“Daria-”

“Don’t,” she told him. “Just…don’t try to talk me out of this.”

“I just want you to be sure that-”

“Shut up, Connor.”

He laughed softly and joined her on the bed. His mouth sought hers, his tongue playing at the corners of her mouth. She parted her lips and teased his tongue with her own. He raised himself on one elbow and stroked her body with his free hand. She was barely aware of her legs wrapping around his hips to draw him closer and closer, or her fingers unbuttoning her top to free herself for him. When his mouth closed over her breast, her brain turned itself off and her body went on autopilot. The last thing she remembered was Connor whispering her name over and over and over. Everything after that was lost, drowned in an intensity of emotion and sensation that took her breath away and left her feeling stunned.

Afterward she lay against his chest, listening to his beating heart. She felt as if she could stay right there in that moment forever-until his phone started to ring.

Connor groaned and rolled over, and searched through his clothes on the floor for his phone.

“This had better be damned important,” he growled at the caller.

He sat up straight.

“When?” He listened for another minute, then said, “Save it. I’m on my way.”

He closed the phone and turned to Daria. “I hate to do this to you, but that was Chief Thorpe. The kid just tried to hang himself with his T-shirt.”

“Oh my God. He’s not…?”

“No. The guard on duty stopped him, but they don’t know if any serious damage has been done.”

He took her by the hand.

“This isn’t exactly the way I pictured this night ending, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” she assured him. “I understand. I know you have to leave.”

“We have to leave,” he corrected her. “In the past week, you’ve been attacked, your head’s been split open, and someone tried to break into the house. You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to leave you here alone for the rest of the night.”

22

“W hat’s going to happen to him now?” Daria stared through the window at the boy in the hospital bed. Tubes were everywhere, and a machine was monitoring his vital signs.

“We’re not sure what to do with him,” Chief Thorpe told her. “We don’t even know how old he is, so we don’t know whether to send him to juvie or to the county prison. If he’s too old for juvie and we send him there and he does something to another inmate, we’re liable for putting that other kid at risk. If we send him to the county and he’s set upon by the big boys, we’re liable for having put him at risk. We’re damned if we do, and we’re damned of we don’t.”

“Well, as of today, he’ll have been in your custody for forty-eight hours. You’re going to have to decide what to do with him,” Connor noted, “once he comes around.”

“I’m calling the DA’s office, see what they recommend. Besides sending him to Delaware and letting them deal with it.”

“Shouldn’t he be given an attorney?” Daria asked.

“Well, that’s sort of a problem, too, since we’re changing jurisdictions.” He leaned on the glass and watched the boy’s chest rise and fall. “Though I guess that’s up in the air right now. Maybe I’ll just see if we can get the court to appoint someone to represent him for as long as he’s here.”

“Has he been charged?” Connor asked.

Thorpe frowned. “I was leaving that till the last minute, too, thinking maybe he’d crack and give us something more than trespassing.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Guess I should talk to the New Castle detective. See what he has in mind. I don’t know what the law is in Delaware, when it comes to things like this. It’s all I can do to keep up with Pennsylvania.”

The chief shook his head. “Would make it a whole lot easier if we knew who he was. We don’t even have a starting point.”

“If you get any information from him-anything at all-let me know and I’ll have our guy at the Bureau see what he can dig up,” Connor said.

“Won’t his fingerprints help?” Daria asked.

“Only if they’re already in the system,” Thorpe told her. He turned to Connor. “That reminds me. We matched the kid’s prints to one set of prints from the library. They didn’t match the ones on your window, though. You’ll never guess which ones were a match.”

“My money’s on the basement door,” Connor said.

“Good guess. How’d you figure it?”

“I don’t see him for smashing the computer,” Connor explained. “I don’t believe he sent the e-mail messages to the collectors that were on the hit list, and I don’t believe he killed Mrs. Weathers, so his prints wouldn’t be on the railing in the stairwell going up to the second floor. That leaves the prints on the back door.”

“Which tells us how the killer got into the library,” the chief said. “He must have had a time prearranged to go downstairs and open the door. The alarm would go off, the real guard would come down to see what was going on, and the killer knocks him out. The kid leaves with the other students, no one’s the wiser.”

“Do you think the killer intended to kill Mrs. Weathers?” Daria wondered.

“I think she just got in his way,” Connor told her. “She probably surprised him when she came down the stairs, and he took off after her.”

“He didn’t kill the guard, though. He only hit him over the head, right?” Daria asked.

“Right.”

“Then why did he kill Mrs. Weathers and not the guard?”

“Good question,” Connor nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe she saw his face when she came down the stairs. Maybe she recognized him. Maybe that’s why he panicked and got careless, leaving his prints at the scene.”

“Which means he could be someone connected with the school,” Thorpe said. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could narrow the pool just a little?”

“Yesterday I gave a list of names to our computer whiz at the Bureau. We’ll see if he came up with anything interesting.” Connor turned back to the window and watched the boy for another minute. “I guess he didn’t have any visitors while he was at the station.”

“Not a one.”

“Why would he have done this?” Daria asked. “Why would he have tried to kill himself?”

“Holding-cell suicides, or attempted suicides, aren’t uncommon,” Thorpe replied. “It could be that he realized he’s really going to be doing some time as an accomplice to the Cross murder.”

“Or he could be afraid he’ll end up talking.”

“What would make him more afraid of talking than dying?” Daria asked.

“Maybe someone who likes to cut off people’s hands.” Connor said. “Maybe someone who threatened him big time if he ever talked about what happened.”

“Maybe when he comes to, he’ll be more inclined to talk,” Thorpe suggested. “Maybe we can convince him that the gods spared him so that he could tell the truth.”

“The goddess,” Daria corrected him. “There were no gods in Shandihar. Just the one goddess.”

“Who do you suppose told him about her?” Connor thought aloud.

A nurse came by and they backed away from the door to let her enter the room.

Connor turned to Thorpe. “Will you give me a call if anything changes here?”

“I’m going to be moving out myself,” the chief told him. “I’ll leave one of the officers here to keep an eye on things. But sure, I’ll let you know if there’s a change in his condition.”

Connor and Daria walked to the elevator with the chief.

“Chief, are you from this area?” Connor asked as the doors closed.

“Born and raised,” Thorpe said.

“You know of any antiques dealers around Howeville who’ve been in business for a long time?”

“Not offhand, but my mother might. Want me to ask her?”

“Please do.”

“I’ll give her a call later.” He glanced at his watch; it wasn’t yet 7 A.M. “No way she’s up now. Last night was her night out. She goes up to that new casino in Chester once a week with her friends. She gets pretty pissy if you call her much before noon the morning after. But I’ll be talking to her later, and I’ll give you a call if she knows of anyone.”