It is essential to the well-being of the United States and our efforts to cope with the potential threat of biological warfare that the secretary of Health and Human Services, Frank Manwaring, function without distraction. Instead, the search for Maura Greer has damaged Secretary Manwaring's credibility, possibly beyond repair, and put a stranglehold on his effectiveness.

But most of all, Maura's disappearance has caused heartache for her family. In the midst of our global obsession with terrorism, it is easy to forget that there are other, smaller tragedies in life. Unless, of course, you happen to be living in the middle of such a tragedy.

Maura Greer left her one-bedroom apartment in Washington, D.C., at approximately four o'clock in the afternoon on Thursday, February 23. It is presumed that she went to pick up her car, a three-year-old silver Honda Accord, in the underground garage beneath her apartment building. Although she was not spotted there, the garage was vandalized and the attendant, Hector Diaz, has also been missing since that day. (For a time, Mr. Diaz was a suspect in the disappearance, but police have since ruled out that possibility.) According to a neighbor who saw her in the hallway on her way out, there was nothing about Maura's demeanor that struck him as strange. He did say that she was dressed rather provocatively, but Maura usually dressed provocatively. She had never been a shy girl, and that aggressiveness carried over to her s.e.xuality. She was never afraid to voice her opinions or take over a room with her personality or use her body to give her an advantage. There was only one area of her life about which Maura seemed to turn inward, reticent to reveal details even to her closest friends: her relationship with the current man in her life.

"For the longest time, she would talk about it only in vague generalities," said her best friend since childhood, Gay Chilcott. "I'd ask her who she was seeing and she'd get this beatific smile on her face and say things like, 'You'll meet him soon,' or 'It's going really well but I can't talk about it yet.' It didn't take a genius to figure out she was going out with a married man. From a few hints that she dropped, it was pretty obvious it was also an older married man. Then, about two weeks before she died ...I mean, disappeared ... she became a little more open. Started revealing a few details. She told me that he was fifty. And that he was a great lover. She also told me he was very important and she made it pretty clear he was with the government. One of the last times I talked to her on the phone she said that there was a decent chance she'd get to go to the White House and meet the president soon."

According to friends and family, Maura's affair had been going on for at least six months, probably closer to eight. Those who knew about the affair also knew that she expected her lover to leave his wife-and marry Maura.

"She was certain that she was going to be the winner in this relationship tug-of-war," Chilcott says. "I told her that men do sometimes leave their wives-but I sure as h.e.l.l wouldn't count on it. But people believe what they want to believe in situations like that. And Maura believed that everything would end up happily ever after."

So far, things have ended up anything but happily. Whether that unhappiness is forever depends on two things. Will Maura Greer turn up alive? And what will happen to her married lover-our current secretary of Health and Human Services, Frank Manwaring?

Manwaring has denied any role in Maura's disappearance. For weeks he also denied that he and the young intern had been having an affair, but recently, as incontrovertible evidence of the affair was publicly released by the Greer family, the secretary made a televised confession and apology. Maura's parents do not believe the confession went far enough. And they most certainly do not accept the apology.

"He denied his relationship with Maura until we forced him to admit it," says Maura's father, Marcus. While Rachel is strong and definite in her belief that their daughter is the victim of foul play, Marcus can't speak about Maura without weeping, and he says he prays every day for her safe return. "Everything Frank Manwaring says has been a lie-until someone forces him to tell the truth."

Having an affair, of course, is a far cry from committing murder. And while it's not been proven that everything Secretary Manwaring has said about his relationship with Maura Greer has been false, many of his statements have been reticent and incomplete. Police feel he has been less than forthcoming. Maura's parents believe he has not only hindered the investigation, they are convinced that he should be at the center of it.

On Friday, February 24, Maura was supposed to visit her parents in East End Harbor, a small town on the outskirts of Long Island's chic Hamptons. It was Marcus's birthday on Sat.u.r.day, and Maura was going to spend the weekend celebrating. Marcus had reserved an hour of tennis at a local indoor court on both Sat.u.r.day and Sunday because Maura loved to play tennis and they had a friendly compet.i.tion going back to Maura's teens. Rachel made a salon appointment for both mother and daughter on that Sat.u.r.day afternoon. They were going to get facials, manicures, and pedicures. "She loved being pampered," Rachel says. "And I loved being able to pamper my daughter."

Marcus went to the train station to pick up Rachel. She was supposed to arrive on the 4 p.m. train. But when the train pulled away and the platform was cleared of people, there was no Maura. "At first I wasn't too concerned," Marcus says. "Maura was not always the most responsible person in the world, at least when it came to her parents. But when I called Rachel to see if Maura had called, she started talking about how she'd had a premonition. Rachel said that something bad had happened, that she'd felt it the day before but didn't say anything." So when he got home, Marcus called the Washington, D.C., police and said that Maura was missing. The D.C. police asked a few questions and, according to the Greers, basically dismissed their concern. "She hadn't been missing long enough to be 'missing,'" Rachel says, her voice tinged with anger. "We couldn't get them to do anything for forty-eight hours."

When the police finally did decide to act, they went to Maura's apartment. What they found was a spotless home with alphabetized CDs, a closet full of designer clothes, and nothing but two cans of Diet c.o.ke and two cartons of unflavored yogurt in the fridge. Oh yes. They also found Maura's purse. In it were her driver's license and all of her credit cards.

"Why would she leave her purse?" Rachel asks. "We think it's because she was told to leave it behind. We believe that Secretary Man-waring didn't want her to meet him if she was carrying any identification. From the things that Maura said about the relationship, the man she was seeing was obsessed with secrecy. He had all sorts of rules for her to follow when she met him. We believe that this was one of those rules. It's why we believe she was on her way to meet him when she disappeared."

Manwaring did indeed try to keep the affair secret. Not only is he married with two college-age children, he is in a highly visible and sensitive cabinet position, appointed by a president whose popularity is partly based on his constant reaffirmation of his belief in and the country's need for faith and traditional family values. He is the tough, honest, anti-scandal leader. That is the image he ran on, it is the image that has kept his poll numbers higher than those of any president in recent memory, and it is the image he insists on maintaining for himself and his advisers. Manwaring's affair does not conform to that image. It is not just damaging to the president on a political level. According to several advisers, it offends the president's personal sensibility.

Although Manwaring at first denied that he was meeting Maura the day she disappeared, the Greers also forced him to admit the truth about that. Maura had a reservation at a local Marriott Hotel and was due to check in the afternoon of February 23. Manwaring admitted, nearly a month after Maura went missing, that he was supposed to meet her there and spend the afternoon and evening with her in the suite they regularly frequented.

Two weeks after Maura's disappearance, the D.C. police had uncovered no clues and had no leads in the case. They had not made a connection to Manwaring at this point. That came after the Greers got their phone bill. While scrutinizing it, Marcus Greer noticed that there were several long-distance calls made that month to a Washington number he was unfamiliar with. He realized that the dates of the calls coincided with the last weekend Maura had visited East End Harbor. He mentioned this to Rachel, who immediately went to the phone and dialed the number. It was a pager. Fifteen minutes later, the Greers' phone rang. The call to the pager was being returned. The person who returned it was Secretary Frank Manwaring.

The Greers asked Manwaring if he knew their daughter. He was nonplussed, they say, and evasive. He refused to speak to them. They immediately took their information to the Washington police. It took the police another four days before they contacted Manwaring. They went to his D.C. apartment, interviewed him for half an hour, then released a statement that the secretary knew Maura Greer, they were friends and nothing more, and that he had absolutely nothing to do with her disappearance. The police announced that he was not a suspect.

The media immediately jumped on the story. Two days after it was made public, a woman named Eva Grey called a press conference. Ms. Grey is a lap dancer at a Washington club called Privates. At the conference, she revealed that several years earlier she had had a four-month-long affair with Secretary Manwaring. The affair ended, she said, when she confronted him about his promise to leave his wife. According to Ms. Grey, the secretary got violent during the conversation. She alleges that he choked her until she almost pa.s.sed out and told her that if she ever brought up the subject of his divorce again, he would make sure she disappeared. Secretary Manwaring immediately called a press conference to say that not only was Ms. Grey's story untrue, he had never met her or heard of her.

In the weeks that followed, two other women came forward with similar stories. One woman, Esther Forrester, is a secretary at a Washington insurance company; the other, Felicity Black, is an out-of-work advertising executive. Both said that when their affairs with Secretary Manwaring became serious they talked to him about his promise to leave his wife and he became enraged and violent and ended the relationship.

At this moment, the various mysteries remain as such. What will happen to Frank Manwaring? He denies ever having met Ms. Grey or either of the two other women. He did-nearly a month after Maura's disappearance-admit to the affair with her but denies knowing anything about what has happened to her. There has been a tremendous public outcry for Secretary Manwaring to step down from his cabinet position, something he has thus far refused to do. There is also great political pressure being put on him to resign. The head of the Food and Drug Administration, where Maura Greer was interning and where she met Mr. Manwaring, is Chase Welles. Mr. Welles is the man most often rumored to be Mr. Manwaring's replacement. Welles has a close relationship with the president, and his positions are often much more in line with the president's. Manwaring and the president have differed publicly on the question of stem-cell research. The president has signed a bill restricting such research and is on record as opposing it on religious and moral grounds. Mr. Manwaring is a vocal proponent of the need for such research. Mr. Welles has stated that he believes the president is on the side of the angels when it comes to this issue.

Welles and Manwaring have clashed repeatedly and angrily over the past several months, particularly over the potential ban of Rectose 4, a new drug that pa.s.ses fat through the body without being absorbed. Since Rectose 4 appeared on the market just over twelve months ago, there are reports that sixteen people who have taken it have died. Secretary Manwaring infuriated lobbyists and drug companies, particularly the KranMar Corporation-which has donated large sums of money to the president in the past and which holds the patent on Rectose 4-by demanding that the product be taken off the market. Mr. Welles has opposed Secretary Manwaring's demands, saying that the drug is safe and has been properly tested and approved. He has implied that he believes Manwaring's decisions are suspect and steeped in corruption. He has not accused Mr. Manwaring of taking bribes from KranMar's compet.i.tion, but it has not been difficult to read between the lines of Mr. Welles's criticisms.

Secretary Manwaring did not return phone calls asking for a comment for this article, but a close friend has said that "he feels that his mistakes have been of a personal and private nature. He has committed no crime and has told no lies. In this time of perpetual national crisis, he feels he is the best man to hold his position and he intends to hold it until he is asked to step aside by the president of the United States."

At the heart of it all is, of course, the question of what has happened to Maura Greer. Is she dead, as her mother believes? Or will she suddenly return home, safe and sound, as her father so desperately hopes?

Right now, there are no answers. There is only the missing twenty-four-year-old woman whose disappearance reminds us that tragedies do not only happen on grand and global scales.

They happen to everyday people in everyday life.

When the ferry docked, Justin Westwood drove straight to the East End Harbor police station. During the fifteen-minute drive, he tried to figure out how Maura Greer's body had wound up back in her hometown. Had she come into town to see someone without telling her parents? A lover? That didn't make sense, not if the stories about her relationship with Frank Manwaring were to be believed. So why would she come back without telling anyone? And if she hadn't come back, how did she wind up in the water there?

When he arrived at the station, Justin quickly learned that several of the mysteries he'd just read about surrounding Maura Greer and Secretary Frank Manwaring had now been solved.

He learned that at four-thirty that morning Hank Lobel, a local resident who made his living installing sprinkler systems, had taken two buddies out on his twenty-six-foot Hunter 260 for a day of sailing, beer drinking, and fishing in the waters of East End Bay. A fishing line had snagged on something in the water. Under the influence of many cans of Budweiser, the men refused to cut the line, determined to haul in whatever was causing the problem. After a lengthy struggle, they dragged in the decayed and gnawed-upon body of Maura Greer. By the time Justin returned from Connecticut, the coroner had determined that Maura had not drowned but rather had been killed, her neck broken, before being put in the bay. The lengthy investigation into her disappearance was now a murder investigation.

As soon as the news had leaked out about the discovery of Maura's corpse and the ensuing coroner's report, a CNN report revealed that Frank Manwaring had been in East Hampton, just several miles from where Maura's body had been found. He had been there two and a half months earlier, which was the approximate length of time the coroner estimated the body had been in the water. Minutes after that report aired, the secretary of Health and Human Services was asked by the president of the United States to resign. Chase Welles, head of the FDA, was immediately named as Manwaring's replacement and there was expected to be no trouble with his confirmation. The president called a press conference and read a prepared statement that said: "I wholeheartedly believe in Secretary Manwaring's innocence. I believe his statements that he had nothing to do with the tragic death of Maura Greer, and I accept at face value his rejection of all the other charges and accusations that have been leveled at him. However, in these very dangerous times, the fact that the secretary is now involved in a murder investigation, however peripheral his involvement, will be such a major distraction that I no longer feel he can fulfill his duties in a timely and competent manner. I am confident that Chase Welles will be a superb secretary, more than capable of handling this crucial cabinet position."

At his own press conference, Frank Manwaring declared his innocence in Maura Greer's murder. He also reiterated that all the other women who had revealed their relationships with him were lying. "For what reason, I don't know," he said. "I a.s.sume that greed enters into it and it is a sad day when greed overcomes any and all sense of morality." He refused to comment on his replacement other than to warn against changes in current policy. Secretary Manwaring also said that he would no longer comment publicly on the Maura Greer situation. He had been told to keep silent from this point forward. When asked who had told him to keep silent, the secretary declined to comment.

Rachel and Marcus Greer held a press conference too. They tearfully expressed grat.i.tude that they at last had some closure but said that, of course, their grat.i.tude was tainted by their sorrow. They stated that they did not believe Secretary Manwaring's declarations of innocence and ignorance, and they demanded that he take a lie-detector test. When that demand was relayed to Frank Manwaring, he nodded and said that he would be happy to take such a test, but before he could finish making a commitment, he was hustled away by two aides.

Justin learned all this from Special Agent Len Rollins of the FBI. He learned from his boss, Jimmy Leggett, that the Maura Greer murder now took precedence over the investigation into Susanna Morgan's death.

"Since when is one murder more important than the next?" Justin asked.

"I thought you said he wouldn't be any trouble," Agent Rollins said to Leggett, not even bothering to look at Justin.

Leggett, slowly shaking his head, said, "The media's going to be all over this, Jay." Leggett sounded rattled. Scared. "I'm sure I don't have to remind you that we're not exactly the New York City Police Department and that this is not our area of expertise. I'm not telling you to forget about Susanna Morgan, I'm telling you there are priorities."

"What are the priorities?" Justin said, looking straight at Rollins. "You guys covering your a.s.s because you didn't do s.h.i.t for three months and now you've got a body so you're looking kind of stupid?"

Rollins smiled and nodded. It was not a friendly smile. It was the smile of someone who was acknowledging that he'd do whatever it took to fight back and win. Rollins looked as if he knew a lot about winning, too. He was six-one, maybe six-two, a muscular two hundred pounds. Justin guessed that he'd played college football. Or had spent a few years in the marines. He had the aura of someone who didn't shy away from physical contact. He was in his mid-forties with dark hair that didn't show any signs of thinning. Justin decided that this guy was a player. His instinct was immediately proven correct.

"I know all about you, Westwood," Agent Rollins said. "We checked you out. You may have been a hot-s.h.i.t guy at one time in your life, but that doesn't mean f.u.c.k-all right now. I'm not looking to be a hard-a.s.s, but it won't bother me, either. There's s.h.i.t going on that you don't know anything about and my guess is you never will. But Maura Greer is my priority. It's the government's priority. You don't want to go along with that, fine. You want me to get you put on permanent leave, no problem-that can be arranged in about a minute. You want to stay on the job and collect your paycheck and do what you've been doing for the last six years, which is getting drunk and handing out parking tickets and feeling sorry for yourself, what you do is say 'Yes sir' to me whenever I tell you to do something and otherwise you stay the f.u.c.k out of my way. Is that understood?" When Justin didn't say anything, Rollins took the hard-a.s.s edge out of his voice and said, as if they were best friends talking about nothing more important than borrowing a lawn mower for the day's ch.o.r.es, "I can use you, Jay-you mind if I call you Jay? I know you know what you're doing, you've got more experience than anyone else. I value that. I can use you here. But if you don't want to be used, say so now, because I promise you, if you f.u.c.k around with me I'll step on you like the frightened little bug that you are." The smile came back on the FBI agent's face and so did the edge in his voice. "Now is that understood?"

Justin narrowed his eyes and tried to take a deep breath. He felt his lungs contract, realized his breathing would come only in short, quick gasps. He exhaled twice, ran the fingers of his right hand through his hair. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the two idiot cops, Gary and Brian, looking in at him from the other room, waiting to hear his response. Brian's mouth seemed to be st.i.tched together. Two teeth were missing and the lower half of his face was as swollen as a balloon. Despite that, Justin could see the smirk there. He could see the pleasure Brian was getting from eavesdropping.

Justin thought of many things he wanted to say to Special Agent Len Rollins. He ran through all of them in his mind, which was why it took him so long to respond. But when he finally did speak, what he said was, "Yes sir, it's understood."

"Good," Agent Rollins said. "Now here's your first a.s.signment. Try not to get too drunk tonight. Take tomorrow off. Don't do a thing. Relax and get used to the fact that we're in charge now. I want you to forget about this Susanna Morgan thing for the moment. Whatever you think is going on there, it doesn't matter. Don't worry about it. I've talked to the Middleview police and the East Hampton force and they're on top of it. It's their case now. I've made Officer Meves their contact in this office."

"Officer Meves ...?" He suddenly realized that Rollins meant Brian. Brian Brian was in charge of the Susanna Morgan investigation? "For chrissake-" was in charge of the Susanna Morgan investigation? "For chrissake-"

"For chrissake what what, Detective Westwood?"

"The girl was murdered," Justin said. "That's got to mean something."

"It does. It means that it's being handled in exactly the manner I've just described to you. We have other priorities. Have I made myself clear?"

"Yes."

"Yes what?"

"Yes sir."

Agent Rollins let his face relax. His eyes revealed no emotion other than pleasure in the fact that he'd just won. "Day after tomorrow, I want you here at eight a.m. sharp. We'll have your a.s.signment for the Maura Greer case." Justin didn't respond, just stood silently until Agent Rollins said, "You're dismissed."

Justin nodded, turned on his heel, strode past Brian and Gary without looking at either of them, marched out the front door of the station, went straight to Duffy's, told Donnie the bartender to bring him a double scotch. He proceeded to stay there for four hours. He didn't leave until he was positive he was drunk enough that for the rest of the night, until whenever he woke up the next day, he couldn't possibly speak or think or feel or, most important of all, dream.

13.

When Justin woke up, he wasn't sure exactly where he was. He thought he might have pa.s.sed out in Duffy's and was coming to on the floor by the bar. It seemed a realistic enough possibility that one of his first hung-over reactions was to get angry at Donnie for not getting him home and letting him spend the night sleeping on a bed of hardwood in puddles of spilled beer and whiskey.

When his brain cleared a bit more, Justin realized that he was not sprawled on a barroom floor. He was in his own home. But not on his bed. He hadn't made it that far. He hadn't even made it to the couch. He'd managed to get into his living room, take a few steps, and collapse on the coffee table.

He took a deep, wheezy breath, kept his eyes open for several seconds, trying to clear the haze behind them, and forced himself to stand up. The move wasn't one of his major successes. He felt himself bob and weave and sway. But he stayed up. He took one step toward his bedroom, had to stop when he was overcome by the urge to puke his guts out. It was while he was standing there, trying to keep his balance and whatever was in his stomach in there, that he heard it. At first he couldn't place the noise. It sounded like birds squawking. Then he realized it was the buzz of a crowd. Human voices, talking. It seemed disconnected from his environment, but he began to understand that the noise was close by. He managed to take several steps over to his living room window, looked outside onto his small front lawn, and saw that the crowd was standing in front of his house. There were several vans, all with television-station logos on their sides. One had a satellite perched on top of it. A row of cars was parked on each side of the street. Twenty or thirty people stood peering in at him. Several of them had cameras. When Justin's face appeared in the window, the cameras started clicking and the crowd began to vibrate.

Justin jerked away from the window, making his head feel as if it were going to topple off of his neck. He took several more deep breaths, a foul odor emerging from his mouth, the taste of whiskey and bile forging up his throat. He tried to piece together what was going on. Something to do with the discovery of Maura Greer's body, that much was clear. But why the h.e.l.l were the jackals pursing him him? He looked at the clock that rested atop the living room mantel. One o'clock. Jesus. He'd slept half the day away.

Before anything, he knew he had to clear his head. So he went into the bathroom, popped four aspirin, brushed his teeth, turned the shower on as hot as he could stand it, and stepped in. As the water streamed down, he slowly turned the k.n.o.b until it was ice cold. He was awake. Toweling off, Justin went into the kitchen, grabbed a large bottle of water out of the fridge, and drank half of it in one gulp. He went back to the living room, turned on the television, surfed the channels until he came to CNN. Maura Greer was the story. And it was a big one. The media had already sunk their sharklike teeth into it and they weren't going to let go until it had been torn into tiny little pieces. He pressed the Mute b.u.t.ton on the remote control. Sat there trying to absorb what was happening. When he looked up, what he saw on the TV screen surprised him so deeply that he dropped the remote. It was Brian Meves, his fellow East End cop. Brian's mouth was still st.i.tched and swollen, his face still puffed out from the beating Justin had given him. But he was being interviewed by some blond woman. She had a microphone shoved up to his battered lips. Justin found the remote, fumbled with the b.u.t.tons, finally got the sound back on, heard the end of the interview, heard Brian saying, "We didn't know anything about his background. He's not much of a talker. It's all been a big shock, on top of, you know, what happened to Maura. Let's face it, the guy basically had a nervous breakdown, so that's not exactly who you want in charge of a murder investigation. His recent a.s.sault on me shows that he's not exactly stable. So yeah, I can verify the fact that he's off that case-"

What? Off what case? What the h.e.l.l was the idiot talking about?

Justin clicked off the TV, ran to the front door, opened it a crack, just wide enough to pull in the newspapers off the front mat. The second the door opened, he heard questions being hurled at him from the curb. The words didn't make any sense to him, it was just one loud roar. He slammed the door shut, backed over to his couch as if he were facing down a pride of lions in the jungle.

He sat and read the front page of the New York Times New York Times. The entire right-hand side of the page was devoted to the discovery of Maura Greer's body. He read through to the break, didn't find any crucial details he hadn't learned the day before, other than the fact that the weekend Frank Manwaring, the secretary of Health and Human Services, had been in the Hamptons he had several hours that could not be accounted for. It led to even more suspicion that he was involved in the murder and disposal of the body. Justin turned to page eighteen to finish reading the story. But he didn't get to continue with it. On the center of that page was his photograph. And above it was a headline: tragic hero in the middle of two murders. He read what they had to say about him. The journalist had more than done his homework. He'd talked to cops up in Providence. He rehashed Justin's history up there. He told the story of the deaths of Justin's wife and daughter. Justin stopped reading halfway through. His eyes ran back up to the headline. Two Two murders? murders?

He skipped ahead until he read it.

Jesus f.u.c.king Christ.

The reporter had gotten to Brian. The idiot cop had spilled his guts. He told everything he knew about Justin. Talked about his personality. His violent temper that had erupted when he'd attacked his fellow cop. And Brian said that Justin Westwood had been working on another murder case, the murder of a local journalist named Susanna Morgan. Justin pictured him smiling as best he could through his injuries as he bragged that he was now in charge of the investigation and revealed that there had been a witness to that murder, a woman who had been interviewed by the East End Harbor police and who had seen everything that had happened. She was their best lead, Brian Meves said.

Justin dove for the telephone, grabbed the receiver, and dialed the police station. Gary answered the phone, sounding tense and nervous.

"Where's Brian?" Justin said. "Put him on the phone."

"Westwood? I mean ...Justin ...uh ..."

"Get your f.u.c.king friend and put him on the phone!" Justin screamed.

"He ...he hasn't come in yet."

"When did he do the TV interviews?"

"What? I ..."

"Gary, for chrissake, I just saw him on TV-when did he tape that?"

"Last night. They talked to both of us. Around ten, I guess. I watched it last night around eleven."

"It aired last night?"

"Yeah. They must be showing it again."

"Did he talk about Susanna Morgan?"

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

"Did he say she was murdered? Did the moron say that last night on TV?"

"Yes. Yeah, I guess he did."

"Where the h.e.l.l is he?"

"I ..."

"Where is is he?" he?"

"I don't know. He was supposed to be here at nine. He hasn't shown up yet. We've been calling him but there's no answer. We figured-"

"Where does he live?" When Gary didn't answer, Justin screamed into the phone: "Give me his G.o.dd.a.m.n address!"

Gary rattled it off. It wasn't far from Justin's house, maybe a couple of miles. Off in one of the newer developments in East End, the kind that was destroying whatever pretense the area still had of being rustic and charming.

"What's going on?" Gary asked. "It's been insane here. The media-"

"Go over to Brian's now," Justin said. "If he's still alive, get him the h.e.l.l out of there. If he's not, just wait for me."

"If he's still alive? What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

But Justin didn't wait to hear any more. He slammed down the phone receiver, pulled on a T-shirt and jeans, and laced up a pair of sneakers. He looked at the folder he'd taken from his desk at the station, grabbed it. Then he saw what else he'd taken from the station and he picked that up, too. His gun. A .357 Magnum.

He fished in his pocket for his car keys and ran out the door. More questions were shouted at him but he didn't even hesitate. Justin ran straight for his beat-up Civic and turned over the engine. One of the journalists' cars was partially blocking the driveway. Too d.a.m.n bad. Justin backed up at full speed, ramming it out of the way. As the rest of the reporters scrambled like mad to get to their cars, Justin put the pedal to the metal. His tires screeched, the back of the car fishtailed, and then he was on his way. Three blocks away, when he had a little daylight between him and the jackals, he swerved the Civic into a dirt driveway. It led to a house he knew was at least two hundred yards farther up the path. He drove another fifty feet, out of view of the road and the house, slammed on his brakes, and turned off the engine. He forced himself to wait five full minutes, until he was satisfied that the reporters on his tail had to be scattered all over the place. Then he pulled out of the driveway, his wheels spinning, the car fishtailing again as he made a left, and drove into town.

He was almost certain that the a.s.shole was already dead. Justin wouldn't miss Brian or mourn him. He knew enough about death to know that it didn't change what you were when you were alive. The guy was a jerk. Now he was a dead jerk. Justin wasn't a romantic when it came to death. Nor was he a hypocrite.

He was also not a praying man. Nor did he much believe in happy endings. So as he sped back toward Deena Harper's apartment on Main Street, he didn't pray and he didn't expect to find that things were all right. The best he could do was hope against hope that he wasn't too late and that, if he was right about Brian, he could be wrong about Deena and her little girl, and maybe, just maybe, they were still alive.

After turning the doork.n.o.b to no avail, knocking as hard as he could and yelling out her name, Justin lowered his shoulder and charged the door. It splintered open and his force carried him through into Deena's living room. He called out her name and then her daughter's, ran from room to room, but the apartment was empty. No Deena. No Kendall. But also no sign of violence, so maybe there really was a chance. Just maybe ...

Justin heard a noise behind him and he didn't think, just reacted, whirled, reaching for his gun. He felt a sinking sensation in his stomach, knew he was dead if they wanted him dead, looked up, trembling, surprised to find he wasn't afraid, was almost relieved. But it wasn't anyone who wanted him dead. It was Deena, who was staring at him like he was a lunatic, shifting her gaze disbelievingly back and forth between him and the shattered front door.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" she said.

He didn't give her a chance to say anything else. "Where's the kid?"

"Kendall? Why? What ...?"

"Where is she?"