“I hope you’re not sensitive to asbestos.”

“Does this seem odd to you?” Archie asked.

“I’ve always liked banks,” Henry said. “They remind me of money.”

“They all here?”

“They’re huddled together, waiting for you in the vault.”

“The vault?”

“Kidding,” Henry said. “There’s a break room. With a microwave. And a minifridge.”

“Sure. It being a bank. How’s the mood?”

“Like they’re about to see a ghost,” Henry said.

Archie waved his fingers at his friend. “Boo.”

A sink, fridge, and countertop with cabinets dominated one wall of the break room. Several small square tables had been assembled to form an ad hoc conference table. The seven detectives were sitting or standing around it, many with travel mugs of coffee. Conversation stopped dead when Archie entered.

“Good morning,” Archie said. He looked around at the group. Five of them he’d worked with on the Beauty Killer Task Force. Two were new. “I’m Archie Sheridan,” he said in a strong voice. They all knew who he was. Even the two he hadn’t met. But it gave Archie something to start out with.

The new additions were Mike Flannigan and Jeff Heil, both of medium height and build, one dark-haired, the other light-haired. Archie immediately mentally dubbed them “the Hardy Boys.” The other five were Claire Masland, Martin Ngyun, Greg Fremont, Anne Boyd, and Josh Levy. He had worked with some of these detectives for years, night and day, and, with the exception of Henry, he had not seen any of them since being released from the hospital. He had not wanted to see any of them. They looked at him now with a mixture of affection and anxiety. Archie felt bad for them. He always felt bad for people who knew what he had been through. It made them feel awkward. He knew it was up to him to make them comfortable, so they could work effectively for him, no distractions, no pity. The best tactic, he knew, was to act as if nothing had happened, no time had passed at all. Back to work, just like that. No emotional speeches. Show them that he was up to speed, in control.

“Claire,” he said, spinning around to face the petite detective. “What’s the security situation at the other schools?”

The rest of the team had been brought in that morning. But Claire and Henry had worked the case from the beginning.

Claire sat up a little bit, surprised, but pleased to be put on the spot, as he knew she would be. “After-school activities have been canceled until further notice. We’ve got four uniforms stationed at each school, and six units patrolling around each between five and seven, when he seems to take them. They’re hosting safety assemblies today. Sending letters home to the parents suggesting they don’t let their girls walk or bike to or from school.”

“Good,” he said. “Search and rescue?”

Martin Ngyun leaned forward. He wore a Portland Trail Blazers cap. Archie wasn’t sure he’d ever seen him without it. “Just got an update on that. Nothing turned up last night. We’ve got almost fifty people and ten dogs doing a daylight block-by-block in a square-mile radius around her house. Another hundred volunteers. Nothing yet.”

“I want a roadblock near Jefferson today between five and seven. Stop everyone who drives by. Ask if they’ve seen anything. If they’re driving by there today, there’s a chance they drove that route yesterday. Lee Robinson had a cell phone, right? I want to see her phone records and all the girls’ E-mail records on my desk.” He turned to Anne Boyd. She had been the third profiler that the FBI had sent to work on the Beauty Killer case, and the only one who was not an insufferable prick. He had always liked her, but he had not responded to her occasional letters over the last two years. “When do we get a profile?”

Anne finished off a can of diet Coke, and set it on the table with a tinny clatter. She’d had an Afro the last time Archie had seen her. Now her black hair was woven into a thousand tiny braids. They swung as she tilted her head. “Twenty-four hours. At the most.”

“A sketch?”

“Male, thirty to fifty. And then there’s the obvious.”

“Yeah?”

“He makes an effort to return the victims.” She shrugged her plump shoulders. “He feels bad.”

“So we’re looking for a male between the ages of thirty and fifty who feels bad,” Archie summarized. Sound familiar? “If he feels bad,” he theorized aloud to Anne, “he’s vulnerable, right?”

“He knows what he did is wrong. You might be able to intimidate him, yeah.”

Archie bent forward over the table, leaning on his arms, and faced the group. They looked at him expectantly. He could tell that many of them had been up all night, working the case. Every minute that ticked by would eat away at their morale. They would sleep less, eat less, and worry more. His team. His responsibility. Archie was not a good manager. He knew this. He put the people who worked for him above the people he worked for. This made him a good leader. As long as he got results, the higher-ups were willing to overlook the manager bit. He had worked on the Beauty Killer Task Force for ten years, led it for four, before they’d caught Gretchen Lowell. He had felt the edge of the brass’s ax on his neck during his entire tenure. He had proved himself and almost been killed in the process. And because of it, he had the tenuous trust of the people in that room. This made him loathe all the more the announcement he had to make. “Before we continue, I should let you know that a writer from the Herald, Susan Ward, is going to be following me around.”

Body language stiffened.

“I know,” Archie said, with a sigh. “It’s irregular. But I have to do it and you’ll just have to believe me when I tell you that I have a good reason. You are all welcome to cooperate to your level of comfort.” Looking around the room, he wondered what they were thinking. Celebrity whore? Promotion hound? An exclusive exchanged for the burial of some damaging information? Not even close, thought Archie. “Any questions, concerns?” he asked.

Six hands went up.

CHAPTER 7

Tell me about Archie Sheridan,” Susan said. It was mid-afternoon and she had made her way through the folder of research material that Derek had pulled from the Herald database and handed over with an apple fritter wrapped in aluminum foil. Was he trying to be funny? Now she sat perched on the edge of Quentin Parker’s desk, a notebook in her hand.

Parker was the city crime-beat reporter. He was balding and fat and thought little of journalism degrees, much less M.F.A.’s. He was old school. He was belligerent. He was condescending. He was probably an alcoholic. But he was smart and Susan liked him.

Parker leaned back in his task chair, gripping the arms with his beefy hands. He grinned. “What took you so long?”

“They tell you about my Pulitzer Prize-winning series?”

He snorted. “Did they tell you that your vagina got you the story?”

She smiled sweetly. “My vagina is my most tireless advocate.”

Parker guffawed and appraised her fondly. “You sure you’re not my kid?”

“Would your kid have pink hair?”

He shook his head, causing his jowls to sway. “Over my dead fucking body.” He looked around the newsroom at the rows of people staring at computer screens or talking on telephones. “Look at this place,” he said, scowling sadly at the hushed, serious environment-all carpeting and cubicles. “It’s like working in a fucking office.”

“Come on,” he said, straining to push himself upright and out of his seat. “I’ll buy you a crappy sandwich in the cafeteria and we can play reporter.”

The cafeteria was in the basement of the building. The food was standard institutional fare: slop under heat lamps, iceberg lettuce salads, shriveled baked potatoes. A wall of steel and glass vending machines that had probably been in the building for thirty years hosted tangerine-size red apples, triangular sandwiches, slices of pie, and slightly bruised bananas. Parker bought two ham and cheese sandwiches out of a machine and handed one to Susan.