THIRTY-SIX.

Cindy sat inside her silver Honda in front of the police station for a good thirty minutes, still trying to talk herself into going in. The more she thought about it, the more something just seemed so... wrong with Paula; she couldn't get over her neighbor's wackadoo behavior. Cindy would never forgive herself if Paula really was in danger from her husband and she could have done something to stop it and didn't.

Taking a deep breath, Cindy grabbed her bulky brown leather purse from the passenger seat floor and slung it over her shoulder as she stepped out of the car. She pushed open the heavy glass door and strode up to the desk sergeant with false bravado.

"Excuse me."

"Yeah," the sergeant replied, never looking up from his computer screen.

Cindy pursed her lips. "I'd like to talk to someone about my neighbors."

"What about 'em?"

Cindy went to answer then stopped herself, not sure what to say. Well, the wife mops her driveway and is terrified of not having enough Sweet 'N Low? Cindy shook her head at how goofy it all sounded and focused her gaze once more on the bored face in front of her.

"My neighbors who live across the street. I think the husband might be hitting the wife."

The desk sergeant looked up, bored. "Have you seen him strike her?"

"Well no, but-"

"Ever heard them get into any violent arguments, or seen any bruises on her?"

"No... "

"So what is it, exactly, that leads you to believe he's abusing her?"

Cindy shifted in her brown leather flats, feeling even more foolish than when she'd walked in. "I mean nothing specific, just a feeling."

"Ma'am, unless you actually witness an assault, there's nothing we can do. And besides, she would have to be the one to press charges."

"You're telling me you're just going to sit there and do nothing?"

The sergeant held up his hands as if to ask what Cindy expected him to do. "Ma'am, like I said, unless you actually see something, our hands are tied by the law. If you do see something, call us, we'll pay them a visit." The phone rang and the sergeant turned away from Cindy and began to dispense more by-the-book-cynicism to yet another helpless citizen.

Cindy stood in front of the sergeant for a few moments more before finally letting out an exasperated sigh and walking out of the police station.

THIRTY-SEVEN.

He had known they were watching him. But he had been prepared for the scrutiny. When his in-laws had flown in and were staying at the house, he would sit in the living room clutching one of her sweaters. When he heard them approach, he would comment quietly that he hoped she wasn't cold before he would break down in tears. His mother-in-law would rush over and comfort him, murmuring that she would be found, that she would be alright, they just had to keep believing, keep the faith. His father-in-law would paw his shoulder in an attempt to disperse quiet strength. Finally, he would say he was okay and how much he appreciated their being there.

He stopped eating in order to give himself a gaunt appearance and took caffeine pills at bedtime, leading people to assume he was struggling with endless sleepless nights. It had worked. Everyone the police questioned all said the same thing; he was extremely distraught, working round-the-clock to spread the word. Coupled with his alibi... no one would ever suspect a thing. Sometimes, he felt guilty, but he would swat it away like an annoying gnat. After all, the most important thing was that no one ever figured out the truth.

THIRTY-EIGHT.

Though she was half-white, Sondra had been blessed with some booty. However, it wasn't doing her any good at the moment, as the hard wooden bench she was sitting on pressed uncomfortably against her tailbone. She crossed her legs for the umpteenth time that afternoon, wondering how much longer she would have to wait. Sondra had skipped meeting Cicely at the station after the revelation of what was really going in her sister's marriage; she was simply too drained to leave her room. So she'd ordered up a hot fudge sundae and spent the night not watching a "Law and Order" marathon. It was now morning and Sondra had told Cicely she would be by later.

"Miss Ellis?"

Sondra looked up at the mention of her name. A tall woman with a badge, short dark hair a boxy, sand colored silk blouse and matching pants, was standing in front of her.

"Detective Wallace?"

The woman held out her hand to Sondra. "Yes. Good to meet you."

Sondra gave a small smile. "I wish I didn't have to meet you."

Detective Marion Wallace gave her own wan smile. "Well, let's hope our time together is brief. Right this way."

Marion took long strides towards the back of the station house as Sondra lollygagged behind her, absorbing her surroundings. She'd never been to a police station before and was fascinated. Junkies, prostitutes and thugs filled the waiting room; some screaming profanities as they protested their innocence, others slack-jawed and glassy-eyed as they sat slumped over in the hard metal chairs waiting for who knew what. She wondered what stories lurked behind the sad, droopy gazes. Sondra shook her head and caught up with the detective.

"Tell me," Marion said as she gestured to a chair in front of her desk, "what can I do for you? You really didn't say much when you called."

Sondra cleared her throat. "I understand you were the lead detective looking for my sister, Tracy Ellis."

"I was."

Sondra leaned forward, propping her elbows on the edge of the gray metal desk. "Well, I was hoping you could fill in some blanks for me."

Marion clasped her fingers together in front of her. "I'll do what I can."

Sondra took a deep breath and plowed through. "According to a friend of Tracy's, the last time anyone talked to her was my brother-in-law on Saturday evening?"

Marion picked up the case notes from the file in front of her and nodded. "Phillip Pearson talked to his wife Saturday evening on January twenty-seventh for fifteen minutes. He left her two subsequent voicemails, both on Sunday the twenty-eighth, neither of which she returned. Called her friend, Cicely Anderson, Sunday afternoon when Tracy still hadn't called back, to ask if she had heard from Ms. Ellis. Mr. Pearson called to report his wife missing that same day. Ms. Ellis' body was found behind the rocks of Belmont Harbor that Thursday, February second. Autopsy declared her death to be from blunt trauma to the face." Marion set her notes down and looked up at Sondra. "As far as we were able to determine, your sister went jogging, something we were told she did often and was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"It took almost a week to find her body."

Marion looked at her notes again. "We had two major snowstorms that week-one Saturday night and another on Monday, followed by deep freezes that lasted a day or two. Kept most people off the lakefront. It wasn't until the warm-up and thaw a few days later that she was found."

Sondra leaned back in her chair. "Who goes jogging in a snowstorm?"

Detective Wallace snorted. "In this town? You'd be surprised."

Sondra shook her head, trying to wrap her head around this concept. "And the police believe... ?"

"That Ms. Ellis went jogging Saturday evening and was mugged and killed."

"Okay, so, she got mugged. But she wasn't raped or anything? Don't muggers usually carry guns or knives? And aren't most women who are killed usually raped? Why would he smash her face in with a rock?" Sondra struggled to keep from crying as she thought of that concrete shattering Tracy's skull.

Marion twisted her lips into an uncomfortable bow. "We believe your sister's assailant came up behind her and attempted to assault her. She threw her wallet at him. She fought with him and they struggled. She was probably screaming her head off and he couldn't get her to stop. If he was planning to sexually assault her-which not all of these creeps even want to-at this point wasn't worth it-not to mention how cold it was-and used the rock to keep her quiet. He took her wallet, flung it on the beach as he fled. Happens all the time."

Sondra leaned back against the wooden chair, digesting what Marion had told her. "And no witnesses? No one heard or saw anything?"

Marion shook her head. "No. Nothing. We did an exhaustive canvas of the area, didn't turn up anything."

Sondra closed her eyes, tears beginning to well beneath the lids. She wiped her eyes and looked at the detective. "Did you have any suspects? Any at all?"

Marion handed Sondra a Kleenex from the box on her desk. She waited for Sondra to dab her eyes and blow her nose before she continued.

"There wasn't any physical evidence to link Tracy Ellis to any suspect. Unfortunately, the snow and her being frozen like that... the trail started and ended cold." She cleared her throat and looked down, embarrassed. "Sorry."

"What about Phillip? What was his alibi?"

Marion looked back down at her notes. "At a conference in Milwaukee. Left the Thursday before your sister disappeared. Hundreds of people saw him over the course of the conference. His cell phone records indicated he talked to your sister when he said he had and the signals were bouncing off the right towers. The lobby cameras of the hotel he was staying at recorded him leaving for dinner Saturday evening with two people and came back with those same two people around ten. He was ruled out as a suspect immediately. Why?"

Sondra looked down at the desk, wondering whether to share the little bits of information she'd found out over the past few days. She herself still wasn't sure what to make of things.

"I'm just trying to understand what happened," she finally answered, deciding to hold on to what she had learned just a little bit longer.

"Besides, no one we questioned said anything about problems between the two. By all accounts, he was frantic over what may have happened to her."

"Yeah," Sondra sighed, tired by now of hearing that, especially after reading Tracy's diary and knowing about the imminent divorce. "I know."

"I've been doing this a long time, seen a lot of guilty husbands. Your brother-in-law didn't fit the profile. As hard as this is to hear, trust me when I tell you this was a senseless, random act."

Sondra chewed her bottom lip, not believing it was random at all. Her gaze drifted down to the case file open in front of Marion. "Are... " Sondra swallowed. "Are my sister's... pictures in there?"

Marion hesitated as she looked down at the file underneath her palm. "Yes, but Ms. Ellis-"

"Please? I just... I think it will give me closure."

Marion paused again before she relented. "Ok, but I have to warn you-these are pretty graphic."

"That's okay. Please. I want to see them."

Marion pressed her lips into a thin line as she looked at Sondra. Finally, she reached underneath the sheaf of papers in the case file and began to gather the last photos ever taken of Tracy Ellis. She handed them to Sondra gingerly.

"You don't have to do this-"

"I know," Sondra cut her off. With wobbly fingers, Sondra picked up the glossy stack. The picture on top was a front-facing shot. Having been under snow for so many days, the pictures revealed an eerie frozen death mask. The pink flesh and what had once been bright red blood, now an icy black sludge, mingled with the exposed white facial bones. One eyeball had fallen out of the socket and hung to the side and the whole thing looked like a big black hole where a face used to be.

But it wasn't the colors or intensity of the photos that made Sondra gasp.

"Ms. Ellis, I told you, this would be hard-"

"That's not it," Sondra whispered, her heart stuck in her throat. She looked up at Marion, tears cascading down her cheeks. "That's not Tracy."

"Ms. Ellis, faces look different in death, not to mention how brutal this was-"

Sondra's tears were flowing now as she continued to examine each photo, knowing it wasn't Tracy. "I'm telling you-that's not her. I looked at her every day for fifteen years until I left home for college." Sondra wiped her eyes. "And it's not her."

"Mr. Pearson positively identified her."

Sondra let out a bitter laugh as she tossed the stack onto the desk. "I don't care. It's not her." Sondra thumped the photos with her index finger. "I guarantee you, if my mother saw these photos, she would tell you the same thing."

Marion ran her tongue along her teeth. "You are absolutely positive about this?"

"I'm as sure of this as I'm sitting here. It's not her."

"So what are you saying?"

"I don't know, I don't know!" Sondra looked down at the dead woman's photos again. "And son of a bitch, the body was cremated," Sondra murmured. Sondra looked up. "Detective Wallace, I'm not sure what's going on, but I know my alarms are going off like crazy. I think yours should be too." She stood up and looked back down at the mangled woman in the photos.

"That woman is not my sister. I suggest you find out who she really is. And I don't know if that means my sister is dead or alive or what. All I know is, I have to find her, no matter what."

Sondra turned on her heel and walked out of the station.

THIRTY-NINE.

He had just started driving, with no real idea of what his next move should be, when the solution came to him. He stopped at a gas station and found a payphone.

It was time to call in a chit he never knew he'd need.

"Dr. Keegan."

"Keegan. Phillip Pearson."