He held up one finger, resumed typing something, then hit, with some fanfare, one button. Send, he said. He turned in his chair and said, Yeah?

My name is Tim Blake, I said. I just flew in from Connecticut.

Good for you, he said.

I wasn't in the mood for attitude, but pressed on. Is Yolanda around?

Beats me, he said. Who's Yolanda?

She works here, I said.

News to me. He shrugged, as if to say, So what if I don't know who works here? Is there something I can do for you?

I'm trying to find my daughter, I said. Sydney Blake. She's been in here a couple of times in the last week, I think. We've been going out of our minds, her mother and I, wondering what's happened to her. Hang on, I've got a picture.

I reached into my jacket pocket for reprints of the photos of Sydney that were on the website. I handed a sampling of them to the man, who glanced at them quickly and then put them on his desk.

Never seen her, he said.

What's your name? I asked.

Len, he said.

Len, would you mind just taking another look?

He gave the shots another cursory glance and said, We get a lot of kids through here, you know. It's possible she's been around, but I don't recognize her.

You here all the time? I asked.

Nope. So maybe she was here when I was off. How did you hear that she's been in here?

I didn't want to tell him that Yolanda had tipped me off. She might have violated privacy rules by getting in touch. I was betting one of the reasons runaways felt comfortable coming here was that it was understood the management wasn't in the habit of ratting them out to their parents.

So instead of answering directly, I said, There was a tip to the website I set up when my daughter went missing. That she might have been here. So then I was in touch with Yolanda Mills.

Okay, Len said.

Has Yolanda gone home for the day?

Like I said, I don't know her.

Is this her day off? Does she work a different shift?

What's the name again?

Yolanda Mills.

Len had a blank look on his face. And she works here? At this shelter?

That's what she told me, I said.

You spoke to her?

Yes. By email, and over the phone, I said. I was getting a strange tingling at the back of my neck.

Can you give me a second? Len got up from behind the desk and went through a door that led down a dark green hallway dotted with notices that had been taped directly to the wall. I saw him go into a room halfway down the hall. He was in there no more than twenty seconds, then came back.

We got nobody working here by that name, he said.

That's not possible, I said, feeling my anxiety level go up a notch. I spoke to her. Who were you talking to back there?

Lefty. My look must have told him I thought he was jerking me around. Morgan. She's the boss. We just call her Lefty. You want to talk to her?

Yes.

Great. She loves interruptions.

He led me down the hall, stuck his head in the doorway, and said, Guy wants to talk to you, Lefty.

She was nearly hidden behind a desk stacked with paper-stuffed folders. Forties, probably, although the thin gray streaks in her brown hair and the wire-rimmed John Lennon glasses suggested to me that she might be older. A blue long-sleeved sweater hung off her thin frame, and when she stood up I could see that she'd cinched her belt tight to keep her jeans, a couple of sizes too large, from falling off her.

Yeah? she said.

I'm Tim Blake, I said, extending my right hand. Instead of returning the gesture with her own right hand, she stuck out her left. She had no right arm. The right sweater sleeve, hanging empty, was tucked into a pocket. I was glad I hadn't called her Lefty.

Morgan Donovan, she said. This is my empire. She waved her hand majestically at the chaos that was her desk. You're looking for somebody?

Two people, actually, I said. My daughter, Sydney Blake. And a woman who works here. Yolanda Mills.

Nope.

Excuse me?

No one by that name works here.

She told me she worked at Second Chance. Is there another drop-in place with this name?

Maybe in some parallel universe, Morgan said. But we're the only one in Seattle.

I don't understand, I said.

Maybe you got the name wrong. She works for some other shelter. God knows the city is full of them.

No, I'm sure I have it right, I said. I put the pictures of Syd on top of one of the folders. This is my daughter, Sydney Blake. Yolanda Mills said she'd seen her here. Twice.

Morgan gave the pictures a more thorough examination than Len had. I'm good with faces, she said. But this girl, she's not familiar. She's a looker. If I'd seen her, I'd have remembered her. So would Len. She rolled her eyes. Especially Len.

But you're back here in the office, I said. She could have come in and you wouldn't have seen her.

She nodded. Yup, she said. But if there was a Yolanda Mills working for me, that I'd know. I sign the checks.

Maybe she's a volunteer. Do you have volunteers here?

Some. But none by that name.

I took out a slip of paper on which I'd written the shelter's address, my flight info, and several phone numbers, including Yolanda's. I've got her number right here.

Morgan asked me to read it out to her. That's not the shelter number, she said.

It's her cell, I said. I called this number last night and talked to her. She said she helped with the food orders here, that she was out all the time picking up groceries.

Morgan Donovan just looked at me.

Hang on, I said, got out my cell, flipped it open, and punched in the number. I'll get her on the phone and you can talk to her yourself.

Why the hell not, she said tiredly. It's not like I have anything else to do.

I let it ring a dozen times, thinking that eventually it would go to message, but it didn't. I ended the call, then immediately tried the number again. I let it go another dozen rings, then snapped the phone shut.

Morgan said, You don't look so good.

Chapter TWELVE.

I WAS HAVING A D+eJ+C VU MOMENT. First Syd's not working where she says she is. Now the mysterious Yolanda.

You want to sit down? Morgan said.

Something's wrong, I said. My legs were rubbery, my stomach was doing a slow somersault. Where the hell is she? I said, more to myself than the woman sitting behind the desk.

Morgan sat down, leaned back in her chair, and sighed tiredly. You might as well fill me in.

So I did. Syd going missing. The hotel. The car. Then, a hit on the website I'd set up from a woman claiming to have seen her in Seattle.

And she said she worked for us, Morgan said. That's some story. Sounds like a scam. Maybe some kid, jerking you around.

No, I said. It didn't sound like a kid, and she didn't ask me for anything. Didn't want a reward. Wheels were turning. If you knew someone here was sending tips to parents, telling them their kids were here, would that be against the rules?

Big-time, she said. We'd like nothing more than for these kids to get back together with their mothers and fathers, but some of those moms and dads don't deserve to have them back. You got no idea the kind of crap a lot of these kids have had to put up with. Not that they're all angels. Seventy percent of them, I'd probably kick them out myself if they were mine. But they're not all trouble. Some of these girls, when their stepdads weren't using them for punching bags, they were trying to get into their pants. We got kids out there whose parents are drunks and drug dealers. We had a girl here last year, her mom was pimping her out. She was getting a little too old in the tooth to do it herself and figured her daughter could take over the family business.

Jesus, I said.

Yeah, well, he seems to be M.I.A. at the moment. We had a kid here last week, his skin was a mess, like it had all peeled off and was growing back on again, especially his face. Anything that wasn't protected. His dad was pissed he hadn't taken a shower when he'd told him to. So he hauls the kid out to the driveway and takes a power washer to him. You ever feel the pressure of one of those things? You can strip paint with them.

I said nothing.

So we're not exactly going to put a call into mommies and daddies like that and say hey, guess what, we found your little angel, why don't you come on down and take them home.

I get it.

These kids trust us. They have to be able to trust us or we can't help them.

I was thinking. So then, if you did have someone on staff who was doing this, who was trying to reunite kids with their parents, and you found out, they'd be fired.

Very likely.

So maybe whoever called me works here but didn't use her real name.

Morgan Donovan considered that a moment. Why would someone have to give you a name at all? She could have gotten in touch with you anonymously.

I have an email address for her, I said.

Morgan asked for it and wrote it down on the back of an envelope.

There's no one here with that address that I know of. A Hotmail address ain't exactly that hard to get.

I know, I said.

So like I said, maybe someone's yanking your chain, she said. When I couldn't think of anything to say to that, she said, Wanna coffee or something? I'd offer you something stronger, but it's a church foundation that tops up our budget and they take a dim view of my keeping scotch in my bottom drawer. Not that there isn't a bottle in there right now. We've got a pot of coffee that's been going continuously since 1992. Want some of that? My face must have given away my reluctance. A Diet Coke, then?

I said sure.

Hey, Len! Footsteps scurrying down the hall, then Len poked his head in. Can you grab us a couple cans of DC?

Len continued farther on down the hall, where I could hear an old-fashioned fridge open and then latch shut, and then he was back with one can and a paper cup. We're running a bit low, he said, putting both items on her desk and leaving.

Morgan got up and started clearing some papers off a wooden chair so that I could sit down.

Let me get that, I offered, but she held up her arm to deflect me, then used it to scoop up the files.

I'm pretty good at this, she said. Although you know what pisses me off? Those taps in public washrooms, where you only get water so long as you're pressing down? So as soon as you let go of the tap to get your hand under it, there's no fucking water. I've just got the one fist, but if I could find the guy who invented that goddamn tap I could knock his teeth out.

I smiled awkwardly.

You can ask, she said.

Sorry?

How I lost it.

It's none of my business, I said.

You ever hang your arm down the outside of the door when you're in a car?