"Victorian." Logan jotted that down. "I guess it was worth quite a bit."

She shook her head. "Not compared to a lot of my things. It'll take a lot more money to repair the damage he did than it will to replace that brooch. The value's not what matters, though. He broke into our home. He took something that had special meaning to us."

Rylee put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

After he finished with his questions, he asked to see the scene. They started in the sunroom, where the French doors had been forced. Getting inside had been as simple as breaking a pane and reaching through to work the lock. He bent down for a closer inspection, bits of glass cracking under his feet.

"They could've dusted that for fingerprints," Latisha said, pointing one of her glossy fingernails at the oiled-bronze door handle. "But you don't need fingerprints to file an insurance claim."

"The police didn't make much of an effort?" he asked, glancing Rylee's way. "Was Nate Campbell here?"

Rylee nodded. "They were gone when I got here, but he left his card."

He followed the women upstairs, noting how their feet left slight impressions on the carpet runner. Maybe the burglar had left footprints behind, too. The frustration in Latisha's voice as she described how little the police had done elicited his sympathy, but it left him feeling strangely excited, too. He'd made the decision to beat the cops at their own game, and now it looked as if they weren't going to put up much competition.

The women parted on either side of the bedroom door, letting him pass through on his own. He recalled Rylee's story about the Bosticks not even noticing they'd had a theft until they noticed the telltale dust ring.

This time around, there was no chance of that.

The Petries' bedroom looked as if a wild animal had been locked inside, overturning everything in a struggle to break out. He felt guilty just witnessing the aftermath, a voyeur peering in on a private tragedy.

"I can't look," Latisha said. "I'm going back down."

She retreated along the hallway, leaving silence in her wake. Rylee seemed torn, not wanting to leave him unattended. She waited impatiently as he moved through the room.

The burglar had come for a specific item, something of no value in comparison to what was left behind. But in the process he'd battered the room to a pulp.

Great violence could radically alter the place where it happened. Rendering a farmyard battlefield holy. Making a marital bedroom profane. But he'd never imagined the Robin Hood crimes were of this order of magnitude. Now, seeing the fury taken out on this place, the damage done to things the burglar hadn't even come for, Logan had no doubt of the malevolence behind the thefts.

"It's evil, pure and simple."

Rylee made no reply. She shifted her weight, clearly ready for him to finish up. It couldn't be a coincidence that three of the four houses hit were her clients. And whoever was doing these jobs took only things that had a sentimental value attached to them.

Who better to know which items qualified than an employee? Rylee's familiarity with her clients went above and beyond the call of duty.

He gave her a speculative look. He had a hard time picturing her wreaking havoc on a room like this, but that didn't mean she wasn't involved. It would certainly explain the fierce protectiveness she was exhibiting. And she had keys to something like twenty houses in that bag of hers. If a person wanted to rob the wealthiest families in Charleston, they could do worse than snatching her purse.

He wondered if she realized the police suspected her.

"I better go check on Latisha," she said, turning to go. "Have you seen enough?"

"Before I leave, there's something I want to ask you."

She stopped.

"I want you to know, the police might not be taking this seriously, but I am. It's not enough for me just to report what happens.

I want to find the guy who's doing this."

"On your own?" She looked at him the way a mother indulges a child who's declared his intention to become an astronaut or the president.

He looked her right in the eye. "You don't think I can?"

"Logan."

Just that. She spoke his name. But she filled it with meaning he couldn't hope to unpack.

"I can't do it alone," he said. "I know that. But maybe if I had some help. From, like . . . you?" Where did that come from?

"Me?"

"This guy has hit four houses now, and three of them are people you know. What if that isn't a coincidence? What if it keeps happening? In cases like these, sometimes the police take the road of least resistance." He gave her a pointed look. "And if it's a scapegoat they want, you'd be the perfect candidate."

She crossed her arms, holding them close. "I'd thought of that, actually. And honestly, I don't know what I'd do. In my line of work, if there's even a suggestion of improper conduct, my business would be ruined." A liquid sheen coated her eyes. "I'm my grandmother's sole provider. If I lose my clients, what'll happen to her?"

Her words took him completely off guard. If she was lying, she was the best actress in the world.

Her gaze darted about the room. Picking a pair of reading glasses up off the floor, she fumbled with the earpieces, then placed them on the bedside table. "I do admit to being frustrated with the police. And you know what's strange?"

He waited.

"Your friend Nate Campbell made such a big deal about me putting my fingerprints on that bronze statue, but he didn't even try to lift fingerprints from all this."

He raised his eyebrows. "Good point."

She scrubbed the back of her head, making her short hair stick out at a funny angle. "I don't know how I could help you, though."

He smiled. "I don't either, actually. I just figured, you know, you have access to this world. The people who are being targeted. If there really is a connection, maybe the two of us could work it out."

"You really think I might be of some use?"

He paused, a little uncertain of what he'd just done. His dad had told him he needed help, but enlisting the aid of the prime suspect was probably not what the old man had had in mind.

Yet, looking into her brown eyes, brimming with sincerity, it was impossible to take Nate's suspicions seriously. She had to be innocent, a victim of coincidence.

But was there really such a thing as coincidence?

"Possibly," he said. "Let me think on it, and I'll give you a call later. Okay?"

She gave him her full-on smile, a confluence of straight white teeth, lips tight and glossy, eyes bright as flood lamps in a fog.

"Okay." She clasped her hands together. "And thanks, Logan.

Thanks for caring about more than just writing an article."

He flushed, knowing his motivations, whatever they were, could hardly be described as altruistic.

She led him back to the front door. Part of him wanted to retract the offer. He'd blurted it out without thinking. It would be better not to blur the lines.

At the same time, he had made a commitment to the story, and if Rylee Monroe was behind the burglaries-or an accomplice of some kind-what better way to find out? She couldn't keep up the act forever.

Seth was right. He was part of the story. And so was she. What he had to figure out, though, was what part she was really playing.

Outside the Petrie house, Logan checked his voice messages, hoping Nate would have a copy of the police report for this break-in and the Sebastian one. Instead, he heard the voice of Seth, his agent. "Dude, if you're still breathing on this earth, it is imperative that I get some fresh pages from you. I had another chat with Dora, and she is hot to get moving on this thing. h-o-t. She's been selling the concept internally, but she needs something to show. So call me, you hear?"

He had already filled a FedEx envelope with clippings from the Post & Courier, but apparently that wasn't enough. He thrummed his steering wheel, trying to decide what to do. Maybe it was time to call in some favors.

He left a voice mail with an informant at the top of his speed dial. Marcel Gibbon, nicknamed the Cherub. But when the Cherub called back, he was anything but angelic. "What's this about?"

"I have a favor to ask."

"What do you think this is, Logan, the help line?"

"When can we meet?"

Gibbon took a long while before answering. "My schedule's full."

"What about tonight? Washington Park?"

"No can do."

"I'll be there around midnight. Maybe I'll run into you on the street."

No response.

With the Cherub, there was no such thing as a simple meeting. In spite of the bald head and chubby cheeks, and the belly swelling behind his buttoned jackets, Gibbon had a cloak-and-dagger streak.

He dressed impeccably, moved with an improbable feline grace, and had an aversion to talking on the phone, which is why he arranged every rendezvous as if an fbi surveillance team might be listening in. Logan hoped a midnight appointment would appeal to him.

Lacey Lamar had made the introduction, warning Logan to be careful.

"Half of everything he says is a lie, and the other half is all too true," she'd said, fingering the signature string of pearls at her throat. "But he knows where the bodies are buried in this town.

He put some of them there himself."

"Literally?" he asked.

"You mean, am I positive he actually killed anybody?" She shook her head. "His official list of crimes includes plenty of b&e, larceny, and an infamous swindle or two. One of his best friends is a prominent defense attorney, otherwise Marcel wouldn't be walking the streets. But I've never asked him to his face whether he killed anybody-and I don't recommend that you do, either."

"I won't."

She nodded. "Get him on your side, Logan, and you'll be surprised the things he will talk about."

After thirty minutes on the sidewalk outside city hall, Logan glanced down Broad Street and finally saw Marcel Gibbon strolling toward him, a cigar jutting from the side of his puckered mouth. The man looked as if he'd reached the end of a long night. His jacket hung open, his loosened tie pulled to one side, hands plunged into his pants pockets. No one who happened to observe him would conclude this was a man on his way to a clandestine rendezvous, and that was the whole point.

He crossed Broad, glancing both ways, then ambled through the park entrance like he was taking a short cut to Chalmers Street on the opposite side. Logan followed without any pretense to stealth, skirting the obelisk at the center of the park and joining Gibbon on the bench near the Beauregard plaque.

The trees overhead rustled slightly in the night breeze, the scene only half illuminated by cast-off light from city hall and the Fireproof Building, where the state flag hung from a pole, its white palmetto mostly concealed in the fabric's folds.

"I know what this is about," Gibbon said.

Even in the shadows, Logan could make out the habitual De Niro squint and the wide grin that in daylight would reveal incongruous dimples beneath the perpetual layer of stubble along his jawline.

"You sure about that?"

"I read the paper. Not that there's much worth reading in there."

"So you've been following my stories. That's good."

The tip of the Cherub's cigar flared with a hot orange glow, and then he cocked his head sideways to expel the smoke. "If you have a question to ask, get on with it-"

Logan's hand went to his pocket.

"-but if you reach for that little recorder, I swear I'm gonna put out my cigar on your hand."

"Fine." Logan pulled back. "Here's the thing. My career is riding on this story. I need to find the Robin Hood burglar, and I need to find him before the cops do."

A pause. Gibbon leaned forward so he could study Logan's face. His breath was charred. "You think you're going to jump ahead of the police on this? You're gunning to solve it?" He gave a bark of laughter. "You're gonna splash this guy's face on the front page-the Robin Hood Burglar of Charleston, courtesy of Logan Woods, ace reporter."

He should have let Gibbon laugh. He wanted to. But Logan felt his mouth opening anyway. "It's not for the paper."

The Cherub's grin flattened. "No? Then what's it for? If I'm helping, I have a right to know."

"It's for a book. A book about the city-all of its eccentrics and stories. There's a publisher interested, but to close the deal, I need to see this Robin Hood thing through."

But Gibbon wasn't listening. "A book? You're writing a book?"

"Yeah," Logan said. "Why is that so-"

The Cherub moved closer, squeezing Logan between himself and the bench's arm. "Am I in this book of yours?"

Logan sprang up, eluding the other man's outstretched hand, then moved into the light around the obelisk.

Gibbon stood, keeping to the shadows, eyes narrowed at Logan.

He wasn't grinning anymore. "Am I in this book?"

Logan shrugged. "Kind of."

The Cherub's grin returned with no hint of mirth behind it.

"Well, I better be. I hate this town the way a man hates the dog that turns around and bites him. There are more names on my revenge list than you've got girls in your little black book. But you wouldn't be telling the truth about this place without me at the center."

"So it's okay?" It didn't look okay, not with the cold light burning in those slit-eyes.

Gibbon drew on the cigar thoughtfully and then flicked the butt out into the darkness, where it smoldered in the nearby grass.

Logan was tempted to walk over and stomp on it, but he didn't move.