"Anh wanted to go with your friend Richie McRich. I told Dad I need her to mind the store for me tonight. She's pissed, but she'll get over it." He shrugged. "I don't know what she sees in that guy. She should take a lesson from you and just not date. She doesn't need the distractions. You, on the other hand." He shook a finger at me. "You've got your eye on the prize. You know how to play the game and I respect that. That's why you're such competition for her. If she's not careful, you might pull that scholarship out from under her."

"I'm counting on it," I said quietly, not sure how I felt. I left, clutching my newspaper to my chest.

The halls were empty when I got there. Regular classes had been canceled for a memorial assembly honoring Posie and Teddy. I was in class when Rankin took attendance, but no one had noticed when I veered off to the social studies wing instead of following the others to the memorial service. I carried the Missed Connections to the civics classroom, my soft soles too loud on the tile, but no one was there to hear me.

A laminated street map of Alexandria was mounted on a bulletin board in the hall, just outside the classroom. I traced a finger over the intersecting lines, checking them against the clue in my other hand.

Isosceles had the right angle.

The Torpedo is a straight shot to the Yards.

Follow my tracks.

The Torpedo Factory was a collection of boutiques, galleries, and restaurants on the waterfront in Old Town, spread over the top right corner of the map.

Clearly, the ad was a problem of triangulation, accounting for two points of an isosceles triangle-the Torpedo Factory and Potomac Yards, the old rail yard that lay almost due north of it. But the clue didn't reveal the location of the right angle. If the ninety-degree angle was located at Potomac Yards, that would put the unknown angle somewhere in Fairlington. But if the vertex of the right angle was at the Torpedo Factory, the clue would take me several miles south, on the other side of town. The killer was giving me one more chance to screw up, just like I'd done the night of the play. But if I screwed up this time, I wouldn't be on the wrong side of school. I'd be on the wrong side of town.

I pushed up my glasses, certain I'd missed some subtle clue hidden in the text. I held the torn ad against the map and read it again, pushing my finger into Potomac Yards, then dragging it south along the railroad hash marks that paralleled the Torpedo Factory . . .

Follow my tracks.

"Bingo, you bastard."

I changed direction at the factory, tracing the railroad

west and pressing a finger into the center of an industrial park in Cameron Run. A grid of at least a dozen warehouses. I tapped the spot thoughtfully. With a yardstick and a few quick calculations, I could probably narrow the location of the vertex to a particular street.

A reflection appeared, a ghostlike shadow against the glossy laminated surface of the map. I stiffened as a dark sleeve reached over my right shoulder. Fresh pink scars crisscrossed the calloused knuckles of the large hand that disappeared under a black hoodie. An expensive cologne tickled the back of my throat, a cloying combination of musk and menthe.

Oleksa braced against the board and arched over me, close but not touching.

"You think too much about these things." His clipped accent rappelled down my spine. "And not enough about others."

I moved left, but his other arm rose to block me, boxing me in between him and the map. I held my breath, mind rolling through the self-defense moves Mona and Butch had insisted on teaching me. Heel to shin, elbow to ribs, head to chin . . .

"Why aren't you at the memorial service?"

My jaw clenched. I didn't owe him any explanation.

"Three students are dead. You should be more careful," he said. I raised my head slowly to see his face reflected in the map. "Whelan's more dangerous than you think."

I shot a deliberate glance at the scars on his hand. "Reece isn't the one with anger management issues."

His chest brushed my back. Too close. "There are a lot of things about Whelan you don't know." He whispered into my hair, making me shiver. "Everyone has secrets."

"Was Reece too close to your secrets? Is that why you beat him?" I met his reflection eye to eye.

"I beat Whelan because Lonny doesn't trust him. Lonny trusts you. So why weren't you at his party on Wednesday?"

I wanted to tell him to screw off, but it felt like a test. Like Reece might pay the price for the wrong answer. "I had two funerals to go to, and I was tired."

"Reece said as much when we asked him. But make no mistake, Lonny's expecting you to be with Whelan tonight. No excuses. No tricks. If you care about him, you'll come." His cheek brushed my ear as he whispered, "But be careful." He pushed off the bulletin board and backed away, leaving a chill on my skin and the nagging aftertaste of sour mints. He believed me, but there was an acidic undertone to his unease. I watched his reflection disappearing in the map. A pink flyer hung by a thumbtack where his hand had been. The bottom edges lifted in the breeze of his departure.

I pulled the thumbtack. The flyer was drawn in code. A rave flyer. I ran my hand over the map, finding the pin-sized hole where Oleksa had placed it. A strip of warehouses in Cameron Run. It couldn't be a coincidence. The Missed Connections clue was leading me to the rave. That's where the killer would strike next. Where he wanted me to be. Where Kylie would be.

I spun around, but Oleksa was gone. I slumped against the wall, feeling completely screwed.

I called Reece as I walked home and told him Kylie might be in danger. We talked about going to the police, but Kylie would probably stick close to Lonny and we couldn't risk drawing a swarm of undercover cops to the drug deal. If the Homicide team knew Kylie was a target, they'd hover way too close and step on Narcotics' toes. And Narcotics wanted that list as badly as I did. If Lonny got spooked or if the deal went bad, we might not get the list of ketamine buyers at all, and that was the whole point of being there. Besides, if I went to the police now, to report another crime that hadn't even happened yet, they'd have no choice but to hold me for questioning.

No, we would do this ourselves. This time would be different. This time, we'd be ready. We'd be close to Lonny, and Lonny would be close to Kylie. Between the three of us, she'd never be out of sight.

"I'll keep an eye on Kylie," I said.

"No," Reece argued. "The only person I'm worried about keeping safe tonight is you. Lonny can take care of his own. We make the sale. We get the list. We use the list to prove you're not involved. That's it. I can't be responsible for Kylie, and neither can you. Remember, you agreed to do this my way."

"Right." I let it go, sensing his doubt. I couldn't let him change his mind. Not when we were so close. This whole nightmare could be over in a matter of hours. "I'll be careful." And hopefully I'd find the killer before the killer found Kylie.