"Should I take the car?"

Roger thought about it a second. Their old Buick Century had been a gift from Caroline's grandmother, and they seldom used it except for occasional weekend trips and their twice-yearly visits to Caroline's family in Vermont. But getting over to the parking garage and pulling it out would take time, and his skin was starting to feel tingly again. "No, just go," he told her. "And take a cab—it'll be more private than the subway."

"Shall I pack for you, too?"

"Yeah, you'd better," he said. "It would be kind of counterproductive to shake off their tail and then just let them pick me up again at home."

He heard Caroline's sharp intake of breath. "They're following you?"

"I don't know," he said. "But I would if I wanted Melantha this badly."

"We'll be out of here as soon as we can," Caroline said, her voice shaking a little.

"Good," Roger said. "But don't worry too much. Whoever these people are, they seem to prefer playing their games at night or behind closed doors. You should be okay in daylight in a crowded city."

Caroline gave a forced laugh. "You make it sound like we're dealing with vampires."

"Don't laugh," Roger warned. "At this point I'm not ready to toss out any possibilities. You just get the two of you out of there."

"I will," she said. "Be careful."

"Sure," he promised. "You too."

The Columbus Circle subway platform was bustling with midday traffic as Roger ran his Metrocard through the reader, passed through the turnstile, and headed down. The train, when it finally came, was just as crowded. Roger managed to find a couple of square feet of standing room at one end and settled in for the trip.

And as he held onto the overhead bar and rode the bumps and sways, he found himself studying the rest of his fellow passengers.

So far all the Greens he'd met had had Melantha's same black hair and olive skin. But it would be silly to think they wouldn't have more variation than that, even among the immediate family. It would be even sillier to assume they didn't have any friends they could press into service.

Which meant the tail could be pretty much anyone. That squat man over in the corner, say, the one pressing the earbud of his CD player firmly into his ear with his middle finger, his head nodding gently to the beat as his lips moved along with whatever song he was listening to. He was about the same build as the man who'd accosted them in the alley two nights ago. For that matter, there were also resemblances between him and the figure who'd been wandering around their balcony last night.

Were they all working with Sylvia? Or could the alley guy have been working against her while the human fly was working for her?

Or it could be the black girl about Melantha's age seated midway down the car with her nose buried in an algebra textbook. There was a recent-immigrant look about her clothing, and Melantha's accent wasn't anything European that Roger was familiar with. Could it be Caribbean or North African?

Melantha would probably fit either ethnic group.

Or it could even be that German-looking couple poring over a subway map. Offhand, he couldn't come up with even a tenuous connection between them and Melantha, which might make them exactly the kind of spies Sylvia would go for.

Unless, of course, they all wore that same style of brooch as Sylvia and Cassia. In that case, picking out the tail would be a piece of cake.

The brooch...

Shifting his grip on the bar, he dug into his pocket for the one Caroline had found in the junk drawer.

It seemed overly heavy for a piece of jewelry, just as the gun had seemed overly light for a firearm.

But whether the weights corresponded he couldn't tell. And in the artificial lighting of the subway car, he wouldn't trust his eyes with any color, let alone one as odd as this one.

He dropped it back into his pocket. Once he was out in the sunlight again he'd give it another look.

The subway bounced its way south, discharging passengers and picking up new ones at each stop.

Roger stayed in his corner, even when an occasional seat opened up which he could have taken. He was more interested in watching his fellow passengers than he was in comfort, and he could see the whole car better standing up. For awhile he tried to keep track of which people got on or off at which stop, but after awhile he gave up the effort as pointless.

Still, with a little luck, maybe he could throw Sylvia's tail a surprise.

He got off at Sheridan Square, on the western edge of Greenwich Village, and climbed back to street level. A few blocks' walk southeast would take him to the West 4th Street station, where several different lines intersected. That meant several possible trains, with lots of people taking each of them. If he could get just a little bit ahead of the tail, he stood a good chance of losing him completely.

He was striding briskly down the sidewalk, working out his plans, when a hand closed on his left upper arm.

"Hey!" he snapped, twitching instinctively against the grip as he turned his head to look.

But it wasn't a dark Mediterranean face that he found himself gazing into, the sort of face he'd expected to see. This one was wide and craggy, edged with a sparse framing of brown hair, and sat on shoulders a good two inches lower than Roger's own. The body the face was attached to was equally wide. From the casual strength of the grip around his arm, Roger guessed that most of the bulk was muscle.

"Relax," the man said, smiling encouragingly as he gazed up at Roger with bright blue eyes. "All we want to do is talk."

"Talk?" Roger asked cautiously, trying again to pull away. But the grip wasn't going anywhere, and neither was his arm. "About what?"

"Not what," the man corrected. "Who. Your young friend, of course."

"What young friend?"

"Who do you think?" the man said. "Melantha Green."

8

Roger had been heading southeast toward the West 4th Street station near Washington Square. Now, with his new friend in charge, they angled off in a more easterly direction. "Where are we going?"

Roger asked.

"MacDougal Alley," the squat man said, guiding him around a knot of chattering schoolkids. "And we really do just want to talk."

"Yeah," Roger muttered. "Do I get to know who 'we' is?"

"Who 'we' are," the man corrected. "For starters, I'm Wolfe."

"Nice to meet you," Roger said. "I'm Roger."

They continued on in silence to Sixth Avenue. A block to the south was the subway station Roger had been making for, and for a brief moment he considered trying to make a break for it. With his longer legs, he ought to be able to outrun Wolfe in a flat-out sprint.

But Wolfe was apparently thinking along the same lines. Even as they stepped to the curb his grip tightened on Roger's arm, not enough to hurt but more than enough to make his point.

MacDougal Alley was a half block of two- to four-story walk-ups, with an iron gate at one end and a cul-de-sac at the other. Another of the squat men was loitering by the gate, fiddling restlessly with a small pocketknife. He opened the gate as they approached, falling in behind them as they passed through. Wolfe took them to a building midway down the short block and led the way up the stairs to a door on the top floor. He knocked, and a moment later the door was opened by a middle-aged woman built along the same lines as his escorts, though not nearly as wide. "This is him?" she asked, looking Roger up and down.

"This is him," Wolfe confirmed. "His name's Roger."

"Hello, Roger," the woman said. "I'm Kirsten. Please come in."

They filed inside. To Roger's mild surprise, the place wasn't a standard apartment, but rather a single large room laid out as an artist's studio. A few paintings, framed and unframed, rested at various places against the walls, with an easel holding a work in progress. Across by one of the windows, two children sat at a long table working with various colors of modeling clay. An old man wearing a stained smock leaned over them, watching their progress and occasionally making a comment in a low voice.