'And what then? Visser killed her?' Abe had his arms crossed again. He was at full length in the chrome and weave kitchen chair, his legs outstretched. A muscle in his jaw clenched and unclenched.

'I don't know,' Hardy said. Then added somberly, 'Maybe he killed Ridley too.'

'We don't know that Ridley's dead yet,' Treya said hopefully.

Hardy looked at her levelly. 'Yes we do,' he said softly.

'Abe?'

Glitsky nodded. 'Probably.'

'Well, then…' She looked from one to the other. 'We should-'

'Same problem,' Glitsky said. 'We need evidence. And Visser used to be a homicide inspector. He knows the tricks. He isn't going to leave much.'

Hardy stood, went over to the refrigerator and opened it up, then stopped and turned. 'I've got one for you, Treya. Are any of the musketeers on the special master list?'

She rubbed her eyes. 'All of them, I think. We were talking about it. Why?'

'Because the case Elaine was working on in Logan's office is still open. I checked with Thomasino. It might be worth taking a look.'

'Do it!' Glitsky came forward excitedly, up on his feet.

Hardy gave him a baleful look. 'I've got to check for sure, but I think I've got other commitments over the next day or two.' Then, to Treya, 'But I'm thinking one of the kids…'

Hardy was gone at last and Rita kicked Abe and Treya out of the kitchen so she could do the dinner dishes. Together in the cramped living room with barely room to turn around without touching one another, they cast about for the better part of five minutes, looking for ways to ignore the sexual tension that hummed like a guywire between them. Since the first night, they hadn't even kissed, and in those first moments, that is all they had done.

Treya found her purse and pulled out the two sheets of folded paper she'd torn from the yellow legal pad she'd been using at lunch. 'You were talking to Diz about evidence, Abe, and you really haven't even looked at the box that Curtis brought back from Tiburon. There might be something there.'

'I already looked in it.' 'He said defensively. 'I'm not being defensive.'

She gave him an expression he'd already come to think of as the thousand-year-old look, as though she'd known him that long.

'I did go through it, Trey,' he insisted. 'And got to Loretta's picture and stopped, didn't you?' In fact, he had taken it entirely out of the box in Hardy's building and laid it face down on the Solarium table. He didn't want to see Loretta's face, to be reminded of Elaine's mother, especially now that he was beginning to be involved with Treya. For the truth was, Loretta had been in his life more recently than a quarter century before. Only four years ago, she had waltzed back in and from his perspective tried to re-stake her ancient claim to his heart. And, starving for contact after Flo's death, he'd almost let her have it. It shamed him still – he didn't need the reminder of how close he'd come, how weak he'd been. How for Loretta it had all been a calculated lie. Treya was altogether different, he told himself. Nothing about her was the same. And she was right – he was being foolishly defensive. He held out his hand, the corners of his mouth up fractionally. 'OK, let me see the darn list.' He opened the pages and stopped immediately. 'What's this first thing? Empty drawer?'

Their legs happened to be close enough to touch when she sat on the couch. 'I didn't want to forget that, so I just wrote it first.' She told him about the discussion when Curtis had first mentioned it.

'But what does it mean?' Abe asked.

'We couldn't figure it out, but all new theories are welcome.'

Giving it a minute, he finally shrugged and went back to her list. She got up then, saying she was going in to check on the kids, maybe help Rita with the dishes. Treya wasn't comfortable with somebody else waiting on her. So she was in the kitchen, an apron around her, speaking reasonable Spanish to Glitsky's housekeeper and drying a serving platter, when Glitsky appeared back in the kitchen doorway. 'At the bottom of the first page,' he said. 'What's this unknown key?' He crossed the kitchen and showed her what she'd written.

'Oh, I've got that,' she said. 'It's in my purse.' With apologies to Rita, she put down her towel and reappeared a minute later. 'It was in the glove compartment of Elaine's car, which was parked down under R and J in the garage. Jon found it, I think, and threw it in the box. Do you know what it is?'

'Yeah,' Glitsky said. 'I think I do.'

'We shouldn't be doing this anymore, Abe. It's almost eleven thirty. You need to get some rest.'

'I doubt it. I'm not going to get any rest anyway. Not until we find where this key goes.'

'Are you sure it's a locker?'

A brisk nod. 'Yep.' Then he looked over at her, reached a hand across the seat to touch her thigh. 'I'm sorry,' he said, and added in a reasonable tone, 'I can take you home and come back and do this myself.'

She gave him the thousand year look again, the long smile. 'In your dreams, Lieutenant.'

That's not what I dream.' He looked at her. 'Besides, we can blame Rita. She kicked us out. It's her fault.'

'She only kicked us as far as the living room.'

'Where you had me look at your list, which brings us here.'

'But the kids?'

'The kids are fine. If this turns out to be something, Trey, we need it yesterday, you know.'

She nodded, accepting it. 'I know.'

'Well, then…'

The bus station was closest to his home and had by far the largest bank of lockers downtown, but Glitsky thought a better first bet might be the Union Square garage, a hundred yards from where Elaine had been killed. But the key fitted none of the lockers there. Then, since they were so close, they walked a block to the Downtown Center Garage, with the same lack of result.

Glitsky knew this search was quite possibly futile and even stupid. It was the kind of thing that, as a lieutenant, if it was important enough, he would assign to three or four teams of officers, and give them a week. The city must have a couple of thousand rental lockers, maybe more, and it wasn't even certain that this key was from a San Francisco locker. But he felt he had to try. They might get lucky at the bus station as they swung by on the way home.

Close to midnight on a Wednesday night and the area around the bus station, he noted as he illegally parked, was in its usual gala finery. He hadn't had occasion to visit the place in five years, but it looked, smelled and felt now as it had back then.

He took Treya's hand against the vagrants and the noise, the pervasive loneliness and desperation. The loudspeaker cut through the Snoop Doggy Dog rap to announce the arrival of a bus from Bakersfield, and a baby started crying on one of the plastic chairs over to his left. He and Treya shared a look, and decided that this was it. They would try again tomorrow. He could probably just go to Paul Thieu first thing, who would take one look at the key and tell him it was obvious from the distinctive red plastic top, upon which was printed the number 1138.

Which was there in front of them on the bottom row in the third bank back from the entrance. And suddenly the rap music and the crying and the smell of loneliness were gone.

He put the key in and turned.

Inside was a small, black, anonymous flight bag of the kind used by flight attendants. On top of that was a sheaf of stuff bound by a thick rubber band. Glitsky reached in and took it out into the light, stripping off the rubber band. On top was a passport, and under that a rather thick booklet of hundred-dollar traveler's checks. Then documents in an airline ticket pouch from Alitalia Airlines. 'Did she mention going to Italy?'

Treya was counting the money, but she looked up from that, thought a moment, shook her head. 'No.'