"Skeleton justice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baden Michael)

EXECUTION-STYLE SLAYING IN KEARNY

On May 24, police found the body of a twenty-three-year-old man in a litter-strewn lot in Kearny, New Jersey. He had been shot once in the temple, execution style. The victim was identified as Benjamin Hravek, who worked intermittently as a roofer. Police are seeking a ponytailed, tall, thin Caucasian male with silver hair, age approximately thirty-five, known to have had a violent encounter with Hravek at the Gateway Inn several days before his death.

The Metro section slipped onto the table and Sam stared out the window behind his brother's left shoulder.

"Oh, here-take the damn Sports." Jake tossed him the section.

But Sam was already out of the room by the time the newspaper landed. Manny paced the space in front of her desk with the phone pressed to her ear. She covered the distance in a few strides of her long legs, pivoted at the first of the white Carrera leather chairs she had purchased to inspire the confidence of her clients, and marched back toward the other chair, where Mycroft sat licking his paw.

"I want to talk to your client and find out what the hell's going on." Sam's voice came through the phone loud enough to make Mycroft's ears perk. "This little odd job you recruited me for is going to end up getting me arrested for murder."

"Look on the bright side, Sam. You'll have the best defense counsel on the east coast."

"Damn it, Manny! This isn't funny. There's some serious shit going down here."

"I know there is, Sam. And I'm not sure it has anything to do with the Iqbar case and Islamic terrorism. You know, Brueninger has presided over scores of controversial cases. What if the feds were sidetracked by Travis's reading material? What if they're looking at this all wrong?"

"You've got a point. I can't see a guy like Boo agreeing to work for a bunch of Muslim extremists. He's more of an organized crime kind of guy." Sam paused. "Was, I should say. Did Brueninger preside over any Mafia trials?"

"I've got a list of every case that came before him in the past five years," Manny said. "There was a Mafia money-laundering case a while back where a few mid-level capos got sent to minimum-security prison. I don't see the mob retaliating over that. They take those convictions as the cost of doing business."

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "A little R and R and the boys are back to work. Besides, Boo's not Italian. Hravek is what-Czech, Hungarian, Serbian?"

Manny scanned the list of Brueninger's cases. "Hey, here's something. The judge convicted a bunch of guys from former Soviet-bloc countries for human trafficking-smuggling poor Albanian girls into the country and forcing them into prostitution."

"Sex-slave traders. They sound like the kind of guys who might carry a nice grudge against the man who sent them away."

Manny had done a Google search on the case while she and Sam were talking. "Apparently, he sent them far away. They were deported to serve their sentences in Albania."

"Eeew-that sounds unpleasant. If they're still there. But who knows-bribe the right people in the old country and they could very well be back on the streets here in New Jersey."

"And how would we ever know?" Manny asked. "We can't do follow-up in Albania."

"I'm relieved to hear you say so, because I'm not taking a field trip to Tirana."

Manny kicked at the side of her desk in frustration, then hopped up and down in pain. Mycroft studied her mournfully. Since getting expelled from the Little Paws doggy day-care center for fighting with a Boston terrier, he'd been spending long days in the office with Manny. "Somehow we have to find out who hired Boo, and why. Why did the bomber want to involve Travis?"

"Travis and/or Paco," Sam said. "The two guys Boo took with him to Club Epoch aren't going to know anything. We have to find the other guy, Freak."

"Or Deke or Zeke," Manny said. "No one seems clear on his name, where he came from, or where he disappeared to."

"The police maintain a database of nicknames bad guys use on the street," Sam said. "Do you know if the feds tried to find this guy in there?"

Manny dropped into her desk chair and swiveled to look out the window. Twenty floors below, the hustle and flow of lower Manhattan moved silently by. "If you ask me, the feds seem to be doing all they can to pretend our mystery man never existed. And I find that in itself to be very suspicious."

"Ah, Manny-you see conspiracies everywhere. Why not give plain old incompetence credit sometimes?"

"You're right, Sam. It's hard to overestimate that on the federal level. Luckily, I know a guy high up in the New Jersey Bureau of Criminal Justice. I'll suggest he run those names for us-for their investigation."

Manny waved Kenneth into the office. He was wearing a faux tiger-skin shirt topped by a short feather boa jacket. The jacket was a concession to the need for formal law office decorum. Despite his new natural-toned acrylic nails, he'd done an excellent job typing up the Eduardo wrongful death summary judgment brief that had to be filed with the court the next day.

"Thanks, Kenneth. I'll sign that and you can send it off."

"Hello? Are you still there?" Sam demanded.

"Sorry. Where was I?"

"Tracking down Freak."

"Right. If I could find him, the feds would have to accept that Travis didn't plan this. If I can't, I have to find another way to convince them Travis was an unwitting dupe, not an intentional coconspirator."

"Are you sure that's true?"

Manny sighed. "Not entirely. And that's exactly why I'm telling you to stay away from Travis Heaton. He's under house arrest, and I'm sure there are federal marshals keeping an eye on his apartment. If they see you waltzing into his building, a fleet of cruisers will be waiting for you when you come out. I'll talk to him."

This suggestion was met with silence. Finally, Sam spoke again. "Okay, maybe you're right."

Manny smiled. There was a sentence you'd seldom hear any man utter.

"Listen, this is what I want you to find out. Whose idea was it that they go to Club Epoch? Why that place, that night? Did Travis know they were going to be meeting anyone?"

"I want to know those things, too, Sam. And believe me, I intend to find out."

"And what about this Paco kid-are you going to talk to him?" Sam demanded.

Manny switched the phone to her other ear and reached out to stroke Mycroft. He yipped and scooted away from her hand. "Mikey, what's-"

"Manny! What about Paco?"

She wasn't eager to answer this question. The truth was, Paco Sandoval was proving quite elusive and it was really pissing her off. And worrying her. He was hiding behind his diplomatic immunity and letting his friend take the fall. If Paco was just an innocent dupe, as Travis claimed to be, then why wouldn't he at least cooperate in his friend's defense? She suspected that this mysterious caller who'd contacted Boo Hravek was somehow connected to Paco. But how could she prove it if she couldn't even talk to the kid? His family's apartment near the UN was a veritable fortress; the Monet Academy had treated her like a damn pedophile when she tried to reach Paco there. Still, she didn't want Sam to panic. She could handle this.

"Look, Sam, Travis went to school today, and he'll talk to Paco and let him know we need to meet with him. I'll work it out."

"You'd better. Call me as soon as you're done with those kids."

"Fine. Expect to hear from me by five."

As soon as she'd put the phone down, Manny scooped up Mycroft to examine the paw he was licking. The dog held perfectly still as her fingers searched gently. Then he shuddered and yelped when Manny found the swollen wound hidden in his curls. He'd been bitten by that damn terrier! The nip he'd given Kimo had been in self-defense.

"Oh, Mikey, I've got to get you to the vet. You're wounded. And unjustly accused, too." Jake peered at slides through a microscope set up on a small side table in his office. While he'd been obsessed with the Vampire, a multitude of work on other cases had piled up. Stacks of case folders and unproofed autopsy reports teetered on his desk. The medical degrees and awards hanging on his walls seemed to mock him as he worked.

As much as he tried to focus on wrapping up the details of these other cases, thoughts of the Vampire continued to derail his concentration.

A light tap at the door made him look up. Vito Pasquarelli stood on the threshold of his office, looking as gaunt and nervous as Jake had ever seen him.

"What's the matter?"

Vito stepped into the office, shut the door, and leaned on it. "I had my meeting with the FBI this morning." His eyes were half-closed as he spoke. "They want to take over the case."

"That's good news, isn't it?" Jake came out from behind his desk and waved Pasquarelli into a chair beside him. "This Vampire thing has put you in the hot seat. Let them have it."

Pasquarelli shook his head. "The mayor's fighting it. Ever since the FBI fouled up that near-miss subway bombing in Brooklyn and let the conspirators slip away, the mayor never misses a chance to hang the feds out to dry. He says no one does a better job of protecting New Yorkers than the NYPD."

Jake grinned. "His confidence in you is touching."

"Yeah, yeah, tell me about it. He's just grandstanding for reelection, and jabbing our congressmen for not getting New York more federal antiterrorism money. That all looks great on the news, but I'm the one who's gotta figure out how to solve this Vampire thing, and I don't see how I'm going to do it if the FBI gets its knickers in a twist and refuses to help me."

"Why do they want the case? What do they know that you don't?"

"They know whose fingerprint was on that coffee mug, but they don't know how it got there. And neither do I."

"It didn't get there when the person was drinking from the mug?"

Vito leaned back and stared at the warped and grimy ceiling of Jake's office. "Well, maybe. But he sure as hell wasn't having a drink with Ms. Hogaarth."

"Why not? Whose print is it?"

The detective gave up on trying to divine the future by reading the stains in the acoustic tile and met Jake's eye. He spoke the words as distinctly as if he were calling the person forward to accept an award.

"The former president of the United States-Richard Milhous Nixon."

Manny stood on the front stoop of the five-story walk-up on West Ninety-seventh Street and pressed the button next to the faded nameplate reading HEATON. When nothing happened in response, she pressed again.

She'd managed to squeeze in a visit to Mycroft's new vet on the way to Travis's apartment, but the detour made her fifteen minutes late for her client. Dr. Costello had been so accommodating, examining Mycroft right away, bandaging him up, and even placing a call to Little Paws to argue, successfully, for Mycroft's readmission. Efficient, kind, and handsome, too. But Dr. Frederic Costello was married, to his receptionist, and she had Jake, so enough of that little daydream.

Manny leaned on the button again and tried shouting into the scratched and dirty speaker. "Mrs. Heaton? It's me, Manny Manfreda."

A window on the second floor opened and a woman in a green-and-orange housecoat leaned out. "Bell don't work. You gotta call." The window slammed down.

Manny sighed and dug out her cell phone. But as she dialed, the buzzer opening the outer door sounded and she was admitted to the building. In the small tiled vestibule, Manny was assaulted by the mingled scents of industrial-strength roach spray, cooked cabbage, and ammonia. The stairs ahead were steep and narrow. Manny looked down ruefully at her Chanel wedges and began the long climb to the fourth floor.

On the second floor, the sounds of Spanish-language holy-roller radio blared. "?Dios, Dios!?Yo te amo Dios!" over and over, barely muffled by the scratched brown metal door to apartment 2A. This was not the kind of two-bedroom Manhattan apartment most Monet Academy students were familiar with. She wondered if Travis ever brought his friends home. She wondered what he felt when he visited them in their luxury co-ops and town houses.

Manny shifted her purse to her other shoulder and kept climbing, pausing to catch her breath at the next landing, but she was motivated to press on by the intense cooking smells on the third floor. With a stitch in her side, she reached apartment 4A, positioning herself directly in front of the peephole before she knocked, so Mrs. Heaton could see her clearly.

She had barely grazed the door with her knuckles when it flew open. "Thanks for coming. I'm sorry I'm still in my work clothes. I just got in a few minutes ago." Maureen Heaton stepped back to let Manny in. The door opened directly into the kitchen, a room with cracked greenish linoleum and a window that looked out onto a brick wall. Manny hadn't seen such an ancient gas stove since she'd last visited her great-aunt Cecilia.

"Can I get you a drink?" Mrs. Heaton offered. "Lemonade? Tea?"

"Just a glass of water will be fine, thanks." Manny tried not to pant as she spoke.

Mrs. Heaton gave her the water and led her down a long, narrow hall that ran past two closed doors and ended in a small, bright room overlooking Ninety-seventh Street. "Have a seat," Mrs. Heaton directed. "Travis should be home any minute now."

Grateful for the rest, Manny dropped onto the lumpy sofa, which was not completely sheathed by a ready-made slipcover. The room was filled with books. Books, and photos of Travis. Travis as an infant, Travis at his first birthday party, Travis on the shoulders of a tall, thin man who was obviously Mr. Heaton. More recently, Travis playing violin, Travis receiving a science fair award, and Travis in a Monet Academy fencing competition.

"So, Maureen, before Travis gets here, tell me a little about Paco Sandoval. How long have the boys been friends?"

Maureen sighed, the sigh of every mother who's ever disapproved of her kid's friends but can't figure out what to do about it. "Paco. Well, Paco is everything that Travis isn't. Wealthy, worldly, popular, hot with the girls."

Manny arched her eyebrows. "Yet he befriended Travis?" In her experience, that wasn't how high school worked.

"They were placed together in a peer tutoring program," Maureen explained. "Paco was failing math and chemistry. With Travis's help, he got his grades up to B's."

"So, Travis is a chemistry whiz?"

"Oh, yes! He won a special competi-" Maureen stopped mid-gush and turned on Manny. "Don't tell me you think Travis built that bomb?"

"No." Maybe not at this very moment, but try me again tomorrow. "But, Maureen," Manny continued, "it's important that I know absolutely every detail of Travis's life that the prosecution could possibly use against him."

Maureen rose and paced around the room. "I always knew Paco would manage to get Travis into trouble, but I figured it would be for something like cheating on homework or drinking at a party. Not this-federal terrorism! What could I do? I tried to reason with Travis, but he wouldn't hear one bad word about his friend. Travis was always a little socially backward. He had his own interests, which kept him occupied. Paco ushered him into the circle of cool kids. Travis would do anything for that boy."

"Our goal is to get Paco to do something for Travis. Why is he being so elusive? Can we appeal to his parents? Do you know them?"

Maureen shoved her hands into the pockets of her aqua nurse's smock. "I don't have the free time during the day to volunteer at the Monet Academy the way some of the mothers do. I don't know any of those women well."

Manny felt a flash of sympathy. Poor Maureen was excluded from the Monet in-crowd as surely as her son had been.

"You've never met the Sandovals at school concerts or sporting events?"

"They're often traveling. I see more of them in the society pages of the Sunday Times than at school. But I did see them once at the senior class play. Paco had a small part, but Mrs. Sandoval was carrying on like he was Matthew Broderick. Ambassador Sandoval looked bored and irritated. He's very severe-nothing like Paco, even though there's a physical resemblance."

"So you like Paco?"

Maureen shrugged. "It's hard not to. He's funny and charming and has beautiful manners. Every inch the diplomat's son. At first, I was thrilled that he befriended Travis. Paco helped my son fit in at Monet. Travis's first two years there were rough. He was constantly pressuring me to let him transfer to public school. Then Paco came along, and Travis started to enjoy school."

"And then something happened?" Manny prompted.

Maureen shrugged again. "Nothing dramatic. Just these past few months, Travis hasn't talked to me as much; he's secretive, and I don't always know where he is." She fiddled with the stethoscope that still hung around her neck. "But everyone told me that was normal. 'He's growing up,' they'd say. 'You have to let him go.' And now look what's happened. I-"

Manny jumped up from the couch, hoping to avert another full-scale emotional breakdown. She glanced at her watch. "It's nearly four-shouldn't Travis be home by now?" A twinge of worry rose up in her throat, but she pushed it resolutely down. She was the lawyer, not the overprotective mother of an only child.

Maureen looked at her own watch in alarm. "He's always home by now. He certainly wouldn't have stayed after school without calling. Not with all that's going on." She rose and looked out the window. "Unless there was some delay on the subway…" Maureen's upper lip trembled. "What could have happened? Should I call the school?"

"Wait a minute." Manny looked over at the two closed bedroom doors. "Is it possible Travis has been home all this time? You said you just walked in before I arrived. Maybe he's in his room, plugged into his iPod." The worry subsided. That must be it. She suspected Travis was none too eager to talk to her again. He was probably lurking in his room, trying to postpone the inevitable for as long as possible.

Relief flooded the mother's face and she strode down the hall. "You're probably right. I'm always calling him and he never hears me." She rapped sharply on the first door. "Travis, honey, are you in there? Ms. Manfreda is here to talk to us."

She opened the door without waiting for an answer, Manny right on her heels.

For a moment, all Manny could discern by the dim light of the shaded window were papers and clothes. Piles of each covered the floor, the bed, and every other level surface. The next thing she noticed was the electronic hum emitted by not one but three computers-two desktop, one laptop-and assorted other speakers, hard drives, routers, and mice. Was that lump in the bed Travis, or just a tangle of sheets and blankets? Maureen flicked on the wall switch and light flooded the room.

Manny watched as Maureen's eyes darted back and forth, desperately searching for Travis, willing him to be there. She stepped forward to examine the interconnected maze of computers that occupied the desk and a folding table in the corner of the room.

"Quite a bit of equipment he's got here." Manny sized it up-the very latest models. Ironically, the deluxe Apple laptop was one that she had wanted for herself but had passed up in favor of a spree at the Henri Bendel trunk show new designer event.

"Computers are Travis's passion. He earned the money to buy most of this. Never needed any help getting a job from the school placement office."

Manny estimated the equipment before her added up to about two decades' worth of babysitting. The more she learned about Travis, the more he worried her.

Next to the desk was a bookcase. Three shelves were jammed with books; the top shelf was empty. Maureen saw Manny looking at it. "That's where the police took away Travis's books."

"Maureen, why didn't they take his computers?"

"Well, truth be known, Travis had moved them to a friend's house the day before he was arrested. An old one was here on the desk, and the FBI did take that," Maureen explained.

The more Manny heard the more she worried Travis was guilty.

"It also seems like they took a lot more books than what he had for his comparative religion class."

"Travis got interested in the subject and did more than the required reading." Maureen got huffy "I've always encouraged his intellectual curiosity."

"Mmm. How long would you say he's had this interest in Islam?"

Maureen turned away and began folding the scattered clothes on the bed. "I don't know. It's not like he talked to me about it. I'm just dumb old mom." Suddenly, her shoulders began to shake. "If his father had lived, none of this would've happened. Travis always talked to his dad."

Maureen was bigger than Manny, which made hugging her awkward. Manny improvised with a few awkward pats on the back. As she administered this aid, something in the tangle of Travis's clothes caught her eye: black-and-white checks, fringe. She pulled at it. An Arab man's head scarf emerged from the pile. A kaffiyeh, the same pattern Yasser Arafat always wore.

Manny held it up. "Does he wear this much?"

Maureen snatched it away. "I've never seen that before. He must've… Someone must have given it to him."

Yes, someone. Who?

Manny turned back to the computers and noticed a piece of paper taped to one of the monitors. She squinted to read the teenage scrawl:

Mom-

Don't touch any of this. Don't move the phone. I'll be back soon.

T

Maureen had been reading along, too, and as her eyes scanned the words, her fingers tightened their grip on Manny's arm. "What? What does he mean, 'back soon'? He can only be here or in school; that's what the FBI said."

Manny took in everything before her-the computers, the phone, the note-but her ability to process the information stalled. The last time she had experienced this sense of slow-motion impending doom, her sports car had been sliding off an icy road, heading for a massive oak. Now in Travis's room, the crash came as pieces of the puzzle clicked together.

"He's rigged some way to override the monitoring system." Manny's voice, flat and dead, hung in the air like another of the apartment building's bad smells.

"What do you mean? That can't be." Maureen's spiral of panic kept rising. "If you take off the ankle bracelet, the FBI knows right away. They explained all that to us."

"He hasn't taken it off," Manny explained. "The bracelet transmits a signal back to the FBI through the phone line. Travis has figured a way to send that signal using this laptop. He's a kid, understands electronics better than the feds-a Kevin Mitnick devotee. Travis must have figured that as long as he keeps the signal transmitting somehow through wireless relay stations going back only to this phone, it looks like the bracelet signal is coming from this apartment on West Ninety-seventh Street."

Maureen's head swiveled back and forth, searching for an answer, looking for an escape from the truth. "You mean, you mean he's out in the city and we don't know where? But how did he do it?"

"I'm not sure exactly, but it must be working, or there would be a dozen federal agents busting down the door right now." Manny rubbed her temples. "The question is, How long can he keep it up?" Manny glanced at her watch. "I'll give him until seven p.m. to get back in here. Then I'm going to have to report this to the FBI."

"No, you can't!" Maureen pleaded.

"I have no choice, Maureen. I'll be disbarred otherwise."

"But what if he doesn't come back?"

"He'll go back to jail. And nothing I can do will get him out."

Jake stared long and hard at the two people he cared most about in the world. A full thirty seconds passed before he could bring himself to speak. "Let me get this straight. You"-he nodded at Sam-"are under suspicion of murder for a gangland-style slaying in Kearny. And you"-he turned to Manny-"risked disbarment by waiting three hours before reporting your client had broken out of the federal electronic monitoring system while you consoled his mother."

"That's it in a nutshell," Sam said. "I must say, you have a real knack for succinct summary."

"Should have been a lawyer," Manny muttered sheepishly. She was seated at one end of the sofa, and Sam was sprawled at the other end.

"I'm flabbergasted," Jake continued. "There's no question what you have to do. Sam, you've got to go to the Kearny police and explain everything that happened-"

"Not so easy, bro," Sam said, interrupting him. "I didn't hurt Boo Hravek, but I did knock out his bodyguard. I can't risk getting arrested for assault." He grinned at his brother. "Bad for my career."

As Jake was never sure exactly what his brother's career was, he was in no position to argue the point. But he felt fairly confident his brother wasn't an enforcer for the mob, and that was the only job he could think of where an assault conviction would be a resume plus.

"And what about you, Manny? I suppose you're going to condone Travis's escape from custody by claiming he should never have been in the monitoring program in the first place."

Manny rubbed her tired eyes so hard that her mascara wept onto her cheekbones. "This morning, I would have said he didn't deserve to be in the monitoring program. Now, I'm not so sure. Face it: A kid who's smart enough to override his ankle bracelet is smart enough to have built a bomb."

"So, you've reported his absence to the feds. Let them handle it." Jake spoke in the level, logical tone he used when directing the work of his assistants. He expected to receive the respectful, attentive response he always got from them. Of course he was wrong.

Manny pulled her long legs up and wrapped her arms around them. "I can't," she wailed. "I don't trust them."

She jumped off the sofa, kicking over a pile of Jake's books. "I can't send him back to jail for months, and give the prosecution more damning evidence, without doing something to help him. I'm sure that Travis must have done this so he could meet up with his buddy Paco. But the feds refuse to put pressure on the Sandovals. If I could break through the wall that's been thrown up around Paco, I'd probably find Travis."

"You've tried calling?"

Manny cut him off with an impatient wave. "I've tried everything. I call the parents, I get some social secretary who very politely takes my message, but no one returns my call. I call Paco's cell phone and get rolled over immediately to voice mail. I'm telling you, caller ID is a curse. I go to their apartment building, I can't get past the concierge."

"They must leave the building sometime. Stand outside and wait."

"They come and go in their chauffeur-driven car, which enters and exits through the building's garage," Manny said. "It's one of scores of black Town Cars that come and go from that building all day long."

"Ah, lifestyles of the rich and not quite famous," Sam said. "I think-"

Manny was now pacing around the room. "Sam, you are brilliant. I take back everything I ever said about you."

Sam stood and preened like Mycroft until he realized that Manny's compliment contained a Trojan horse. "What? What have you been saying about me?"

"Lifestyles of the rich-that's how I can get through to the Sandovals. Maureen Heaton said she sees their picture in the society pages of the Times." Manny scanned the cluttered room. "Jake, where's your laptop?"

Jake went over to the paper-strewn table under the front window and reluctantly retrieved his computer. He felt like he was handing an alcoholic a bottle of Absolut, but there's was no holding back when Manny was in one of these moods.

"What are you looking for?" Sam asked as Manny pulled up the New York Times Web site.

Her mouth slightly open, her fingers flying over the keyboard, her eyes riveted on the screen, Manny didn't answer.

"Sam, you might as well order the takeout. She won't stop when she gets like this until she's found what she wants." Jake picked up the most recent issue of the Journal of Forensic Sciences. "She'll tell us when she's ready."

Jake sat in the worn leather club chair and blocked out Manny, his brother, and the world with the drab blue-and-gray-covered magazine. After ten minutes, he realized he'd read the same paragraph on the relationship between wound patterns and the sexual psychosis of the assailant three times and still didn't have a clue what the author was saying. His mind kept looping back to the Vampire.

What was the killer after? Why had he merely drawn blood from the first few people, then escalated to torture and murder in the case of Amanda Hogaarth? Had he resorted to torture because whatever information he was seeking from the blood wasn't enough for his purposes?

Had the Vampire intended to kill her, or was her death simply an unintended consequence of the torture? How had he gained access to her apartment, when Ms. Hogaarth obviously wasn't the type to open her door to anyone who came knocking?

The only means Jake had to understanding the Vampire was through his victims, but they all seemed such ciphers, especially Ms. Hogaarth. So far as anyone knew, she had never been married. Her body said unequivocally that she had never given birth. She was old and dowdy. So why had the Vampire chosen this particular form of sexual torture?

Jake let the magazine drop, no longer even pretending to read. Manny was still poring over something on the computer. Sam sat text-messaging furiously on his cell phone. Even Mycroft was electronically bewitched, enthralled by an Animal Planet show set on mute. Jake shifted his lanky frame. He didn't need hardware, software, or a wireless connection to do what needed to be done. He just needed to let all the information on this case stored in his brain come together in some coherent form.

He shut his eyes and let his active mind disconnect from the present, willing his subconscious to take over. Victims seemingly without a connection. Except blood. Blood must tie them together. Blood ties… Blood is thicker than water…

The doorbell rang. Manny leaped up from the computer. "It's the deliveryman from the Great Wall. C'mon, guys-dinnertime!"

Jake rose and stood rubbing his temples as his brother, the dog, and Manny rushed past.

Manny glanced back at him. "What's the matter? Did you doze off?"

Jake shook his head. "No. Something is there, just out of my reach. It will come, if I let it." "I'm telling you, it will work." Manny's chopsticks dived into the white cardboard container and pulled out a clump of kung pao chicken. "According to the Style section of the Times, three of the last five fund-raising events Monserrat Sandoval attended had to do with animal welfare. The Howliday Ball, the World Wildlife Foundation dinner, and the ASPCA Companion Animal Luncheon. Mycroft and I have to get ourselves invited to that one next year."

"Better start accepting cases that actually pay," Sam advised. "You'll need to cough up twenty grand."

"All right, year after next. But don't you see? This is the perfect entree for me to get in to see her."

"Purr-fect," Sam mimicked.

"Purr-fect," Jake chimed in.

Manny flicked a water chestnut across the table, scoring a direct hit on Jake's beaky nose. "You two need to be separated."

"So, you pose as the representative of some animal lover's charity and you talk your way in to see her." Jake wiped off his face and slipped the water chestnut to Mycroft. "Then what? 'Senora Sandoval, please make a donation to our bark-a-thon, and by the way, can I speak to your son, Paco? Are you harboring any fugitives here?'"

"Scientists!" Manny shook her head. "You have no imagination whatsoever. Just leave the strategy to me. I'll have your part all worked out for you."

"My part? What do you mean, my part?"

Manny's blue eyes opened wide. "Well, of course I can't pull this off alone. It's a two-person operation." She patted Jake on the knee. "And you are coming with me."

He nudged her away. "I can't. I have a lot of work to do."

"Oh, real nice, Jake. After all the times I've saved your ass at work, now when I need you, you're too damn busy."

Jake bristled. "When have you ever saved my ass at work?"

"Let's see… How about two weeks ago, when you were all set to declare that naked NYU coed's nosedive off a balcony the work of a sadistic killer because of the way her pubic hair had been plucked out. I took one look at the autopsy photo and clued you in: Brazilian bikini wax. No killer involved. Although those wax jobs are sadistic."

"Okay, that was a good call. I'm happy to repay you for ser vices rendered, but not tomorrow."

"Nonsense. This won't take long." Manny pulled a fortune cookie from the pile left in the center of the table and cracked it open. "'A journey of a million miles begins with one step.' See? You're destined to do this." She tossed a cookie to him. "Read what yours says."

Jake snapped the brittle cookie and pulled out the white slip of paper.

"'Blood debts must be repaid in blood.'"

"You know what your problem is? You spend entirely too much time with dead people." Manny and Jake were under one umbrella, striding toward First Avenue, heading for the Sandovals' building on the East River. "You've totally lost touch with how living, breathing human beings react."

True to Manny's prediction, the elusive Senora Sandoval had been immediately responsive to the plea, delivered over the phone by Kenneth in one of his most breathless performances, to discuss the rehabilitation of pets lost and injured every year during hurricane season on the Gulf Coast. The social secretary had only to hear the words homeless pets and Kenneth had been put through directly to the ambassador's wife. Within minutes, he'd succeeded in getting this appointment for "Jack Rose" and "Franny Medford," representatives of Home Again, who were in New York for just a few days, trying to raise money for the desperately needy animals in their care.

"There's probably some clause in the Patriot Act that makes impersonating an animal activist a federal offense," Jake complained.

"Look on the bright side-we'll be sent to Club Fed together."

"Great. We can brush up our doubles tennis game. Me and you versus whichever corrupt politicians and bankrupt CEOs are on our cell block."

Manny grinned. "I knew you'd come to see the upside of this project."

Jake stepped off the curb into the path of a turning taxi and stopped it with his glare. "Anyone with half a brain in her head will see through this ruse in an instant. And then how are we going to talk our way out of there?"

"The pictures, Jake, the key is in the pictures." Manny flourished a thick black binder. "I tell you, I had myself in tears putting this together."

Following advice gleaned from her more successful criminal clients, Manny had chosen to create a lie as close to the truth as possible. There really was a small organization in Mississippi dedicated to rehabilitating storm refugees, and their Web site was full of heartbreaking pictures of wet, starving, broken-limbed dogs and cats. Inspired by the group's work, Manny had found other photos along the same lines and combined them to create a presentation to sell Senora Sandoval. Then she'd written a letter of introduction for Jack and Franny on a letterhead she'd created by duplicating Home Again's logo with a graphics program, and printed out business cards on stock from the office-supply store. The lawyer in her experienced a brief moment of squeamishness as she studied the perfection of her counterfeit, and she considered tweaking the logo a bit to get around the copyright laws. Then she laughed-trademark infringement would be the least of her worries if she got caught in this charade.

"Here're your cards." She handed a few to Jake as they came in sight of the Sandovals' building. "Start assuming your identity."

Jake scrutinized them. "They look cheap," he complained. "She'll know they're fake."

"We're not trying to pass ourselves off as investment bankers. We're a low-budget charity-frugality is part of our persona."

"Okay, say she believes we really are from Home Again. How am I going to keep her occupied when you go off exploring?"

"We've been over this. Just keep showing her the photos. Talk about how each animal is being treated."

"But I don't know that," Jake protested. "I'm not a vet."

Manny stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and grabbed Jake by the shoulders. "Listen to me: Make. It. Up. You're not writing an autopsy report. It doesn't have to be true; it just has to be plausible. Talk about infections; talk about parasites. Talk, and don't stop until I'm back. Got it?"

"Got it. Pretend I'm a lawyer and lie."

"Won't cause your hair to stand out any more." Manny remembered the first time she saw Jake, who had been alighting from a helicopter. An unkempt head of salt-and-pepper hair brought to mind a cross between Albert Einstein and Dr. Frankenstein. Love at first sight.

They stood on the east side of First Avenue with crowds surging around them and for a moment Manny worried that she had gone too far, that Jake was going to turn on his heel and leave her there. But then he rolled his eyes, shook his head, and resumed walking toward their destination.

As they approached the canopy where the uniformed doorman stood, Manny squeezed his hand. "Thanks, Jake. You're a real trouper." • • • "?Ay!?Pobrecito!"

Monserrat Sandoval's elegantly manicured hands traced the matted fur of a rescued mutt lying on a bed of rags at the Home Again shelter. The photo was one of the best in Manny's binder and it was having the desired effect. Manny saw Senora Sandoval's eyes brimming with tears as Jake, sitting next to her on the plush brocade sofa, offered his commentary.

"Yes, Comet was found swimming in a polluted canal. He contracted a terrible case of giardiasis from drinking contaminated water."

"He would drink this dirty water even though it must taste bad to him?" Senora Sandoval's English was fluent but strongly accented.

Jake reached out and stroked the pristine Maltese in Senora Sandoval's lap. Here was a dog who'd never tasted anything other than sparkling springwater, a pet every bit as well groomed as its mistress. "Desperation," Jake said. "We all do what we have to do to survive."

Manny prevented her smile from reaching her lips. For a man who claimed to have no acting ability, Jake was doing a mighty fine job. Robert De Niro, hang on to your Oscars; Jake Rosen's nipping at your heels.

Things were going even better than she had expected. It was Friday, and Paco was at school, or, more accurately, on a daylong senior class field trip. In the next half hour, Manny had to find some clue to her client's whereabouts.

Now that Jake had fully engaged Senora Sandoval's attention, Manny was free to scope out the apartment. The foyer separated the living area from the bedrooms. There were two closed doors in the foyer; Manny figured one must be a closet, the other a powder room. Luckily, the Sandovals didn't subscribe to the minimalist school of home decor. The apartment, while elegant, was quite crowded with art and antiques the family had acquired on their world travels. A large etagere packed with china and figurines partially blocked the view of the bedroom hallway from where they were sitting in the living room. Once she excused herself to go to the powder room, Manny was sure she could slip down that hallway unnoticed, as long as Jake kept Senora Sandoval occupied with the photos.

Jake was turning a page in the binder and Manny made her move.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but could I trouble you to use your powder room?"

"Of course. Let me show you." Senora Sandoval moved to escort her guest there, but Manny motioned for her not to get up.

"You just keep talking. Is it there in the hall?"

"Yes, the second door."

Manny crossed the room quickly, and when she reached the powder room, she glanced back and saw both heads bent over the book of photos. She reached into the powder room, switched on the light and the fan, shut the door, and slipped down the hallway. Dressing the part of the committed animal welfare worker, she had worn flat black Crocs-adorned with numerous multicolored Jibbitz poodles, of course-so she didn't make her usual high-heeled clatter.

She suspected the door at the far end of the hall must be the master suite. That left a door on the left or the one on the right to be Paco's. She opened the door on the left and was about to back out, thinking that such an orderly, uncluttered space must be a guest room. Then she spotted the Monet Academy logo on a throw pillow and realized she was, in fact, in Paco's room.

Manny stepped in and shut the door quietly behind her.

What a difference from Travis's bedroom! No piles of clothes and unmade bed-the Sandovals had a maid to take care of that. But neither was there any sign of the occupant's personality. The crisply color-coordinated curtains and bedding revealed only the taste of an expensive decorator. Antique prints of sailboats hung in lieu of rock star and sports posters. And the desk looked like it belonged to the receptionist at a swanky Park Avenue law firm-no paper, no pens, just a perfectly placed computer and a phone. Kind of weird, really. What kind of kid lived like this?

Her eyes lighted on a framed photo, the only personal touch in the room. It showed a smiling Paco with his arm around a man who looked to be about ten years older. Manny figured he must be an older brother, or maybe a cousin. They both had dark hair, wide smiles, and snappy blue blazers. A sparkling blue sea and brilliant sailboats formed the backdrop. A happy family vacation shot, no doubt.

She began searching the bureau. Neatly folded sweaters and polo shirts, stacks of boxers and tees, a sock drawer that would make a drill sergeant weep with joy. The closet: no junk, no hiding places-just two poles of hanging shirts, jackets, and pants. The desk drawers were just as unrevealing-they looked like an advertisement for an office-supply store. Shit! All the effort she'd made to get herself in here, and this is what she'd found-an Ethan Allen model room.

All that was left was the computer. Manny glanced at her watch. She'd been gone exactly two and one half minutes. Jake had instructions to explain her prolonged trip to the powder room by saying she had contracted a digestive disorder from the animals, which made her prone to episodes of nausea. Did she have enough time to boot up the computer and sort through Paco's documents? She had come this far. She might as well go whole hog.

Unlike Travis, Paco had a standard-issue desktop computer with no bells and whistles. Manny moved the mouse and the screen sprang to life. Good, it had only been in sleep mode. She clicked on the documents icon. Would it be password-protected? No, it opened right up.

There were folders labeled for every subject he took at school, as well as one for college essays and another for cover letters. Geez, the kid was really anal-retentive. She didn't have time to open every folder-she had to assume that they were what they claimed to be. Near the bottom of the alphabetical list of folders was one called "Stuff." That sounded more promising. Manny double-clicked and discovered three documents, each identified only with initials. One was entitled "TAH." Travis Andrew Heaton? She opened it.

It was single-spaced, as a letter would be, but contained no salutation or closing. Was it the draft of a letter, some sort of plan? Manny's heart rate kicked up. Sure enough, Travis's name was repeated throughout the document. Unfortunately, the rest of the words were in Spanish. She could translate a few: problema, ayuda, solamente.

Something about a problem and needing help. She needed a native speaker, or at least a good dictionary, to really understand what Paco was saying. She'd have to print this document out and take it with her.

Manny crossed to the door and listened. She couldn't hear Jake and Senora Sandoval, so presumably they wouldn't be able to hear the printer. Time check: Five minutes had passed.

She ran back to the computer and gave the command to print. The printer, a low-end ink-jet one, buzzed and clanked to life. A message appeared in a window on the monitor: "Printing page one of three." The printer made a strange digesting sound and laboriously pulled a sheet of paper into its maw. Slowly, slowly words began to appear. Manny stood anxiously by, silently urging it to hurry. C'mon, c'mon. You'd think the Sandovals could spring for a high-speed laser printer for their baby.

Finally, the first page slid into the tray. Manny snatched it up and looked for the next page. The printer fell silent.

What the hell? She sat down in front of the screen, trying to detect what was wrong. Just as she doubled-clicked the printer icon again, the printer lurched back to life, made the digesting sound, and pulled another sheet of paper through its feeder. Now she had commanded it to print again and she'd have to stay here while it coughed out six pages instead of three. Frantically, she began to look for a way to cancel the second print order.

While she searched the control panel folder, the printer disgorged the second sheet. It paused, but now Manny knew it was just catching its breath. She took her eyes off the printer and went back to canceling the second print order. The digesting sound came again, followed by a horrible crackling and crunching. She looked up at the printer in time to see the final sheet of paper being sucked into the machine at a thirty-degree angle. The computer began to beep and a message window appeared. "A paper jam has occurred. Clear the paper path and resume printing."

She glanced at her watch. Eight minutes gone, and now she had to repair a friggin' computer.

She took a deep breath. You can do this. You're good with electronics. A woman who's figured out every feature on her cell phone can figure out this printer. But the stupid machine was nothing like the printer she had at home, or the one in her office. She couldn't even see how to open it up. She tugged at the jammed paper and only succeeded in tearing it. Another deep breath. Focus. Look at it. See how it's put together.

And then, for the first time since she had entered Paco's room, Manny heard a sound from outside the door.

"Hi, Mama! I'm home!"

For at least the hundredth time since Manny had left the room, Jake checked his watch. Eight minutes and forty-three seconds had passed. At the five-minute mark, Senora Sandoval had glanced up from the binder of animal photos and cast a quizzical look at the powder room's door. Jake had delivered the explanation about Manny's sudden bouts of nausea, and, amazingly, Senora Sandoval had murmured sympathy and gone right back to perusing the photos. Now, the sound of a door opening made both of them pause.

Jake immediately focused on the dimly lighted hallway that led back to the bedrooms. If Manny emerged from there, he hoped to hell she'd have a plausible explanation to offer their hostess. But there was no movement from that direction, giving him hope that she'd already made it out of Paco's room and was about to make her grand reentry from the powder room. But when his glance flicked to the powder room's door, he saw that it was still closed, a band of light visible at the bottom.

So what door had opened?

"Hi, Mama! I'm home!"

Jake felt sudden chest pain and tensing of his leg muscles, a spontaneous headache on his left side, and a racing heart. This was not supposed to happen. Paco was supposed to be on the senior social studies field trip all day.

A slender young man with dark, wavy hair appeared in the foyer and looked into the living room.

"Paco, darling. This is a surprise. Why are you home so early?"

"The field trip was dismissed early because of the rain."

"Ah, que malo. Come here and meet Mr. Rose. He is talking to me about the animal-rescue efforts on the Gulf Coast. You must see these photos, darling. They are so tragic!"

Jake locked eyes with Paco, willing him to come into the living room and join them on the sofa. "So many young people volunteer in our organization," Jake said, trying to keep his voice casual. "Paco might like to learn about the opportunities we offer."

Paco smiled, a dazzling flash of white in his handsome olive-toned face. "Oh, yes. I love animals. I would like to hear all about it."

Jake's heart rate began to slow down.

Paco extended one foot. "Just let me put away my school things and change my socks. I stepped in a puddle on the way home."

It took every ounce of self-control Jake possessed to keep from leaping up and shouting, "No! Come here right now."

He watched in dread as Paco turned toward the long hallway. What would the kid do when he discovered a strange woman in his bedroom? What would Manny do when that bedroom door opened? Was she even aware that Paco had arrived home? Did she have some lame explanation to offer up, or, cornered, would she just blurt out the truth?

The truth might work for her. Senora Sandoval was clearly kindhearted. Manny could throw herself on the woman's mercy and explain that she was an overly dedicated defense attorney just trying to save her client from harm. But what excuse could he possibly offer for why a deputy medical examiner of the City of New York was aiding and abetting her? He was already skating on thin ice with Pederson. This would be all the justification his boss would need to get rid of a troublesome employee who brought shame on the ME's office.

He could no longer see Paco, but he heard the click of a door opening. He held his breath and waited for the calamity to follow. This was the spot in the movies where the intrepid heroine would duck behind the flowing draperies to hide out. Except the rooms on movie sets never had simple tailored valances and matching Roman shades. Manny glanced around the ridiculously tidy room for another place to hide. The bed was a platform-style one with a solid base that sat directly on the carpet. She considered diving into the closet, but what good would that do? Paco would notice his computer was on, see the paper jammed in the printer. When he opened the closet door, she would be right there, cowering like a trapped animal, with no justifiable excuse for her behavior.

More was at stake here than just being embarrassed. If Senora Sandoval suspected she and Jake were scam artists, she'd call the police. And when she found out who they were, the shit would really hit the fan. The vision of a disciplinary hearing before the Bar Association appeared in startling detail in her mind's eye. Then she saw herself in prison garb. Even though they'd discontinued the old black and white horizontal stripes-a nightmare for the hips-the new neon orange jumpsuits just wouldn't accessorize with her Chanel.

There were no workable defensive positions open to her. Her only option was a bold offense.

Manny flattened herself against the wall next to the bedroom door and waited.

The seconds crawled by. She heard voices but couldn't make out what they were saying. Maybe Paco wasn't going to come into the room after all. Maybe Jake had found some way to keep him out there. Maybe she was squandering the few seconds she had to get out of the room unseen. What to do? Her heart felt huge in her chest, hammering against her ribs, pressing the air out of her lungs.

Indecision was intolerable to her. Manny decided she would open the door a crack and see what was happening out there. Anything was better than just standing here waiting.

Manny stepped forward and faced the door. Tentatively, she reached out and touched the knob.

A floorboard creaked on the other side of the wall. Instantly, she pressed herself against the wall beside the door again.

The door opened.

Paco stood two steps in front of Manny, oblivious to her presence. She estimated that he was only three inches taller than she, and very lean. Still, a young athletic man would be stronger than a female lawyer who visited the gym half as often as she intended to. All she had in her favor was the element of surprise. Hesitate, and all would be lost.

Paco closed the door behind him. Manny sprang.

She jumped right on his back and wrapped her legs around his hips, like a kid playing piggyback. Placing one hand tightly over his mouth, she steadied herself with the other across his chest. He staggered slightly under her weight but kept his balance. "Don't say a word," Manny whispered into his ear. "I read the document you wrote about Travis. I want to know where he is. When I let you go, you're not going to scream. If you do, I'll show the letter to your mother. Understand?"

Paco nodded.

"All right. I'm going to get off you. Don't say a word until you've turned on some music. Go." She slipped off his back.

Paco headed toward the music system on his bookshelf, glancing over his shoulder as if trying to keep an eye on the unpredictable three-headed alien threatening to abduct him.

"I'm Travis Heaton's defense attorney," Manny said, once the music was playing. "I want to know why you've been refusing to cooperate with me. Who planted that bomb? Where is Travis now?" There was so much to find out and so little time.

Manny saw the expression on Paco's face change from fearful to merely cautious. "It's too complicated to explain it all right now. Let's make a plan to meet somewhere else."

"Yeah, right. You talk here or I'll show your mother the document."

Even though she didn't understand everything the document said, Manny could tell she possessed a powerful weapon. She watched as Paco weighed his risks, his eyes darting back and forth.

"No!" His fingers, slender but strong, pressed into her forearm. "Travis is at an apartment in Brooklyn. Three twenty-nine Rosamond Street, 4E. He called me from there yesterday, but he couldn't talk."

"What-" But Manny was interrupted by a high-pitched voice nearby.

"Ms. Medford? Are you ill? Do you need help?"

Manny pushed Paco toward the door. "Get your mother back in the living room. Tell her you ran into me in the hall and sent me to the kitchen for a drink. I'll follow you out there in a few seconds." The rain had stopped. Jake loped down First Avenue, trying to put as much Manhattan real estate between himself and the Sandovals' apartment building as possible.

As he walked, he delivered a diatribe. "Totally irresponsible… reckless and immature… only concerned with what's important to you…"

From where she trotted four steps behind him, Manny could hear only parts of the harangue, but she caught the drift. She didn't attempt to defend herself. Jake was right: She had put him at terrible professional risk. She should have thought of the long-term consequences had they been caught. But the bottom line was, they had pulled it off. So why all the outrage? She hated when he pulled this indignant father crap. "Slow down," she gasped. "You're more of a workout than spinning class."

"Take your time. No need to keep up with me. I've served my purpose, so let me go."

Oh, now we've switched to used and abused boy toy. "Why are you so touchy? Everything worked out brilliantly. I have this document, which is going to help me figure out what's happening here, and I found out where Travis is. And"-Manny reached into her pocket and pulled out a small yellow rectangle-"we even got a check for five thousand dollars."

"What the hell are you going to do with that?"

"I'm going to send it to Home Again. When I tell them what a great fund-raiser you are, I bet they'll put you on their board."

Not even a glimmer of a smile. Geez, he really was pissed. Manny tried again.

"Jake, look! Souvlaki King." She grabbed his arm and dragged him to a halt. "Let's stop and eat. I'm starving."

"Eat! How can you even think about food at a time like this? I've got so much adrenaline pumping through my body, I won't be able to eat or sleep until next Tuesday."

"I have a parasitic infestation, remember? It must be a tapeworm."

Jake stared at her for a long moment. Then his upper lip twitched. Soon, his shoulders were shaking. By the time they stumbled into Souvlaki King, they were both laughing so hard, all they could do was point to the gyro special and collapse in the red vinyl booth.

"You have tzatziki sauce on your chin." Jake smiled at Manny and indicated the location on his own face.

She grinned and wiped her mouth with a handful of the Greek diner's flimsy napkins. Jake never stopped marveling at how totally unflappable Manny was. If he had told his ex-wife, Marianna, that, she would have leaped up from the table in a huff and spent twenty minutes in the ladies' room repairing the damage. Not that Marianna would ever have agreed to eat at Souvlaki King. But if she had found herself in such a place, she would never have ordered the gyro special. His ex-wife did not eat messy food-no ribs, no lobster in the shell, no corn on the cob, ever. No wonder his work had repulsed her.

Manny leaned back in the booth. "Wow, that hit the spot. Just what I needed before a long drive to Brooklyn."

Jake's benevolent mood dissolved. "Brooklyn? We can't go out there right now. I have to get back to the office."

"What's this 'we,' Kemo Sabe? I don't recall asking you to go."

Jake glared at her. "You can't go out to some strange apartment in Brooklyn alone. There's no telling what you'll find there, or whom Travis is with."

"I'll be fine." Manny stood and straightened the demure skirt she'd chosen for her animal activist charade. "Look how I'm dressed-drab as a dormouse. No one will take the slightest interest in me."

Jake slid out of the booth to block her exit, causing the worried waiter to rush over with the check. "Manny, please. This is needlessly risky. Just wait until five-thirty and we'll go out there together."

Manny dodged around him. "I don't need a chaperone. Every minute that Travis is away from his apartment, he digs himself deeper in the hole with the feds. I've got to talk to him and figure out what's going on, then bring him back on my terms, not the government's."

"Don't be reckless!" Jake grabbed her shoulder, but she pulled away and strode down the center aisle of the diner. Jake followed. Groundhog Day-shades of Il Postino.

"You pay! You pay bill now!" the waiter shouted.

"Give the man his money, Jake," Manny instructed as she reached the door of the restaurant.

"At least call Sam to go with you," Jake shouted after her as he fumbled with his wallet.

"Okay, sure. Bye-thanks for lunch!"

And she was gone.

Jake stood at the cash register and watched her red hair disappear into the crowd. He knew damn well she wouldn't call Sam. Should he follow her to Brooklyn? By the time she got her car and drove through midday traffic, he could make it out to Rosamond Street on the subway. He thought of the pile of work on his desk, the hours this morning that he'd been missing in action. Pederson was probably already foaming at the mouth.

Well, screw Pederson. He wasn't going to let Manny get killed just to avoid a confrontation with his boss. Now, what was the address and apartment number Paco had given her? Jake closed his eyes and tried to relax his mind so it would come to him.

"Hey." The waiter poked him. "Here's your change. Whaddaya, some kinda horse? You sleep standing up?"

Jake scowled. No one could accuse this guy of groveling for tips. If the address had been about to come to him, it was lost now. He suspected Rosamond Street was one of those short blocks in Carroll Gardens, but he'd have to check a map to be sure. He figured maybe he should just hang out on the street and wait for Manny's high-profile black convertible to arrive.

Damn it-he didn't need this aggravation. Manny was a complication in his life, a complication that took him away from concentrating 100 percent on his work.

His cell phone rang. The knot of tension within him unwound. He assumed it must be Manny, telling him she'd changed her mind and that she'd wait until five-thirty and go to Brooklyn with him.

"Hello."

"Rosen, get over to 233 1/2 West 164th Street." Pederson's snarl came through the airwaves. "There's another body waiting for you. Your Vampire has struck again."

Jake stepped out onto the sidewalk, looking in the direction Manny had charged off. Then he turned and walked the other way. Whatever awaited Manny on Rosamond Street, she'd have to face it alone. • • • Jake arrived on an upper Harlem street packed with police vehicles to find a gray-faced Pasquarelli pacing outside the door to a boarded-up storefront church. TABERNACLE OF LIVING PRAISE was painted on the filthy window, just barely visible behind a rusty metal grate permanently fused in the closed position. The gentrification that had swept through the brownstone blocks of central Harlem hadn't reached this grim little enclave of tenements, liquor stores, and check-cashing shops. The neighbors sat on their front stoops and leaned out their windows, watching the unfolding drama with about as much interest as they would give to a repeat of Beverly Hills, 90210.

"I'll take you to the body," Pasquarelli told Jake. "I got a feeling I know what you're going to say. I'm hoping to hell I'm wrong."

Jake followed him into a dim hallway. A large rat sat on the stairs leading to the second floor, utterly unperturbed by all the commotion, attentive to the prospect of food that this incursion of humans might bring. As the men passed, the rat emitted a noise that sounded for all the world like a sarcastic snicker.

Pasquarelli flinched. "Fuckin' rats-the place is crawling with them. They say for every one you see, there're three more hiding." Jake, whose nose was as sensitive to anything involving death as a bloodhound's was to the living, didn't have to be told that. He could smell their presence-their droppings, their dander, their decomposing bodies-all around him. The scent of rodents was mixed with something much worse: human excrement, human decay, human fear.

The hall led straight from front to back, passing two rooms. The front main room was filled with a clutter of old chairs and a small lectern, illuminated slightly by the dusty sunlight that penetrated the window and grate. Although a few crime-scene techs worked that space, the real beehive of activity was in the small, windowless rear room.

The building's power had been shut off long ago, and an orange electrical cable snaked out to a police generator on the street. Brilliant work lights showed up every detail of the room in harsh relief.

A man's naked body was spread-eagled on a wide, old wooden door that had been set up across two sturdy sawhorses, apparently lifted from a construction site. The man had been tightly secured to the door with rope tied to large metal rings screwed directly into the wood. Each hand and foot was tied to a ring, and the rope crossed his torso in two places, tied with no slack on both sides.

Jake turned to Pasquarelli. "What makes you think this is the work of the Vampire? All the other victims were attacked in their homes."

The detective pointed.

Inside the crook of the victim's left arm was a Band-Aid with a cotton ball beneath it, the kind of remedy a nurse applies after drawing blood. Printed neatly in black ink on the Band-Aid were the words Look here. Jake did as directed and saw the single puncture mark of a blood draw.

A man's tasteful plaid suit was draped neatly on a hanger; a shirt and underwear were folded on a chair, with a pair of vintage Weejun penny loafers lined up underneath. The victim's clothes-this was no homeless derelict. Still, Jake was not entirely convinced.

"Could be a copycat."

Pasquarelli gestured uncomfortably toward the midsection of the body. "You're the expert, Doc, but aren't those burn marks like on Ms. Hogaarth? And that detail wasn't released to the public."

Jake pulled out his magnifying glass. "Can't be positive until the autopsy, but I think you're right. You've ID'd him?" he asked Pasquarelli.

"He's a Dr. Raymond Fortes. Works for a small pharmaceutical firm. They reported him missing on Wednesday."

Jake shook his head. "He's been here quite a bit longer than that." He began to examine the body and spoke aloud as he worked. "Numerous small flesh wounds and bruises. The bruises have various coloration-these yellowish ones are older, the purplish ones are more recent. Rat bites-inflicted over a period of days."

"What's that muddy-looking brown stuff in his chest hair and on his leg there?" Pasquarelli asked.

Jake touched it and raised his gloved hand to his nose. Just as he suspected. "Peanut butter."

"Wha-" Understanding crept into Pasquarelli's mournful brown eyes. "Ah, Jesus. They spread peanut butter on him to attract the rats."

"Have you contacted the next of kin?" Jake asked. "This won't be an easy thing to tell them."

"The vic was a widower, not many friends. When he didn't show at the office on Monday, they didn't think much of it. Sometimes he worked from home and didn't like to be disturbed. Guess Dr. Fortes wasn't their most popular employee. But by Wednesday, they started calling him, and when they couldn't turn him up, they filed a missing person report."

"And the police tracked him to here?"

"Hell no. A middle-aged man with no family to make a fuss goes missing, we don't bother much. We checked to see if he was at the morgue. A couple uniforms went over to his apartment. No signs of trouble there, so they figured he decided to walk out on his life in New York. Happens all the time."

"So who found him?"

"City rodent-control officer. People from the building next door been complaining that the rats are invading them from over here. Baby got bit, so the rat guy comes over here to see about spreading the poison and sealing up the holes." Pasquarelli shoved his fists into the already-misshapen pockets of his brown sports coat. "He's got a truly sucky job, and today it got even worse."

Jake nodded as he continued to study the body. In places, the loss of flesh was quite extensive. Some of the older wounds were inflamed and covered in pus. Pasquarelli grew restless at Jake's silent examination. "How long ago did he die?" the detective asked.

"I'd say his heart stopped about two days ago. But he started the process of dying many days before that."

"What finally killed him?"

"I can't tell until I open him up. Probably a combination of things-shock, dehydration, blood loss, infection. He wasn't a young man-probably in his early sixties."

"Days of suffering," Pasquarelli said. "How could one human being do that to another? I've seen homicide, suicide, fratricide, patricide, and every other kind of cide, but I've never seen anything like this before. It's starting to feel like this Vampire really is some supernaturally evil creature."

Jake shook his head. "Don't let your imagination run away with you, Vito. When we catch this guy, he'll be as average as you or me. Not an obvious monster, but a person with a regular life, like the Nazi death camp guards or the soldiers at Abu Ghraib."

Pasquarelli was not persuaded. "But those guys justified what they did by saying they were just following orders in a time of war. That's not what's happening here."

"Maybe he's fighting his own private war, Vito. Our job is to figure out what it is."

Trapped.

Manny took a deep breath to steady her pounding heart. For at least the tenth time since she'd gotten into this mess, she looked for a way out.

Hopeless. A Moishe the Bagel Man truck in front of her, black livery cab beside her, overbearing SUV right on her tail. And beneath her, the waters of New York Harbor. She hated to admit that Jake had been right, but the subway to Rosamond Street would've been much faster. Bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge at midday should not have come as a surprise.

Still, driving her Porsche hadn't been a totally stupid idea. Once she found Travis, she wanted the option of getting him out of that apartment fast. Standing on the subway platform waiting for the B train didn't really fit her plan for a quick escape.

Manny squirmed in the driver's seat without taking her feet off the clutch or the brake pedals. What awaited her on Rosamond Street? Would Travis be alone in the apartment? Would he listen to reason, come with her willingly? What would she do if he refused, or if whoever lived in the apartment refused for him? The possibilities for trouble seemed a lot more numerous stuck here in traffic than they had in the diner with Jake.

The driver of the livery cab, distracted by talking on his cell phone headset, allowed a small gap to open up in front of him. Manny jerked the wheel and accelerated, shoehorning her way into the space and inching past the bagel delivery truck. The maneuver gave her a sense of accomplishment until she saw the broader vista of jammed traffic ahead of her. Out of one tight spot and into another-an uncomfortable metaphor for her behavior today. She didn't think of herself as reckless. As a lawyer, she was trained to be logical. But somehow, Jake, with his methodical and painstaking approach to every problem, made her seem impulsive.

A sudden cavalcade of horn blowing interrupted her reverie. Manny leaned on her horn, too. What the hell-it didn't change the pileup of cars, but it felt good.

When the horns subsided, a chirping sound remained. Manny cocked her ear, then pawed through her purse for her Black-Berry. It was chirping to remind her of an appointment. She didn't remember scheduling anything for today-certainly no court dates. Her hand closed around the gadget and she scrolled to the calendar function. "Mycroft to vet 3:00" flashed before her eyes.

Oh shit! Because Kenneth was filing papers in court, she was supposed to take Mycroft in to Dr. Costello for a follow-up to make sure the bite he'd received from Kimo was healing properly. Even if she turned around-even if she could turn around-she'd never make it to collect the dog and get to Dr. Costello's office by three o'clock. Better just to call and reschedule.

Manny expected to get the receptionist, but the voice coming over the line was male and familiar. "Dr. Costello? It's Manny Manfreda."

"Ah, hello, Ms. Manfreda. How are you? And how is Mycroft?"

"At the moment, I'm not so good. I'm stuck in traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, pointed away from your office, so I'm afraid I have to reschedule Mycroft's appointment. I'm sorry it's at the last minute, but could we come in tomorrow?"

"I don't have the appointment book-it's on my wife's computer. Let me go and check."

Manny could hear rustling and shuffling over the line, but Dr. Costello kept talking as he worked. "I see we have a celebrity in our midst. TV news in the taxi on the way in kept repeating you were representing some kids in that case out of New Jersey. It sounds like it is an interesting matter."

"Well, the government's case is shaky." Manny figured she might as well practice projecting the cocky air of confidence all prominent defense attorneys had mastered, even if she was just talking to her dog's vet.

"Good. It's up to lawyers like you to keep the government from overstepping its boundaries."

Manny smiled. Not only was her new vet very attentive to Mycroft but he also shared her own libertarian views. It wasn't essential to be in political harmony with your pet's doctor, but it was a nice bonus. "It's refreshing to hear you say so, Dr. Costello. I think there are a lot of people who think the Preppy Terrorists deserve to be locked up."

The doctor made heavy breathing sounds, which came over the line along with the pinging of a computer program being launched. "Ah, finally I come to tomorrow's schedule. It seems we can fit you in at two or at three-thirty."

"I'll take three-thirty."

Dr. Costello sighed. "It doesn't seem fair."

"Oh, really, I appreciate your squeezing me in. Three-thirty is just fine."

Dr. Costello laughed. "Can I have your autograph tomorrow?"

Manny accelerated and drew two car lengths closer to the end of the bridge. She repeated now what her professors had pounded into her in her fist year of law school. "Justice is never perfect. As long as I'm allowed to be heard, the system is working."

"I hope you're right."

For no discernible reason, the cars ahead of Manny began to move. She pulled onto the BQE, thrilled with the sensation of traveling at fifty miles per hour. She now understood why in California they called a high-speed chase anything approaching double digits. "I know I am."

Manny pulled up beside the last parking spot on Rosamond Street. A man walking by shook his head, doubtful she could squeeze the Porsche into such a tight space. But with a few deft pulls of the steering wheel, Manny had her car snugly aligned with the curb. Success in parallel parking, as so much in life and the law, all hinged on your approach.

She relaxed as she sized up her surroundings. Rosamond Street was a nice middle-class block, lined with nondescript low-rise redbrick apartment buildings. Not fancy, not funky, not scary-the kind of place where schoolteachers and firefighters and mail carriers raised families, avoiding the drama of the highest and lowest ends of New York society.

She found number 329 and stood on the stoop for a moment, considering her approach. If she buzzed apartment 4E and announced herself, would Travis let her in? Her problem solved itself when a man exited the building and obligingly held the door open for her.

Trusting soul, Manny thought. Guess I don't look too threatening. Inside the building's small lobby, Manny hesitated: ancient claustrophobic elevator or dark, steep stairs? Figuring she wouldn't come across as masterful if she arrived at Travis's hideout gasping for breath, Manny reluctantly stepped into the tiny elevator.

Several lurching, grinding minutes later, she stepped out on the fourth floor. As she looked down the L-shaped hall to get her bearings, a slim figure in a baseball cap and denim jacket appeared from around the corner and slipped quickly down the stairs.

"Travis!" Manny shouted, and raced toward the stairs. She got to the railing and peered down at the person on the landing one floor below. She saw a ponytail protruding from under the baseball cap and heaved a sigh of relief. Not Travis after all.

Continuing down the hall, Manny saw the third door on the left was ajar: 4E. The gyro special gave an unhappy lurch in her stomach. New Yorkers, even ones who lived in safe middle-class neighborhoods, did not leave their apartment doors hanging open.

Manny hugged the left wall of the hallway and cautiously approached the door. It was dark inside, too dark to tell if someone was standing there watching her. When Manny got within a foot of the door, she reached out, quickly shoved the door open, and flattened herself back against the wall.

Nothing happened.

"Travis?" she called. "Travis, it's Manny Manfreda, your lawyer. I'm here to help you. Can you hear me?"

No sound. No movement.

Now what? Call 911? And tell them what? "Hi, my client is an escaped federal prisoner and he was supposed to be in this apartment, but he's not, and the door's wide open, so can you send someone right over?" She'd get help all right-two attendants from the psych ward at Kings County Hospital and a syringeful of sedative.

Could she just walk in there and check out the apartment? No, it seemed too much like those teen slasher movies where the girl hears a sound in the basement and goes down alone to investigate even though she knows there's a crazed killer on the loose. TSTL: too stupid to live.

Manny suddenly heard loud voices through the wall, but they weren't raised in anger. She listened. A woman's voice: "You wanna soup?" A man: "Not now. Maybe later." "Oh, later. You letta me know, prince."

She inhaled. The smell took her back to her parents' kitchen in Red Bank. Pasta fagioli, definitely. She could make friends with the people in 4D.

She knocked on the door and heard approaching footsteps.

"Who that gonna be?" the woman inside muttered.

Manny stood in front of the peephole for inspection, smiling and waving like Queen Elizabeth. The door opened a crack on the chain and one dark eye peered out.

"Hi! I wonder if you could help me? I'm looking for your neighbors here."

"Maria and the kids? They move-a last month. Buy a house in Jersey."

"No, not Maria. The people who live there now."

"No one live there now. Landlord gonna fix nice, jack up the rent."

Manny relaxed a bit after the woman introduced herself as Lena Castigliore. Mrs. Castigliore spoke with the same broken-English accent of Manny's beloved grandmother Adeline. Maybe that's why the door was open-workmen coming and going. "Oh, I was just worried because the door is open."

Now the woman in 4D opened her door and shuffled into the hall in her blue quilted slippers, unable to resist investigating this impropriety in her building. "That no good. I call-a da super."

"Good idea."

Manny used the interminable minutes waiting for the super's arrival to befriend Mrs. Castigliore. Compliments on the aroma of her soup got the old lady talking. At her age, she welcomed the opportunity to talk to anyone about anything and wasn't too particular about the reason she was being asked.

Yes, she had heard the door of 4E open and close a couple of times these past few days. She had assumed it was contractors. No, she hadn't actually seen them. But wait, once she had seen a man go in. Yes, a young man. Oh, no, not eighteen; more like thirty, thirty-five. No, she hadn't heard any talking-no noise at all.

Now the super arrived, a small Hispanic man with a mop of dark hair and the requisite large bunch of keys. Despite the fact that Mrs. C. had called to report the door being open, he stood in front of the apartment with his head cocked and his eyes narrowed, obviously very puzzled to see that the door was indeed open. Manny's uneasiness returned.

"So, have there been workmen here the last few days?"

"No, no guys yet. The boss, he say they coming miercoles, Wednesday." Cautiously, the super stepped into the apartment. Manny and Mrs. C. trailed behind him. Manny was all prepared with a story of how her sister was moving to New York and needed an apartment, but no one thought to ask why she was there.

The front door opened directly into a large living room. Scratches on the floor showed where the furniture had been, but the room was empty except for a child's partially deflated ball. They proceeded in a line across the room to a hallway leading to the bedrooms. The wood trim around the first bedroom door was deeply scratched. The super shook his head and muttered, "El gato." Inside the room lay a crumpled sleeping bag.

"Did Maria leave that?" Manny asked.

Mrs. C. shook her head. "I went over to say good-bye the day she moved. I see her check every room. She no leave this behind."

They peeked in the bathroom-a paper cup, a flattened tube of toothpaste, and a dirty towel.

"No," Mrs. C. said. "Maria leave-a the place clean. Someone been staying here."

Manny's eyes darted back and forth, searching for a sign that the someone had been Travis. There were no papers or clothing out in the open. Could she press her luck and start opening closets?

Now the super and Mrs. C. moved into the tiny kitchen. At the doorway, the old lady stopped short. Manny, following, bumped into her. The room erupted into a Tower of Babel, cascades of Spanish pouring from the super, a competing torrent of Italian from Mrs. C. Manny elbowed her way past them and added her own contribution to the mix.

"Oh, dear God!"

Blood, lots of it-dried, brown, but still unmistakably blood. It had spattered the kitchen counter, dripped down the cabinets, and smeared on the floor. When it had been fresh, someone had stepped in it, leaving a trail of smeary footprints to the refrigerator. Bloody prints marked the fridge handle, a ghoulish version of the sticky smudges the kids who used to live here must have once left.

Manny could feel her own blood surging through her arteries, propelled by a heart beating twice as fast as normal. Was this Travis's blood? What if he had died because the feds had refused to question the Sandovals?

"We gotta call-a da nine-one-one." Mrs. C.'s English had come back to her as she backed away from the gruesome scene.

"Yes, call them from your apartment," Manny said. "We'll wait here." She grabbed the super's elbow, pulling him toward the hall. "We shouldn't touch anything. The police won't want us in here."

"I'm going downstairs," he said. "I don't know nothin' about this anyway, and I don't like blood. Cops can come see me there."

Manny was happy to see him go. She knew she should go out in the hall to wait for the cops, but she couldn't resist looking around a little more. She'd already contaminated the crime scene by walking through each room. Walking through again wouldn't make matters any worse, would it? She knew how Jake would answer that question, but she shut his voice out of her head.

But as she prowled through the apartment, Jake's voice continued to follow her. Don't touch anything, it said.

"I won't, I won't," Manny murmured, barely realizing she was speaking aloud. "I'm just going to look in the bathroom again. Isn't that one of the first places you check out?"

She poked her head in that door again. The toilet seat was up, confirming a man's presence. She looked in the bowl in case something had been carelessly discarded there, but it was empty. She knew this room could be a trove of fingerprints-you wouldn't wear gloves in the john. She didn't want to smudge anything, or add her own prints to the mix. Still, the medicine cabinet tempted her. "Oh, like you wouldn't open this? I'll be careful," she assured her inner Jake.

Rooting through her purse, Manny produced a pencil. Placing the eraser end under the edge of the cabinet door, she clicked it open. Rusty, dusty, and empty, except for two paper-wrapped tubes. Tampons. Left over from Maria's occupancy, or had there been a woman here, too?

She went back into the bedroom. Don't even think of touching that sleeping bag! Jake's voice cautioned.

"Don't worry. I know it's full of fibers and hairs and skin flakes. I'm just going to peek in the closet." But the closets in both bedrooms were empty, and Manny felt herself drawn back toward the kitchen. She swore she could feel Jake dragging her back.

She shook him off. "The police will be here any minute. This is my last chance. I'll be careful."

Manny stood on the threshold and surveyed the kitchen carnage. She thought of all the hours she had spent with Jake in his lab, reviewing crime-scene photos… all the things he'd taught her about blood-spatter patterns. Low velocity: Large round symmetrical drops meant someone was dripping blood while moving very slowly or standing still. Medium velocity: More elliptical drops with a tail showing the direction the blood drop was traveling. High velocity: usually from a weapon exerting force, a multitude of tiny, fine particles. This blood didn't seem to fit any of those patterns.

"There's something weird about this, don't you think?" she whispered.

Why was most of the blood on the counter, not the floor? She tried to imagine a scenario that would account for this. The victim was shot and fell against the counter? Then where was the bullet hole? And why hadn't Mrs. C. heard anything? Okay, not shot-knifed. But if the victim fell onto the counter, that would indicate the attacker came at him from the middle of the kitchen. The blood would spurt out and spatter across the kitchen, not drain out the victim's back onto the counter. And why those perfect drips down the front of the cabinets? If the victim had slumped to the floor, that blood would be smeared.

This pattern looked familiar all right, but not from crime-scene photos. It reminded her of something that had happened in her own kitchen last week. She'd knocked over a glass of orange juice; it had formed a puddle on the counter, then dripped down the cabinets and formed a smaller puddle on the floor. Then Mycroft had come in to sniff, and tracked juice across the floor.

"Look at that, Jake. Doesn't it seem like that blood has been spilled, literally? Like from a container? But who has a container of blood?"

A tingle pricked Manny's scalp. Her gaze shifted to the bloody prints on the fridge. "C'mon, Jake, I've got to. I can't not open it." Manny dug through her purse again, this time producing a silk scarf. She sighed. "Oh well, at least it's not the Hermes." Wrapping it around her hand and using just two fingers, she opened the refrigerator.

Inside, more blood. Not spilled, but stored neatly in vials. Manny counted seven. One for each of the Vampire's victims.

Jake and Mycroft surveyed the limp form on the couch. Whimpering, Mycroft licked the slack hand dangling near the floor. Jake massaged the blistered feet.

"Are you sure you don't want me to send out for food?" he asked.

Manny raised her hand in protest and turned her head. "I'm too exhausted to eat."

About seventeen hours had passed since Manny and Jake had infiltrated the Sandovals' apartment. Over fifteen since she had headed to Brooklyn searching for Travis and Jake had been called to the scene of the Vampire's latest victim. To Jake, it felt like enough had happened to fill three weeks. To Manny, it must have felt more like three lifetimes.

He moved to sit beside her and smoothed the hair away from her brow. "Stop blaming yourself. No one could have anticipated this."

Manny pushed off his hand and sat up. "You're right. No one could have anticipated that of all the millions of apartments in New York, Paco Sandoval would send me to look for my client in the one that's apparently being used by the Vampire." Manny jumped off the sofa with a jolt of energy that sent Mycroft scampering for cover. "No one could have anticipated that a kid who was already in a ridiculous amount of trouble for being in the vicinity when a mailbox blew up is now in an absolutely mind-boggling amount of trouble for being an escaped federal prisoner and a suspect in the most bizarre murder case New York has seen since the Son of Sam."

Manny kicked at a pile of magazines that blocked her restless pacing. "You're absolutely spot-on, dear. Even someone with an imagination as overactive as mine couldn't have predicted this!"

Jake observed her with mounting concern. The hours of interrogation she had been subjected to by the New York police, the federal prosecutor, and the FBI had taken a toll. Manny was teetering on the edge of total exhaustion.

"You need to sleep. What can I get you to help you relax?"

"How about a rag soaked in ether? That ought to do the trick." Manny plopped back onto the sofa. "What the hell is going on here? How can it be that your case and my case are related? That completely shatters the limits of coincidence."

He nodded. He'd been agonizing over the same question ever since Manny had called him from the apartment in Brooklyn to report her discovery. The previous morning, they had been following two distinctly separate paths in pursuit of two very different criminals. Now they were apparently on the same road, searching for what? A killer and his accomplice? Or a killer and his victim? Because Jake didn't believe for one moment that Travis was the Vampire. No eighteen-year-old, no matter how clever, could have masterminded these attacks.

And what were his and Manny's roles in this drama? It made sense that he, the most experienced member of the ME's staff, would be working on the Vampire case. But what was the significance of that stupid argument with Pederson when he seemed to be warning Jake away? And why, of all the criminal lawyers in New York, was the woman he happened to be involved with chosen to represent Travis Heaton? No matter how insulted Manny might be to hear him say it, she wasn't the obvious first choice to defend the Preppy Terrorist. So how had she gotten the job? Who had recommended her? They needed to get to the bottom of this connection.

Jake walked over to Manny and pulled her gently to her feet. "For some reason that I can't fathom, someone wants us both on this case. Now we're going to start figuring out why." Manny sat bleary-eyed at the kitchen table, trying to focus on the typewritten words swimming across the piece of paper Jake had set before her. "How can you be so perky at six in the morning? You didn't get any more sleep than I did."

"I did my internship at Bellevue. Learning to function on three hours' sleep was part of the training back then." Jake placed a mug of coffee in her hands and let her take the first sip before he continued. "These are the questions we need answered by the end of the day. The first two items concern your matter."

The first half cup of scalding French roast was having its effect. Manny had acquired enough mental clarity to read aloud. "'Who recommended Manny to represent Travis Heaton?' You remember… you were there when Kenneth called me to tell me about the case."

"Yes, but who called Kenneth? Maureen Heaton herself?"

Manny took another gulp of coffee. "No, some friend of hers. But I don't know who. Kenneth was excited and I was excited. I don't recall what he told me. He was supposed to type an intake sheet, but he'd just had his nails manicured and…"

"Let's call him now and disturb his beauty sleep," Jake said.

"Can't. He's gone away for a romantic getaway with a new friend. He told me he wouldn't be answering his cell for a few days."

"I'm not walking him down the aisle." Jake rolled his eyes. "Can you ask Mrs. Heaton directly?"

"I will." Manny let the paper slip from her fingers. Something floated on the edge of her memory, but she couldn't quite pin it down.

"What's the matter?" Jake asked.

"I'm trying to remember… The day I won that bail hearing in court and got Travis out of jail, Maureen hugged me and said, 'I'm so glad Tracy sent you to me.' At the time, I didn't think much of it, but I don't know anyone named Tracy, man or woman."

"You know a million people." Jake handed Manny the phone. Manny started to dial, then abruptly hung up. "No, I can't. Maureen's going to be ballistic with this new development. Since it's only six a.m., I can't talk to her yet. What's second on the list?"

She picked up the paper and read, "'Follow-up with Jersey police contact re street name Freak.' Oh, I already did that yesterday morning. I forgot to tell you about it in all the excitement. Apparently, Freak is a rather popular street name. There were three in the database. One was black, and we know our guy is Caucasian. One's in prison upstate. And one recently completed a short jail term for promoting and participating in dog fights in Paterson." Manny shuddered. "Slimeball. They should have locked him up and thrown away the key. He could possibly be our guy."

"You're not prowling around the back alleys of Paterson looking for dog fights," Jake warned. "We'll let Sam handle it. And before he does that, he can translate that letter from Paco's computer."

"Sam speaks Spanish?"

"Fluently. Learned in the jungles of Guatemala."

"What was he doing there?"

Jake shrugged. "Don't ask, don't tell."

For a split second, Manny fantasized that Sam was an undercover CIA mercenary. "Didn't he spend the night here? I'll go wake him up."

"No need, my dear woman." Sam entered the kitchen, followed by Mycroft, whose leash was trailing behind him. "I dreamed I was being kissed awake by a striking redhead. Turned out it was no dream, just Mycroft having a bladder emergency."

"Thanks for walking him, Sam." Manny squinted at him. "You just stayed in the neighborhood, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Last time your brother took Mycroft for a walk, he used him as a pimp," Manny told Jake. "Took him to Fifty-fourth in front of Manolo Blahnik to pick up well-heeled women. However, I have a way for him to make up for that little indiscretion."

Manny patted the chair beside her, inviting Sam to sit. "I have a translation job for you. Jake, hand me my purse, please."

Jake hoisted the large leather Fendi purse from the spot by the door where Manny had dropped it the night before. "Geez, what's in here? A lead vest in case you encounter plutonium on your daily rounds?"

"Just the bare essentials." Manny unzipped the bag and began rooting around for the sheets of paper she had printed from Paco's computer. The bag had multiple compartments, but she was sure she had quickly stuffed the letter in the main one on her way out of the Sandovals' apartment. In the course of the day, it must have worked its way down to the bottom of the bag. Out from the leathery depths came her BlackBerry, wallet, keys, and checkbook. With the major obstacles cleared, she peered in. There was a glimmer of white! Manny pulled. A receipt for the Chrome Hearts sunglasses she had purchased two months ago.

Jake eyed the total. "Surely the decimal point's in the wrong place?"

"I'm too law-abiding to buy cheap knockoffs." Manny kept digging. "Oh hell-I never mailed Aunt Joan's birthday card."

Jake shook his head as he poured his brother a cup of coffee. "You might want to scramble yourself some eggs. This could take a while."

"It must be in the side compartment," Manny said. Out came her makeup bag, the latest Vogue, a bag of dried apricots, and a hairbrush the size of a Ping-Pong paddle.

"Dried apricots?" Sam asked.

"I'm trying to snack healthy. They're loaded with antioxidants."

"They're also unopened."

"Ah! Here it is." Manny grinned with relief as she unfolded a bundle of white paper. Then the smile faded away as she read, "'You are cordially invited to attend a trunk show for Barry Kieselstein-Cord at Bergdorf Goodman.'"

"This is ridiculous. It has to be in here." Manny undid every zipper and snap on the huge purse, turned it upside down, and shook. Sam snatched up his coffee cup to protect it from the cascade of flotsam and jetsam.

When the dust had settled, the two men surveyed the kitchen table with the awe of archaeologists entering an unsealed tomb.

"A socket wrench?"

"A lacrosse ball?"

"I had to tighten the bolt on Kenneth's office chair. And that ball came this close to hitting Mycroft-twice. I wouldn't give it back to those girls in the park."

With every item in the purse spread out on the table, Manny searched systematically, her panic rising with each dry-cleaning receipt and Chinese take-out menu, none of these items proving to be the missing letter.

Finally, she grabbed the kitchen trash can and swept a pile of junk into it. "The letter's gone." She whirled on Jake. "And I did not lose it. What goes in the bag stays in the bag. Until it is moved to another bag. Someone stole it."

"Was the bag ever out of your sight yesterday?" Jake asked.

Manny paused to think. "It was beside me in the booth at the diner. I never set it down while I was in the apartment in Brooklyn. Then I talked to all those cops and lawyers and FBI agents." Manny twirled her hair around her fingers. "I don't think it was ever away from me, but there were times it was hooked on the back of my chair, or lying under the table. Someone could have slipped the letter out then."

"But who?" Jake protested. "I thought you left the part about the letter out of the story you told the cops and the feds. No one but Paco knew you had it."

Manny nodded slowly, trying to process the implications. "I intentionally kept the part about the letter to myself. I knew if I gave it up to them, I'd never find out what it said. I figured after I read it, I could always take it back to them if I thought it contained information I'd get in trouble for withholding. Say I forgot about it in all the excitement."

She locked eyes with Jake. "So that means whoever stole it from my bag was tipped off by Paco."

"That leaves out the authorities," Jake said.

"Does it?"

Jake developed a sudden interest in loading the dishwasher, something he never saw the need for until every dish in the house was dirty. Manny knew he was using the time to form a calm response. Always the scientist, always in control of himself.

"Jake, think about it." Manny stood up and started firing items back into her purse. "There's something very fishy about the way Paco has drawn Travis into his circle. And the government's hands-off attitude toward the Sandovals is stranger still. How do we know the Sandovals aren't cooperating with the FBI in some sort of terrorism sting?"

Jake slowly closed the dishwasher. "What empirical evidence do you have?"

"I just told you."

"You take two unexplained phenomena, put them together, and come up with a conspiracy. As a scientist, I look for the most likely explanation first. After that's been eliminated-and only after it's eliminated-I move on to consider the more remote possibilities. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, not zebras," Manny said, finishing the old adage. "Your problem is, you automatically trust authority unless you see overwhelming evidence that the system isn't working. I automatically question authority, unless the person wielding it has proven to me that he's above reproach. And frankly, federal prosecutor Brian Lisnek, Ambassador Sandoval, and the merry crew of FBI agents questioning me last night have not cleared the bar."

Sam had been watching the exchange like a fan with center court seats at the U.S. Open. Now he intervened before his brother could respond. "I don't think Manny's totally out in left field. But, but"-Sam held up his hand for silence as Jake opened his mouth to protest-"you can't fault Jake's methodology. Assume the most plausible explanation until it's proven wrong.

"So, Manny," Sam continued. "Let's run through the possibilities of when the letter could have been lifted from your purse. Paco knew you'd head for Rosamond Street, but he couldn't know who you'd encounter there. You're sure you initiated the contact with the neighbor and the super?"

"Of course I'm sure. And I wasn't close to anyone else that whole time… except-" She broke off, thinking about the way she had entered the apartment building.

"Except what?"

"When I got there, before I could ring the bell, a man came out of the building and held the door open for me. At the time, I thought he was just a friendly neighbor, but maybe he'd been waiting for me."

"And you think he could've reached into your bag and taken the letter in the few seconds that you walked past him through the door?" Sam rose and refilled his coffee cup. "If they really wanted to get the letter back, it would be too risky to put all their hope on that brief encounter. Pickpocketing is most successful on a crowded elevator, a street corner, a subway-somewhere where the victim expects to be jostled, and the perp can disappear into a crowd."

Manny appraised him suspiciously. "You seem to know quite a bit about the subject. If we searched your room, would we find a collection of wallets?"

"Nah." Sam grinned. "I take the cash and ditch the leather. Seriously, though, can you think of a time during the day when you were surrounded by people?"

Manny chewed her lower lip, replaying every scene of the long action-packed day. "When I went to my parking garage to get my car, there were four or five people waiting for their cars to be driven down. There's not much space, so we were crammed together."

"That's a more likely spot for the grab," Sam said. "So, it may be that the person Paco tipped off is familiar enough with your routine to know where you garage your car."

"And that you'd be driving it to Brooklyn," Jake added, "not taking the subway."

"You mean it's someone I know?"

"Or someone who's been keeping an eye on you for a while," Jake said. "Which brings us back to the matter of how you got involved in this case in the first place." He handed Manny the phone again. "You've warmed up on me. I think you're ready to handle Maureen Heaton."

Manny took a deep breath and dialed. As anticipated, the first five minutes of the call passed in a storm of Maureen's panicky speculations. Eventually, Manny was able to bring the conversation around to the matter at hand. "Maureen, refresh my memory: Who was it who recommended that you hire me to represent Travis?"

"Her name is Tracy. I don't know her last name. She's a nurse at the Chelsea Extended Care Center. I was working private duty there the night I got the call that Travis had been arrested. I was in a panic. I needed to leave right away, but I couldn't abandon my patient. Tracy was so understanding. She told me to leave, that it was slow that night and she could spend extra time with my patient.

"And then she showed me your card, said she'd call and have you get in touch with me in case Travis needed a lawyer. You helped her nephew… or was it her cousin? Anyway, you called while I was at the jail, and by then I really knew I needed you. And people say New Yorkers are cold, but you know, I've never found that to be true."

Manny murmured a few more words of encouragement and extricated herself from the conversation.

As she dialed the Chelsea Extended Care Center, she relayed the details of her conversation to Jake and Sam.

"How can I know which of my clients has an aunt or a cousin who's a nurse named Tracy?" Manny spent the next fifteen minutes speaking to the receptionist, the human resources manager, the nursing director, and anyone else she could get to answer the phone at the small private nursing home. Each conversation left her more frustrated than the last. Finally, she hung up. Sam and Jake watched her expectantly.

"There's no one named Tracy who works at the Chelsea Extended Care Center."

Leaving Manny to deal with her missing client and the puzzle of who had recommended her for the case, Jake retreated to the black cave that was his home office. He had resisted all Manny's efforts to spruce the place up. Black leather chairs, framed antique prints, mahogany and glass display case-all her suggestions were met with a resounding no.

He liked the place just as it was. He didn't need pleasant surroundings in order to concentrate, something that Manny just didn't understand. All he craved was familiarity-the security of knowing that every tool, reference, and resource he might possibly need could be reached with one spin of his decrepit desk chair.

Seen through a visitor's eyes, the office looked hopelessly chaotic. But Jake could plunge his hand into a tower of seemingly random papers and pull out just what he needed. To his way of thinking, filing cabinet equaled trash can.

Today, Jake sat amid an avalanche of information about the Vampire, making notes on a yellow pad in the appalling scrawl that no one but he could decipher. A short list of questions he wanted answered appeared on the page. 1. Coffee mug with Nixon's fingerprints… owned by Amanda Hogaarth or left behind by killer? How acquired? Why? 2. Family Builders adoption agency-what is the connection to Hogaarth? 3. Hogaarth and Fortes-why tortured and killed? How are they different from earlier victims? 4. What is the significance of the blood? The intercom buzzed. "Ridley here to see you," the department secretary announced.

"Send him in."

Paul Ridley loped into the room, ducking his head to clear the nearly seven-foot-high door opening. Tall and thin didn't begin to describe the leading crime-scene technician from the police department's CSI team; Ridley looked like he'd been captured by a rogue computer animation program, stretched, and released back into society.

"Have a seat," Jake said. "Just toss that stuff on the floor."

Ridley telescoped his gaunt frame into a chair. "I've got some information on that coffee mug from Hogaarth's apartment."

Jake grinned. Maybe the first item on his list was about to be taken care of. "I know the FBI's been agitating to get custody of that piece of evidence. I was worried you wouldn't be able to discover much before you had to give it up."

"Yeah, we might lose it by the end of the day, but I think I have what you want." Ridley pulled a file folder from his briefcase and began talking from his notes. "Cup was cheap porcelain glazed black, with the initials SCFR printed in silver. Manufacturer's mark on the bottom said 'Cayo.' We traced this to a distributor based in suburban Boston who buys mugs wholesale from a manufacturer in China, then imprints them here for customers who give them away as sales promotions." He pointed at a blue mug on Jake's desk crammed with pens printed with the name LABTECH in red. "Like that-you probably got it from the salesman who handles your lab equipment, right?"

Jake's satisfied smile faded a bit. "There must be a hundred million promotional mugs distributed in this country every year. You're not going to tell me you know how this one once got into the hands of President Nixon?"

Ridley peered at Jake over wire glasses perched on his pointy nose. "Uhm… actually, yes."

Jake slapped his desk. "Ridley, don't take this the wrong way. But I love you."

Ridley coughed. "Yes, er, as I was saying, we analyzed the chemical makeup of the glaze, which allowed us to date the mug to a ten-year period when Cayo, the manufacturer, was using this particular formulation. This time frame, 1975 to 1985, corresponds to a period after Nixon's resignation but before his health began to fail, when he was actively accepting speaking engagements. We reviewed the distributor's sales records for this period and found the customer who ordered these mugs: the Scanlon Center on Foreign Relations, a right-wing think tank on foreign affairs. We believe that Nixon delivered an address there in 1977."

"Amazing work, Ridley. So you're saying Nixon drank from this mug during his speech more than thirty years ago, and the prints are still there?"

"Oh yes, glazed porcelain is a perfect medium for accepting fingerprints. As long as the mug was never wiped clean or ex posed to moisture or extreme heat, the prints would last. Col lectors of presidential memorabilia usually handle this stuff more carefully than cops handle crucial evidence at a murder scene. Don't touch it; keep the items in brown paper bags. Ya know, all the stuff we teach that's generally ignored."

"Were there any other prints on the mug?" Jake asked.

"None. I'd say that rules out the possibility that the former president was in the habit of saving giveaway mugs and taking them home to his wife to use at breakfast."

"So, we have to assume that someone who attended this speech wanted a souvenir. Got a thrill from possessing a mug that Richard Nixon had drunk from." Jake pursed his lips. "Doesn't appeal to me, but I guess it falls into the same category as keeping the sweat-soaked shirt that a rock star throws into the crowd."

Jake picked up a squishy rubber brain given to him by a salesman at the annual forensic science conference and started to squeeze it. "Amazing work, Ridley. You've tracked that mug to the one day in eighty-some years of the president's life when it could have picked up those fingerprints. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to bring us any closer to figuring out how or why it got into Amanda Hogaarth's apartment. Anyone in the lecture hall that day could have taken it." He flung the brain back onto the desk, where it bounced over an autopsy report. "Do you know how many people attended his speech?"

"Apparently, it was by invitation only. One hundred and twenty academics, journalists, and government policy wonks." Ridley pulled two typed sheets from his folder and handed them to Jake. "The Scanlon Center very generously shared the attendee list with me. You gotta love interns."

"Excellent! You've shared this with Detective Pasquarelli?"

"Yeah, but he didn't seem quite as excited by it as you."

Jake gripped the papers. "I think it's significant. Someone on this list may have killed Amanda Hogaarth."

Ridley unfolded himself from the chair. "I leave it to you and the detective to figure out who." He raised his hand in a farewell salute. "Happy to be of service."

"Thanks, Ridley." He watched as the criminalist looked for area on the cluttered floor to place his size-sixteen feet. "Say, one more thing. Do you know the topic of Nixon's speech?"

"Tactics to destabilize leftist opposition in Argentina."

"Hello?" Manny answered her phone as she pulled her Porsche Cabriolet into traffic, ready to drive downtown to her office.

"Manny, it's Sam. I just set up a meeting with Deanie Slade, the girl who connected me with Boo Hravek. She's a regular at Club Epoch, where Paco and Travis partied before the bombing. She wants me to meet her there. I think you might want to hear what she has to say."

"When? Tonight?"

"No, right now. I'm about to get on the PATH train to Hobo-ken. Meet me there."

Manny checked her watch. "Isn't ten a.m. a little early for clubbing?"

"She said the side door would be open. She must know the staff. It's Franklin Street. I'll see you there at eleven."

Deciding that the Lincoln Tunnel would be suicide at this time of day, Manny headed uptown, cruising across the GW Bridge to make her way south to Hoboken on the Jersey side of the Hudson.

The sky was a rare blue, marred by neither clouds nor haze, and Manny took her eyes off the road ahead a few times to steal glimpses of the city skyline out the driver's side window. Impossible to worry on a day like today!

She had been too busy and preoccupied to check in with Sam on the Boo Hravek angle of the case, but clearly he'd been working on it. Maybe this was the missing piece that would make the other disjointed pieces of the puzzle form into a recognizable picture. Trust Sam to produce it.

Manny stopped at a traffic light. She hadn't driven south along the river from Fort Lee in a long time. Traffic was worse than she remembered. Luxury condominiums with river views were sprouting up everywhere, replacing the old warehouses and factories that used to jam the industrial waterfront. But a few old relics still remained, waiting for developers to pounce.

Manny glanced at her watch. She thought she would have been in Hoboken by now, but she was still one town away, in West New York. Her view of the river appeared and disappeared as she wound through the town's congested streets. West New York was what Hoboken had been twenty years ago-just on the cusp of trendy, still loaded with plenty of grit. A shadow fell over the car, cast by a large abandoned building with the ghostly letters FIREPROOF APPAREL still visible on the side. That would probably be the next factory to be converted into loft apartments. She could get a place five times the size of her Manhattan studio for the same price.

Finally, Manny saw a WELCOME TO HOBOKEN sign. Club Epoch was located close by, on the northern edge of town, and Manny pulled into a parking spot just as the clock in her car hit 11:00. She got out and looked around for Sam. The street was deserted. She dialed Sam's phone, which rolled immediately to voice mail.

The only activity on the street centered on a minimart on the corner. Maybe someone in there had noticed Sam out on the sidewalk in front of the club. The smell of scorched coffee kept hot 24/7 clobbered Manny as soon as she entered. The bleached blonde behind the counter labored over the lottery ticket machine while two shabbily dressed men waited impatiently to lose their money. No use trying to get in the middle of that transaction even to ask a simple question. Manny occupied herself by reading the headlines of the newspapers arrayed in front of the counter. From the New York Times's discreet POLICE

PROBE LATEST TWIST IN VAMPIRE CASE to the New York Post's VAMP

TO PREP: COME INTO MY LAIR, all three New York papers and the Newark Star-Ledger featured the Vampire case on the front page.

A large woman with a head full of braids grabbed the Post and struck up a conversation. "Uhm, uhm," she said. "That's one nasty dude. Goin' round stickin' needles in people." She closed her eyes and shuddered.

Manny nodded vaguely, preoccupied with getting the clerk's attention so she could ask if she'd seen Sam strolling the area or entering the club.

"Why can't the cops catch him?" the lady continued. "All that DNA stuff they got nowadays still don't do them no good. 'Member the Son of Sam? They caught that guy 'cause of a parking ticket. I bet this be the same."

Another man joined the line and the conversation, relieving Manny of the obligation to chat. "They better catch him soon, because this shit is freakin' me out. Man, there's nothing I hate worse than needles. Guns I can deal with, but not this."

Manny glanced up. The man who spoke had hands the size of grizzly paws and a sumo-wrestler-thick neck. Yet she could see from the revulsion on his face that the Vampire really did scare him.

"And what about the guy he killed with the rat bites," the first woman reminded the man.

"Ah, Jesus, don't even go there! What they really oughta do to catch him is-"

The two of them continued in a weird one-upmanship of fear and advice. Manny eavesdropped, amazed by their extensive knowledge of the case. She was sure if she asked either of them to name their congressman or to say what was going on between the Israelis and the Palestinians at the moment, they'd be flummoxed, but on the subject of the Vampire, they were experts. The total media saturation had produced millions of people who saw themselves as prospective victims, prospective detectives, or both.

Finally, Manny reached the head of the line and plunked a pack of gum on the counter. "Have you seen a tall, thin man with a ponytail in the area around here in the past half hour? He may have been headed to Club Epoch," she said to the clerk as she paid.

The woman shook her head. "It's been quiet all morning, till now."

Manny went back outside and looked across the street at the warehouse-shaped building painted black, with a large silver E on the door. That had to be it. She wrinkled her nose-not her idea of a hot nightspot. Was Deanie waiting all alone in there? Manny's sunshine-induced optimism began to ebb away. Why had Deanie suddenly called Sam? She had to realize he was a suspect in Boo's murder. Was this some kind of setup?

She dialed Sam again, and again got voice mail. Then she dialed Jake. "I think Sam's in some kind of trouble," Manny said, not bothering with a greeting. "I'm not sure what to do."

Quickly, Manny explained the situation.

"I'll be right there," Jake said. "Do not go into that place alone, understand me?"

"I won't. Not after yesterday. But, Jake, it'll take you over an hour to get across town and over to Hoboken."

"You're in luck. I'm not in my office. I got called to a suspicious death on Forty-fourth and Ninth. I just finished up, and there's a department car here."

"Right around the corner from the Lincoln Tunnel. There is a God!" "How many laws did you break to get here so fast?" Manny asked as Jake pulled up twenty minutes later.

"I had to pass on the right, but that was only because I got stuck behind some guy who kept stopping at yellow lights. Iowa plates. Guess he didn't know that in a blue state, yellow means accelerate."

"The Turnpike Authority ought to post those rules." Manny took Jake's elbow and guided him to the right. "See that black warehouse? That's Club E. Sam said Deanie called him this morning, sounding very nervous. Told him she had some information on what went down with Boo, but she didn't want to talk about it on the phone."

"Any clue why she had a sudden change of heart?" Jake asked.

Manny shook her head. "That's what's worrying me. What if it's a trap?"

"You stay here and I'll go in and check it out," Jake said.

"No way!"

"Manny, it's safer that way. If I don't come out, you can call the police."

"What if it's the police who've set the trap? They're looking for Boo's killer. There could be incriminating evidence in there waiting for you. If the police happen to show up two minutes after you get in there, you'll need a witness to corroborate your story."

Jake glared at her for a moment, then turned to cross the street. "Come on, Manny. Let's get this over with."

Jake tugged on the unmarked black door on the side of the building. It opened, releasing a gust of cold, rancid air. The air-conditioning kept the temperature low, but it didn't do much to eradicate the aftermath of Club E's nightly hordes of sweating, drink-spilling, puking customers.

Jake gestured Manny to the side and peered into the dimly lighted interior. A long hallway, illuminated only by the emergency exit sign, extended to the right. Looking straight ahead, he could see the cavernous dance floor and the outline of one of the three long bars. From his breast pocket Jake pulled a small, bright flashlight. Its beam extended only a few feet, but it was better than walking into the abyss.

"Deanie! It's Sam Rosen," said Jake, lying.

Jake and Manny stood on the threshold, listening.

"I think I heard something," Manny said. "A voice, but I couldn't make out words."

Jake frowned. "Your hearing must be keener than mine. What direction?"

"Down the hall, I think."

Just inside the door, Jake spotted a heavy stanchion, which he assumed the bouncers must use to prop this door open when the club got too crowded. He dragged it out to hold the door wide open, admitting as much of the day's brilliant sunshine as possible.

"You sure you don't want to wait here?" Jake asked.

"Hell no! I go where you go." Manny followed Jake through the door and down the hall.

"Deanie?" Jake shouted again.

This time, they both heard it. A whimper or moan, unmistakably coming from one of the rooms off the hall.

Jake quickened his pace.

"Be careful," Manny warned. "It could still be a trap. Don't charge through any doors."

Jake stopped outside a door marked OFFICE. "Deanie? Are you in there?"

The faint muffled sound came again. "I think it's that door." Manny pointed to the next door on the hallway.

Jake tried the door, but the knob didn't turn. Inside, the moans increased.

"I don't like this." Manny reached inside her bag. "Let's call the police."

Jake pulled the phone from her hand and dropped it back into the bag. "And how would we explain our presence here? We'd have to tell them about the connection to Sam. We either open this door ourselves and talk to Deanie or leave now and call for help anonymously."

Manny bit her lip. "That door looks pretty solid. The lock's a Yale. Any bright ideas?"

Jake looked around. A large fire extinguisher hung on the wall a few steps farther down the hall. "I could use that as a battering ram." He went to unhook it.

Manny followed, whispering, "But, Jake, what if she's not alone in there? You'll go sailing in, unprotected."

His eyes met hers. He was surprised, and touched, by the concern he saw there. Jake knew she was right, but he chose not to dwell on the risks. If his brother was in trouble, he was going in. Jake squeezed Manny's hand. "You be my backup."

Then he turned, took three running steps, and crashed through the door.

Jake moved so quickly, Manny didn't have time to be terrified. The door splintering open made a tremendous noise, drowning out any other sound from within the room. Manny stepped up to the opening, clutching the frame with her trembling hand.

Jake jumped up from the floor. Shadowy figures surrounded him. The windowless room seemed to extend endlessly. From the pitch-black interior, the moans had changed to high-pitched, muffled squeals. Manny searched by the door frame for a light switch.

The room sprang to life-a storeroom stacked high with cases of paper towels, cleaning supplies, and glassware. Random paths led between the pillars, like a Halloween corn maze. Except at the center, there wasn't a dummy emitting a sound track of scary sounds; there was a real person, terrified and in pain.

Jake headed into the maze, pursuing the sound. Manny followed. They dodged left past a column of boxes, then circled around some stacked bar stools. The sound grew louder now, and shriller. The terror in it was so intense, it seemed inhuman. Manny flashed back on her eight-year-old self hearing the squeals of a baby rabbit being carried off by the neighborhood tomcat. She'd been powerless to help then, but she wasn't now.

"Deanie, it's okay. We're coming to help you," she shouted. All thoughts of a trap had dissolved, replaced by determination to find a way through the room's piles of junk and rescue this poor girl.

Jake clipped a pyramid of bathroom tissue with his shoulder, toppling it. Manny stared at the resulting roadblock. There was no going over it; she'd have to go around it. Up ahead, Jake was moving forward on the main path. Manny chose a tributary that she hoped would lead her back to him and squeezed through.

A hand clapped down on her shoulder.

Manny's scream ricocheted through the building.

"Calm down!"

"Sam! Where did you come from?"

"The PATH train stalled in the tunnel under the river. I've been stuck for over an hour. No cell service, so I couldn't even call you. When I got here, I saw the outer door propped open and this one broken down. How did you get in?"

"With me." Jake's voice floated over to them. "Now stop jabbering and come help me."

Sam and Manny heard the sound of something very heavy being dragged across the floor, then another high-pitched squeal. They scrambled toward it.

"Oh my God." Jake's voice, always so calm and clinical, carried a real edge of distress.

"Jake? Jake?" Manny flung aside a rolling coatrack. "What is it? Are you all right? Is Deanie okay?"

Manny saw an old video game machine ahead. She realized this must be what Jake had pushed to make a small pass-through on the right. She wedged herself through the opening, with Sam right behind.

Deanie Slade sat precariously planted on a bar stool that had been lashed to a post, her knees and ankles bent cruelly backward and tied behind her and to the bar stool in an excruciating contortion. Spiked glass shards from a broken beer bottle were inserted under the ropes. With her arms and legs immobilized, any movement to try to undo the restraints caused pain and created the risk of dangerous cuts. It took extraordinary strength and concentration for her to remain still. Even the floor surrounding the stool had been liberally sprinkled with sharp shards of broken glassware. Deanie's eyes and mouth were bound shut with duct tape, but she seemed well aware of what lay beneath her. When Jake kicked some of the glass away so he could kneel beside her, she moaned and whimpered at the sound.

"It's all right, Deanie. I'm going to help you," Jake said gently as he pulled a pocketknife from his jacket and prepared to free the girl. "I'm a doctor."

Manny watched with surprise as the girl cringed away from Jake at this news. She wore nothing but a halter top and a very short skirt. The ropes and glass around her bare legs and arms had chafed her pale skin raw. She trembled convulsively, both from fear and cold.

Jake continued to speak to Deanie soothingly, telling her exactly what he was going to do. Manny saw him then as a medical doctor, trained to save lives. First, he cut her arms free, and Manny could tell that the pain of being released from this unnatural position was almost as great as the pain of maintaining it.

Jake held the rope with his fingertips and jerked his head in Manny's direction. "Find some clean paper to put this on."

Manny accepted the command. Jake the doctor had been replaced by Jake the forensic scientist, eager to preserve evidence. She ripped open a carton of paper towels and gingerly took the rope from Jake.

Next, Jake cut the girl's legs free, carefully guiding each one to rest on the bottom rung of the stool to keep her bare feet away from the remaining glass. Then he turned his attention to the tape across her eyes and mouth.

"I have some hand lotion in my purse," Manny offered. "You can use it to loosen the glue."

Jake shook his head. "I'm afraid not. This tape may contain traces of the assailant's DNA, fibers from his clothes. I can't risk destroying that." He slit the tape at her temples and removed it with one quick yank. Manny winced. Deanie made a gasping sound from beneath the tape on her mouth, but compared to her joint pain, the tape removal must have been a minor discomfort. She seemed more bothered by the effect of light on eyes that had been in darkness for a long time. Her eyes peeked open briefly before she scrunched them shut again. Jake repeated the process with the tape on her mouth, leaving two angry red weals across her face.

Deanie rubbed her face, then, shielding her eyes with her fingers, peeped at her rescuers. Recognizing Sam, she inhaled sharply, but she still did not speak.

"Do you see her shoes?" Jake asked. Manny and Sam looked, but the shoes were nowhere in sight.

"Well, let's get you out of here," Jake said. "I'll carry you over the glass." Putting his right hand under her arms and his left under her knees, he lifted her off the stool. As he did, a slip of paper fluttered to the floor. Manny stepped forward to retrieve it.

"Don't touch it," Jake commanded.

So she crouched over it and read aloud: "'The innocent suffer when the guilty are allowed to go unpunished.'" • • • "What does that mean? Who are you? How did you know I was here?"

Big hair flattened, long acrylic nails snapped off, eye makeup washed away by a river of tears, Deanie was no longer the jaunty Jersey girl who had given up secrets to Sam in a drunken night of dancing at Club E.

"I got a call from your cell phone at nine-thirty this morning asking me to meet you here at eleven," Sam said. They were all four sitting at the deserted bar, watching Deanie drink a big Diet Coke. "How long were you tied up back there?"

She clutched her glass as if it alone were keeping her from keeling over. "Since last night. I got grabbed coming home from work. Someone came up from behind me and put this bad-smelling cloth over my face. When I woke up, I was in that storeroom."

Jake leaned toward her. "What can you tell us about your attacker?"

Deanie edged away, obviously disturbed by the urgency in his voice, and pressed her back against the bar. "Who are you people?" She glanced at Sam, then peered down into her drink, as if eye contact with him scared her. "You got me into this. You killed Boo, didn't you?"

"I know it looks bad that Boo died a few days after talking to me," Sam said, "but believe me, I didn't kill him. We think…" he paused, silenced by his brother's warning glance. "We think Boo was mixed up in something bigger than he realized."

"Well, whatta they want with me? I don't know nuthin about Boo's business." Deanie hugged herself and began to cry.

"Deanie, we don't want you to get hurt again," Jake said. "That's why it's important that you tell us everything you can remember about last night."

Deanie wasn't the brightest crayon in the box under the best of circumstances, and fear, exhaustion, and dehydration weren't helping her reasoning abilities.

"I don't know nuthin," she repeated sullenly. "I didn't see them. When I woke up, that tape was already over my eyes." Compulsively, her right hand stroked her left arm.

"Them? There was more than one?" Jake's eyes lighted up, but he was careful to keep the eagerness out of his voice.

"A man and a woman."

Manny and Jake exchanged glances. They didn't have to speak to know they were thinking the same thought: Maybe this was Tracy, the woman at the nursing home who had recommended Manny to Maureen Heaton.

"Why did they torture you like this, Deanie?" Manny asked. "What were they trying to get you to tell them?"

"They didn't ask me nuthin." Deanie slammed her glass on the bar. "They told me not to try to get away, that there was broken glass all around me. They tied my legs back like that, and when I started to cry, the woman said something. So I thought the guy was going to loosen the rope, but instead he made it tighter and then put the sharp glass underneath the ropes on my skin. They told me not to try to escape, said if I was still and silent, someone would come for me. That's it."

Deanie continued rubbing her hands up and down her bare arms, trying either to stay warm or to massage away the pain of her bondage. Suddenly, she stopped and looked down at the crook of her right arm. "What the fuck? I must have cut myself after all. I'm bleeding!"

Jake reached out for her arm and saw it: the tiny puncture of a blood draw, now oozing some fresh blood. He found a clean napkin and applied pressure. "They drew your blood. Were you aware of that?"

"Drew blood? Why?"

Jake and Manny exchanged a glance. Could Deanie be the only person in the entire metro area unaware of the work of the Vampire? If so, she'd be happier staying in that state of ignorance.

"What did they say to each other?" Jake asked.

"I don't know. They spoke to each other in Spanish."

"I gotta pee," Deanie announced after finishing off her second glass of soda.

"Manny, go with her," Jake instructed.

They had found Deanie's high-heeled mules on the way out of the storeroom, and Deanie now clumped down the hall to the restroom, with Manny following. Making small talk seemed ridiculous, so Manny kept her mouth shut.

She opened the door for her charge and followed her in. The Club E ladies' room was as big, dim, and uninviting as the rest of the place. A grimy-looking divan stood against one wall. Not caring to dwell on the types of activities that might take place on it in the course of the average evening, Manny stood guard by the sinks as Deanie went into the last stall. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, Manny pulled out her brush and lipstick and began to repair the damage of the morning's excitement. In a few minutes, she heard the toilet flush. She put away her makeup and waited for Deanie's stall door to open.

It stayed shut.

"Deanie? Are you okay in there?"

No answer.

"Deanie?" Manny strode across the bathroom and rattled the stall door. "Open up!"

Only then did it strike Manny that the stall doors came all the way down to the floor and were at least six feet high, the better to protect their clubgoing occupants from prying eyes as they got high or got screwed.

Heart pounding, Manny went into the adjacent stall and jumped up on the toilet. Propping one leg on the toilet back, she pulled herself up far enough to look over the top of the stall divider.

Deanie's stall was empty. A small window facing the parking lot was open. Jake patted Manny on the shoulder. "Don't beat yourself up. This may actually work to our advantage."

She eyed him suspiciously. It wasn't like Jake to humor her. She had screwed up and she fully expected to catch hell for it.

"How do you figure?" Manny asked.

"Sam and I were talking strategy while you were gone. There's no way we can avoid reporting this to the police and turning over the evidence, and we were both concerned about how this implicates Sam. But with Deanie temporarily out of the picture, we can bend the truth a little regarding how you and I came to be at Club E, and leave Sam out of the equation."

Manny nodded. "So we tell them what? That I got an anonymous call to come here and brought you along?"

"Yes," Jake said. "And that after we freed her, she immediately needed to use the bathroom. It never dawned on us to guard the victim, and she ran away. We called nine-one-one immediately. We don't know who the victim was."

"That'll work. But wait-they'll want to see my cell phone to trace the call. All it shows is a call from Sam at ten this morning."

Sam grinned. "A call I made from a pay phone at Penn Station. I couldn't get a cell signal in there today."

Jake clapped his brother on the back. "Man, you travel under a lucky star. Get rid of any signs that we were in this bar area. Wrap up the glass that Deanie used and take it with you, then disappear. Manny, give me five minutes, then call nine-one-one."

"Where are you going?" Manny asked.

"Back to the storeroom. I plan to borrow one small piece of evidence."

"You wanna know what?"

Pasquarelli's voice came through the phone line loudly enough to make Jake move the receiver away from his ear. He and the detective had spoken only briefly since Manny had reported the incident at Club E to the police in Hoboken. Jake knew his friend was frazzled, but he needed his help. "I want to know who published the cookbook I found hidden in Ms. Hogaarth's kitchen," Jake repeated.

"Cut me a break, will ya. I got my hands full here. I thought once we discovered the link between the Vampire and the Judge Brueninger bombing, the mayor would finally let the FBI have this case. But no, he still wants to keep a hand in it, even though the feds are the ones with a database full of information on Islamic terror groups that they won't let me see."

"Look, Vito, if the Vampire and the Preppy Terrorist cases are really tied to Islamic terrorism, then you're right-you don't stand a chance of solving them," Jake said. "You might as well lie low, shuffle papers, and wait for the feds to clear it up. But if my hunch is correct, something entirely different is behind these cases. If you work on my leads, maybe you'll have a chance to score the coup the mayor's looking for."

"And if you're wrong?"

"Then you're screwed," Jake admitted cheerfully. "But you're screwed right now anyway. Seems to me you've got nothing to lose."

A long silence filled the phone line.

"Talk," Vito said finally.

"I want to find out where the Spanish-language cookbook we found in Ms. Hogaarth's apartment was published. I suspect it was Argentina. Argentina could be the link that ties all the victims together."

"Did I miss something here? There is no link between the victims-they're totally random. And none of them is Argentinean. Number three was Chilean, but that's as close to Spanish as we get."

"We may not see the link between the victims yet," Jake said. "But it's there. We have to keep digging."

"Nixon made a speech about the place more than twenty-five years ago, and you think that's the key to our Vampire? C'mon, Jake, get real."

"Nixon's speech and the fact that the Sandovals are Argentinean. If it turns out that Hogaarth's Spanish-language cookbook was published in Argentina, that would be three links in the chain. Then we could ask the other vics if they have any connection in their lives to Argentina."

"You think these people are all withholding information from us?" Vito asked. "No way. I interviewed them. They're scared, freaked-out by the fact that they were randomly targeted by this nut. You can't fake that five times."

"No, I don't necessarily think they're hiding information. The victims themselves may not be aware of the significance. You didn't ask any of them if they had ties to Argentina."

"You can ask. As for Hogaarth's cookbook, the apartment's been released as a crime scene. We had no reason to keep the cookbook. It's all part of her estate. If you want access to it, you'll have to contact her lawyer yourself. Frankly, I think this case might be easier if the Vampire is a terrorist."

"The Vampire is a terrorist all right, but not an Islamic one," Jake said. "And just like Osama or the Taliban or the Palestinians, he's trying to get publicity for his cause. He's trying to lead us toward something. I'm sure of it. And somehow, Argentina is part of the puzzle." Jake pressed against the eyepieces of his microscope and studied the pattern of the long, thin single hair with a central nonpigmented line, dye-stained for two-thirds its length. This long blond strand, which he'd retrieved from the tape used to bind Deanie's eyes, was almost certainly hers. Jake had found it on the end of the tape, near where it had touched her hairline. The tape was also filled with skin cells, but it showed no fingerprints. Deanie had never been able to touch it, as the tape had gone on after her hands were tied, and the Vampire had obviously worn gloves when applying it.

Jake had left the other piece of tape for the Hoboken police, so they, too, had bits of Deanie's DNA. Not that it would do them much good, as it was unlikely that the young woman's DNA would be on file in any criminal database. But the tape held one other tantalizing piece of DNA evidence. Jake changed slides under the microscope and looked at this prize: a very short dark curly hair with a prominent central medulla line. DNA could be extracted from the hair root. Jake knew this couldn't be Deanie's hair. Her skin was quite fair, her arm hair light and downy. He suspected that the highly sticky duct tape had brushed against the Vampire's arm as he bound his victim, pulling out an arm hair. Even the most careful criminal leaves behind traces of his presence.

So he probably had a piece of the Vampire's DNA. But what good would it do him in the short run? It would take days even for an expedited DNA analysis, and if the Vampire's DNA wasn't on file, the sample wouldn't bring him into their sights. In the meantime, Travis was out there somewhere under the control of this killer. More than a killer-someone who didn't hesitate to use torture to achieve his ends. Jake sighed and prepared the sample to be sent to the lab. They couldn't afford to sit back and wait for results or count on the feds to find Travis soon. After all, they hadn't been able to find a nearly seven-foot-man in a turban for years. Nor would the feds protect Travis. As far as they were concerned, he was another defendant who had violated house arrest. It was up to Manny and him to keep pursuing every possible lead.

Jake stared at the phone, commanding it to ring. He'd called Ms. Hogaarth's attorney earlier that morning to see if he could get access to the cookbook, but when did any lawyer ever accept a call on the first try? Jake grabbed the phone and dialed again. If he made himself annoying enough, eventually the lawyer would have to answer.

"Achoo!" Manny dabbed at her nose with the crumpled remains of her last tissue. "The cloud of mold spores hanging over this place is visible to the naked eye. Tell me again why we have to be here instead of out looking for Travis?"

"This is looking for Travis," Jake replied as he pawed through a box of decaying books.

"I had in mind something a little more action-oriented," Manny said. "I'm really worried. The Vampire could be doing something awful to that kid right now, and we're here poking through this mountain of crap." Manny shoved past an ancient department store mannequin and started in on the next table of books.

"We have no solid leads on Travis's whereabouts," Jake said. "Until we do, this is as good a use of our time as any." Before she could object, he continued. "Hey, look at this-Principles of Modern Microbiology, circa 1932. Can you believe this diagram of the swine flu bug?" Jake chuckled and shook his head. "That's what it looked like many generations ago in the swine population before it morphed into the influenza A subtypes that exist now."

"Oh, those wacky Depression-era biologists. Always good for a few laughs." Manny looked in disgust at her dust-blackened fingers and surveyed the tables and tables of books they still had to search through. "Put that down, Jake. We're looking for a cookbook, remember."

As executor of her estate, Amanda Hogaarth's lawyer had packed up the contents of her apartment and shipped them off to the St. Anselm's Altar Society Thrift Shop in Chelsea. Jake and Manny had followed the stuff here. The church-lady volunteers at the counter had informed them that the delivered items had been sorted and put out for sale just the day before, so Jake was positive the cookbook would still be here. Finding it, however, wasn't proving easy. Ms. Hogaarth had hidden the book in her apartment, but it was much more effectively concealed here, an old book among thousands of others just like it.

Manny moved down the crowded aisle, starting on her third table of books. The smell of this place made her eager to find what they were looking for and get out. Forgotten lives, discarded objects, mementos that held no value for the people who'd inherited them-St. Anselm's was the last stop before the landfill and it smelled only marginally better. Manny's eyes scanned quickly, pausing to read titles only when the book met the physical description Jake had provided: thick, blue, no dust jacket.

Jake worked his way toward her from the other end of the book room, but he wasn't moving anywhere near as fast. When Manny paused and looked up, she saw Jake with a slender red book in his hands. "Asking you to search a used-book sale is like asking Emeril to search a farmers' market. Stop reading!"

"I can't help it-'The Cask of Amontillado' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart' in a special illustrated edition. Look at the detail in this picture of the dungeon; it's like the artist was inside Poe's head."

"The cookbook, Jake. Look for the cookbook."

Jake tucked the Poe volume under his arm with the Principles of Modern Microbiology and resumed the search.

"You're buying those?" Manny asked.

"Yes. I thought you'd be pleased. You're always suggesting we go shopping together."

"For clothes, Jake. To replace the pants and shirts you bought during the Reagan administration."

"I tell you what: Once we find the cookbook, you can pick me out a new sports coat."

Manny brightened. Banishing the peat moss-colored tweed sack with the baggy elbows that passed for Jake's formal attire was her heart's desire. "Really? Barneys is not that far from here. We could choose something in half an hour flat."

"I'll give you ten minutes. Better find something here on that rack near the front door. There's a nice lime green one that caught my eye when we came in."

"Great motivation," Manny grumbled. "Seriously, what are we going to do if we find the cookbook and it really is Argentinean?"

"Then we start contacting victims," Jake said. "I want to start with Annabelle Fiore. You remember I visited her in the hospital after she was attacked."

"She was the opera singer who the Vampire used too much ether on, right?"

"Yes." Jake kept his head down and searched in earnest as he spoke. "At the time, I assumed it was unintentional-after all, it's hard to deliver an accurate dose of anesthesia on a rag. But in retrospect, Fiore may have been the first escalation. Before her, the victims weren't harmed. After her, Hogaarth and Fortes were murdered."

"You may be-ah!"

Jake's head snapped up. "What?"

Manny held a thick blue book aloft. "This is it! Recetas Favoritas." Manny stood motionless with the heavy volume in her hands. She had started to feel like she was on a quest for a legendary object, and now she felt too stunned at holding the Holy Grail to open it.

Jake crossed to her side and took the book from her, turning quickly to the title page. He read aloud, "'Publicado en 1967. Buenos Aires, Republica Argentina.'"

Jake studied his brother, trying to interpret the expression on his face. All their lives, he'd been able to tell when Sam had good news to share. He hoped to detect that gleam in Sam's eye now.

Finding the cookbook had convinced Jake that he was on the right path with the Argentine connection, but Vito Pasquarelli had been unimpressed. "Hogaarth liked Argentine food-so what? My wife's got The Great Wall Cookbook, but she doesn't know anyone in China."

Now Jake desperately needed his brother to have turned up something useful in his research on the attendees at Nixon's speech. Maybe then Pasquarelli would take his theory seriously. Without Vito's support, it would be hard to reinterview all the Vampire's early victims, looking for an Argentine connection. But hoping didn't make it so. His brother appeared disappointingly straight-faced.

"There's good news and there's bad news," Sam began. "The good news is, it was surprisingly easy to track down most of the people on this list with a simple Internet search. They're all fairly prominent in their respective fields, so they leave a public record that's easy to follow."

"So what's the bad news?" Manny asked. "You think that because these people are solid professionals, one of them can't possibly be our Vampire?"

"Not necessarily. I'll present the evidence; you be the judge." Sam picked up the list of attendees. Jake could see that each name on the list had a color-coded check mark.

"Three people have died since they attended Nixon's lecture. Of natural causes," he said, heading off Jake's question. "Thirty-four are journalists, most of them foreign correspondents posted overseas. Only one lives in the metro New York area-Phillip Reiser."

"That name sounds familiar," Jake said.

"Assistant managing editor of the New York Times," Manny said. "I've met him a few times. Very smart, very charming, insanely busy. I'm willing to concede he's not the Vampire."

"Next come the academics," Sam continued. "Sixty-two college professors, none of whom works at a school in the New York area."

"But professors are always going on sabbatical," Manny said. "Any of those people might have taken off a semester and come to New York to carry out these attacks."

"Gold star to Ms. Manfreda," Sam said. "It turns out three of them are on sabbatical right now. One's in Thailand, one's at Berkeley, and one is right here at Columbia. Wilford Munley. He's a sociologist, not an historian."

"Sociologists sometimes do laboratory experiments," Jake interjected. "He might have experience working with lab animals."

"I thought of that. When I spoke to him on the phone, he sounded so cagey and evasive that I headed up to campus to check him out."

"And…" Jake leaned forward in excitement.

"Paralyzed. Uses a motorized chair."

"He could have an able-bodied collaborator," Jake said.

Manny brushed him off. "So that leaves the ones who work for the government. If you ask me, they're the most likely suspects anyway."

Sam smiled. "Yes, Manny, I know you'd find that convenient, but I checked out these remaining twenty-one names, and I don't think any of them could be our man… or woman. First, they all live and work in D.C."

"Two hours by Metroliner-it can take that long to commute to Jersey some days."

"Train travel isn't as anonymous as it used to be. The Metro-liner requires a reservation, and none of these people shows up as a regular passenger around the dates of the attacks."

"You can drive the distance in four hours," Manny insisted.

"Yes, but some of the attacks occurred during the workday, and Fortes was tortured over a period of days. None of the remaining people on the list was away from his or her office on all of the days in question. So, unless there's a conspiracy among the attendees at Nixon's speech, I don't think your killer is anyone on this list."

Jake jumped up and paced around the room. "And yet the mug had to have come from that conference. No other fingerprints were on it. Almost certainly, someone picked it up and preserved it as a souvenir."

"eBay."

Jake and Sam turned to Manny. "Huh?" they said simultaneously.

"eBay is the single best place to buy and sell collectibles." Manny turned to Jake. "You've seen my collection of porcelain shoes. I used to have to dig through flea markets and garage sales looking for that stuff. Now I do all my collecting online."

"Have I entered into some sort of parallel universe?" Jake asked. "I thought we were talking about the Vampire and Nixon's coffee mug, not your latest shopping addiction."

"One and the same." Manny dragged Jake's laptop across the table and started typing. "Let's just do a little search. Presidential collectibles. You see-that brings it right up."

Sam looked over her shoulder. "Herbert Hoover campaign buttons, Eisenhower cuff links. Three hundred and ninety-five dollars for a blanket from Air Force One? You gotta be kidding me."

"The bidding has just started on that one; it'll go much higher." Manny continued to scroll through the pages. "Most of this is souvenir stuff given away by candidates or the White House. What we're looking for is stuff owned by the presidents. Ah, see-here's one. Gerald Ford's nine iron."

"Only three hundred dollars," Jake said. "I bet his ski poles would be more valuable than his golf clubs."

"I don't get it," Sam said. "This could be anyone's golf club. How can you know it's Ford's?"

"Provenance?" Manny clicked a few more keys. "See, the dealer selling it says 'Documentation authenticates the ownership.' That means he has some letter or photo that proves it belonged to President Ford. And you see, this dealer receives the highest ranking by eBay shoppers. That indicates he's legit."

"So you think whoever saved the coffee mug at the lecture might have sold it on eBay to the killer," Jake said.

"Now you're catching on."

"It makes sense, but I don't see how it gets us any closer to finding the Vampire. Anyone can sell on eBay, and anyone can buy. If you register to bid under a false name and pay your bill, no one would be wiser."

Manny's fingers continued to fly across the keyboard. "True. You can certainly make it psuedo-anonymous. But what if you saw no reason to cover your tracks?" She stopped typing and leaned back. "When I wanted to sell some of my porcelain shoes, I didn't set up my own eBay account to do it. I contacted one of the dealers that I'd bought from and consigned them for sale through him. He got a cut of the sale price, but it was less hassle for me; plus, I got a better price because he was a reputable eBay dealer. So it's quite possible that whoever originally owned Nixon's mug sold it through a dealer that sells on eBay. Let's contact the most highly ranked dealers in presidential collectibles, describe the mug, and see if any of them handled the transaction."

Jake shrugged. "Seems like a stretch. But give it a shot." He glanced at his watch. "I've gotta run. I have an appointment with Annabelle Fiore."

Jake sat on Annabelle Fiore's sofa and stared at the great singer's chest. Her mighty bosom rose from her pale green sweater like twin volcanic peaks emerging from the Pacific. What man, even a cultured, politically correct, genuinely feminist man, could keep his eyes focused exclusively above Annabelle's neck? Jake was no saint. He couldn't help the thought that popped into his head: Wow, would I love to do an autopsy of those lungs!

Not that he wished the opera star dead-far from it. She must have been pushing fifty, but she had a lot of good performances left in her. He admitted he'd love to discover some scientific explanation for the fact that opera singers all had huge mammary glands. There was no anatomical reason for it, Jake was sure. A singer needed exceptional lung capacity, certainly, but what resided inside the chest cavity should have no correlation to what rested on top of it. Annabelle's mammary glands definitely were well developed. But what did her bronchi look like? That's what Jake really wanted to set his eyes on. But today he had a different agenda.

"Thank you for agreeing to see me, Ms. Fiore," Jake said. "I know you must be very busy."

Annabelle threw her hands up. "No, no! The pleasure is all mine! I am so grateful you are working hard to capture this terrible man. I tell you, I haven't slept a wink since the attack." She shook her head forlornly. "The stress, it is taking a toll on my voice."

Jake murmured sympathetically. In truth, Annabelle had looked well rested, the picture of health, when she'd opened the door to him. Now, however, she slumped back in her seat and let her eyelids droop to half-mast. Jake was glad he had come. Annabelle had offered to answer his questions on the phone, but he'd been eager to assess her physical response to everything he asked. Annabelle was an actress, but he could see she was also the kind of woman who wore every emotion on her sleeve. If she was frightened, or unnerved, or evasive because of his questions, he would know it instantly by watching her face and gestures.

"Ms. Fiore-"

"Annabelle, please."

"Annabelle. Let's go over again the night of the attack." Jake leaned forward in the overstuffed peacock blue chair. She had already told Vito Pasquarelli when he'd spoken to her in the hospital that she could not recall her attacker's face. But sometimes memory revives after the initial shock passes. "When you opened the door, what was your initial impression of the person standing there?"

"You see, I didn't even look through the peephole because I was expecting my friends. I just threw open the door." She flung her arm out to the side, narrowly missing a delicate lamp on the end table. "And in a split second, this maniac was in my home."

"There was one person at the door, not two," Jake confirmed.

"Yes. Now that you mention it, I remember a moment when I thought, Well, David must still be parking the car."

Jake's eyebrows arched. "You thought David was parking the car and the person on your doorstep was his wife? A woman?"

Annabelle propped her chin in her hand. "I'm not sure that it was a woman. I just remember being aware that the person standing there was too small to be David. He's a big fellow, six three, two hundred and fifty pounds.

"I have this thought only like that"-Annabelle snapped her fingers-"before the person is putting a rag over my face and I am dizzy and falling down." She shuddered as she relived the moment, then fell silent.

Jake waited.

Annabelle looked up and wagged her finger. "I remember seeing the needle before I passed out. Yes, I remember thinking, This must be that Vampire they talk about in the newspaper. And I said to myself, Why me, dear God, why me?"

"That's just it, Annabelle," Jake said. "I want to determine why you were targeted."

Her strong, dark brows drew down. "But surely it was random, no? I thought the newspapers have said there is no connection between the people he attacked. Certainly I don't know any of the others."

"No, I don't think you all know one another. But I do think there's a connection." Jake watched Annabelle closely. "Tell me: Have you ever visited Argentina?"

She blinked three times, quickly. "I have performed there, yes. Teatro Colon, the opera house in Buenos Aires, is quite fine."

"And do you know anyone there? Have friends who are Argentine?"

Annabelle cleared her throat. "Uh, friends, no. No friends there."

Jake studied her. He could tell she was uncomfortable. Maybe not lying, but holding something back. "Did you meet anyone… memorable… during your visit there?"

Annabelle tossed her hair away from her face. "There was-Oh, really, I don't see how this could be relevant. What's the significance of Argentina, anyway?"

"Three pieces of evidence in this case are linked to Argentina. I'm looking for more."

Annabelle's eyes widened. She turned away from Jake as she spoke. "This is a little embarrassing. I'm sure it's not important, but just in case…"

"I'd appreciate your candor, Annabelle. I won't share the information publicly if I can avoid it."

Annabelle took a deep breath. "A few years ago, I found myself in a bit of a jam financially. When I was performing in Argentina, a man approached me and said his boss, General Rafael Cintron, would pay me ten thousand U.S. dollars to sing at his birthday party. Now, this is something I would never do! I am a star! I don't sing for my supper. So I say no, and he raises the price to fifteen thousand dollars." Annabelle threw her hands up in the air. "I would never do such a thing in Europe, or here in New York, but an Italian diva performing arias for a private party in Argentina… well, it's generally off the paparazzi radar. No one outside of native Argentineans pay much attention to me there. I figure no one will find out. And I really needed the money."

"So you sang. What happened?"

Annabelle grimaced. "Horrible, boorish evening! The general, he sits there with a big grin on his face, like I am stripping, not singing 'Un Bel Di.' And the others at the party"-she mimicked talking with her hands-"yak, yak, yak, the whole time I'm singing. Disgraceful!"

Jake made an effort to look suitably appalled. "Thank you for telling me this, Annabelle. You've been very helpful."

"Really? Surely this general is not the Vampire? He was old and fat."

"No, he's not the Vampire. I think Cintron may be someone the Vampire despises even more than you do."

"How did it go?" Manny eyed Kenneth, who was balancing his own eye-popping sequined and velveteen man bag on his left arm against Mycroft's initialed white Goyard carrier on his right.

"Great! That new vet is adorable. What gorgeous brown eyes."

"You're looking for the scientific type now?"

"Just thought I might ask him to the club to hear me-Kenneth Medianos Boyd-performing as Princess K. Calypso."

"Forget it. He's married."

Kenneth adjusted his pose, put his hands on his hips, and gave his hips a wiggle. "Like that matters? Think Jim McGreevey and Rock Hudson." Kenneth's eyebrows were knowingly raised. "I even heard a delicious rumor the other day that Cary Grant was bi."

Manny declined to make eye contact, for fear of setting Kenneth off on one of his favorite discourses-that every man on the planet was in the closet, just waiting for the right guy to open his door. "I'm not going there with you. How is Mycroft? Is his wound healed?"

"Oh, yeah-he's fine. Aren't you, punkin?" Kenneth bent over and released Mycroft from his carrier. The little dog bounded across the office and leaped into Manny's lap. "The doctor seemed disappointed that you didn't bring him to his appointment. I told you, the wife's irrelevant."

"He must think I'm a terrible mother." Manny stroked Mycroft's curly head and scratched behind his ears. "I totally forgot the first appointment, and I would've missed this one, too, if I hadn't been able to send you." Manny looked at the pile of file folders on her desk. "I'm just swamped. I can't leave my desk until I finish answering these three hundred burdensome interrogatories that asshole law firm sent over on the Greenfield case. Just like a large law firm. They get paid thousands of dollars by the letter. Try to bury justice in paperwork."

"I'm sure Dr. Costello understands. He asked how you were doing, said to tell you not to work too hard." Kenneth picked up a stack of paper. "Is this complaint on the Conceicao employment discrimination case ready to go?"

"Yes," Manny said. "But you're going to have to scan the appendix into a portable file format so that we can electronically file the matter with the clerk of the federal court."

"You wanna check out the sale at that new shoe boutique on Madison?" Kenneth asked.

"Casa Bene del Sole? That's cruel! Don't tempt me when you know I can't possibly go."

Kenneth reached over and popped up the to-do list Manny had minimized on her computer toolbar. "Oh, come on. What if I take care of a few more things on this list?"

"I appreciate it, Kenneth, but I don't think-"

Kenneth interrupted her with a thrust of his right hand, looking for all the world like Diana Ross doing "Stop! In the Name of Love." "Delegation is the soul of good management. What about this number four-talk to InTerVex? I'm great at talking."

"Well, maybe you could do that," Manny admitted. "It's the pharmaceutical company where one of the Vampire's victims, Raymond Fortes, worked."

Kenneth wrinkled his nose. "The rat-bite guy?"

"Yes. Jake and I want to know if Dr. Fortes had any connection with Argentina. Apparently, he was a lonely workaholic, so his business seems the best place to start looking."

"No problem. I can do that." Kenneth headed out to his desk.

"But, Kenneth, remember, don't just come right out and ask-"

Kenneth pivoted, the ends of his metallic silver scarf fluttering, his Vamp fingernails adorned by crystal faux diamonds flashing. "Come on, Manny-give me a little credit. No one's better than me at being subtle."

Manny went back to answering interrogatory 221: "Describe how the alleged actions of the defendant in failing to treat the prostate interfered with the future income stream of the plaintiff." Some days Manny felt that she wanted to represent a stream of urologists, just so they could all pee together on the justice system.

She jumped, startled from her concentration by Kenneth tapping his size-twelve Manolos. "Grab your bag. We're going to Casa Bene del Sole. Have to hurry to get there before it closes."

"Already? Did you-"

"Dr. Raymond Fortes graduated from the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, Argentina's second-oldest medical school. He worked as a doctor in Cordoba for fifteen years before moving to New York in 1990 to work for InTerVex. He's a naturalized citizen."

"Great work, Kenneth. I don't suppose you found out what kind of drugs Dr. Fortes was developing at InTerVex?"

Kenneth tossed his scarf over his shoulder. "Of course I did. Fertility drugs. Fortes was an OB-GYN in Argentina at the Hospital Universitario de Maternidad y Neonatologia."

"Google him," Jake commanded.

Manny and Jake sat hunched over Jake's office computer. Two half-eaten calzones leached tomato sauce onto the papers strewn across his desk. Manny, lightning fast on the keyboard, was at the controls.

"Twenty-four thousand hits on General Rafael Cintron," Manny reported. "It would be nice to have some idea of what it is about him that's of interest to us."

"Start reading," Jake said through a mouthful of meatballs and dough. "We'll know it when we see it."

Manny doubled-clicked. "Here's his official biography. You read. My eyes are burning."

Jake scanned the screen. "He's sixty-three years old. Been in the army since he was eighteen. Worked his way up through the ranks. Seems to have successfully weathered several regime changes. That says a lot about him."

"If you're looking for something controversial, we need to go to some of the news reports about him," Manny advised. She scrolled through the top entries brought up by the search engine. "These four are all in Spanish. I'll use Google to translate them.

"'General Announces Plans for New Training Procedures,'" Manny read. "Snore. Here, this looks more promising."

"'Grandmothers Protest General's Link to Dirty War.'" Jake read the headline aloud, then moved over to give Manny a chance to read the rest of the article silently with him.

"Sounds like these grandmothers claim General Cintron was implicated in the disappearances of their adult children during the military dictatorship of the late seventies, early eighties," Jake said. "Los Desaparecidos-the disappeared ones-that's what they call the victims. The grandmothers are still protesting, all these years later."

"But Argentina is a democracy now," Manny said. "What's Cintron still doing in their army?"

"I'm no expert on Argentine history, but I think there's been a lot of controversy over amnesty for those who participated in the junta. They weren't all arrested and imprisoned. A lot of them are still actively part of Argentine society. I guess Cintron must be one of those clever survivors who plays on whatever team is at bat."

"I was still only a babe in arms when all this was going on," Manny said, "but doesn't this tie in with our Nixon lecture? Wouldn't Nixon have been a supporter of that regime?"

Jake sighed. Reminders of Manny's youth always depressed him. "Yes, my little peep, you must have been paying attention in college history class. The junta was rabidly anti-Communist, which automatically made them allies of Nixon and Kissinger. Nixon was out of office by then, of course, but this was the period when he was casting himself as elder statesman and foreign policy guru. Hence the lecture at the Scanlon Center on the necessity of supporting a regime that he knew committed atrocities against its own people."

Manny bit off a chunk of calzone and chewed thoughtfully. "I don't get it, Jake. Why would the Vampire be killing people in New York because of something that happened in Argentina decades ago?"

Jake shook his head. "I'm not sure. But a possible link between Cintron and Nixon seems to lead in that direction. And then there's the instances of torture: Hogaarth, Fortes, and Deanie Slade. Torture was one of the hallmarks of the Dirty War. People who opposed the regime would suddenly disappear. Most were held in secret government prisons, tortured for information on their comrades, and then killed."

Manny rubbed her temples, leaving a small smear of tomato sauce. "You're making me more confused. We know Dr. Fortes was Argentinean; we suspect that Ms. Hogaarth was, too. Why were they tortured before their deaths-because they were once part of the military junta, or because they once opposed it?"

Gently, Jake wiped the tomato sauce off Manny's face. "Don't demand so many answers. We're just laying out the facts."

"Well, what do you make of this fact? Deanie Slade was tortured, and she's New Jersey through and through. No connection to Argentina there."

"It's another data point."

"This isn't an academic exercise, Jake!" Manny balled up the remains of her dinner and stalked across the room to throw it in the trash. "In all this calm analysis of data points, let's not lose sight of the fact that Travis Heaton is under the control of people who not only kill but torture. We need to find him, fast."

"Drama has its uses in the courtroom, Manny, but investigations succeed on the steady accumulation of evidence. The process can be maddeningly slow, but no one's invented an alternative."

Jake patted the chair beside him. "There's more data to be dug. Are you in, or out?"

Manny returned and dropped into the chair. "Of course I'm in. I'm sorry I snapped at you, but I'm just so damn worried about Travis. And it infuriates me that the Sandovals are allowed to hide behind diplomatic immunity. They must know what's going on here, but somehow it's against their personal best interest to cooperate with the investigation."

"Let's see if we can turn up any link between Ambassador San-doval and the Dirty War," Jake said, turning back to the computer. He could feel Manny's barely suppressed impatience as he typed. He wondered, not for the first time, how she'd ever managed to sit through Civil Procedure and Contracts in law school.

"Here's Sandoval's official UN biography. It doesn't mention that he ever served in the military. He's only fifty-one years old. He probably would have been in college and law school during the Dirty War years."

"So maybe he and his wife were part of the opposition," Manny suggested. "Wasn't it mostly young people-students-who were disappeared by the government?" She leaned forward, gesturing, as her mind raced ahead of her ability to form sentences. "Paco seemed frightened by the letter I found in his room. Maybe someone from his parents' past has come back to haunt them. Maybe they're manipulating Paco to get what they want." Manny flung her pen onto the desk. "Damn, I wish I still had that document!"

Jake said nothing, only pursed his lips and kept scrolling through information brought up by the search engine.

"I know what's going through your head." Manny knocked her knuckles against the wild tangle of Jake's hair. "You think I should focus on this research instead of obsessing about what's out of reach. But I tell you, if we could just find out what the Sandovals are hiding, we wouldn't need to be piecing together all these scraps of information."

Jake paused, his hands suspended above the keyboard. "This is the best way to find out, Manny. We're not breaking into their home again."

Manny shook her head slightly, as if she'd already considered this but rejected it. "No, no more clandestine operations now that our cover's been blown. But I feel that if I could just get Paco alone and talk to him, really talk to him, he'd tell me something valuable."

"Why should he?" Jake demanded. "If it would endanger his family?"

"Because now it has to be clear to Paco that he's put Travis in danger. Paco's not a bad kid-he must feel guilty about what he's done to his friend."

"What do you know about Paco's character? You've spent all of five minutes with the kid, and half of that time you were on his back, literally."

"You'd be surprised the insights gained by jumping on a person." Manny grinned, poised to pounce. "Want me to demonstrate?"

Jake squirmed in his seat. Why did working with Manny always give him this precarious feeling, like he was riding in a ski lift without the safety bar down?

It was only nine-fifteen-too early to succumb to temptation. Jake knew he could easily put in three or four more hours here, digging for clues, reviewing the case files to look for significant details. He met Manny's teasing glance cautiously. "Hold that thought," he said, and waited for a storm or a sulk.

But Manny merely laughed. "Don't worry-I won't forget." She pivoted and looked around the office. "Say, as much as I love bonding with you by sharing this computer, don't you think we'd get to our reward a little faster if we were to divide and conquer? Isn't there another computer here I can use so we can both look things up?"

"Sure. You can use Dave's." He pointed to a desk just outside his office door.

"All right. Yell if you find anything interesting. I'm going to dig up more information on this grandmother's organization that does the protests, Asociacion Civil Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo."

Regret mingled with relief as Jake watched her retreating figure. He could certainly focus better when he wasn't breathing in Manny's perfume or brushing against her soft skin. But he liked knowing she was nearby, close enough to shout out an idea or ask an opinion.

He turned back to his own work. Forsaking the computer for the time being, Jake again pulled out the case files on the Vampire's victims. He'd already gone over them countless times, but it wouldn't hurt to look at them once more, bearing in mind his new knowledge of General Cintron and the Dirty War.

He had already tried to recontact each of the first four victims-the ones before Annabelle Fiore, whose blood had been taken but who had not been injured-to ask about a connection to Argentina in their lives. Victim number four, Jorge Arguelles, a tourist from Chile, seemed to have the closest connection, but he had already returned home, and Jake had not yet been able to reach him to ask if he had recently visited neighboring Argentina or had friends there.

Jake had not had the time to visit each victim personally, as he had with Annabelle. In his telephone conversations with the first three victims, each one had claimed to have no connection to Argentina. Now he wished he had made the effort to interview them in person, so he could have observed their eyes and hands as they spoke, listened to their breathing and vocal pitch, tracking any signs of deception.

Jake reread his notes. Victim number one, Lucinda Bettis, stood out. The other victims had thoughtfully considered his question about Argentina but had ultimately claimed no connection. Mrs. Bettis had replied in the negative almost before the question about Argentina had left Jake's mouth. Then she had rushed to get off the phone, saying she needed to get back to her children. Given that the other victims he had reached had answered in the negative, her response hadn't raised a red flag at the time, but now Jake studied her file more closely.

Born in 1977, married, mother of two. She had been attacked in her Upper West Side apartment in the middle of the day while the kids were at nursery school. No sign of forced entry; she said she'd answered the knock at the door because she was expecting her neighbor, who had agreed to pick up a dozen eggs for her at the market.

Again, he compared her file with the others, searching for some significant detail, something that either set her apart from the others or joined them all together. It eluded him.

From the other room came the sound of Manny's outrage. "Oh my God! This is horrible!"

Manny pulled two sheets of paper from the printer and entered Jake's office, reading aloud. "Listen to this: 'The junta led by Videla until 1981, then by Roberto Viola and Leopoldo Galtieri, was responsible for the illegal arrest, torturing, killing, or forced disappearance of citizens who voiced opposition to the government. Critics claim there are documents showing Argentina's brutal policies were known by the U.S. State Department, led by Henry Kissinger under both the Nixon and Gerald Ford presidencies.'"

Manny looked up. "Isn't that outrageous? Nixon and Kissinger's foreign policy extended long after the impeachment. And there's more." Manny continued reading aloud, her voice rising with indignation at every ghastly detail-secret imprisonment, torture, mutilation, murder-of the Argentine government's brutality.

"Say that again." Jake suddenly cut her off in mid-sentence.

"'Some of the bodies were never found because they were taken far offshore and disposed of in the ocean,'" Manny repeated.

"No, not that. What you said before."

Manny flipped back to the first page she'd printed out. "'The government claims that about nine thousand people were victims of forced disappearances, but the grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo estimate that nearly thirty thousand dissidents, students, and ordinary citizens disappeared between 1976 and 1983. The higher number includes children who disappeared with their parents, and pregnant women who may have given birth while in captivity.'"

Jake lowered his head and scrambled through the file folders on his desk, checking each one quickly and moving on to the next.

"What? What is it?"

Jake looked up and met Manny's eyes. "Victims one, three, and four were all born during the Dirty War. Victim two was born two years earlier. That's it. That's the connection. These victims-they're all children of the Desaparecidos."

"What are you thinking?" Manny asked. She and Jake were lying in her Murphy bed, with Mycroft curled at their feet. They didn't often spend the night at her place, even though Jake praised the coziness of her five-hundred-square-foot apartment: "Makes me feel like I'm sleeping in a casket."

Manny rolled over on the six-hundred-thread-count sheets and ran her finger down Jake's sinewy arm. Turning corpses over on a daily basis is good for the muscles, Manny thought. She read the deep recessed lines documenting Jake's thoughts. "I'm sure you're only thinking about how fabulous it is to be here with me, naked and alone."

"I was thinking about the blood." It never occurred to Jake to utter a judicious lie.

Manny flopped onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. "I love it when you ply me with romantic pillow talk. What blood?"

"The blood the Vampire takes. He went to all the trouble of collecting those samples, then abandoned them in that apartment in Brooklyn."

"He must be done with them," Manny said. "Because if he still needed them, it wouldn't have been hard to take them along when he left that place."

"Exactly. So if he was testing the blood samples, as I've always suspected, he now has his results. What's his next move? What's he going to do with this information?"

"I don't know. The note he left with Deanie told us to await instructions. He must be planning something."

Jake unexpectedly sat up and slammed his fist so hard onto the down comforter that three feathers shot into the air. "Well, I'm not waiting for him to act. I want to be one jump ahead, anticipating him."

Manny had been about ready to drift into blissful and much-needed sleep, but being in the presence of Jake when he was so excited was the equivalent of drinking three cups of double espresso-and infectious.

She sat up, too, and faced him across the rumpled covers. "But even with what we know now, or what we suspect, we still aren't any closer to understanding the Vampire's motivation. And without that, how can we anticipate his next move?"

Jake said nothing, eyes focused on the seemingly nondescript pattern of her new white-on-white silk comforter.

"Jake?"

No answer.

"Jake! You know something that you haven't told me."

He started, as if he just noticed that he wasn't alone in the bed. "Not that I haven't told you. It's something that just clicked." He grabbed Manny's hands. "If victims one through four are children of Los Desaparecidos, but the ones I talked to claimed no connection with Argentina, then how did three of them get here to New York? Even the businessman tourist from Chile claimed he was born in Chile. So, who took them out of their country? Who raised them?"

"They're all adopted," Manny said, catching his excitement and building on it. "But they don't know one another… They probably don't even know that they're adopted. Their adoptive parents concealed their true heritage-didn't want them to know their biological parents had been murdered."

"Maybe because-" Jake's grip on Manny's hands tightened.

Her eyes widened. "Because the people who adopted them were responsible for the parents' deaths. Were part of the junta. Why else keep the adoptions secret, when today everyone's so open about the process?"

"Adoption," Jake said. "We've just found where another of our puzzle pieces fits."

"The Family Builders adoption agency. They must have facilitated these adoptions. That's why Ms. Hogaarth left them money in her will."

"We have to talk to the director." Jake glanced around for Manny's phone.

She reached out and pulled him back. "It's three-thirty in the morning, Jake. We have to wait a few hours."

He flung himself back on the pillows and yanked the covers up to his chin. "I hate waiting."

Manny snuggled up beside him. "So do I."

Ten minutes passed in silence. The only light in the room came from the reflected glow of streetlamps far below. Mycroft snored gently.

"Are you asleep?" Manny asked.

"No."

"My mind's racing."

"Mine, too."

"There's really only one cure for this," Manny said.

Jake slid one leg over the edge of the bed. "You're right. I may as well get up and go to the office."

Manny twined her arms around his neck and yanked him back. "No! Not that!"

"Oh," he said, catching on. "Yeah, that works, too."

"Isn't that what you're always telling me?" Manny murmured. "Keep your mind open to all the possibilities."

"We have never handled international adoptions," Lydia Martinette said.

Jake sat across from the director of the Family Builders adoption agency, surrounded by the relentless good cheer of her office's happy family photos and precious children's drawings. Not liking the answer he'd received, he posed his question again. "This would have been late 1970s, early 1980s. Argentina." He was certain that Family Builders had brought the children of the Desaparecidos to New York. All he needed to do was make Mrs. Martinette comprehend.

"I understand the time frame, Dr. Rosen. You mentioned it before. But I'm telling you, this agency has never handled international adoptions. In fact, bringing foreign-born babies to the United States for adoption is antithetical to everything we stand for." When Jake had called the director at home at 8:55 that morning, demanding an interview at her office, Mrs. Martinette had been polite and helpful, but now her voice took on an edge.

But Jake was not deterred. "These names, Mrs. Martinette." He read the list of victims one through four. "Do they sound familiar? Did you place any of these children?"

"I'm sure we didn't, but if it will set your mind at rest, I'll look them up." She took the list from him and tapped the names into a database on her computer. After each search, she shook her head. "Not here."

Jake felt a rising tide of desperation. There just had to be a connection. Yet he believed Mrs. Martinette. He looked at a photo of a kid with stumps for arms surrounded by his new family. She found homes for kids like that. Her agency's reputation was stellar. He couldn't doubt her sincerity or her honesty. Still, he persisted. "How about Dr. Raymond Fortes. He's an OB-GYN specializing in fertility. Have you ever worked with him?"

"No." Seeing his distress, Mrs. Martinette's attitude softened a bit. "Look, I can give you the names of agencies that do handle foreign adoptions, but honestly, Argentina isn't a common source of infants. Guatemala, Colombia, Peru-those are the Central and South American countries that American couples most frequently turn to when they're looking to adopt." Her usually smiling mouth turned down in disapproval.

He'd been so focused on his own agenda that he hadn't been paying attention to the signals Mrs. Martinette was sending. He stopped trying to drag her where she didn't want to go and allowed her to give him the information she wanted to share. "Why don't you approve of international adoptions, Mrs. Martinette?"

She came out from behind her desk and sat next to Jake. "I don't disapprove in all cases. People want the experience of raising an infant from birth, I understand that. It can be difficult for some to adopt an infant in this country. But I resent all these celebrities traipsing off to Africa and India and Cambodia to 'rescue' children when there are thousands, tens of thousands, of children in America who need good adoptive homes. And the ramifications of culture shock for older children taken away from their countries of origin can be considerable."

Jake watched Mrs. Martinette as she spoke, noting the way she leaned forward, the way she looked into his eyes, the way her voice shook with intensity. In her he saw a kindred spirit, a woman who cared as deeply about her work as he cared about his own. She didn't happen to have the information that he had come here seeking, but he thought she could be useful to him anyway.

"Tell me, Mrs. Martinette," he said. "Is it ever justifiable to conceal a child's origins from him, to never tell him he's adopted because of the circumstances of his birth?"

"We often place children who are the products of rape, and we don't recommend telling the child that detail, but we never say that a child shouldn't know he's adopted."

"What about reuniting children with their birth parents? If an adult child comes here wanting to know the identity of his or her birth parents, do you tell that person?"

Mrs. Martinette brushed a strand of glistening white hair away from her face. "Magazines and TV are filled with heartwarming stories of birth parents and children being joyfully reunited, but the truth is more complicated than that. Both parties have to want the reunification. Many times, the birth parents don't want to be found; they've separated from the baby they gave up and they don't want to reopen that wound."

She spread her hands out on her lap. "And many children have no interest in meeting the parents who surrendered them. Their adoptive parents are the only parents they want in their lives. We have to respect that, although it's very distressing when one party wants the reunification and the other doesn't."

"So what do you do in those cases?" Jake asked.

"We have to honor the wishes of the party who wants privacy. We provide any information on health and well-being that would be reassuring, but we don't reveal the identity."

"And do people ever have… er… violent reactions to that decision?"

Mrs. Martinette cocked her head. "What an odd question. Sometimes there are tears and pleading. If I feel the person is having serious trouble adjusting to the idea that he'll never be reunited, I have a few therapists I can recommend."

"Hmm." Jake stared down at the pale blue carpet beneath his tattered loafers.

"Dr. Rosen? Is that all?"

"Huh?" Jake pushed himself out of his chair with a jolt. "Yes. Yes, I suppose it is. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Martinette." He shook her hand and walked toward the door.

With his hand on the knob, Jake paused and looked back. "Ma'am, aren't you at all curious about why Ms. Hogaarth left Family Builders all that money?"

The older woman fingered a strand of beads around her neck before she spoke. "I gave up looking for reasons years ago, Doctor. I used to want to know why a father would beat his crying infant so hard that the child would never be able to form words again. I used to want to know why a mother would drop her toddler in a scalding bath because she wet the bed. I don't ask why about those things anymore, so I sure don't ask why when something good comes my way."

Manny sat on a park bench a few blocks south of the Central Park Zoo, Mycroft curled at her side. A jaded New Yorker, Mycroft found little of interest in the passing tide. Squirrels and pigeons were beneath his contempt; joggers, bladers, and skateboarders didn't merit a second glance. A four-foot-tall Afghan hound provoked a low growl; a strolling incense vendor prompted a sneeze. Only a toddler with a tenuous grip on a hot dog got the poodle to sit up and tense for a spring into action.

Manny tugged his leash. "Don't even think about it. I've got something better." She glanced at her watch. "You don't have much longer to wait." Her other hand rested inside her purse, fingers already curled around a tin of bacon and liver strips. Mycroft wouldn't perform for just any treat. He scoffed at Milk Bones, ignored Snausages. While he wouldn't eat Fortune Snookies, he'd do just about anything for fusion cuisine from the China Grill, but it really wouldn't be practical to toss a handful of lobster pancakes onto the path when her prey came into sight. But like his mother, Mycroft could be a bundle of contradictions. He'd also kill for a dirty-water hot dog from any street vendor in New York.

So Manny watched for Paco, armed with organic bacon-and-liver-infused dog snacks ordered from Canine Gourmet and a hungry, bored pet. Although the sun was long past its peak, she wore large dark glasses and had stuffed her red hair under a bucket hat.

She knew the Ultimate Frisbee game Paco played with his friends every Sunday afternoon in the park must have ended by now. Paco lived farthest downtown, so the other friends would have peeled off for their homes by the time he reached this point on the path.

Manny watched the bend in the path to see who would come along next. Two black women pushing white babies in strollers-Haitian nannies taking their charges home; a middle-aged man talking on his cell phone; three old biddies clutching one another's arms for support.

Then she saw what she was waiting for. A long, casual stride, a familiar toss of dark hair. Paco Sandoval emerged from the shadows of some maple trees and headed toward her. When he was ten feet away, Manny opened the container in her purse. Mycroft sat up and sniffed.

When Paco was seven feet away, Manny tossed two gourmet strips across the trail. Mycroft shot after them, a blur of red trailing his bright green leash.

"Oh, my dog! He's loose! Get him!" Manny rose from the bench but made no effort to chase Mycroft. Paco glanced her way, questioning.

"I can't chase him. I sprained my ankle. Please grab his leash for me," Manny said, averting her face by looking down at her Ace bandage-wrapped ankle.

Dutifully, Paco sprinted after Mycroft, who wasn't terribly hard to catch. Having downed two bacon and liver strips, he was busy sniffing the grass on the off chance he might have missed a third.

Manny limped across the path, holding her hand out for the leash. When Paco extended it to her, Manny took it with her left hand and linked her right arm firmly through Paco's. "Thank you, Paco. You're very good with animals."

He looked down at her in surprise, still not recognizing her.

"Let's walk a bit, shall we? We have a little talking to do."

Her voice triggered Paco's memory and he tugged to release his arm.

"Don't run, Paco," Manny said, her voice quiet and firm. "If you do, I'll start screaming that you stole my wallet. You know I'll do it."

She felt his arm, which was still hard with tension as he continued trying to pull away. No time for an opening argument; just move straight to the cross-examination.

"The mailbox explosion, the Vampire-it's all related, and it all goes back to your family's past in Argentina, isn't that right?"

Paco's glowing olive complexion seemed a little grayish now, his lips pale and pressed to a thin line. His head swiveled left, then right. "We can't be seen together," Paco said, his voice low and urgent. "Don't you understand? If they see me talking to you, they'll kill Travis."

"Who will? Who has Travis?"

Paco stopped on the path. The old ladies who had passed Manny earlier were now sitting on a bench, taking a breather. Two joggers passed in iPod-induced oblivion. The only place for anyone to hide was in the trees overhead. They were near Fifty-ninth Street and Manny spotted a red-and-black carriage pulled by a dappled mare clopping along.

"C'mon, Paco." Manny tugged his arm. "Let's see the park like the tourists do." Mycroft looked at her as if to say I was just there this morning. Boooring…

After finally settling Mycroft at their feet, Manny leaned forward and spoke to their driver, who only seemed interested in stating the duration and price of the ride.

Manny turned to look directly at Paco. "Tell me where Travis is now."

Paco shook his head. "I don't know, honestly. But I'm worried. I haven't heard from him in two days." He leaned forward and dropped his head into his hands.

"Travis contacts you regularly?"

"No." Manny had to strain to hear him. "They do."

"Who?"

"The Vampire. Sometimes it's a man, sometimes a woman."

Paco straightened and faced Manny. His dark eyes glistened with tears. "I got Travis into this mess. I was supposed to be the one to get arrested."

"What do you mean?"

"The first contact came about two weeks ago." Paco closed his eyes as he spoke, as if he couldn't bear to see his confessor. "A text message saying I needed to call this number to get important news that would affect my family."

"Who answered?"

"It was a recorded message directed to me. The voice said they had information that would destroy my father's career, put him in prison. They told me to go to that club in Hoboken, said that someone would make contact with me there. I wanted to go because I needed to protect my mother from any harm, but I was nervous, so I asked Travis-"

"If he wanted to go clubbing." Manny sighed. Her poor client. He wasn't even supposed to have been there. The Vampire had set up the mailbox bombing as a trap for Paco, but the wrong little mouse had stumbled into it. And Paco had stood by and watched his friend go down and did nothing to help.

"Let me get this straight," Manny said in the tone she reserved for liars on the witness stand. "You let your friend be arrested on a charge of terrorism and you said nothing to the police about the strange phone call that brought you two to Club Epoch?"

Paco bit his lip, but to give him credit, he didn't look away from her. He met her gaze and held it. "By that time, I knew what they had called me there to tell me."

"Which was?"

Paco held his hand up to deflect her question. "I couldn't speak up on that night. I had to have time to think. Travis and I were separated by the police. They let me go, so I assumed they'd let him go, too."

"But they didn't. And you still didn't speak up. So do the right thing now. Come forward and tell everything you know to the police."

"No!"

Paco's shout made the carriage driver glance back over his shoulder. Then he turned discreetly away. Manny guessed he'd probably witnessed plenty of lovers' quarrels in his career.

"The next day, the Vampire contacted me again. He told me they would kill Travis and his mother if I went to the police. After Travis got out of jail, he told me the same thing. Every time I speak to him, he begs me not to tell the authorities. He says if we wait it out, everything will be okay."

The gentle sway of the carriage should have been relaxing, but Manny had never felt more tense. "And you believe that? Paco, these people have attacked six people and tortured and killed two more. You can't possibly trust anything they say."

"I don't trust them, but I trust Travis. He says the FBI won't believe anything he says. They're convinced he's a terrorist."

Manny took a deep breath. She could hear an edge of hysteria building in Paco's voice. She needed to calm him down and get his story straight from the beginning. Then she could talk some sense into him.

"We need to talk about the past, Paco," she began. "What were your parents doing during the Dirty War?"

Her sudden about-face startled Paco. "Nothing," he said loudly. "My parents are good people."

"The Vampire knows something about your father's past, doesn't he?" Manny continued. "Something that would destroy your dad's diplomatic career. This killer is using you, Paco. He's taking advantage of your desire to protect your family. I understand you don't want anything to happen to them, but this has gone on long enough. Innocent people are getting hurt."

"Innocent?" Paco spat the word out like a piece of bad meat. "Amanda Hogaarth wasn't innocent. Raymond Fortes wasn't innocent. They got what they deserved."

Surprised by his intensity, Manny considered her next move. Clearly, she was on to something here, but she had to tread carefully to keep him talking. She had no idea why Paco claimed Ms. Hogaarth deserved to die, but she could guess why Dr. Fortes had met his grisly end.

"Dr. Fortes was tortured because he was a torturer himself during the Dirty War, right?"

"The worst kind." Suddenly, Paco wanted to tell her more. He glanced around, but no one was near but another carriage ten feet behind them. Paco's face shined with recently awakened idealism. "He supervised the torture. Told the soldiers just how far to go so the person wouldn't die. So that he would live to be tortured some more the next day. This is how he used his medical training."

Manny shivered. She had seen the autopsy photos of Fortes's rat-gnawed body, imagined his slow, agonizing death. At the time, she couldn't fathom how one human being could do such a thing to another. But Paco's claim, if it was true, made Fortes's death seem, if not justifiable, maybe understandable. How chilling to think that Fortes had coolly directed the torture of young people for maximum effectiveness, then left that life behind and came to New York to take up legitimate work as a researcher. Imagine developing fertility drugs to create new life when you were a cold-blooded killer.

She began to think out loud. "Back in Argentina, Fortes was an obstetrician. He delivered babies."

Paco stiffened. Manny sensed he might be about to leap out of the slow-moving carriage, so she shamelessly threw her arms around his neck, locking her fingers tightly, yanking up poor Mycroft on his leash. To anyone passing by, they were lovers engaged in a flagrant public display of affection.

Their faces were inches apart. "Raymond Fortes delivered the babies of the Desaparecidos," Manny said, her eyes locked on Paco's. "Then he took them away to be adopted by strangers."

Paco's eyes filled with tears. He squirmed away from Manny's embrace.

"You know someone whose baby was taken," Manny said. "Your parents… long before you were born…" But then she thought of the photo she'd seen in Paco's room. That photo, a recent photo, showed him with a man old enough to have been born during the Dirty War. Who was that?

Manny released her grip. Paco slumped on the carriage seat. He looked young now, much younger than the sophisticated eighteen-year-old she had waylaid fifteen minutes ago. He had seen the world, more of it than most people his age, but he didn't know the world. He was a child, a frightened child.

Manny took his hand. "Paco, in your room there's a photo of you and another man, a man about thirty. Who is that?"

"Esteban," he whispered. "My brother, Esteban."

"He was adopted?"

Paco nodded. "I never knew. Until-"

Paco stopped talking.

"Until the Vampire told you," Manny said. "He knows your family's secret."

Paco nodded. "That night at Club Epoch, one of the guys took me into a back room and gave me an iPod to listen to. A voice just started talking. He spoke in Spanish, and it was like listening to my father read me a scary story when I was a kid, except the characters in this story were my own family.

"The voice said Esteban's birth parents were a young couple in graduate school named Estrella and Hector, who opposed the dictatorship and participated in protests. They were kidnapped when Estrella was seven months pregnant, and Hector was killed before her eyes."

Paco's voice trembled and his dark eyes blinked furiously. "Then Estrella was tortured for weeks in terrible ways, until the torture finally brought the baby's birth early. They took the baby away from her and she died a few days later. They dumped her body in the ocean."

Paco paused, his face pale and clammy, his breath coming in shuddering gasps. "What else did the man tell you, Paco?" Manny whispered.

"The soldiers gave the baby boy to my father. They wanted that baby to be raised by someone with the right politics."

Paco stopped, too exhausted to continue.

"But, Paco, how can you be sure that this baby of the disappeared young couple was really your brother, Esteban? I mean, this crazy person calls you up with this story and you believe him? What did your father say?"

"He doesn't know that I know. He's kept this secret from all of us. He's still controlled by those terrible people. Telling lies, lies, lies. My whole childhood was full of things that didn't make sense, things that I wasn't allowed to ask about. Now everything makes sense."

"Like what?"

"I was always my grandparents' favorite. They were cold to Esteban, and I never could figure out why. And my father… well, my father is harsh to everyone, but he was particularly hard on my brother."

"The biological child favored over the adopted one," Manny said.

"Yes. And there are no photos of Esteban as a baby, and none of my mother pregnant with him, but there are tons of me. And Esteban was small and sickly as a child."

"Because of the premature birth," Manny said. "The nurse must have been Amanda Hogaarth. She worked with Dr. Fortes on the side, helping deliver the babies."

Paco nodded. "That's why I said I don't care that the Vampire killed those two people. But I don't want Travis to be hurt, and I don't want my mother ever to learn any of this."

"But, Paco, your mother knows Esteban is adopted."

"Yes, but she doesn't know how my father got the baby. I'm sure of that. He had to have lied to her, told her Esteban was simply an orphan who needed a home. She must have wanted a baby desperately. But my mother would never have agreed to take the baby of a murdered girl, take him away from the rest of his biological family. You see how kindhearted she is. She had no trouble raising Esteban as her own, because she thought he was abandoned. She loves him, always has. Not like my father."

A dark scowl settled over Paco's face. The dour expression brought out a resemblance to his father. "Paco," Manny said, "you've got to talk to your father about this. Find out what's true. He may know who the Vampire is, what motivates him."

"No way! He'll just lie-he's a master at that. He'll do anything to protect his reputation, his position." Paco's voice rose, and again the driver turned to look at his mercurial passengers. "He'll have me sent away, and then there will be no one to protect my mother. I'm all she has. I can't let that happen."

"What about your brother? Does he know?"

"Esteban is a doctor. He took a year off after his residency to work for Doctors Without Borders. He's in Sudan now-completely out of touch. Sometimes he's able to get an e-mail through. But I can't send him an e-mail with news like this. He'll be knocked flat by it. And he's in a very dangerous place. He needs to stay sharp, alert. I can't endanger him. I'll tell him when he gets back in six months."

Manny stared down at Mycroft, who was blissfully napping at her feet. Rarely had she felt so completely stymied. She simply couldn't relate to a family like Paco's, where everyone presented a cheerful face to the world while tiptoeing around land mines in private. In the Manfreda family, everything was out in the open. You were happy-everyone shared it; sad-everyone knew why; mad-you screamed at the offender and two minutes later you kissed and made up. Impossible to keep a secret, no matter how you tried. Uncle Bobby's gambling problem, cousin Kay's extramarital fling, Aunt Joan's colonoscopy-all fair game, reviewed in excruciating detail at family gatherings. Manny simply had no expertise in the kind of evasion practiced by the Sandovals. How could she get Paco to confront his father with what he knew? She couldn't unravel eighteen years of twisted family dynamics in one carriage ride around Central Park.

Would it be any easier to get Paco to tell his story to the police? Because as tantalizing as this new information was, it really didn't help the Vampire investigation if she was the only person who knew it. Sure, she could take it to Pasquarelli and he would most likely believe her, based on his friendship with Jake. But how could he move forward with it?

There were instances in which diplomatic immunity could be breached, in which the police could force a diplomat to cooperate in an investigation, but hearsay evidence from the defense lawyer of an escaped federal prisoner charged with terrorism wasn't one of them. Not even close. For Pasquarelli to be able to act on this information, he needed to hear it directly from Paco.

Manny didn't hesitate to play the guilt card.

Sure, Jewish mothers grabbed all the headlines for inspiring guilt, but Italian mothers were no slouches, and Manny had learned at the knee of the best.

"Do I have to remind you that your friend is in the hands of a multiple murderer, a torturer, because of your actions?"

Paco grew petulant now, just as she had always done when her mother pulled the old "After all I've done for you, can't you do this one little thing for me?"

"Travis is the one who told me not to tell," Paco said.

"He's terrified, Paco!" Manny reminded him. "And now he's being held captive by people who haven't hesitated to kill and torture. Of course he's going to say whatever they tell him to say."

She took both of Paco's hands in hers and spoke slowly and patiently, as she would to a child. "This has gone on long enough. You need to do the right thing. Come with me now to talk to Detective Pasquarelli. He's a good man. He can help."

Paco wrenched his hands away. "It's not that easy! They won't be able to talk to me and my father without my mother finding out. Since the bombing, she's been a nervous wreck. She doesn't like me going anywhere. In fact"-he checked his watch-"I'm late getting home now. She's going to start calling me."

Manny made a concerted effort not to roll her eyes. She suspected that Mrs. Sandoval was a lot tougher than her son gave her credit for. "Paco, your mother's going to find out about this sooner or later. The adoption doesn't reflect badly on her. In fact, she's done a great job raising Esteban. A doctor, and one who does volunteer work-she must be very proud of him." Manny let out all the stops. "Now, make her proud of you. You know she would never want more people to get hurt. Come and talk to the police and put an end to all these attacks."

"No!"

And before Manny could even snatch at his sleeve, Paco leaped from the slow-moving carriage and dashed nimbly into the trees, heading east. Manny watched him go. She wasn't crazy enough to try the same stunt, wearing high heels and dragging a poodle.

The driver soon exited onto Central Park South and pulled up at the curb. He held out his hand to Manny. "Ride's over. Forty dollars, please."