Lyle came up beside him. "What happened? Slip?"

And then Lyle could go no further. He stared at his foot, stranded in midair halfway to the first porch step. A chill ran down his back as he kicked his shoe forward, putting some weight behind it, but it didn't get any farther than before.

"Oh, man!" he said as icy fingers clawed his gut. "Oh, man, oh, man, oh, man! What's this shit?"

"I don't know," Jack said.

He threw a punch at the air but his fist came to a screaming halt in midair. Lyle tried the same. Pain shot through his shoulder as his hand stopped short at about the same plane as Jack's.

It wasn't like hitting a wall. It wasn't like hitting anything. No impact. His hand simply… stopped. And no matter how hard he pushed it wouldn't advance a millimeter farther.

Lyle glanced at Jack and saw him backing up, searching the ground. He bent, came up with a rock, and threw it. Lyle watched it arc toward the house, then stop in midair and drop to the ground.

With a guttural roar Jack hurled himself at the front steps, only to stop short and stagger back.

"Easy, Jack."

"Gia's in there!"

"You don't know that."

"I do! Damn! This is what Tara was after all along—to get Gia alone in there."

"But she's not alone. Char—" Lyle's heart tripped, skipped a beat. "Oh, shit. Charlie's in there too. What do you think's happening?"

"Don't know, but it can't be good if she's got the place sealed up." He started for the side of the house. "Let's see if this goes all the way around."

It did. They circled the house, punching at its windows and rear door, throwing rocks at it. Anyone seeing them had to think they were drunk and locked out. They called for Gia and Charlie, but no one answered.

Then they came to the garage—and walked right in. But they couldn't reach the door from the garage to the house.

Lyle leaned against the impenetrable air and felt sick. This couldn't be—shouldn't be. What was happening to the world?

"Jack…"

His face was reddening with the effort of trying to force a broom handle through the barrier. "Gets to you, doesn't it. Down is up, up is down, immutable laws get broken, things you always thought impossible aren't." With a grunt of frustration he tossed the broom across the garage. "Welcome to my world."

Lyle spotted a ladder leaning against the wall. "Hey, if we can't get through it, maybe we can get over it."

"Do not waste your time," said a woman's voice. "You cannot."

Lyle turned and saw a Hindu woman in an orange sari. Her dark eyes, and those of the big German shepherd standing beside her, were on Jack.

"Why not?" Lyle said.

"Because it goes up far."

"How far?" Jack said,

"Forever."

Who was this lady? Where'd she come from?

"How do you know so much about this?" Lyle asked.

"I know."

The way she said it, Lyle believed her.

"You've got to do better than that," Jack said.

He took a step toward her but stopped when the dog growled.

Her eyes flashed at him. "Have I not warned you about this house and its dangers for you and your woman? Have I not? And neither of you listened!"

Why didn't I know about this? Lyle thought.

"Yeah, you did. And obviously we should have. So what? I-told-you-so doesn't solve the problem. If you know so much, what's going on in there?"

"Your woman and her baby are in grave danger."

Baby? Was Gia pregnant? Lyle saw Jack blanch. He looked frightened, something Lyle hadn't thought possible.

"How do—? Never mind. What kind of danger? Why?"

"The why does not matter because the why has changed. But the danger is mortal."

Lyle's mouth went dry. "Charlie too?"

She didn't look at him. "Anyone in that house now is in danger."

How could she know all this—any of it? She could be wrong or just plain crazy.

Jack seemed to have bought it. He was turning in a circle, his hands raised and balled into fists. He looked ready to explode.

"Got to be a way in. Got to!"

The woman's eyes remained fixed on Jack. She paid Lyle no more heed than a piece of furniture.

"You cannot break in, and no one inside can break out. You must be allowed in or out."

"Allowed? How do we arrange that?"

"I do not know for certain. Perhaps by offering the entity something she wants more than your woman."

Jack said nothing, just stood and stared at the woman.

"Name it," Lyle told her. This was Charlie, his brother at risk here too. The sky was the limit. "Whatever it is we can use to trade, name it and we'll do our damnedest to get it."

"It's not an it," Jack said. He started for the door with a strange light in his eyes, almost like glee, yet disturbingly malevolent. It made Lyle want to back away. "It's a he. And I know who. Let's go."

Lyle had a sudden inspiration as to who that "he" might be and was very glad he was not him.

11

"You all right?" Charlie said from where he sprawled next to her.

Gia had landed on her left leg harder than her right and it hurt. She pulled it under her and tried to stand, leaning against the dirt wall at her back for support. It held.

"I think so." She brushed off her jeans. "How about you?"

Charlie stood easily. "Fine."

Light filtered down from above. Gia looked up. She could see the panels of the cellar ceiling, but all around her was dirt. She and Charlie had dropped into a well-like pit maybe a dozen feet deep and half that across.

She fought a surge of panic as the walls seemed to tilt toward her and move in. She closed her eyes and clenched her teeth to let the moment pass. She'd never been claustrophobic, but she'd never been tossed into an oubliette before either.

"Tara?" she called. Her fear-dry throat made it sound more like a croak than a name. "Tara!"

No reply.

"Tara, why are you doing this to us? We never hurt you. We can help bring your killer to justice. Please let us out!"

Only silence from above.

Gia's heart pounded as she ran her hands over the smooth circular wall. The dirt was hard packed, with no ridges or depressions for handholds.

She glanced at Charlie. His wild-eyed gaze darted up and around and back. He licked his lips as he placed his sneakered right foot against the wall, then stretched out his arms and placed both hands against the opposite side. When he raised his left foot and put it next to his right, he was arched across the pit. Now he started inching his hands and feet upward toward light and freedom.

But after half a foot or so his hands slipped off the wall and he fell, landing on all fours like a cat. Without a word he tried again, with the same result.

He stood and leaned against the wall, head back, eyes closed, breathing hard.

"Lord, give me the strength for this, I pray you. Please."

He tried again and this time advanced maybe a foot before falling. He sat hunched against the wall, knees up, head down, the picture of dejection.

"If the walls was just one foot closer—half a foot, even—I could slam it. I know I could."

"It's okay," Gia said softly. "You gave it your best shot."

"Not good enough." He stood and looked at her. "We trapped."

Gia glanced up and thought about standing on Charlie's shoulders. But even then she'd be short of the upper rim.

"Maybe Tara will get us out when she's ready."

"When's that gonna be? And why we down here anyway?"

Gia shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe she just wanted us out of the way."

"That don't make no sense."

Gia had to agree, but did a ghost have to make sense? Look at what she'd said before the ground opened up: I want to be a mother. What did that mean? How could she be a mother? She was dead. But that wouldn't stop her from wanting what she couldn't have, Gia supposed.

"At least we're not hurt." She pointed to her shoulder bag lying on the dirt floor. She'd dropped it when they fell. "And we won't go hungry because I have a couple of power bars in my—" She dropped to her knees beside the bag as she remembered. "Oh, God. My cell phone!"

She rummaged through the jumbled contents and pulled out the phone, but when she turned it on, nothing happened. No light, no beep, no power.

"Damn, it's dead."

Charlie knelt beside her. "Like I said. We trapped. She wouldn't let us up the steps and I bet she ain't lettin' nobody down. All we got left is prayer."

"And hope that Jack figures out I'm here." Gia cursed herself for not leaving him a note, but she thought she was going to him. "Once he knows, he'll get us out."

Charlie looked at her. "You say that like it a done deal."

"In a way it is. He's inventive and relentless and he won't quit on me. Ever." The simple truth of that was a balm on her nerves.

"That ain't no done deal. That's just a hope."

Gia smiled. "No… it's faith." She looked around at the high dirt walls. "But we ought to be trying something to get ourselves out." She reached out and touched the pin on Charlie's sweatshirt, "wwjd. Not a bad idea in a situation like this."

"True that. What Would Jesus Do?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of What Would Jack Do?" A thought occurred to her. "Where's Lyle, by the way?"

"Out mackin' some ladies group. Shoulda been back by now."

"I'd guess you can count on him doing what he can to get you out of here as well, right? WWLD—What Would Lyle Do?"

Charlie looked away. "Anything he could. He never let me down before, not 'bout to start now." Gia heard a catch in his voice. "More'n he can say for me."

"I don't understand."

"Long story."

"I think we've got time."

He shook his head and looked ashamed. "Nuh-uh."

As Charlie folded his hands and bowed his head to pray, Gia scanned the walls again looking for something, anything. She remembered Jack asking her once if she wanted to take up wall climbing. She'd laughed him off. The last thing she wanted to do with her spare time was cling to a wall like a bug. Now she wished she'd taken him up on it. Not that this wall offered much in the way of handholds, but at least—

What was that?

She spotted something shiny up on the wall. There. About six inches or so above her head. Keeping her eyes fixed on the spot, she reached up and touched it. Something hard stuck in the dirt. It felt metallic. She dug her fingernails into the dirt around it, clearing some away, but it was too hard.

"Charlie? I've found something."

He was beside her in a flash. "What? Where?"

"It's some kind of metal."

Charlie's extra height put him at eye level with it. "Look like brass or copper. Probably just scrap from when the place built."

"Let's dig it out. Who knows? Maybe it's something we can use."

"A'ight. Let's see."

As Charlie dug with his hands, Gia knelt and dug into her shoulder bag again. Finally she found it.

"Here," she said, holding up a metal nail file. "Try this."

He took it and began stabbing at the dirt, loosening it and then digging it out with his fingers. Soon it became clear that they'd found some sort of metal bar. When he'd exposed enough of it, Charlie grabbed the end and began wiggling it back and forth.

"Here we go!" he said as dirt began flying everywhere. "We got it now!"

Suddenly it came free and he stumbled back, falling against the opposite wall. He shook off the dirt and held up what he'd unearthed.

Gia gasped. "A cross!"

A cross with no top piece worth mentioning. Exactly like the crosses left on the wall after the whirlpool had receded. This one's crosspiece was slightly bent and twisted and looked like nickel or silver; the upright was brass, or something that looked very much like it.

Charlie stared at it. "Gotta be one of the tau crosses from the blocks in the wall. They musta buried them after they pried them out. But we found one!" He held it high. "It's a sign!"

"It's a digging tool!"

"Dig? I think we deep enough already."

"Not down—in. We can use this to dig footholds and handholds so we can climb out of here."

Charlie grinned. "Why didn't I think of that?" He gripped the base and swung the cross at the wall. The cross-piece dug in and sent dirt flying. "Oh, yeah! We on our way. We beat this ghost yet."

12

"Shit!" Jack rose and stepped back from the door. "Latch won't budge. We'll have to do this the hard way."

The hard way? Lyle had thought they were already doing it the hard way. Here he was standing in his socks on a rooftop in Soho while the guy he was with tried to break into the building below. He felt exposed, as if he were on an open-air stage. At least there was no moon, but plenty of light leaked in from the city around them. All someone had to do was look out a window in one of the higher buildings nearby and see them trying to jimmy the lock on the roof door. A 911 call would get them arrested for criminal trespass, attempted B and E, and who knew what else.

Still, better to be caught now than after they'd picked up what they'd come for; kidnapping was a capital offense.

Half an hour ago Jack had left Lyle at a bar named Julio's; he'd returned a few minutes later in a different set of clothes and carrying a gym bag that clinked and rattled with the metallic sound of tools. They'd driven here in Jack's car and parked outside. Jack had stood across the street from the building and studied it for a few minutes, then moved on. Half a block down they'd sneaked up a fire escape and traveled across three other roofs to reach this one. Sure, easy for Jack; he was dressed for this sort of thing. Lyle was still in a dress shirt and suit pants—and black leather shoes no less. Jack had made him take them off when they reached this particular roof.

So, if what they'd been doing was the easy way, what was the hard way?

Jack lifted his jersey and began unwinding a length of nylon cord from around his waist. Where'd that come from?

He handed Lyle the free end of the rope and whispered, "Tie this to that vent pipe over there."

Lyle was more used to giving orders than taking them, but this was Jack's show, so he deferred to his expertise. Jack seemed to know what he was doing. With somebody else this sortie might have turned into a male-bonding experience, but Jack had changed after leaving the house. He went silent and into himself. The easygoing manner had fallen away, replaced by cool crisp efficiency behind an impenetrable hardshell exterior. A man on a mission, determined to bring home the goods at whatever cost. Lyle found him a little scary. As if he'd locked all the gentler human emotions in a small back room, leaving his dark and raw side unfettered.

"Tie why?"

"I'm going over the side."

Lyle's chest tightened. He stepped to the parapet and peeked over. He stood atop a three-story building. Falling from here would be like jumping out a fourth-story window. A surge of vertigo gripped him and threatened to pull him over, but he hung on until the spinning passed. He expected to see a brick wall; instead he saw smooth beveled surfaces and ornate columns.

He turned back to Jack. "You're crazy. There's nothing to hold on to."

"Yeah. These old ironclads can be a bitch."

Lyle felt a seismic tremor start from his center and pulse out to his extremities.

"I don't think I can do this, Jack." Actually he was absolutely positive he could not go over that ledge.

Jack gave him a hard look. "You backing out on me?"

"No, it's just… heights. I'm—"

"You thought you were going over that wall?" He shook his head. "Not a chance. You're here to watch the rope and make sure that pipe doesn't start to bend."

Lyle sighed with relief. That he could do.

Jack pulled on a pair of work gloves and took the rope from Lyle. He tied it around a steel pipe jutting vertically from the roof, tested the knot, glided to the parapet, and sat on the edge.

"How do we know this guy's even home?"

"We don't. But the third floor—where I assume the bedrooms would be—is dark. The second floor is all lit up and a television is on."

"How can you tell?"

Jack looked impatient. "Different kind of light. And besides, he hasn't been very mobile since our last meeting." He glanced down. "Here's the plan…"

Lyle listened, nodded a few times, then helped Jack ease over the edge. Shifting his attention between Jack and the vent pipe, Lyle watched him ease down the iron facade and stop next to the window directly below. Further down, Lyle saw passing cars and strolling pedestrians.

Please don't look up.

Jack placed a foot on the ledge and eased up the window. Great. It was unlocked. But then, who locks a third-story window? Especially in summer.

Jack disappeared through the opening and seconds later the free end of the rope sailed back out. Lyle quickly hauled it up and untied the other end from the pipe. He coiled the rope as he padded back to the roof door, then shoved it into Jack's gym bag. As instructed, he pulled on a pair of latex gloves and was ready and waiting when Jack opened the door from the inside.

As Jack exchanged his work gloves for a latex pair, he whispered, "Here's where it could get dicey. If Bellitto's alone, we're golden. But if that big guy I told you about is here…"

He reached into the bag and pulled out a pistol with a dark matte finish. Lyle didn't know much about guns, but he knew a semi-automatic when he saw one, and assumed it was a 9 mm. And he knew that fat cylinder stuck on the end of the barrel was a silencer.

The sight of it, and the casual way Jack handled it, made him queasy.

It had seemed like such a good idea back at the house, a simple, straightforward plan: Trade Tara's killer for Charlie and Gia. But the farther they'd traveled from the surreality of Menelaus Manor into the reassuring hard reality of Manhattan, the more the idea of kidnapping a child murderer—suspected child murderer; they had no real proof—from his own apartment seemed downright insane.

And now… a gun.

Lyle swallowed. "You're not really going to use that, are you?"

Jack's voice was flat. "I'll use whatever I have to. He's no good to us dead, so I want him alive, if that's what you're worried about. But I'll do what needs to be done to get him." His cold dark eyes, the ones that had seemed such a mild brown this morning, bored into Lyle. "Maybe you should wait here."

"No." That was Charlie trapped in that house back there. His brother. His blood. Lyle would help Jack and worry about law and morality later. "I've come this far. I'm in."

Jack nodded once. "Want the Glock?"

Glock? Oh, the gun.

"I'd better not."

"Well, no way you're going in empty-handed."

He reached back into the gym bag and came up with something Lyle recognized: a black leather sap.

"Comfortable with this?"

Lyle could only nod. He wasn't comfortable at all, and doubted he could crack that weighted end against anybody's skull, no matter who they were, but he took the heavy thing and stuck it in his pocket.

Next Jack pulled out a roll of duct tape and began tearing off strips, some long, some short. These he stuck to the front of his jersey.

Then they were ready. Jack worked the slide on his pistol, picked up the bag, and started down the stairwell.

"Hey, wait," Lyle whispered as something occurred to him. "Shouldn't we be wearing masks? You know, like stockings or something?"

"Why?"

The reason was so obvious he was surprised Jack hadn't thought of it. He seemed to have thought of everything else.

"So this guy doesn't see our faces."

"Why should we care?"

"Because what if Tara doesn't want to trade? Then we're left with a guy we've kidnapped who knows what we look like. He can go to the cops—"

"He won't be going to the cops."

"Why? Because he's a child killer and he's got more to hide than we do? Maybe. But we're taking him to my house, not yours. He'll know where I live, not—"

"Won't matter what he knows."

"It'll matter to me, damn it."

Jack looked at him, his eyes colder and darker than ever, and spoke very slowly. "It… won't… matter."

The full meaning of the words struck Lyle like a runaway D train.

"Hey, listen, Jack, I don't think I want to be part of—"

Jack turned away. "You won't be. Not your problem. Come on. Let's bag this mutant."

Jack started down the stairs. Lyle held back, weighted down by the cold lump of lead that had formed in his stomach. But the thought of Charlie spurred him to follow.

At the bottom of the stairwell they entered a dark hallway lined with a number of doors, all closed. No light seeped around them. Cooler here. Air-conditioning doing its job. The smell of fried onions in the air. Light filtered up from a stairway at its far end, and with it the sound of canned laughter—a sit-com on the TV.

Jack handed the bag to Lyle and moved toward the stairs with his pistol before him. Lyle followed. At the top step he motioned Lyle to wait, then he descended the stairs one at a time with excruciating slowness, keeping his sneakered feet against the wall at the very edge of each tread. He reached the bottom and disappeared for a moment, then returned to motion Lyle down. Walking in his socks—his noisy leather-soled shoes were stowed in the gym bag—Lyle followed Jack's example, staying near the wall end of the treads.

At the bottom he looked around. They stood in a small, spare dining room. Dinner plates still cluttered the mahogany table. The kitchen to the left, and another room beside it; Lyle guessed from the glowing computer screen that it was some sort of office. The living room lay to the right; the TV sounds came from there.

Lyle jumped as a phone rang in the office. He looked to Jack to see what to do but Jack was already moving like a cat toward the living room. He reached the entrance at the same time another man dressed in gray suit pants and a white shirt with French cuffs came out. He was older, a six-footer with pale skin and dark receding hair, and he was moving carefully, as if movement was uncomfortable. This had to be the man they'd come for, the Eli Bellitto Jack had told him about.

Jack shoved the silencer under the man's chin and grabbed a handful of hair at the back of his head, yanking it back to expose his throat.

"Hello, Eli," he said in a low, harsh voice. "Molest any little boys today?"

Lyle didn't think he'd ever seen anyone more terrified. The man looked ready to collapse from shock and fear as Jack backed him into the living room.

"W-what? How—?"

Lyle, still carrying the gym bag, followed at a distance. In the living room a big Sony—a thirty-something-incher—was playing a Seinfeld rerun.

"Down! On the floor!"

Bellitto's face twisted in pain as Jack kicked the back of his knees, sending him down to a praying position.

"No! Please! I'm hurt!"

The Seinfeld audience laughed.

"That's the least of your worries," Jack said, his voice still low.

He pushed Bellitto face down on the bare hardwood floor, then half straddled him, pressing a knee into the small of his back. Bellitto groaned in pain.

Lyle kept reminding himself that this creep had killed Tara Portman and who knew how many other kids, and that Jack was closer to this situation than he—after all, he'd seen the guy snatch a kid firsthand. He was playing rough, but if anyone deserved it…

Jack pulled a short strip of duct tape from his shirt and slapped it over the man's mouth. Then he looked up at Lyle.

"Over here."

Lyle hesitated, then approached. Jack handed him the pistol.

He winked at Lyle. "He tries anything cute, shoot him in the ass."

The Seinfeld audience laughed again.