"She's right," said Mallory from the open doorway. "Your walls might be too thick. If the Reaper was in your guest room, cutting the doctor to pieces, you'd never hear the screams. I'll stay in her hotel room tonight."

This was clearly not an offer on Mallory's part, but a hard statement of fact and no great favor to the doctor. Johanna Apollo was not smiling anymore.

Mallory stood by the spice rack, absently rearranging the bottles so that every label faced forward in perfect alignment, and the older woman watched with great interest. What would Dr. Apollo make of this show of compulsive neatness? Charles felt suddenly protective of Mallory, as though she stood naked, her vulnerability publicly exposed. He wondered what else had been observed and how close the psychiatrist might have come to a dangerous truth. And, if the doctor should guess right, how might she make use of that information?

Riker entered the kitchen wearing a happy glow that did not come from the wine. His glass was still full. "I'm hungry," he said.

Dinner was served quietly and without any more ceremony than the lighting of a single candle at the center of the table. Riker seemed unaware of any tension between the two women as he took his seat opposite Johanna Apollo, who might as well be the only occupant of the kitchen. He seemed – content. And this went deeper than his standard laid-back countenance; he was happy for the first time in many months. The cause could only be Johanna, and Charles's gratitude was boundless.

When the candle had melted halfway down and they were nearing the last course of dinner, the conversation turned to the subject of lawyers. "It's a fascinating dilemma for the ACLU," said Charles. Johanna nodded. "They always seem to pick the causes that paint them in a bad light, but this one is just too bizarre. The justice system is their raison d'etre, and here they are helping Ian Zachary to dismantle it." "One could almost feel sorry for them," said Charles. "Hey," said Riker, "they're lawyers!" In his economy of words, this meant that, whatever their predicament, the civil-rights attorneys had it coming to them.

While Charles busied himself with setting fire to the bananas flambe, he wondered why Mallory was the only one not on a first-name basis with Johanna Apollo. As he set down the flaming desserts in front of his guests, in one frightened corner of his mind, he theorized that she was keeping a professional distance from this woman. Perhaps Mallory did not expect the doctor to survive. However, there was an alternate and equally good explanation, and now he chose to believe that Mallory simply did not like sharing friends with other people.

A beeping noise interrupted his thoughts, and only Charles, the confirmed Luddite, sat perfectly still as the others checked their cell phones. It was Mallory's, and she rose from the table to take her phone call in the privacy of the next room.

Upon returning to the kitchen, she said, "That was Ian Zachary. He's out on bail, and he wants to see me tonight."

This did not sit well with Riker, who checked his watch. "They're gonna let him go back on the air?"

"Not tonight," said Mallory. "He's suspended pending a hearing tomorrow. That should minimize the damage. Even if he gets a lead on the missing juror, he won't expose the man till he's back on the air. We've got twenty-four hours to find the Reaper or his next victim." She stood behind Johanna's chair, leaning down to ask, "Any ideas about where we should start looking?"

Johanna lowered her head and remained silent.

"Never mind, Doctor. We can talk about that later." Mallory turned her back on the woman and walked toward the kitchen door, saying, "Charles will drive you back to your hotel." Her hand was on the doorknob when she added, with just the suggestion of a threat, "I'll catch up to you later."

"I'll go with you," said Riker.

Slightly annoyed, Mallory turned around, obviously preparing to tell Riker that he was not invited. And now she discovered that he had not spoken to her; his eyes were on Johanna Apollo. Only Charles took note of Mallory's expression, for it was quick to surface but more quickly hidden, and he put a name to it – abandonment.

"Needleman's using an alias." Mallory inspected the door to the producer's booth and its premium lock hyped as pickproof. But this was nothing approaching the advanced technology for the door to the studio. "The address you gave me is bogus and so is the social security number." In anticipation of Ian Zachary's next question, she said, "Your producer's contract is still legal as long as there's no attempt to defraud. You can report the fake number to IRS on suspicion of tax fraud, but I promise you – ten Treasury agents will not show up to break down this door."

"You have to do something."

"Why are you whispering?"

Zachary turned his back on her and paced the floor in front of the producer's booth, occasionally glancing at the locked door.

Mallory sighed. This was going to be a long night. "Needleman never threatened you, right? So what's the real problem?"

"He watches me. I know he does." Zachary's voice was more normal now that he had been shamed out of the whispering mode. "The bastard gives me the creeps."

"Needleman. A man you've never met." Could she make it more clear that he was wasting her time?

"His window is always dark," said Zachary, "but I can feel his eyes on me. I'm telling you this man is insane. Now, normally that's a prerequisite for my staff, but I'm not the one who hired him. He's under contract to the network."

"But your station manager knows Needleman, right?" "Yes, but they only met once for the interview. My lawyer got me a copy of Needleman's contract. There's a clause that says he never has to personally deal with me."

"So that's the problem. He's outside of your control. Smart man." If not for the wine drunk tonight, she might have dialed back the sarcasm. No, probably not. "You think Needleman knows you killed the last producer? You only mention that murder every night on the radio."

Zachary faced the door to the booth. "You see this lock? It's relatively new. I didn't have it installed, and my contract's supposed to give me complete control of security. Needleman put that lock on his door, and he has the only key. How paranoid is that? He's the only producer at the station who locks the damn booth while we're on the air."

His jitters increased when Mallory rested her hand on the knob. She smiled. "He might be a fan. That's what you're thinking, isn't it? Judging by the calls you get, I'd say most of them are a little disturbed."

"What if he's the missing juror? You were supposed to find that man for me, remember? Well, suppose, after all this time and money, he was right here, hiding in this booth all along?"

Mallory decided to give Zachary a little thrill by pulling out a velvet pouch of lock picks and allowing him to watch her in the act of breaking and entering, thus giving him some value for the very large check that Highland Security would never be able to cash.

"It's illegal to carry burglar tools," she said. "If you ever rat me out, I'll have to hurt you. Understood?"

Perverse bastard, he seemed to like that idea.

The lock yielded, and the knob turned easily under her hand. And now, to give him his full money's worth, she pulled her gun from the shoulder holster, then opened the door – to an empty booth. She flicked on the light to see the same meager floor space as the sound booth on the other side of the hall. It also had a window spanning the length of one short wall and looking in on the larger area of the studio. The console of this small room had one pair of speakers, a headset and little else in the way of technical equipment. Clipboards with schedules hung from hooks on the rear wall, and the wastebasket held more than one man's debris. "How many people use this room during the day?"