I waited. After a while the doors opened. There were two old-fashioned Perspex buttons, UP and DOWN. No key slot to override instructions from upstairs. A perfect trap. But I knew Tammy. She would never cry or sound childish in front of a man. I stepped in and pushed UP. The doors closed and the cage rose.

The doors opened to brick and blond wood, soaring spaces lit by bright halogen light, and there was Tammy, elevator key dangling from the thin chain she'd wrapped around her wrist, standing straight, and well dressed, but looking destroyed, torn up by the roots. She had just washed her face, but the lids were still puffy and she breathed through her mouth because her sinuses were still blocked from weeping.

I stepped from the cage. "Hello, Tammy."

"Aud?"

She looked behind me, as though expecting to see a young Hispanic woman dead on a pile of Prada couture on the elevator floor. The elevator doors closed. "Aud?" Then her hand went to her heart, as though someone had punched her, and her face turned a dirty gray. "Is Dornan here too?"

"No."

I'm not sure she heard me. She seemed about to topple with fear.

I took her by the elbow and considered. To the right, the stainless steel of a chef's kitchen; ahead, a short corridor with three closed doors; to the left, a vast living room with ivory leather furniture, a brilliant kilim worth more than a luxury car, and a minimalist audiovisual system flanked by two large plinths that supported what looked like nineteenth-century French bronzes. I steered her towards the living room. "Dornan doesn't know where you are. I didn't tell him. No one knows except me. Come and sit down."

She moved like an ill person, not drugged but docile, and unconfidently, as though the world were a dangerous place. Perhaps it was, or at least this part of it. I led her around a brick support pillar to a couch.

"Sit." She sat. The features were the same as Tammy's but this wasn't the Tammy I'd known. "Dornan is worried-" She began to blink rapidly. She couldn't be afraid of Dornan. Afraid of him seeing her like this? "He doesn't know where you are, and I won't tell him unless you want me to. He doesn't have to know about-" Distinct pallor. What had she done? "-any of this. But he's worried, so he asked me to find you and make sure you're all right. Are you? All right?"

Her eyes filled with tears but she made no move to reply. It was clear that she was very far from all right.

"I have a cab waiting downstairs. We can go to my hotel. We can talk. We'll drink tea. You can tell me what's going on. After that, you can come back here if you-"

"No!"

That seemed clear enough, so I stood, took her hand, helped her to her feet, and headed for the elevator.

"No!" she said again.

"You don't want to leave?"

"I mean ..." She made a vague gesture towards a closed door. "My things ..."

Her things. "Where is Karp-Geordie-when is he coming back?" But she had closed her eyes; she wasn't listening. "Give me the key. The elevator key."

Without the key, she couldn't leave, or let anyone else up. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew she was afraid. I didn't want to be surprised. She handed it over without protest, and I put it in my pocket. Behind the first closed door was a windowless office, almost bare but for a utilitarian desk on which stood a printer and small photocopier, and, against the wall, a self-contained video playback unit and a stack of tapes. A lateral filing cabinet, freestanding supply drawers. No fax, no phone, no computer. The second door hid a half bath. The third led to the bedroom, which appeared ordinary enough-king-size bed with crimson-covered duvet, two dressers, a lovely eighteenth-century beechwood armoire, thick cream rug, reading lamps, long, heavy crimson curtains-but felt strange. I stood there for a moment, trying to work out where the oddness lay, then dismissed it. Tammy's purse sat on the bed. I tipped out the contents to make sure that keys, wallet with credit cards, Georgia driver's license, health insurance-all the personal essentials-were there, then shoveled everything back in. The master bath yielded two bottles of prescription pills and one cream, and contact lens paraphernalia. No watch. I took a toothbrush for good measure, and a comb, and added them to her bag. On the way back through the bedroom, I opened the dresser drawer and scooped out a handful of hose and underwear. Glasses from the bedside table. Was that everything she'd need for twenty-four hours? I didn't want to have to take my eyes off her for a while. Something else, something else ... Ring. She hadn't been wearing Dornan's ring. An antique jewelry chest, also eighteenth-century, but made of some dense tropical wood I wasn't familiar with, sat on the second dresser, but I couldn't find the ring. I tipped everything out, stirred it with my finger. No ring. Back to the bedside table. Nothing. Bathroom: no jewelry case. I went through the medicine cabinet more carefully. Nothing. I paused. This was Karp's apartment; his ownership was apparent everywhere, from the precisely placed bronzes to the orderly kitchen to the matching leather furniture. Tammy had not made a single impression: she didn't feel safe here. An engagement ring was personal, perhaps even precious, something to keep private, hidden. I went back to the underwear drawer, pulled it out, tipped it onto the bed. Nothing. Dornan still meant something to her or she wouldn't be so afraid of him seeing her like this; she would have kept the ring. I shook out each pair of underpants, one at a time, put them back in the drawer. Opened the packets of hose. Began unfolding the sock pairs. I found it in the third pair, tucked down near the toe.

Back in the hallway, Tammy still stood by the elevator. I held out the bag but she took no notice of it. I used the key, and when the elevator opened she stepped in without a word.

She didn't say anything when I gave her the bag and opened the cab door, nor when Joe turned to look at her black hair, chocolate brown eyes and full figure, then at my height and light blue eyes, and said, "Sister, huh?"

I gave him the other half of the hundred-dollar bill. "Different fathers."

"Uh-huh."

I gave him another fifty. He drove.

"We're going to the Hilton," I told Tammy. She stared through me as though I were talking in algebra. Her pupils looked normal, she wasn't flushed or overly pale, and her breath came smoothly; she was not drugged; she had removed herself somehow, as though she had given up all responsibility for herself, or hope. Dornan had said she was smarter than I gave her credit for. What would he make of this?

We pulled up outside the hotel. "We're getting out here," I told her. She climbed out obediently. I sighed and reached back into the cab for her bag. Joe drove off without a backward glance. I held the bag out; she took it. "This way." She followed me through the lobby, crowded now with guests checking their watches and exuding stress and impatience. "We'll be in my room soon," but she didn't seem bothered by so many bodies all trying to breathe the same air, the same molecules that had just slithered down one red throat, then back up, to be snatched by the phlegmy lungs of a passing bellboy, who exhaled near the mouth of an old woman whose heart was probably as weak as her watery eyes. My clothes felt too tight. I wanted to punch my way to the street and not stop running until I reached Central Park and could lean against a maple trunk and look up into the leaves and believe I was not in the middle of ten million people; but here was Tammy, standing by the elevators, empty as a gourd, and Dornan, my friend, needed me to make sure she was safe.

The elevator opened and Tammy just stood there. I began to shake. I lifted my hand, but turned it instead into a light touch on her elbow and a gesture. "In. We have to go up."

Halfway up she began to weep silently, but her expression didn't change.

"You're safe," I said, wondering if I was lying. "We're almost there."

A couple was waiting at the twenty-second floor to go down. The younger of the two noticed Tammy's tears and gave me a sharp look, but neither of them said anything.

Housekeeping had already tidied and cleaned the room; with my personal things hidden behind doors, it felt as comforting as an autoclave. I sat Tammy down on the edge of the nearest bed and went round turning on all the lights. The dim yellow glow added some warmth to the room. I closed the curtains to make her feel safer. "I'm going to run you a bath, and I'll order some food while you're relaxing." Tammy just sat there. I took her hand and tugged her gently towards the bathroom. Her hand was cold. "The bath will get you warm." The water gushed into the tub. I made sure there was soap, that the bath mat was on the floor. The chlorinated water frothed on itself, water so clean it was dead. I tried to ignore the automaton breathing behind me. The tub filled. As though she were a child, I tested the temperature of the water with the back of my hand. I turned off the taps. "I'll shut the door, but I'm just out here if you need me."

I listened outside the door. There was no snick of the lock, but after a moment I heard the soft plash of flesh meeting water, and moved away.

I called room service, ordered tea and coffee, sandwiches, water, juice.

No matter how many lights you turn on, hotel rooms are always too dark and always too small, and when you press your face up against the glass, all the people so many stories below always seem to have more freedom than you do. Even the people in the building opposite, harshly lit by fluorescents in their office cubicles, seemed to have fuller lives. One man wearing a shirt and suspenders kept scratching at his sandy-haired head with a pencil. He held a phone in his right hand and the pencil in his left, talk talk scratch scratch, then he swapped hands, scratch scratch talk talk. If the pencil was sharp, he would have tiny rips all over his scalp.

Stationary cabs lined up like golden beetles down the center of Fifth, glittering in the strange New York sunshine. In any other city on earth the drivers would have been standing by their cars, arms folded, leaning against hoods and gossiping.

No noise from the bathroom. To the left of the office building, a huge sign spelled out ESSEX HOUSE backwards. Sandy Hair put down his pencil and scratched fiercely at his temple with his fingernails, exactly the way a squirrel would, only much more slowly. Cabs opened their doors, closed them, and drove off with fares. Other cabs took their place.

Someone rapped on the door and announced that they were room service. When I opened the door, a rotund woman, crisp as a freshly baked dinner roll in her white jacket, pushed the cart briskly into the room. I stepped in front of her before she could go any further. "I'll take it." I signed the tab and herded her out.

Sandy Hair was still scratching his scalp. I set the table up so one chair faced the corner and the other the door. "Room service is here," I called to Tammy. I lifted plate rings, poured tea, divided sandwiches. I ate one. Tuna salad. No sound from the bathroom. I sipped tea. Not made with boiling water. Tammy was probably sitting in the bath with her mouth hanging open. She hardly knew me, yet here she was, depending on my goodwill, like a child. Selfish, like a child. What gave her the right to assume I'd just take care of everything? There was no way to know what to do with her. It was obvious she didn't want to see or be seen by Dornan, but I couldn't leave her on her own in this state; I didn't trust her to look after herself. I didn't trust her, full stop. If I got her in my truck and drove to Atlanta, or anywhere else for that matter, I wouldn't put it past her to cry kidnap when she recovered her wits.

"Tammy. Food," I called again. Nothing. The bathwater was probably getting cold. Maybe that would prompt some movement.

I will find her, I had told Dornan, but all I'd found was a shell. I had no idea how to go about finding the rest.

I poured myself more tea and took it over to the bed nearest the door where Tammy's bag lay on its side next to the pillows. Cup in one hand, I opened the bag with the other and tipped it upside down, stirred the spilled contents with one finger. The two plastic bottles both held the same thing, Ambien, a prescription sleeping pill. I put them on the bedside table, along with the ring, the contact lens case and its solutions, and the glasses. I stuffed everything else back in except for the underwear, which I put in the drawer next to the one that held mine. No clues.

I put my empty cup back on the room service trolley. That bathwater would be really uncomfortable by now.

"Tammy?" I knocked on the door, listened. Nothing. "Tammy?"

Memory of my dream about the woman dead in the bath made my knees sag as though I were in a high-speed elevator braking to a halt. I hammered on the door. "Tammy!" I turned the handle and slammed into the door, forgetting it wasn't locked.

Tammy wasn't sitting in her own blood, her eyes weren't rolled up, she wasn't floating facedown. She was hunched, knees under her chin, at one end of the bath, weeping silently, great fat tears falling like fruit onto her thighs. The ends of her hair were wet. Eight hundred miles for this.

"Get up," I said. She was alive, and she didn't care, didn't understand how precious that was. "Get up!" Her face was quite still and calm. If it were not for the body language and the tears, I might have thought she was meditating. She was removed, no longer caring; life wasn't worth living but there wasn't enough of her left for her to bother killing herself. Maybe she wanted me to do it for her.

"Let's get you out of there. Come on now, Tammy, come on." I took one of the towels from the rack and held it out encouragingly. "It's lovely and soft and warm. Come along now." She blinked slowly. I slung the towel around my neck and leaned down. "I'm going to put my hands under your arms, that's it, just like that, and lift you out, that's it, move your legs, that's right. And now you have to step over the rim, onto the mat." Her skin felt firm and cold, meat waiting to be cut. "Put this towel around you. Yes, yes, come on now." She made no move to pull the towel closed about her. I left it draped over her shoulders and got another one. "A good, brisk rub and you'll be fine. And when you're dry, I'll put you to bed. There's tea, and food if you want it. And perhaps a bit of television. The door's locked, no one can come in or out. You can sleep. You're safe." I opened the bathroom door, put my right arm around her waist, and took her left hand in mine to lead her forward. "Here we go. Here. This bed. You sit right there. I'll turn on the television." She sat obediently, unconscious of her seminakedness, while I flipped through channels until I found a soothing natural history program about domestic cats. "Stand up just a minute while I pull back the covers. There we go. Sit down. Now swing your legs up." Flash of skin, smooth now, warmer. She smelled of towel. "Lie down, that's right. Here, let me take the towel. What you need right now is some sleep." The food could wait. I tucked the bedclothes around her shoulders and under her chin. She closed her eyes obediently. I sat next to her on the bed. "You're safe. I'll be sitting near the window, right here. You sleep." Maybe I should give her a sleeping pill. Her breathing deepened. Just as I eased off the bed her eyes flicked open, and they were frightened.

"What time is it?"

I glanced at the bedside clock. "Two fifty-three. In the afternoon."

She followed my glance to the clock, wouldn't take her eyes off it.

"Here." I moved it so it was closer, and facing her. She looked at me, back at the clock, at the curtains.

"Open the curtains."

"You'll sleep better if they're-" Her eyes started to go dead again. "Okay. Hold on."

I opened them. She looked at the concrete building, the blue sky, back at the clock. "Afternoon?"

"Yes."

"Two fifty-three?"

"Two fifty-four, now."

She nodded slightly to herself and fell asleep as though someone had pulled the plug.

I settled myself in the armchair near the window. Taxis honked; sirens grew, dopplered, faded. On the TV, an orange kitten chased floating dandelion seeds through the sunlight of a summer garden. I did not know what to make of Tammy's behavior. Fear might explain some of it, but fear of what? She had had a key, she could have left anytime, or if she was scared of something outside the apartment, she could just have picked up the phone. Except, of course, there hadn't been a phone.

The kittens were replaced by some woman with a Canadian accent demonstrating the art of stenciling in home decor.

Tammy woke after an hour. She didn't sit up or say anything, just gasped, and her respiration rate went up. Then she started turning her head very, very slowly towards the clock, as though her life depended on me not knowing she was awake.

"I'm here," I said. She froze. After a moment she turned her head to look at me. "Are you hungry yet? The sandwiches are still here. The drinks have gone cold, though, so if you want tea or coffee, we'd have to order more."

"Where are we?"

"The Hilton."

She looked at the clock. It seemed to reassure her.

"The tuna salad sandwiches aren't bad." I put one on a small plate, added a napkin and the saltshaker, and brought it over to the bed. She looked at it as though it were a snake. I put it down near the clock. "Food is almost always a good idea." She reached for it without sitting up, careful not to let the covers slide off her shoulders. Well, well. "I'll bring you a robe." I put it on the bed and withdrew to the bathroom for a couple of minutes, where I folded her corduroys and cashmere, and when I came back she had taken a bite and was chewing. I poured her some water and brought that over, too. She was still chewing the same bite. "Swallowing comes next."

She swallowed obediently. I sighed, and she flinched and dropped the sandwich, which made me sigh harder with irritation, and she shrank back against the headboard.

"What's the matter with you?"

"I don't know what you want," she said in a small voice.

I stared at her. The Tammy I had first met nearly two years ago would have walked naked down Peachtree Street before it occurred to her to wonder what anyone but herself wanted. She studied her sandwich fixedly. "I want you to eat that sandwich, if you can, and drink some water. Then I want you to sleep again. I want you to know you're safe. And then tonight we'll decide what to do."

She looked at the clock again, and picked up the sandwich.

As I'd thought, the carbohydrates combined with whatever shock she'd had sent her off to sleep again within a few minutes. I got up and turned the heat down, then went back to alternately looking out of the window and watching the television. The Canadian woman was now demonstrating color glazing. Every time the camera pulled back, the word "cheap" hovered brassily in the corners of the small, flimsy set; the wall wobbled as she leaned on it. To the English, cheap is not a pejorative word, simply descriptive, and usually delivered with an air of triumph: "I got these jeans cheap at the market!" In the United States, of course, cheap means shoddy, tacky, gimcrack; I didn't know a single American who would boast of buying something cheaply. Where were the Canadians on the cheap scale? Perhaps they followed the same cultural and geographic axis as the country in general: more European in Quebec, more American in Vancouver.

The chattering Canadian came to an abrupt end, and was replaced by an earnest magazine program dealing with health care for the mentally disabled. A while later I began learning more than anyone needed to know of the reproductive cycle of emperor penguins.

Sandy Hair and his coworkers had just begun to pack up to leave when I realized Tammy was awake and watching me. When I looked at her, she lowered her gaze in the universal primate gesture of submission. I should have noticed her wake, but, like a prey animal, she had learned to move quietly. Interesting. She seemed to have her wits about her, now.

"Good evening. It's pretty dark outside. You're not wearing much and this room is lit up like a stage. I'm going to close the curtains."

No protest this time. She sat up, touched her bare shoulder with her left hand. "You undressed me."

"Yes."

Silence, then: "Have you told Dornan anything?"

"No."

Another silence. "I want to leave."

"The door's right there. You have money in your purse."

"No. I mean, I want us to leave New York."

"Us?"

She didn't say anything.

"Is someone looking for you?"

"I have to leave now," she said.

"I'll be driving back south, but-"

"I don't want to go to Atlanta!"

"I'm not going to Atlanta, and I'm not leaving until tomorrow-unless you want to talk to me, tell me why you need to leave right now."

"Where are my glasses?"

"Right there next to the water."

She found the case, put on the steel-rims. I expected the gaze she turned on me to be sharper, but it was as blank as before. "Why can't we leave now?"

We. The I-can't-cope-by-myself ploy was something I had seen her use before, but not like this. This time there was no glint in her eye, no upthrust breast or canted hip, just a frightening brokenness.

I didn't want to stay in this hotel, in this city, another night anyway. "I'll pack while you dress."

CHAPTER FIVE.

Midnight, and a black autumn wind was trying to push the truck this way and that as we crossed the southern edge of Maryland. Tammy slept in the passenger seat, right hand curled around her left wrist and the cheap watch we'd bought her at the airport. All she'd done since I'd taken her from that apartment this morning was sleep.

"It's a shock reaction," Julia said. She sat sideways on Tammy's lap, facing me. "A way to hide. You hide in the woods, Tammy hides in her dreams." She stroked Tammy's face gently, moving the back of one finger up her cheek, as if catching a tear. The muscles in my legs tensed and the truck jumped forward. "Where's the fire?" she said.