"So you wouldn't be surprised if someone broke her wrist," Kovac said.

"That's not what happened," Warner insisted.

"Were you there? Did you see her fall off the bike?"

"No, but I'm sure it was an accident. Julia said-"

"It might have been," Kovac conceded. "Stuff happens in the heat of the moment, right, Christina? Gray lashed out at you, you lashed out at her-all in the heat of the moment. That's what people do. They react. Sometimes it gets out of hand."

"I didn't break her wrist!" she said, alarmed that he might be accusing her. "I didn't do anything to her!"

"No, sweetheart," Kovac said, smiling like a kind distant uncle. "I don't think you broke her wrist, but I have reason to believe somebody did. And I mean to find out who. You say you want to help, so if you hear anything, if you think you might know someone who knows someone who knows something about it, you need to call me."

He held out one of his business cards for her. She took it and looked at it. Her fingernails were perfectly lacquered with glittering rose-pink polish.

"That night at the Rock and Bowl," Kovac said. "I heard things got a little physical, that Aaron got a little rough with Gray. Is that something he does? Smack girls around?"

"No! He was only protecting me!" she said dramatically. "Gray attacked me! She hit me and she scratched me!"

She pulled down the high neck of her sweater to reveal a trio of red marks on her skin.

"Aaron was in trouble here the other day for getting physical with another student," Kovac said.

"That wasn't his fault!"

"That's not how I heard it."

"Kyle Hatcher knocked him down," she said. "And kicked him too. And Kyle punched Aaron in the mouth that night at the Rock and Bowl too. He's the violent one."

Michael Warner leaned forward. "You can't seriously be considering any of these kids had something to do with what's happened to Gray? There's a serial killer running around loose! You should be out trying to find him, not accusing children, not accusing Julia!"

Kovac gave him a benign smile. "I'm paid to be suspicious of everyone, Dr. Warner. Don't take it personally."

"And in the meantime, there's a maniac running around the city abducting young women."

"We're on that."

"Really?" Warner asked. "How many unsolved homicides are being attributed to this man? Eight? Nine? Isn't that what I read? Penny could be the ninth girl this animal has hurt, and you're here questioning kids? You're questioning her mother? This is absurd!"

"If the tables were turned and your daughter was the one missing, would you want us to leave stones unturned?" Kovac asked.

"I would want you not to waste precious time," Michael Warner said, standing up. "And I'm not letting you waste any more of mine. Come on, Christina. We're going home."

"ALL THIS ANIMOSITY and rejection is going to f.u.c.k with my self-esteem," Kovac said as he watched them go. He rolled his shoulders back to loosen the knots and twisted his head to one side against the kink developing in his neck.

"I checked in with Elwood," Tippen said. "Still no luck finding the girl's car. He's tracking down her Facebook friends. Nothing is panning out so far. He's spoken to a couple of them. They claim they barely knew the girl."

"Why should we be surprised? The people who knew her her whole life don't seem to have a clue who she really was."

"Sometimes those are the people who know us the least," Tippen observed. "They have all that time to build us into who they want us to be in their heads so we can disappoint them over and over. Just ask my mother."

"Or any woman you've ever dated," Kovac said. "So far, this girl was nothing but an irritation and a disappointment to everyone she knew. Miss Acceptance."

"Life is full of little ironies."

"Yeah. I hate that," he said with a sigh. "Go talk to the girl's teachers. I'll see what more I can squeeze out of Brittany Lawler. We can both be thankful we're not Tinks. She's on her way to tell Julia Gray her daughter is dead."

LISKA PULLED ONTO Julia Gray's block to the too-familiar sight of TV news vans with satellite antennae raised and video cameramen roaming the street, looking for interesting angles and shots of curious neighbors. She had to slow the car to a crawl and open the window to hold up her ID-her pa.s.s to the end of the block and the Gray house.

The way the house was situated on the lot gave it a privacy that was a blessing and a curse. A blessing to Julia Gray, holed up inside, a curse to investigators. It was almost impossible to see the driveway or garage door from any other house in the neighborhood. Potential witnesses would probably have little to tell them about any vehicles parked at the Gray home on the night in question.

She pulled in the driveway beside a patrol car and behind Julia Gray's black Lexus and sat for a moment, recalling Jamar Jackson's scant description of the vehicle Penny Gray's body had fallen from New Year's Eve. A dark sedan. No make. No model.

Julia Gray drove a dark sedan. Penny Gray drove a dark sedan. Probably more than half of Minnesotans drove darker-colored vehicles. They were easier to see against the white backdrop of winter. White cars-popular everywhere south of the Northland-were undesirable here and were involved in a higher percentage of accidents during the winter.

Still . . . no coincidence was a good coincidence as far as Liska was concerned.

She got out and went to the patrol car, holding her ID up for the uniformed officer behind the wheel. He ran the window down.

"How's it been?" she asked, glancing to the street. Reporters were coming like hungry animals to food. She recognized several. The short guy from channel eleven, the perky blond girl from the early morning news, Dana Nolan.

"Quiet," the officer said. "Once we chased the riffraff off the property." He glanced in his rearview mirror and made a sound of disapproval. He flicked a switch on the dash, picked up the mike, and barked an order that blasted over the speakers into the street. "Stay back, folks! This is private property. Stay back!"

He shook his head and glanced up at Liska. "f.u.c.king vultures."

"Is anyone in the house with Mrs. Gray?"

"I don't think so. I haven't seen anyone come or go since the boyfriend dropped her off. What's the news?"

"Bad."

"d.a.m.n. I've got a daughter myself," he said. "I don't even want to imagine. I don't envy you being the messenger, Sarge."

"Better giving that news than getting it," Liska said.

She went to the front door, rang the bell, and waited. And waited. And waited.

Maybe Julia Gray was sedated and asleep, she thought. Then again, what mother could sleep awaiting news of a missing child?

Kovac had told her Julia Gray had left her phone in her car while she'd been at the station half the morning, even though she had claimed to have gotten a text message from her daughter just the night before.

She rang the bell again, her mind racing as she waited. Who sc.r.a.ped up their kid from a bike accident and didn't go straight to an ER? A drug rep with long-standing relationships in the medical community? Maybe.

She rang the bell a third time, her nerves starting to itch. What kind of emotion choked a mother whose child went missing, whose last words to that child had been delivered in anger? As angry as she was with Kyle, she still felt guilty for being so hard on him that morning. To see him fight tears at her caustic recriminations was like pouring acid on her soul. If those had been her last words to him, Nikki would never have been able to live with herself.

Maybe Julia Gray wouldn't be able to either. Maybe she would take too many pills. Maybe she would slit her wrists.

As she began to think about getting one of the uniforms to kick in the door, it cracked open and Penny Gray's mother peered out at her with red-rimmed eyes.

Liska showed her ID. "Mrs. Gray? I'm Sergeant Liska. May I come in?"

Julia Gray stepped back from the door. She looked like she hadn't eaten or slept in a week. Her blond hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail. She wore yoga pants and a sweatshirt. Her hands were red and chapped, fingernail polish ruined. The brace on her injured right hand was soaking wet. She rubbed one hand and then the other with a limp white cotton towel.

"I'm sorry," Julia Gray said. "I was in the kitchen. I'm trying to keep busy. I don't know what to do."

"I'm sure it's hard. I have two boys. I don't know what I would do."

Julia Gray just stared at her. Nikki could see the question in her eyes-Do you have news about my daughter?-and she could see the fear of asking that question too. If she asked, she might get an answer she didn't want to hear.

"Can we sit down, Mrs. Gray?"

Julia Gray's swollen eyes widened in alarm. "No," she said, shaking her head. "No, I don't think so. You should probably just go."

Bad news was always preceded by Can we sit down? Or We need to talk. If they didn't sit down, then she could go on thinking maybe her daughter would still be coming home. If they sat down, the bad news would come out, and there would be no escaping it.

"I have to ask you a couple of questions," Nikki said, putting off the inevitable. Once she made the announcement, she would lose her opportunity to get the answers. "About when Penny broke her arm."

"She fell off her bike."

"Were you there when it happened?"

"No. She called me. She had her appointment with Michael that morning. She rode her bike over there. It's not far. It was one of the first nice spring days. She was on her way home. And . . . and she fell. She was cutting through the park. She called me, and I called Michael. He was closer."

"Why didn't you take her to the emergency room?" Nikki asked.

She looked confused by the question. "We called Bob Iverson. His practice is nearby."

"But it was a Sat.u.r.day. He doesn't normally work Sat.u.r.day, does he?"

"No. But I know him. Michael knows him too. He came in." Her eyes narrowed; confusion tugged across her brow. "I don't understand why you're asking me about this. He gave you the X-rays, didn't he?"

"Yes," Nikki said. "It just seems a little unusual-the circ.u.mstances. And the fracture was an unusual fracture. The ME told me it's the kind of break that happens from a twisting motion rather than a fall."

"Well, she fell," she insisted. Then she went very still as the letters ME penetrated. Her injured hand came up to ma.s.sage her throat, as if she was suddenly having trouble swallowing. "What else did he have to say?"

Nikki sighed. "Please, Mrs. Gray," she murmured, trying to direct her toward the living room with its still-decorated Christmas tree. "Let's sit down."

Julia Gray stiffened. "No."

There was never any good way to do this, and it never got any easier no matter how many parents she had to disappoint. "The medical examiner has reviewed all the distinguishing marks and characteristics, along with the X-rays of your daughter's wrist, and compared them with the young woman-"

"No!" Julia Gray said again, more emphatically this time. Not as if in denial, but as if she was getting angry because Nikki clearly wasn't listening to her.

"There's really no question, Mrs. Gray," she said firmly. "Your daughter is deceased. I'm so sorry for your loss."

Penny Gray's mother looked frantically around the foyer, looking for help or some hidden escape route. Nikki could feel the electric energy coming off her in waves. She began to tremble visibly, first her hands, then her shoulders, her whole body stiffening like she was going into a seizure. Her face was as white as chalk.

Nikki put a hand on her shoulder. "Please, sit down, Mrs. Gray."

Julia Gray jerked back, eyes wild with pain. "Don't touch me! Get out! Get out of my house!"

"Mrs. Gray, please try to calm down-"

"Don't tell me to calm down!" she shouted. "Get out of my house! Get out! Get out! Get out!"

Like an animal blind with fear and pain, she bolted forward, swinging wildly with her injured hand, striking Nikki hard on the left eyebrow, slicing open the skin.

As blood ran down into her field of vision, Nikki threw her hands up too late to ward off the attack. She stumbled backward into the door, banging the back of her head against it.

"Get out! Get out! Get out!" Julia screamed over and over, incoherent, half sobbing, arms flailing like a toddler in a tantrum.

As she swung one arm down, Nikki caught her by the wrist. She pulled the woman's arm down between them and turned, stepping to the side and reversing their positions, putting Julia Gray's back against the door, and pinning her there with a shoulder to the woman's sternum.

Penny Gray's mother struggled for just a moment, then went limp, the adrenaline-fueled strength draining from her like water down a drain.

"Oh my G.o.d, oh my G.o.d, oh my G.o.d," she mumbled, dissolving into tears. "I can't believe this is happening! How can this be happening to me?"

"I'm sorry," Nikki murmured, lessening the pressure, letting Julia Gray's weight come more against her. She put her arms around the woman and just stood there, holding her-one mother offering comfort to another.

She wanted to tell Julia Gray that she would be all right, that eventually things would be okay, but it was a stupid thing to say, a completely empty, ridiculous promise to make. She knew that no matter what else happened in the coming days, no matter which way this case went, no matter who was responsible for the death of her daughter, Julia Gray would not be all right, and things would never be the same for her again.

31.

"Dana Nolan, on special a.s.signment, coming to you live from outside the residence of missing Minneapolis teenager Penelope Gray. Sources inside the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's office are confirming that the New Year's Eve murder victim known as Zombie Doe has been identified as the missing Performance Scholastic Inst.i.tute student. An AMBER Alert was issued last night for the missing teen, whose mother made a public appeal for her return this morning along with Minneapolis Homicide captain Ullrich Ka.s.selmann.

"No official statement has yet been made by the Minneapolis Police Department either confirming or denying the identification of Zombie Doe. Speculation has run rampant that Zombie Doe may in fact be yet another victim of the serial killer law enforcement has dubbed Doc Holiday, due to his penchant for committing his crimes on or around holidays."

"Doug Irwin here, Dana." The guy from the newsroom broke in. "There seems to be some activity going on there. Can you fill us in on what's been happening in the past few minutes?"

"Yes, Doug. One of the homicide detectives working the case was just seen arriving here at the residence and going into the home, presumably to convey some information to Julia Gray. I'll be coming to you live for NewsWatch with any breaking information as things develop. Until then, back to you at the studio, Doug."

Fitz smiled, almost like a proud uncle. He felt a connection to Dana Nolan that truly did border on familial. He had handpicked her, after all, like one of his flea market finds. She was a little diamond just waiting for polish and the perfect setting.

He was so pleased he had chosen her, especially now that she was getting an extra opportunity to make a name for herself by covering this case. There was a wonderful poetry in that. He had chosen her because of her initial reporting of the story of Zombie Doe, the alleged "ninth victim." Fate was allowing her to rise to the attention of the audience because of the ninth victim. And her greatest fame would ultimately come in being a victim. What a beautiful irony. It filled him with pride to be the architect of this story.

She stood there in front of the camera, so wide-eyed and earnest, her cheeks rosy with the cold. So young. So . . . wholesome. She didn't understand what tragedy was. She didn't know what it meant to feel real pain or experience true loss. She observed others and tried to guess what that must be like. Or she tried to relate her own small version of personal catastrophe to these incidents. Maybe she had lost a kitten as a little girl. Maybe an elderly grandparent had died.

She had so much to learn about genuine suffering.