"Yeah, uh-oh."

She sat.

"The judge handed down her ruling. All evidence found in the home is thrown out, and because of the prejudicial nature of the press and our TV airing, she threw out all charges."

Wendy felt her heart sink. "Please tell me you're joking."

Vic said nothing. Wendy closed her eyes, felt the world closing in around her. She got it now, how Dan had known that she'd definitely show up at the meet.

"So now what?" she asked.

Vic just looked at her.

"I'm fired?"

"Yep."

"Just like that?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Bad economy. The suits upstairs are laying people off anyway." He shrugged. "Who better to ax?"

"I can think of many."

"Me too, but they're not damaged goods. Sorry, sweetie, that's just the way it is. HR will handle severance. You need to pack your stuff today. They don't want you back in the building."

Wendy felt numb. She teetered to a standing position. "Did you at least fight for me?"

"I only fight when I have a chance to win. Otherwise what's the point?"

Wendy waited. Vic looked down and pretended to be busy.

Without looking up, Vic said, "You expecting a tender moment here?"

"No," Wendy said. Then: "Maybe."

"Are you going to meet with Mercer?" Vic asked.

She turned back toward him. "Yes."

"You'll take precautions?"

She forced up a smile. "Man, I just had a flashback to something my mom said when I was starting college."

"And from what I know, you didn't listen."

"True."

"Officially, of course, you don't work here and have no standing. I should advise you to keep a safe distance from Dan Mercer."

"And unofficially?"

"If you could figure a way to nail him, well, heroes are easier to rehire than goats."

THE HOUSE WAS SILENT when Wendy got home, but that meant nothing. In her youth, her parents would know she was home because her music would be blaring from the ghetto box in her room. Nowadays kids used headphones or earbuds or whatever they called them 24/7. She was fairly confident that was where Charlie was right now, on the computer, earbuds firmly in place. The house could catch fire, and he would have no idea.

Despite this, Wendy shouted at the top of her lungs, "Charlie!" There was no answer. There hadn't been an answer in at least three years.

Wendy poured herself a drink--pomegranate vodka with a splash of lime--and collapsed onto the worn club chair. The chair had been John's favorite, and yeah, that was probably creepy, keeping the chair here and collapsing in it with a drink at the end of the day, but she found it comforting, so tough.

How the h.e.l.l, Wendy had wondered before today, would she pay for Charlie's tuition on her current salary? Now that wasn't a concern because there was simply no way. She took another sip, glanced out the window, pondered where she would go from here. n.o.body was hiring and as Vic had so delicately pointed out, she was damaged goods. She thought about what other kind of job she could do but realized that she had no other marketable skills. She was sloppy, disorganized, ornery, not a team player. If she took home a work report card, it would read, "Does not play well with others." That worked as a reporter going after a story. It worked almost nowhere else.

She checked the mail and saw the third letter from Ariana Nasbro and felt a sharp pang in her gut. Her hands began to shake. No need to open the letter. She had read the first one two months ago and nearly vomited. With two fingers, she held the envelope as though it had a stench, which it did when you thought about it, walked into the kitchen, and stuck it into the bottom of the wastebasket.

Thank G.o.d, Charlie never checked the mail. He knew who Ariana Nasbro was, of course. Twelve years ago, Ariana Nasbro had murdered Charlie's father.

She headed up the stairs and knocked on Charlie's door. Naturally there was no reply so she opened it.

He looked up, annoyed, pulled off the headphones. "What?"

"Did you do your homework?"

"Just about to."

He could see that she was put out, so he flashed the smile, so like his father's that it stabbed every single time. She was about to launch into him again, about how she'd asked him to do homework first, but really, who cared? It was pointless to get caught up in all that minutiae when her time with him was flying by so fast and soon he'd be gone.

"Did you feed Jersey?" she asked.

"Uh . . ."

She rolled her eyes. "Never mind, I'll do it."

"Mom?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you pick up the food at Bamboo House?"

Dinner. She had forgotten.

Charlie rolled his eyes, mimicking her.

"Don't be a smart-a.s.s." She had decided earlier not to tell him her bad news yet, to wait for the right time, but she still found herself saying, "I got fired today."

Charlie just looked at her.

"Did you hear me?"

"Yeah," he said. "Sucks."

"Yep."

"You want me to pick up dinner?"

"Sure."

"Uh, you still pay for it, right?"

"For now, yeah. I think I can handle that."

CHAPTER 4.

MARCIA AND TED MCWAID ARRIVED at the high school auditorium at six PM. Because the old cliche that "life goes on" could not have been more true, tonight, despite the fact that Haley had now been missing ninety-three days, was opening night of the Ka.s.selton High School production of Les Miserables, Les Miserables, featuring their second child, Patricia, in the roles of Onlooker #4, Student #6, and the always-coveted role of Prost.i.tute #2. When Ted first heard about that, in the life they'd known before Haley had vanished, he had made constant jokes about this, how proud he was to tell his friends that his fourteen-year-old daughter would be Prost.i.tute #2. Those days were long gone, a world and time lived by other people in another land. featuring their second child, Patricia, in the roles of Onlooker #4, Student #6, and the always-coveted role of Prost.i.tute #2. When Ted first heard about that, in the life they'd known before Haley had vanished, he had made constant jokes about this, how proud he was to tell his friends that his fourteen-year-old daughter would be Prost.i.tute #2. Those days were long gone, a world and time lived by other people in another land.

A hush fell over the auditorium when they entered. No one knew how to act around them. Marcia got it but was beyond caring.

"I need some water," she said.

Ted nodded. "I'll save us seats."

She headed down the corridor, stopped briefly at the fountain, then continued. At the next turn, she made a left. Down the hall, a janitor worked a mop. He wore earphones, his head gently bobbing to a song only he could hear; if he noticed her, nothing on his face showed it.

Marcia started up the stairs to the second floor. The lights were dimmer on this level. Her footsteps clacked and echoed against the stillness of a building that during the day knew so much life and energy. There is no place more surreal, more hollow and empty, than a school corridor at night.

Marcia looked over her shoulder, but she was alone. She hurried her step because she had a destination in mind.

Ka.s.selton High was big, nearly two thousand kids in four grades. The building was on four levels, and like so many high schools from towns with constantly growing populations, it ended up being more a series of pieced-together add-ons than anything resembling a cohesive structure. The later additions to the once-lovely original brick showed that the administrators had been more interested in substance over style. The configuration was a mishmash, looking more like something a child had made by mixing wooden blocks, LEGOs, and Lincoln logs.

Last night, in the scary quiet of the McWaid home, her wonderful husband, Ted, had laughed, really laughed, for the first time in ninety-three days. How obscene the sound was. Ted stopped almost right away, cut himself off in a choking way that became a sob. Marcia wanted to reach out, do something to comfort this tortured man that she so loved. But she simply couldn't.

Her other two children, Patricia and Ryan, were handling Haley's disappearance okay on the outside, but kids adapt more easily than adults. Marcia tried to concentrate on them and shower them with attention and comfort, but again she simply couldn't. Some probably figured that she hurt too much. That was part of it, but there was more. She neglected Patricia and Ryan because all she worried about right now, her sole focus, was on Haley--bringing her back home. Then, after that, she would make it up to her other children.

Marcia's own sister, Merilee, the popular know-it-all from Great Neck, had the nerve to say, "You need to focus on your husband and other children and stop wallowing," and when she said that word--"wallowing"!--Marcia wanted so much to punch Merilee in the face and tell her to worry about her own d.a.m.n family and that her son Greg was taking drugs and her husband, Hal, was probably having an affair and to shut the h.e.l.l up. Patricia and Ryan would hopefully get through this, Merilee--and you know what? Their best chance at being okay wouldn't be by having a mother who made sure that Ryan's lacrosse stick pocket was properly broken in or that Patricia's costume was the right shade of gray. No, the thing that would make them fine and whole, the only thing, would be to bring their older sister back home.

When that happened, and only when that happened, would the rest of them have a chance to survive.

But the sad truth was, it wasn't as though Marcia spent all day looking for Haley. She tried, but a horrible exhaustion kept creeping in. Marcia wanted to stay in bed in the morning. Her limbs felt heavy. Even now, making this odd pilgrimage down the corridor was difficult for her.

Ninety-three days.

Up ahead Marcia could start making out Haley's locker. A few days after the disappearance, some friends started decorating the metallic front like one of those curbside shrines you see when someone dies in a car crash. There were photos and wilting flowers and crosses and notes. "Come home, Haley!" "We miss you!" "We will wait for you." "We love you!"

Marcia stopped and stared. She reached out and touched the combination lock, thinking about how many times Haley must have done the same thing, getting her books out, dumping her backpack onto the bottom, hanging up her coat, chatting with a friend, discussing lacrosse or maybe what boy she had a crush on.

A noise came from down the corridor. She turned and saw the princ.i.p.al's office door open. Pete Zecher, the high school princ.i.p.al, stepped out with what Marcia a.s.sumed was a set of parents. She didn't know either of them. No one spoke. Pete Zecher stuck out his hand, but neither parent took it. They turned and moved quickly toward the stairs. Pete Zecher watched them disappear, shook his head, and turned toward the locker.

He spotted her. "Marcia?"

"Hi, Pete."

Pete Zecher was a good princ.i.p.al, wonderfully accessible and willing to break the rules or p.i.s.s off a teacher if it was best for the kid. Pete had grown up here in Ka.s.selton, gone to this very high school, and his lifelong dream had been achieved when he landed the princ.i.p.al's job here.

He started toward her. "Am I intruding?"

"Not at all." Marcia forced up a smile. "I just wanted to escape the stares for a bit."

"I saw the dress rehearsal," Pete said. "Patricia is really great."

"That's nice to hear."

He nodded. They both looked at the locker. Marcia saw a decal with the words "Ka.s.selton Lacrosse" and two crossed sticks. She had one on her car's back window.

"So what was up with those two parents?" she asked.

Pete gave her a small smile. "Confidential."

"Oh."

"But I could tell you a hypothetical."

She waited.

"When you were in high school, did you ever drink alcohol?" he asked.

"I was kind of a good girl," Marcia said, almost adding, "like Haley." "But yes, we used to sneak beers."

"How did you get them?"

"The beers? My neighbor had an uncle who owned a liquor store. How about you?"

"I had a mature-looking friend named Michael Wind," Pete said. "You know the type--shaving when he was in sixth grade. He'd buy the booze. That wouldn't work now. Everyone gets carded."

"So what does that have to do with our hypothetical couple?"

"People think that the way kids get alcohol nowadays is with fake IDs. There are some examples of that, but in my years I've confiscated less than five. And yet drinking is a bigger problem now than ever."

"So how do the kids get it?"