He nodded and disappeared into the morgue.

The skeletal autopsy took several hours, and I confirmed my initial impression that the remains were of one individual, a white female around thirty years of age. Though little soft tissue remained, the bones were in good condition and retained some fat. She'd been dead two to five years. The only oddity was an unfused arch on her fifth lumbar vertebra. Without the head, a positive ID would be tough.

I asked Daniel to transfer the bones to the histo lab, washed, and went upstairs. The pile of pink slips had grown. I phoned Ryan and gave him my summary. He was already working missing persons reports with the St. Lambert police.

One of the calls was from Aaron Calvert in Norman, Oklahoma. Yesterday. When I tried his number, a syrupy voice told me he was away from his desk. She a.s.sured me she was devastatingly sorry, and guaran teed that he'd get the message. Professionally affable. I set the other messages aside and went to see Lucie Dumont.

Lucie's office was crammed with terminals, monitors, printers, and computer paraphernalia of all kinds. Cables climbed walls to disappear into the ceiling, or were taped in bundles along the floor. Stacks of printouts drooped on shelves and file cabinets, fanning out like alluvium seeking the lowest point.

Lucie's desk faced the door, the control panel of cabinets and hardware forming a horseshoe behind her. She worked by rolling from station to station, sneakered feet propelling her chair across the gray tile. To me, Lucie was the back of a head silhouetted against a glowing green screen. I rarely saw her face.

Today the horseshoe held five j.a.panese in business suits. They circled Lucie, arms held close to their bodies, nodding gravely as she pointed to something on a terminal and explained its significance. Cursing my timing, I went on to the histo lab.

The St. Lambert skeleton had arrived from the morgue, and I set about a.n.a.lyzing the cuts the same way I had with Trottier and Gagnon. I described, measured, and plotted the location of each mark, and made impressions of the false starts. As with the others, the tiny gashes and trenches suggested a knife and a saw. Microscopic details were similar, and placement of cuts almost identical to those in the earlier cases.

The woman's hands had been sawed at the wrists, the rest of her limbs detached at the joints. Her belly had been slashed along the midline deep enough to leave cuts on the spine. Although the skull and upper neck bones were missing, marks on the sixth cervical vertebra told me that she had been decapitated at the midthroat. The guy was consistent.

I repacked the bones, gathered my notes, and returned to my office, diverting up the corridor to see if Lucie was free. She and her j.a.panese suits were nowhere to be seen. I left a Post-it note on her terminal. Maybe she'd thank me for an excuse to bolt.

In my absence Calvert had called. Naturally. As I dialed his number, Lucie appeared in my doorway, her hands clasped tightly in front of her.

"You left me a message, Dr. Brennan?" she asked, flashing a quick smile. She spoke not a word of English.

She was thin as soup in a homeless shelter, with a burr haircut that accentuated the length of her skull. The absence of hair and pale skin magnified the effect of her eyegla.s.ses, making her seem little more than a mannequin for the oversized frames.

"Yes, Lucie, thank you for stopping by," I said, rising to clear a chair.

She tucked her feet behind the chair leg, one behind the other, as she slid into her seat. Like a cat oozing onto a cushion.

"Did you get stuck with tour duty?"

She twitched a smile, then looked blank.

"The j.a.panese gentlemen."

"Yes. They are from a crime lab in Kobe, chemists mostly. I do not mind."

"I'm not sure you can help me, but I wanted to ask," I began.

Her lenses focused on a row of skulls I keep on the shelf behind my desk.

"For comparison," I explained.

"Are they real?"

"Yes, they're real."

She shifted her gaze and I could see a distorted version of myself in each pink lens. The corners of her lips jumped and resettled. Her smiles came and went like light from a bulb with a bad connection. Reminded me of my flashlight in the woods.

I explained what I wanted. When I'd finished, she tipped her head and stared upward, as if the answer might be on the ceiling. Taking her time. I listened to the whir of a printer somewhere down the hall.

"There won't be anything before 1985, I know that." Facial flicker. On. Off.

"I realize it's a bit unusual, but see what you can do."

"Quebec City, also?"

"No, just the LML cases for now."

She nodded, smiled, and left. As if on cue, the phone rang. Ryan.

"How about someone younger?"

"How much younger?"

"Seventeen."

"No."

"Maybe someone with some sort of-"

"No."

Silence.

"I've got one sixty-seven."

"Ryan, this woman belongs neither to the Clearasil nor the Geritol set."

He continued with the relentlessness of a busy signal. "What if she had some kind of bone condition or something? I read abou-"

"Ryan, she was between twenty-five and thirty-five."

"Right."

"She probably went missing somewhere between '89 and '92."

"So you've said."

"Oh. One other thing. She probably had kids."

"What?"

"I found pitting on the inside of the pubic bones. You're looking for someone's mother."

"Thanks."

In less time than he could have punched the numbers, the phone rang again.

"Ryan, I-"

"It's me, Mom."

"Hi, darlin', how are you?"

"Good, Mom." Pause. "Are you mad about our conversation last night?"

"Of course not, Katy. I'm just worried about you."

Long pause.

"So. What else is new? We didn't really talk about what you've been up to this summer." There was so much I wanted to say, but I'd let her take the lead.

"Not much. Charlotte's boring as ever. Nothing to do."

Good. Another dose of adolescent negativity. Just what I needed. I tried to hold my annoyance in check.

"How's the job?"

"Okay. Tips are good. I made ninety-four dollars last night."

"That's great."

"I'm getting a lot of hours."

"Terrific."

"I want to quit."

I waited.

She waited.

"Katy, you're going to need that money for school." Katy, don't mess up your life.

"I told you. I don't want to go back right away. I'm thinking of taking a year off to work."

Here we go again. I had an idea what was coming, and launched my offensive.

"Honey, we've gone over this. If you don't like the University of Virginia, you could try McGill. Why don't you take a couple of weeks, come up here, check it out?" Talk fast, Mom. "We could make a vacation of it. I'll take some time off. Maybe we could drive out to the Maritimes, b.u.m around Nova Scotia for a few days." G.o.d. What was I saying? How could I work that? No matter. My daughter comes first.

She didn't answer.

"It's not grades, is it?"

"No, no. They were fine."

"Then your credits should transfer. We coul-"

"I want to go to Europe."

"Europe?"

"Italy."

"Italy?"

I didn't have to think that one through.

"Is that where Max is playing?"

"Yes." Defensive. "So?"

"So?"

"They're giving him a lot more money than the Hornets."

I said nothing.

"And a house."

Nothing.

"And a car. A Ferrari."

Nothing.

"Tax free." Her tone was becoming more defiant.

"That's great for Max, Katy. He gets to play a sport he loves and gets paid for it. But what about you?"

"Max wants me to come."

"Max is twenty-four and has a degree. You're nineteen and have one year of college."

She heard the irritation in my voice.

"You got married when you were nineteen."

"Married?" My stomach did a triple gainer.

"Well, you did."

She had a point. I held my tongue, anxious with concern for her but knowing I was helpless to do anything.

"I just said that. We're not getting married."

We sat and listened to the air between Montreal and Charlotte for what seemed like forever.