"You're taking the brooch with you?"

"I thought I might look in on one of those Green-intensive buildings at lunchtime," he told her. "If this does have something to do with Melantha, it might help prove we have her."

"Ah," Caroline said, her tone suddenly odd. "You think it would be better if we both went later?"

In other words, you don't think I can handle it? "I'll be fine," he said instead. "You concentrate on Melantha; I'll take the outside world."

"All right," she said in that same odd tone. "Just be careful, will you? This whole thing is very strange."

He snorted as he stood up. "That, sweetheart, is the understatement of the month."

She managed a faint smile at that one. "You'll call later?"

"At lunchtime," Roger promised, circling the table to give her a quick kiss. "And you call me if anything happens here."

"Don't worry," she said. "We'll be fine."

He brooded about it all the way to the office, barely noticing the overcast sky or the as-usual crammed subway. This thing with Melantha was bad enough; but what was worse, he couldn't seem to figure out Caroline these days, either. One minute she would be fine, and the next she would be looking like a bug that had been stepped on.

Was this some kind of woman thing? Or was it just Melantha?

The sun was starting to peek more cheerfully through the clouds by the time he reached his office.

But his own dark mood persisted; and after an hour and a half of blankly pushing papers around he finally gave up. Nothing was going to get done, he realized glumly, until the Melantha problem was cleared up.

Five minutes later, he was back on the street. Of the two addresses Caroline had ferreted out, the one near Central Park was the closer. He might as well start there.

The building turned out to be a modest little four-story place on a tree-lined street within view of the park, with a stone stairway that led up a half dozen steps from the sidewalk to a landing and then made a right-angle turn and continued another half dozen steps to the entrance foyer itself. An interesting anomaly struck him as he approached the building: unlike most of those he could see on the street, this one didn't have bars on its ground-floor windows.

There was a young man sitting on the top step, idly rubbing his fingers together and gazing down the street. "Can I help you?" he called as Roger started up the steps.

"Possibly," Roger said. The man looked to be in his early thirties, not exactly the sort Roger would expect to see hanging around doing nothing in the middle of a workday. He was slender with black hair and smooth, darkish skin that reminded him of Melantha's own Mediterranean complexion. He also had something of her exotic eyes, too. "I'm looking for someone named Green."

"Really," the other said. His voice was casual enough, but Roger had the distinct feeling that he was being scrutinized, as if visiting strangers were uncommon.

Still, this was New York, where people were naturally aloof. "Yes, really," he said, stopping at the midway landing. "I understand there are some Greens living at this address."

"Actually, all four apartments are owned by Greens," the man said. "Which one are you looking for?"

Roger frowned up at the building. "Four apartments?" he repeated. "That's all?"

"Isn't that enough for a building this size?" the other countered. His tone was faintly jocular, but there was no humor in his eyes.

"Must be really big families," Roger said. "I was given to understand there are over thirty Greens living here."

"Ah," the other said, nodding. "Actually, it's just a matter of thirty phone lines coming in. Two of the families run specialized solicitation services for one of the banks—Chase Manhattan, I think."

"Interesting," Roger said. That story might satisfy the casual passerby, but he knew better. "So this building is zoned for business?"

The other's eyes narrowed slightly. "I don't know anything about legal stuff."

"Maybe not," Roger said. "But I do."

"You a cop?"

Roger shook his head. "Just a concerned citizen."

"Concerned about zoning?" the man countered. "Or something else?"

It was as good an opening, Roger decided, as he was likely to get. "Actually, I'm looking for one particular family," he said, throwing a casual glance back at the sidewalk behind him to make sure there was no one within eavesdropping distance. "A family who might have misplaced a young girl Wednesday night," he continued, turning back to the man.

"He knows," a voice said darkly from behind him.

Roger spun around. Standing at the base of the steps beside one of the trees lining the sidewalk was another young, dark-haired man.

Gripped in his hand was a gun.

6

For that first stretched-out second Roger just stood there, frozen with the impossibility of it. The man hadn't been on the sidewalk—he'd checked everything in sight not more than three seconds earlier.

He hadn't come up from the walk-down apartment below the steps, either—Roger would have seen any movement from that direction. And there was literally nowhere anyone could have come from.

Yet there he was.

"I see we've got something more serious here than just a zoning violation," he said, managing somehow to keep his voice steady.

"Porfirio, are you nuts?" the first man hissed.

"Shut up, Stavros," the gunman said, his eyes smoldering as he walked up the steps to the landing and came to a halt facing Roger. "You heard him. He knows where—"

Abruptly, he broke off, and for a long second he and Stavros stared silently at each other. Roger held his breath; and then Porfirio's lip twitched, and with clear reluctance, he lowered his gun. "My apologies," he said, the words coming out like they had to be forcibly extracted. "My concern for—"

Again, he stopped in mid-sentence. "You were about to tell us your business here," Stavros suggested into the silence.

"Yes," Roger said, watching Porfirio and mentally crossing his fingers. "I'm looking for the parents of Melantha Green."

Porfirio muttered something under his breath. "I told you he knew," he said.

"What's your interest in the girl?" Stavros asked, ignoring the comment.

"We want to return her safely to where she belongs," Roger assured him. "That's all."

"That's great," Stavros said, a hint of cautious enthusiasm in his voice. "Just bring her here. We'll take care of her."

"Her parents live here, then?" Roger asked. "Good. I'd like to speak to them."

Stavros glanced at Porfirio. "Unfortunately, her parents aren't available at the moment," he said.

"Would someone else do?"

"Who do you suggest?" Roger asked cautiously.

There was another of the short staring contests between the two men. "The one you need to see is Aleksander," Stavros said. "I could have him back here in half an hour."

"Sorry, but I have other business," Roger improvised. The longer he hung out with these people, the creepier he felt. "I'll come back another time," he added, trying to maneuver around Porfirio.

The other took a quick step to block him. "Uh-uh," he said, lifting his gun a couple of inches for emphasis. "If we say you wait for Aleksander, you wait."

"Porfirio, put that away," Stavros ordered. "Look, Mr.—What's your name, anyway?"

"Roger Wh—" Roger broke off, catching himself in time. "Just Roger."

"All right," Stavros said. "I understand that you can't wait for Aleksander. But won't you at least talk to someone?"

"Again, who do you suggest?" Roger asked.

"There's a woman here named Sylvia," Stavros said. "Would you be willing to give her a few minutes?"

The sweat gathering on Roger's neck was starting to turn to ice as the breeze hit it. The last thing he wanted to do was stay here a second longer than he had to.