“Kill him, you mean?”

“Yeah, Tabak. Kill him.”

His stomach lurched. He got shakily to his feet. Mollie, he noticed, had stumbled into the kitchen. She was wearing one of his shirts, her hair tangled, the color drained out of her face. He said, “I’m on my way.”

“Listen, Tabak, this kid-he gave your name and his name and that’s it. You know anyone else I should contact?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s too bad, because it gets worse.”

Jeremiah went still. “Tell me, Frank.”

“We found the diamond-and-ruby necklace that got yanked off Mollie Lavender the other night in his back pocket. Way I look at it, we’ve got three choices. One, the guys who beat him up didn’t know it was there. Two, they didn’t have time to steal it. Or, three, they planted it on him. None of which I like, I have to say.” Frank inhaled, reining in his own irritation. “If I find out you haven’t been straight with me, we’re going to have a reckoning, Tabak. I’ll see you in a couple hours.”

Jeremiah hung up and turned to Mollie, and his stomach ached and burned and his head spun. She inhaled, staying calm, at least on the surface. “What happened?”

He told her. Succinctly, accurately, his word-for-word reporter’s memory for conversations, his professionalism, clicking into gear. He left out nothing, not even the part about her necklace in Croc’s back pocket.

“We’ll take the Jaguar,” she said without preamble, digging the clothes out of her tote bag and pulling them on. Underwear, pants, shirt. She started back to his bedroom, presumably for her shoes. “It’ll be faster.”

Jeremiah shook his head and followed her back. “No. I’ll take my truck, and you can stay here.”

She snorted. “Forget it. I’d just end up passing you on the highway and beating you to the hospital, which would drive you crazy.” She sat on the edge of the tousled bed to slip on her sandals, but stopped suddenly, blue eyes on him, suspicious. “Or are you going to steal my keys?”

“I’m not a Neanderthal, Mollie.”

“Good.” She grinned, but her color didn’t improve. “Then let’s roll.” She shot to her feet, and as she passed him in the doorway, her expression softened. “At least they got to him in time, Jeremiah. He’s not dead.”

He inhaled sharply. “I haven’t gotten hold of him yet.”

They took the stairs fast and bolted outside, sunlight spilling out across the city. Sal had gone in, leaving the wood he was carving on his chair. Jeremiah felt as if his chest were being squeezed. He could no longer feel the pain of his cut.

Traffic on I-95 North was light. Mollie, steady behind the wheel, hit the left lane and drove fast. One after another the questions and doubts pounded, crowded Jeremiah’s thinking. One after another, he shoved them aside. Answers would come later. Now, he had to see to Croc.

“There’s a first aid kit in the glove compartment,” Mollie said. “You can change the bandage on your thumb. You cut it whittling?”

He gave a curt nod.

Her quick smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Your concentration must be off.”

By the time they arrived at the hospital, Croc had been admitted to a regular room. They went on up, running into Frank Sunderland in the corridor. He was a tall, stringy, serious officer of the law, and he didn’t look happy. “Whoa, you two,” he said. “Tabak, I want everything you have on this kid.”

The door to Croc’s room was shut. Jeremiah stiffened, refused to let his impatience get the better of him. He told Frank, “I’ve known Croc about two years. He brings me the occasional tip. Half the time it’s nothing. The other half, maybe. He does odd jobs, nothing steady. I don’t know where he’s working now. I’ve never known where he lives. I don’t know anything about his past.” He gave out the facts shotgun style, and kept his opinions to himself. Mollie, he noticed, was staying close, listening to every word. “He says his name is Blake Wilder.”

“ ‘Says’ being the operative word,” Frank said. “As far as we can tell, it’s a phony name. We’re running his prints.”

“I’m not surprised. I always had the feeling Blake Wilder was something he’d pulled off a tombstone or out of a Hardy Boys book. Croc lives in a fantasy world half the time, Frank. Spies, fairies, elves, conspiracies. He listens at keyholes. He’s not a man of action. I don’t see him as a jewel thief.”

Frank sighed irritably, his dark, smart eyes flashing. “Yeah, well, maybe if you’d told me about him sooner-”

“There was nothing to tell. Still isn’t.”

“Damned reporters. What about this jewel thief story? It’s not your thing, Tabak. What’re you doing sniffing around in it?”

Jeremiah debated a moment, his instincts on alert anytime a cop was asking the questions and he wasn’t. “Croc put me onto it.”

“How?”

“Asked me to look into it.” In Jeremiah’s opinion, there was no need to bring up Croc’s Mollie-Lavender-as-common-denominator theory. “He believed there was a single thief at work even before the police did.”

Frank frowned, suspicious. “How come?”

“He refused to say. I’ve been at his throat about holding back on me right from the beginning. Frank, I don’t have anything. If I did-” He tightened his hands into his fists. “Damn it, maybe that kid wouldn’t be in there-”

“All right, all right. Go see him. You want to hire him a lawyer?”

“Give me a minute. By the way,” he said, touching Mollie’s arm, “this is Mollie Lavender.”

Frank looked grim. “I figured. Go ahead, Miss Lavender. We can talk after.”

Jeremiah pushed open the door to the double room. The first bed was unoccupied. The second bed, along the window, held a bandaged, bruised, miserable-looking Croc. He barely made a rumple in the bed covers. Most of his head was bandaged-his neck, his right arm, both hands. His eyes and nose had swelled up, his mouth was cut and stitched, his jaw was wired shut. He was hooked up to an IV.

An attractive, fiftyish nurse was fiddling with his IV line. “How is he?” Jeremiah asked.

“He’s dozing at the moment. He’s been very restless, agitated, and he’s in a great deal of pain. His medication is helping.”

“Will he need surgery?”

“I don’t believe so, but you’d have to speak to his doctor. Right now the best thing we can do is to let him rest.”

“He’s been worked over pretty good,” Jeremiah said, more to himself than to either Mollie or the nurse. Rage clouded his eyes. Croc, he thought. Jesus. But he needed to stay focused, think, make the right moves now, before it was too late.

“Yes, I’m afraid whoever did this to him-” The nurse shuddered. “I don’t want to think about it.”

Mollie, pale and breathing shallowly, said nothing.

“If there’s a change, you can let me know? I’ll leave numbers where I can be reached. I’ll be back later.” He walked to Croc’s bed, leaned over his battered, bruised, skinny body. His chest ached from tension. Who the hell could do this to another human being? But it was the same question he’d been asking since he’d reported on his first mugging eighteen years ago, just a kid himself. He touched Croc’s bony wrist. “You hang in there, buddy.”

Outside in the corridor, he gave Frank his various numbers: the paper, his apartment, his cell phone. Mollie supplied her work and home numbers, and Frank said to her, “I wonder if you can come down to the station and ID this necklace.” She knew that compliance with his request wasn’t as optional as he tried to make it sound.

“I’d be glad to,” she said politely, “but I’m driving Jeremiah-”

Frank interrupted. “I can drive you over and then drop you back at your place.”

“Sure, okay.” She fished out the keys to the Jaguar and handed them to Jeremiah; she was staying calm, doing what had to be done in the thick of a crisis. “Leonardo also has a Jeep. I’ll use it, and you can bring his car back later.”

Frank, Jeremiah noticed, resisted comment. “You’ll be okay?” Jeremiah asked Mollie.