“And a nun got killed, you say? Oh, Vic, I don’t have a TV, I don’t see the news. That’s terrible. No wonder you haven’t been around. How’s that cute cousin of yours?”

“Cute as ever.” I tried not to grind my teeth. “Anyone been coming around looking for me while I’ve been away?”

“I haven’t been looking. But I’ll put out a guest book. Anyone comes up to the door, they got to sign in with me.”

He parodied a hotel doorman, and I had to laugh. Of course it was idiotic to think Elton would pay attention to anyone scouting out my office. I typed in the code on the door lock and went inside, keeping a hand on the handle of my gun in its tuck holster.

When I was inside, I searched the office, from the cot to the bathroom I shared with my sculpting lease-mate, but no one was there. I answered a few e-mails. But I had reached the end of my stamina, and set out for home.

When I got there, I found Petra out in the backyard with the dogs. Mr. Contreras had his barbecue going. She was sitting on the grass with her arms around Mitch, who acknowledged my arrival by lifting his head to look at me. Peppy, at least, came over to meet me.

“Poor Peewee is beat.They got her working too hard,” Mr. Contreras announced. “We’re doing burgers and corn. You want some?”

I accepted gratefully, and went upstairs for wine and a salad, leaving my hat and gloves. I brought some cushions down with me and stretched out on the grass, where I could see my cousin’s face. She looked pinched and anxious. But when she saw me studying her, she tried to grin in her usual enthusiastic fashion.

“I’m pretty beat myself, first day back on the job. I had to go to the Prudential Plaza this afternoon, and I finally got a look at Les Strangwell.”

“You didn’t talk to him, did you?” Petra asked, a little breathless.

“Not about you, not about anything. Guy has freaky eyes, don’t you think?”

She shivered but didn’t say anything.

“Petra, are you in trouble at work?”

Mr. Contreras frowned and started to protest, but he caught my little headshake and was silent.

“No, no! Why should I be in trouble? I do whatever they tell me to, and faster than a speeding bullet.”

“You just seemed jumpy on the phone today. And you’re definitely not your usual high-voltage self tonight.”

She played with her stack of rubber bracelets. “It’s like Uncle Sal said: they’re working me too hard. I even have to go back in tonight, as soon as I scarf down some of Uncle Sal’s home cooking. What took you downtown? Are you still looking for that missing gangbanger? Did you think you’d find him in the Prudential building?”

“Yep. Selling bonds out of the fiftieth-floor office. Actually, I’m going back out to Joliet tomorrow afternoon. Johnny Merton, the head snake charmer, has agreed to see me again, and I’m hoping the murder of Sister Frances may jolt him into telling me something.”

“You’re going out to the prison tomorrow?” she repeated, looking at me anxiously.

“Why not?”

She bit her lips. “Just… uh… I don’t know… you’re still hurting, I mean.”

“I’m a renewable resource.” I took a hamburger from Mr. Contreras and sat up to keep it out of Peppy’s mouth. “I’m like Hercules, except I regenerate my spleen, my skin, and my brain every morning.”

She laughed in a distracted, forced way and changed the subject, also in a distracted, forced way. She fed most of her hamburger to Mitch, then got up to leave.

I followed her to the side gate. “Petra! What is wrong here?”

Her large eyes filled with tears, and she stared at me for a long pause, then said, “Leave me alone, can’t you? Do you have to pry into everybody’s business?”

“No,” I said slowly. “No, of course not. But you’re acting-”

“I know what I’m doing. Leave me alone!” She slammed the gate.

“You haven’t been riding her over your place being torn apart, have you?” Mr. Contreras and the dogs had bustled over to join us.

I shook my head. “I wish now I had gone to her office today. Maybe I will after I get done with Johnny tomorrow.”

But the next day was when I came back from Stateville to find that intruders had been in my office and wrecked it with the force of an F5 tornado. That was when I found Petra’s white rubber ONE bracelet on the cement apron outside my back door. That was the night I spent with Bobby Mallory and the FBI trying to find any trace of my cousin.

After that sleepless night, my uncle Peter and aunt Rachel arrived. My uncle unleashed his own F5 on me, blaming me, at high volume, for anything that might have gone wrong with Petra. I tried to ride out the storm without fighting back because I knew raw rage was the only way he was able to express his fear. I was afraid, too, and so was my aunt. Finally, after several hours of his useless screaming, Rachel took Peter downtown to meet with the FBI’s Special Agent in Charge.

33

AFTER PETER AND RACHEL LEFT, I HAD A LONG TALK WITH Mr. Contreras, which included a promise to involve him in any action necessary to rescue Petra. I even shared with him the list I’d made of all the odd questions I had about my cousin during the past few weeks: the Nellie Fox baseball, her relentless interest in the contents of my trunk, her wish to see any storage places in the old family home in Back of the Yards, her effort to tour my own childhood home in South Chicago, her arrival at Sister Frankie’s gutted apartment last week, the smoke bomb that forced the Andarra family to vacate the house the night before Sister Frankie’s murder.

At first he put up a spirited defense of her youth and impulsiveness, but by the time I got to her late-night trip to the Freedom Center even Mr. Contreras was uneasy. “But, doll, if she was doing something she shouldn’ta been, it was because she was pushed into it. You listen to me. She’s as good as gold, little Peewee, and don’t you go thinking otherwise. When you get to the end of this story, you’re going to find Johnny Merton was behind it. Mark my words.”

“Let’s find her first and argue over who got her in over her head later, right?”

He agreed gruffly, and watched while I printed out a couple of shots I’d taken of Petra on my cellphone. I also printed random pictures off the Web of young blond women: some celebrities, some pictures that people had posted on their blogs, finishing with a few shots of myself.

I uploaded the photo I’d snapped of Alito and Strangwell at the Prudential Plaza the other day. It wasn’t a very clear shot, but it was the only one I could find of Alito. Strangwell was highly visible. His website showed him with various Illinois politicos, with U.S. presidents and a Supreme Court justice, and with entertainers like Michael Jordan. I guess if you were coming to Strangwell for help, the portraits showed you what kind of access a thousand dollars an hour bought you. I printed a couple of those images, and pulled one of Dornick from the Mountain Hawk Security website as well.

The old man finally left when I went into the bathroom to get ready for my day outside. As I covered my face and arms with protective creams, it seemed somehow wrong to be tending to my body when my cousin’s life might be in danger. I put on my hat, my gloves, checked the clip in my gun and put it in its tuck holster, and went out the back door.

Jake Thibaut was on his little porch with a cup of coffee. “That’s a fetching costume. You going undercover on a Civil War plantation?”

I tried to smile but found my voice cracking instead. “It’s because of the fire. Because of… Sorry, my cousin has vanished in a way that has me pretty freaked. I’ve got to go, see what I can find out.”

He walked down the five steps to our common landing. “You need any kind of help from me? You know, anything that doesn’t involve a handgun or some kind of physical heroism?”