He moved to the back and ran his finger along some of the bookshelves. I read titles.

More Theroux. Jan Morris. Bruce Chatwin.

Atlases. Books of landscape photography. Travelogues dating from the Victorian age to modern times. Audubon birding guides to the West. Fielding Guides to everywhere else. Seventy years of National Geographic in brown binders. Bound collections of Smithsonian, Oceans, Natural History, Travel, Sport Diver, Connoisseur.

For the first time since he’d arrived at the mansion, Milo looked troubled. But only momentarily. He scanned the rest of the bookcases, said, “Seems like we’ve got a theme going here.”

Melissa didn’t answer.

Neither did I.

No one daring to put the obvious into words.

We went back into the bedroom. Melissa seemed subdued.

Milo said, “Where does she keep her bankbooks and financial records?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure she keeps anything here.”

“Why’s that?”

“Her banking’s handled for her- by Mr. Anger, over at First Fiduciary Trust. He’s the president. His father knew mine.”

“Anger,” said Milo, writing it down. “Know the number offhand?”

“No. The bank’s on Cathcart- just a few blocks from where you turn off to get here.”

“Any idea how many accounts she keeps there?”

“Not the foggiest. I have two- my trust account and one that I use for expenses.” Meaningful pause. “Father wanted it that way.”

“What about your stepdad? Where does he bank?”

“I have no idea.” Kneading her hands.

“Any reason to think he’s in any financial trouble?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“What kind of restaurant does he run?”

“Steak and beer.”

“Does he seem to do pretty well?”

“Well enough. He brings in lots of imported beers. In San Labrador, that’s considered exotic.”

“Speaking of which,” said Milo, “I could use a drink- juice or soda. With ice. Is there a refrigerator up here with something in it?”

She nodded. “There’s a service kitchen at the end of the staff wing. I can get you something from there. What about you, Dr. Delaware?”

“Sure,” I said.

Milo said, “Coke.”

I said I’d have the same.

She said, “Two Cokes.” Waited.

“What is it?” said Milo.

“Are you finished in here?”

He looked around one more time. “Sure.”

We passed through the sitting room and went out into the hall. Melissa closed the door and said, “Two Cokes. I’ll be right back.”

When she was gone, I said, “So what do you think?”

“What do I think? That money sure don’t buy no happiness, brutha. That room”- cocking a thumb at the door-“it’s like a goddamn hotel suite. Like she came in on the Concorde, unpacked, went out to see the sights. How the hell could she live like that, not leaving a piece of herself anywhere? And what the hell did she do with herself all day?”

“Read and toned her muscles.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Travel books. It’s like a bad joke. Some shlock movie director’s version of irony.”

I said nothing.

He said, “What? Think I’ve lost my sense of compassion?”

“You’re talking about her in the past tense.”

“Do me a favor, don’t interpret. I’m not saying she’s dead, just that she’s gone. My gut feeling is she’s been planning to fly the coop for a while, finally gathered enough courage and did it. Probably jamming that Rolls along Route 66 with the windows open, singing at the top of her lungs.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t see her abandoning Melissa.”

He gave a small, hard laugh. “Alex, I know she’s your patient and you obviously like her, but from what I’ve seen, the kid grates. You heard what she said about Mommy never raising her voice to her. That normal? Maybe Mommy finally blew her stack. See the way she treated Ramp? And suggesting to me I investigate him without any solid reason to? I couldn’t put up with that shit for very long. Course, I don’t have a Ph.D. in kiddy psych. But neither does Mommy.”

I said, “She’s a good kid, Milo. Her mother’s disappeared. Time to cut her a little slack, don’t you think?”

“Was she sweetness and light before Mommy split? You yourself said she pulled a fit and ran out on Mommy yesterday.”

“Okay, she can be difficult. But her mother cared about her. The two of them are close. I just don’t see her running out.”

“No offense,” he said, “but how well do you really know the lady, Alex? You met her once. She used to be an actress. And in terms of their being close, think of it: never yelling at a kid. For eighteen years? No matter how good a kid is, they’re gonna bear some yelling once in a while, right? The lady must have been sitting on a powder keg. Anger at what McCloskey did to her. At losing her husband. At being stuck up here because of her problems. That’s one giant keg, right? The fight with the kid was what finally lit it- the kid mouthed off one time too many. Mom waited a long time for her to come back, and when she didn’t, she said fuck it, to hell with reading about distant places, let’s go see some.”

I said, “Assuming you’re right, do you think she’ll come back?”

“Yeah, probably. She didn’t take much with her. But who knows?”

“So what’s next? More placebo?”

“Not more. The placebo hasn’t started yet. When I scoped out the room it was for real. Trying to get a feel for her. As if it were a crime scene. And you know, even with all the bloody rooms I’ve been in, that place ranks up there on the Freaky Scale. It felt… empty. Bad vibes. I saw jungles in Asia that made me feel like that. Dead silent, but you knew something was going on beneath the surface.”

He shook his head. “Listen to me. Vibes. I sound like some New Age asshole.”

“No,” I said. “I felt it, too. Yesterday, when I was here, the house reminded me of an empty hotel.”

He rolled his eyes, flashed a Halloween mask grimace, clawed his hands, and scraped at the air.

“The Rrrich Motel,” he said in a Lugosi accent. “They check in, but they don’t check out.”

I laughed. Totally tasteless. But it felt cruelly good. Like the jokes that flew around at staff meetings back in my hospital days.

He said, “I figure the best thing to do is give it a couple of days of my time. Chances are she’ll be back by then. The alternative is for me to quit right now, but all that would do is spook both the kid and Ramp and send them rushing to someone else. At least with me they won’t get ripped off. Might as well be my seventy an hour.”

“Meant to ask you about that,” I said. “You told me fifty.”

“It was fifty. Then I drove up and saw the house. Now that I’ve seen more of the interior, I’m sorry I didn’t make it ninety.”

“Sliding scale?”

“Absolutely. Share the wealth. Half an hour in this place and I’m ready to vote socialist.”

“Maybe Gina felt the same way,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“You saw how few clothes she had. And the sitting room. The way she redecorated. Ordering from a catalogue. Maybe she just wanted out.”

“Or maybe it’s just reverse snobbery, Alex. Like owning expensive art and storing it upstairs.”

I was about to tell him about the Cassatt in Ursula Cunningham-Gabney’s office but was interrupted by Melissa, returning with two glasses. At her heels were Madeleine and two stocky Hispanic women in their thirties who came up to the Frenchwoman’s shoulder, one with long plaited hair, the other with a short shag cut. If they’d removed their white uniforms for the evening, they’d put them back on. Along with fresh makeup. They looked hyper-alert and wary, travelers passing through Customs at a hostile port.

“This is Detective Sturgis,” Melissa said, handing us the Cokes. “He’s here to figure out what happened to Mother. Detective, meet Madeleine de Couer, Lupe Ortega, and Rebecca Maldonado.”