I walked around the room, glanced under chairs, opened the drawers of the dresser all empty.

Then I got down on my hands and knees and peered under the bed. Clearly, vacuuming under here was not something hotel management insisted be done on a daily basis. There were dust balls the size of, well, golf balls.

I found a skin magazine, a package of cigarette papers, a paperback novel by John Grisham. Where the bed met the wall, there was a dark blob. I reached my arm under, grabbed hold of it tentatively.

It was furry.

I pulled it out. It was Milt. I picked the larger bits of dust off him and tried to blow off the rest.

Got ya, I said, holding Milt, looking into his goofy face, touching the right antler, which was hanging by a thread. I thought I'd lost you.

And then, suddenly, sitting there on the hotel bedroom floor with Milt in my hands, I felt overwhelmed.

Cried like a baby.

I allowed myself three minutes to feel bad, then got to my feet, went into the bathroom to splash some water on my face, dried off with a fresh towel, and left the room.

I WAS HEADING BACK TO THE ELEVATOR, Milt in hand, when I heard muffled screaming coming from a room at the end of the hall.

A woman's screams. Short ones. Every few seconds.

Not frightened screams. Not screams of terror. They were cries of pain.

I started heading to the end of the hall, pausing at the doors, trying to figure out which room the cries were coming from.

Aww! a woman shouted. Nothing for a few seconds. Then, Aww!

That meant waiting a moment at each door, listening for the next cry to determine whether this was the room.

I was hearing another voice now, another woman. She was shouting, You don't go home! You here to work! You try to run away again, they make me do this even harder!

I had the right door.

Then a noise that sounded like thwack.

And then the woman screamed, Aww!

Something horrible was happening in that room.

I reached into my pocket, felt the key card. Veronica had called it a passkey. I took that to mean that it would let me into any room, not just the one where I'd stayed.

I like to think I would have gone through that door to help any woman who was in trouble, but at that moment, I was going through that door because I thought it might be Syd.

I put the card into the slot, waited, hoped for the light to turn green.

It did. I withdrew the card, turned the handle, and burst into the room.

What's going on in And I stopped, tried to take in what I was looking at.

Standing in front of me was the woman I'd run into in the hotel breakfast nook. Cantana. She was in her hotel uniform. She was holding in her right hand a thin chrome wand, or stick. I looked a little closer and realized it was an old car antenna.

The other woman in the room was kneeling at the foot of the bed, bent at the waist so that her upper body and arms were splayed out on the bedspread. She was dressed similarly to Cantana, but the big difference was, there was blood seeping through her uniform on her buttocks. She turned her head toward me, and there were tears on her cheeks. She was Asian, mid-twenties.

What you want? Cantana asked me. How you get in here? What you doing with that?

She was pointing at Milt.

I was speechless. I started backing out of the room, Cantana still yammering at me. What you doing in here? Can't you see we having a meeting?

Once I was all the way into the hall, Cantana slammed the door in my face. I stood there, dumbstruck, then turned around slowly.

What the hell was that?

That was when I found myself staring directly at the fire extinguisher station recessed into the opposite wall. The extinguisher sat behind a labeled glass door.

The letter I in the word FIRE was nearly worn away.

Chapter THIRTY-FOUR.

THE PICTURE.

The picture that was emailed to me, to make me think that Syd had been spotted in Seattle.

It had shown Sydney, in her coral scarf, walking past a fire extinguisher station. And the I in FIRE had been worn away, just like this one.

I didn't have that picture in front of me right now, but I was certain this was the spot. This was where Syd's picture had been snapped.

She'd been in this hotel.

She'd worked here.

She'd been working here all along. She hadn't been lying.

It was everyone else who had been lying. Everybody here had been primed to tell the same story. To say they didn't know Syd, they'd never seen her.

Everybody here was covering their collective ass.

But if that was the case, then I wasn't safe here. Not if I gave any indication that I'd figured out the truth. Especially after walking in on Cantana disciplining that other hotel employee. Whatever had been going on in there, it wasn't some kinky sex scene. The woman bent over that bed was in genuine distress. Her screams had been real. She'd broken the rules and was paying the price for it.

I had to get out of here. Once I was out of here, then I could call Mr. Blake?

I hadn't even heard the elevator open. I looked down the hall and saw Veronica Harp stepping off.

Have you gotten yourself lost? she asked. The room you were in was at the other end of the hall. But oh! I see you found it!

She was pointing to Milt.

Yes, yes, I did, I said, walking toward her.

What were you doing down here? she asked.

I was just' a little distracted. I had Milt in my hands here and walked right past the elevator without noticing.

Do you have my key? she asked.

I reached into my pocket and handed it to her. Thanks, I said.

Don't want this falling into the wrong hands! she joked, putting it into her own pocket. I hit the elevator button. The doors, which had just closed, popped open again. Veronica boarded the elevator with me.

Are you okay? she asked. You look a little' rattled.

I'm fine, I said. I mean, you know, as fine as I can be, considering.

Sure, sure, she said. I understand. Listen, about the other evening, I want to apologize.

No, don't worry about it.

No, I think I came on a bit strong.

It's okay, really.

We reached the first floor and the doors parted.

Take care, I said to Veronica, rudely getting off ahead of her and hotfooting it to the lobby doors.

Well, so long to you, too, she said.

I GOT IN THE BEETLE, putting Milt in the passenger seat, and drove out of the Just Inn Time lot as quickly as I could. I had to put some distance between myself and this hotel. I had to think about what this all meant.

If I'd felt I was nibbling around the edges before, now I felt as though I was taking huge bites.

Close to finding answers, close to finding Syd, or both?

Of that, I was less sure.

Something was going on at the hotel, and now I was guessing that Syd had stumbled onto it. And given that Eric or Gary, or whatever his name was was looking for her, I felt the odds were she was still out there somewhere.

Syd, for crying out loud, just call home.

I needed help with this. I couldn't do it all alone.

I was going to have to call Kip Jennings.

Detective Marjorie had it in for me. But maybe, just maybe, there was a part of Kip Jennings that still believed in me, that still believed my daughter was still alive, and genuinely in danger.

I had to put some trust in her now. I had to tell her what I'd found out.

I pulled the car off Route 1 into a plaza parking lot. I felt too on edge to attempt driving and talking on the cell at the same time. I got out the phone and keyed in the number I'd used to get in touch with Jennings before.

I got her voice mail.

Listen, Detective Jennings, this is Tim Blake. Something's happened, and I think I know what's going on. I need to talk to you. Not that asshole Marjorie. I don't honestly think you believe I've done what he thinks I've done. It's you I want to talk to, because I think you'll believe me and I think you'll do something about it. I'm this close to finding Syd. I really think I am. You have to call me when you get this message. Please.

I flipped my phone shut, gripped the top of the steering wheel and rested my head on my hands.

I still wanted to talk to Carol Swain about Patty. It was easy to forget, with all that was happening, that Patty was missing, too. I couldn't help but feel that Patty's disappearance was linked to Sydney's, and I hoped that talking to Patty's mother might offer up some new clue about what might have happened to both of them.

But first, I was going to go home, find that picture in my emails of Sydney walking past that fire extinguisher. I'd print it out, show it to Jennings, take her to the hotel, show her the worn I on the glass door. She'd come around.

Oh no, I said as I turned onto Hill Street.

Up ahead, out front of my house parked next to the curb, was Kate Wood's silver Focus.

Perfect, I said under my breath.

As I pulled into the drive, I noticed that Kate's car was empty. She wasn't sitting in it waiting for me. I'd never given her a key to the house. Maybe she was sitting around back in one of the lawn chairs, waiting for me to come home and let her in.

I turned off the Beetle. Instead of walking in through the front door, I walked down the side of the house to the backyard.

I spotted the brown bag of Chinese food first. It lay on the grass, on its side, the top ripped open. It looked as though someone had reached in and helped themselves to a couple of things and left the rest.

The sliding glass door that leads from the living room to the backyard patio had been broken. There was glass on the carpet inside the house. Someone had smashed the glass so they could reach in and unlock the door.

I slid the door open and stepped in.

I called out, Kate?

There was no reply.

Broken glass crunched under my shoes. I moved through the living room and into the kitchen.

She was on the floor, on her back, her arms stretched out above her head, her legs twisted awkwardly. Blood was pooled around her.

I was guessing it must have come from the hole in the middle of her forehead.

Chapter THIRTY-FIVE.