37.

"You do know the piece of paper I mean?"

I tried to force myself to focus. Once he knew how to get his hands on the map, there was no need to keep me alive. I thought of the paper in my pocket and my hand unconsciously moved stroke my throat, thinking of Lola's fate and imagining the many uses of the thick length of rope Shreve had brought back with him. There were two other copies, and I had to make him think was indispensable in getting them into his possession.

"I didn't know about the significance of the map when I came across it, of course. I never knew the story of your grandfather's diamonds until just the other day. But I do know how get it for you."

He was calm now, and talking to me as he squatted next to the chair.

"Look, Ms. Cooper. I'm a French citizen. You get me this map, and I'll find Freeland's ransom, go back to my home abroad, and donate half the money to the college or any cause you name."

I listened. Surely he would know we could extradite him from France. Or was he that certain that he could talk his way out of a murder charge?

"We're talking about millions of dollars." My head dropped to avoid his gaze. "Ah, ever the earnest prosecutor. Once you help convince all the authorities how Charlotte died, I'll be home free. And you'll still have Claude to blame for Lola Dakota's death."

"You'll need me to get the map, Mr. Shreve. The original is in the safe in Paul Battaglia's office."

"Your team is too efficient not to have made some copies. I took the liberty of looking through your file-the one that was in my car-but no map."

"One copy." I sucked in some frigid air and prayed that what I was about to say would not put Mike in harm's way. "Detective Chapman has that copy. And I can help you get it from him."

"How can you do that?"

I would have to think of something specific by daybreak, less than an hour or so away. "Because he'll do whatever I ask him to do."

"No wonder you've got some problems with your boyfriend. Rather confident of that, aren't you?"

"Chapman's a very intelligent man, Mr. Shreve. If you let me call him and arrange for him to meet us, you can tell him exactly what you've told me about Charlotte Voight and Lola Dakota."

"Surrender?"

"If Charlotte's death was accidental, and Lavery killed Lola, then you've got nothing to worry about."

I needed to talk myself out of this black abyss and into the open areas outside the building where someone might actually be able to see us once the morning came.

"I'd rather get back home to the Sixth Arrondissement and let you break the news to the NYPD. Where's the Blackwells Island miniature that my grandfather had Bennino make, Ms. Cooper? Do you know that, too?"

I moved my head up and down, slowly trying to think of a possible answer.

"Was that a'yes'?"

"Yes, I do." Shreve himself had given me the idea when he had talked about Lola's weeks in hiding. "It's at Lily's house, Lola's sister." Why hadn't I thought of that possibility in all the days since the murder? Lola must have taken a lot of things with her to occupy her during the weeks in New Jersey. She was too much of a workhorse not to have done so. If that's where she was when she figured out Jennings's deadhouse scheme, that's probably where the model was concealed.

I went on weaving my tale, which seemed to interest Winston Shreve. "There's a key to a trunk that's in Lily's garage. It's where Lola left the miniature when she came back to the city. Chapman has that key. I'm supposed to meet him at nine o'clock this morning to go with him to pick up the model."

"And all that charade about old man Lockhart and going up to listen to his story?"

"To try to determine who else knew about the map and the diamonds. If you let me call Chapman now, on your cell phone, know he'll agree to meet with us." And I know he'll get the tech unit to trace the call immediately. They could do amazing thing with satellite systems, even pinpointing the location of the caller in a matter of seconds.

"I wouldn't want to alarm him in the middle of the night. He might be busy."

Shreve was right. Mike might be much too involved with Valerie to be giving me a second thought.

I didn't want to end my life in this godforsaken ruin like one more of the outcasts sent here and left to die. Slowly, I raised my head to meet his eyes. "I've studied your grandfather's map, Mr. Shreve. I believe I could recognize the shapes of some of the areas, the pieces of land where the wooden sheds once stood, if I saw them. If you want to walk outside with me, I can try to help you find the rocks that correspond with the locations noted on the map."

"That's a good way to start, Ms. Cooper." He turned to look out the hollowed window frame. It was still dark, and the storm had subsided. The precipitation had stopped and large wet flakes of snow blew lazily upward from the ground instead of falling in sheets. "The positions on the map, were they numbered?"

"Yes, yes, they were numbered." The first time I said that word aloud I recalled another set of numbers. In the pocket of the black sweater that we'd found in Lola Dakota's apartment just hours after her murder was the slip of paper that we had removed. The paper that bore the words the deadhouse, followed by a list of numbers. They meant nothing to us at the time, and now I realized they must have been the key to the map that Lola had deciphered while holed up at her sister's home.

Lola had come back from New Jersey wearing that sweater, but removed it at some point before she walked out of her apartment for the last time. Shreve had gone to intercept her, looking for the map and the numbers that might correspond to it and lead him to the diamonds.

"The numbers, Ms. Cooper. Tell me how they were ordered." "I honestly can't remember that. I know that the lower numbers started at the southern tip of the island. I, uh, I could probably show you where some of the areas that were highlighted on the map are, if I could actually see the terrain."

"Nice try, Ms. Cooper. That's hardly the way it was half a century ago."

"But some of it is exactly the same. I, I-when I saw the map, I didn't even realize what the outline of the Strecker building represented. But I know there were areas to the east of the seawall, that were starred by Professor Dakota on her map." After Shreve's explanation this morning, it didn't take much else to figure out where the wooden sheds had been built, close to the morgue and out of view of patients arriving from Manhattan.

He was too smart to trust me entirely.

"You've got nothing to lose." I tried to say it casually, not to reveal how anxious I was to get out of this hellhole. "I can't get very far." Surrounded as we were on three sides by water that was so cold it would kill the strongest swimmer within minutes of submersion, even before the current could carry one away, and bounded on the fourth side by a razor-wire fence, Shreve could hardly disagree.

He picked up one of his neckties and rewound it around m hands, binding them in front of me-rather than behind-so could move more easily. He carried the long piece of rope in his left hand, while lifting me to my feet with his right. "I'll call your bluff, Ms. Cooper. You've got a bit of time to see if you can find me a gem or two."

It took me several seconds on my feet before I was able to walk a few steps. The cold air had numbed them, and I was fearful frostbite. That was a good thing, I reminded myself. It at le meant that I thought I was going to survive this ordeal if I was worried about losing a few toes.

Shreve led me through the shell of the building and out the rear door, the same way we had come in hours before. It was the only side of the structure that was not lit by floodlights, and so he knew he could guide me out to the shoreline without detection, in the event anyone had even thought to look for me in this unlikely place.

The city nightscape was more visible to me now. The grey-black sky had cleared to cobalt blue, in the final hour of predawn darkness on the last day of the year. Off in the distance on the Manhattan side, the Art Deco crown beneath the spire of the Chrysler Building was bathed in the red and green lights of the holiday season. Closer to me, in Queens, the Citicorp tower dominated the skyline, standing behind the Domino Sugar, Silvercup, and Daily News signs that stood atop the company plants that fronted the river.

Below the neon lights and factory smokestacks, on the streets and piers, I could not make out a single human being across the water.

Holding my elbow, Shreve walked me to the edge of the river. Rats the size of piglets scampered up and over the boulders that edged the seawall. There were boat docks farther north, on the populated part of the island, but no vessel could come close to this granite border without smashing its hull against the rocks.

I turned back to look at the two ghostlike structures. On my left, parallel with the front wall of the old hospital, was a giant elm tree, bare of her leaves and coated with icicles.

"That tree is one of the markers on the map. Behind us"-I swiveled and pointed with my bound forefingers locked together- "is where the island widens and curves north."

Shreve looked at the shape of the wall, following my direction. I went on, "That had to be the strip on which the deadhouses were built. It's close to the morgue, but still out of sight." That much was logical. I tried to sound just as convincing as I continued to speak. "The map had foundations of four old wooden buildings. The first one was a bit north of that bend in the seawall, if I remember it correctly."

He moved away from me and took a few steps to the edge of the wall, taking care not to slip on the icy boulders. He braced himself with one leg on a piece of granite closest to the water, and I saw it wobble beneath his foot. It must have given him a scare, because I heard him curse beneath his breath and back away from the edge. He decided to explore the loose boulder and got down onto his knees. The rock lifted easily and although it was dark where we were standing, there did not appear to be any treasure hidden beneath it. He scraped a gloved hand against the frozen ground, but the dirt wouldn't yield to such a soft probe. I assumed that years of neglect had caused the seawall to decay, too.

"I don't think any of the rocks that close to the edge were marked on the map," I cautioned. I wriggled my hands in the direction of a paved area that seemed to be composed of crumbling material. "This patch would have been under the base of one of the buildings," I suggested.

Again, Shreve dropped to his knees and began to dig his fingers into the crevices, moving anything loose out of his way but coming up empty. No long-buried treasure was going to be that close to the petrified surface of the land.

He was getting short with me now, figuring that I was leading him on a wild-goose chase to save my own neck. He pushed himself back to a standing position and picked up the rope from the ground beside him.