His answer had been a laconic, Sure, why not? He told her she could stop by any time because he was almost always in.

So now she was standing in the hot, third-floor hallway of a rundown apartment building in the far-West Forties and afraid to take the next step. She'd dressed in a trim, businessy blue suit, the one she usually wore to meetings with art directors, and carried a pad and a tape recorder in her shoulder bag.

She wished she'd asked about Mrs. Portman-was she alive, were they still married, would she be home?

The fact that Tara had written "Mother" with no mention of her father might be significant; might say something about her relationship with her father; might even mean, as Jack had suggested, that he was involved in her disappearance.

But the fact remained that the ghost of Tara Portman had appeared to Gia and Gia alone, and that fact buzzed through her brain like a trapped wasp. She'd have no peace until she learned what Tara Portman wanted. That seemed to center on the mother she'd mentioned.

"Well, I've come this far," she muttered. "Can't stop now."

She knocked on the door. It was opened a moment later by a man in his mid-forties. Tara's blue eyes looked out from his jowly, unshaven face; his heavy frame was squeezed into a dingy T-shirt with yellowed armpits and coffee stains down the front, cut-off shorts, and no shoes. His longish dark blond hair stuck out in all directions.

"What?" he said.

Gia suppressed the urge to run. "I-I'm the reporter who called earlier?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah." He stuck out his hand. "Joe Portman. Come in."

A sour mix of old sweat and older food puckered Gia's nostrils as she stepped through the doorway into the tiny apartment, but she stifled her reaction. Joe Portman hustled around, turning off the TV and picking up scattered clothing from the floor and a sagging couch; he rolled them into a ball and tossed them into a closet.

"Sorry. Didn't expect you so soon." He turned to her. "Coffee?"

"Thanks, no. I just had some."

He dropped onto the couch and indicated the chair next to the TV for her.

"You know," he said, "this is really strange. The other night I was sitting right here, watching the Yankees, when I suddenly thought of Tara."

Gia seated herself carefully. "You don't usually think of her?"

He shrugged. "For too many years she was all I thought of. Look where it got me. Now I try not to think of her. My doctor at the clinic tells me let the past be past and get on with my life. I'm learning to do that. But it's slow. And hard."

A thought struck Gia. "What night was it when you had this sudden thought of Tara?"

"It was more than a thought, actually. For an instant, just a fraction of a second, I thought she was in the room. Then the feeling was gone."

"But when?"

He looked at the ceiling. "Let's see... the Yanks were playing in Oakland so it was Friday night."

"Late?"

"Pretty. Eleven or so, I'd guess. Why?"

"Just wondering," Gia said, hiding the chill that swept through her.

Joe Portman had sensed his daughter's presence during the earthquake under Menelaus Manor.

"Well, the reason I brought it up is, Friday night I get this feeling about Tara, then this morning you call wanting to do an article about her. Is that synchronicity or what?"

Synchronicity... not the kind of word Gia expected from someone who looked like Joe Portman.

"Life is strange sometimes," Gia said.

"That it is." He sighed, then looked at her. "Okay, reporter lady, what can I tell you?"

"Well, maybe we could start with how it happened?"

"The abduction? You can read about that in detail in all the old newspapers."

"But I'd like to hear it from you."

His eyes narrowed, his languid voice sharpened. "You sure you're a writer? You're not a cop, are you?"

"No. Not at all. Why do you ask?"

He leaned back and stared at his hands, folded in his lap. "Because I was a suspect for a while. Dot too."

"Dot is your wife?"

"Dorothy, yeah. Well, she was. Anyway, the cops kept coming up empty and... that was the time when stories about satanic cults and ritual abuse were big in the papers... so they started looking at us, trying to see if we were into any weird shit. Thank God we weren't or we might have been charged. It's hard to see how things could have worked out any worse, but that definitely would've been worse."

"How did it happen?"

He sighed. "I'll give you the short version." He glanced at her. "Aren't you taking notes?"

How dumb! she thought, reaching into her bag for her cassette recorder.

"I'd like to record this, if that's okay."

"Sure. We lived in Kensington. That's a section of Brooklyn. You know it?"

Gia shook her head. "I didn't grow up in New York."

"Well, it sounds ritzy, but it's not. It's just plain old middle class, nothing special. I worked for Chase here in the city, Dot worked out there as a secretary for the District 20 school board. We did okay. We liked Kensington because it was close to Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery. Believe it or not, we saw the cemetery as a plus. It's a pretty place." He looked down at his hands again. "Maybe if we'd lived somewhere else, Tara would still be with us."

"How did it happen?"

He sighed. "When Tara was eight we took her to Kensington stables up near the parade grounds. You know, so she could see the horses. One ride and she was an instant horse lover. Couldn't keep her away. So we sprung for riding lessons and she was a natural. For a year she rode three days a week-Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, and Saturday morning. On Thursdays she'd have to wait a little while before Dot could pick her up. We told her to stay at the stables-do not under any circumstances leave the stables. And for a year it worked out fine. Then one Thursday afternoon Dot arrived to pick her up-right on time, I want you to know-and... no Tara." His voice cracked. "We never saw or heard from her again."

"And no witnesses, no clues?"

"Not a single one. We did learn, though, that she hadn't listened to us. Folks at the stable said she used to leave for a few minutes on Thursdays and return with a pretzel-you know, the big kind they sell from the pushcarts. The cops found the pushcart guy who remembered her-said she came by every Thursday afternoon in her riding clothes-but he hadn't seen anything different that day. She bought a pretzel as usual and headed back toward the stable. But she never made it." He punched his thigh. "If only she'd listened."

"What was she like?" Gia said. "What did she like besides horses?"

"You want to know?" he said, pushing himself out of the sofa. "That's easy. I'll let you see for yourself."

He walked around the sofa and motioned Gia to follow. She found him standing over a black trunk with brass fittings. He pulled it a few feet closer to the window and opened the lid.

"There," he said, rising. "Go ahead. Take a look. That's all that's left of my little girl."

Gia knelt and looked but didn't touch. She felt as if she were violating someone, or committing a sacrilege. She saw a stack of unframed photos and forced herself to pick it up and shuffle through them: Shots of Tara at all ages. A beautiful child, even as an infant. She stopped at one with Tara sitting atop a big chestnut mare.

"That was Rhonda, Tara's favorite horse," Portman said, looking over her shoulder.

But Gia was transfixed on Tara's clothing: a red-and-white checked shirt, riding breeches, and boots. Exactly what she'd been wearing at Menelaus Manor.

"Did... did she wear riding clothes a lot?"

"That's what she was wearing when she disappeared. In colder weather she'd wear a competition coat and cap. Made her look like the heiress to an English estate. God she loved that horse. Would you believe she'd bake cookies for it? Big thick grainy things. The horse loved them. What a kid."