“You’re involved in the case, aren’t you?”

“Steven…”

“Yeah, you are.” Steven was grinning. “I can see it all over your face. You get that sphinx look when you’re trying not to give anything away. The Baker family brought you in, right? You’re going into the private investigator biz.”

“The hell I am. Look…” Elliot removed the double boiler from the stovetop. “My involvement is totally unofficial. The Bakers are friends of my dad’s.”

“Then what’s the big deal? If it’s all unofficial—”

“Let it go, Steven. You’re sure they didn’t give the name of the PSU instructor allegedly having an affair with the Lyle kid?”

“Allegedly.” Steven smirked. “You’re such a cop, Elliot. How did you know it was the Lyle kid involved with his teacher?”

“Lucky guess.” He needed to call both Charlotte Oppenheimer and Tucker. He was surprised Oppenheimer hadn’t already phoned. Elliot glanced at the wall phone and the answering machine’s red light was flashing. Shit. He got so few phone calls these days he was out of the habit of checking for messages.

Steven’s smile was sardonic. “Yeah, right. Listen, we could work together on this, Elliot. It’s a great opportunity for both of us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can read the signs. There’s a big murder case brewing here. And we’re in on the ground floor. I’ll write about the investigation from your perspective.”

Elliot shook his head, mildly surprised when Steven persisted. “Why not? I’m telling you, it’s fate the way this thing dropped in our laps.”

“What happened to the book on Charles Mattson?”

“That’s old news. No one is ever going to know for sure who murdered that kid, but this is current. It’s hot, it’s contemporary and it could still have a happy ending. Although frankly…But, anyway I could sell it right now with one phone call to my agent.”

“No. My involvement is strictly informal. The FBI is taking point on this, and believe me, you do not want to get in the way of the special agent in charge of this case.”

“Who’s in charge?”

It was a matter of public record, so there was no point in hedging. “SA Tucker Lance.”

“Tucker Lance? Your Tucker Lance?”

Elliot’s face reddened. He focused his attention determinedly on the sauce he was salvaging. He didn’t remember how much he’d told Steven about Tucker. Ordinarily he wasn’t one for sharing much personal information, but he’d been depressed and at times more than moderately medicated his first few months on Goose Island. “Grab some plates from the cupboard,” he ordered.

Steven handed the plain white plates over and Elliot dished out the fried ham and poached eggs. He dribbled the buttery sauce over them.

“Looks good and smells better,” Steven said, carrying the plates to the table.

Elliot refilled their coffee cups and sat across from Steven. He hoped Steven would take a hint and drop the subject, but he knew it wasn’t likely.

Sure enough, Steven finished salting his eggs and said, “So your ex is in charge of the case?”

“He’s not my—” Elliot stopped because if Tucker wasn’t his ex, what was he? Fuck buddy? They’d been more than friends and less than lovers. At least that was what he’d been telling himself for seventeen months. Although, to be honest, Tucker’s antagonism was forcing him to reluctantly reevaluate. Tucker wasn’t guilty, he was hostile, and if he was hostile, then he felt he’d been wronged. It was hard to imagine how he worked that out, but the fact remained: Tucker believed he had cause to be angry with Elliot.

“How does he feel about you being on the case?”

The question jolted Elliot out of his preoccupation. He stared across at Steven, who was wolfing down his breakfast as though it were his first meal in two days. Given how little Steven liked to buy his own groceries, maybe it was.

Elliot said, staying as low key and uninformative as possible, “We’ve worked together before. Stick to the Mattson book, Steven. You’ve put a lot of time and effort into it already.”

Steven offered one of his big, white grins and committed himself to nothing but second helpings. Elliot was relieved when he took off right after breakfast. As soon as he loaded the dishwasher, he rang Charlotte Oppenheimer, but she didn’t pick up and he had to leave a message.

He tried Tucker next. Same deal. Nobody home—or nobody answering, anyway. He considered phoning Gordie Lyle’s aunt, but decided it would be better to tackle her in person on Monday. She would be dealing with the media today, the natural result of her television interview, and that was enough to put anyone in a bad mood.

The rest of the afternoon was spent quietly. Elliot graded papers and did his lesson plans for the following week. In the evening he worked on his Civil War diorama of Pickett’s Charge, which currently dominated the long window-lined sunroom on the west side of the cabin. He had received a hand-painted 15mm miniature of JEB Stuart to replace the former one lost during the move from Seattle to Goose Island. He placed the dashing Stuart with his two cavalry brigades and stepped back to admire. The game table was 4x8 feet and, according to Roland who had helped him construct it, irrefutable proof that Elliot was destined for long and dull bachelorhood.

Later that evening as Elliot made “terrain” by painstakingly gluing loose spice and coffee grounds to the plastic fake credit cards that came in his junk mail, he decided his father might not be too far off the mark. When he had worked for the Bureau, Elliot had found the focus required for miniature gaming soothing. These days…not so much. It gave him too much time to think.

Mostly about things he had tried hard to forget.

When the phone finally rang around eight o’clock that evening, shattering the silence of his long day of solitude, Elliot started, accidentally knocking out the remaining half of Pickett’s division.

He answered the phone in the kitchen. Charlotte Oppenheimer’s voice greeted him, and Elliot recognized that curling sensation in the pit of his belly as disappointment. Who had he expected on the other end of the line?

Charlotte apologized for the lateness of her return call, explaining that she had been out climbing with students. He’d forgotten that about Charlotte: beneath the ladylike New England exterior was an experienced mountaineer. She’d climbed everything from Bugaboo Spire in Canada to Middle Cathedral Rock in California. She regularly took students for day hikes on Mt. Rainier when weather permitted. “I’ve just heard the news,” she continued. “I can’t believe that Lyle woman went to the media. She actually accused the university of turning a blind eye to students being in danger.”

“She’s scared. She’s reaching out for help anywhere she can think of.”

“But how did she find out about Terry Baker?”

Elliot hedged. “Terry’s disappearance isn’t a secret. Kids talk.” The only reason there wasn’t more discussion was because there had been no news in nearly a month. People tended to have short attention spans for other people’s trauma.

“But it’s irresponsible!”

Elliot had no reply to that. He didn’t actually think Ms. Lyle’s actions were irresponsible. If Gordie had taken off of his own free will, the TV interview was one way to remind him that people were waiting and worried.

Charlotte said slowly, “I’m wondering exactly what Ms. Lyle’s story is.”

“What do you mean?”

“In my opinion her reaction doesn’t ring quite true.”

“I’m still not following.”

“Maybe she’s determined to place responsibility for Gordie’s running away on the university because she feels guilty. She admitted to me that they argued the morning before he disappeared.”

“What did they argue about?”

“She didn’t say.”

Elliot considered it. After tragedy struck, very often people did feel guilt over silly arguments or the failure to pay attention to, at the time, insignificant details. If hindsight was 20/20, the expectation of guilt was x-ray vision.