“What about three nights ago, after the NOMA event?”

Confusion clouds her eyes. “The papers said the woman taken that night was unrelated to the others.”

“I know. The FBI has its own way of working.”

“Then – oh God. He’s still taking them. And you think I-”

“I don’t think anything, Thalia. I was just asking a question and hoping you had an answer that could keep the police off your back.”

“I came straight home and did some yoga. It was a week-night, and I wasn’t feeling well.”

“Did anyone see you or call you? Anyone who could confirm that?”

Lines of worry now. “I don’t remember. I don’t think so. Like I said, I’m alone a lot.”

I nod, uncertain which way to go with her.

“You are too, aren’t you?” she says.

My first instinct is to change the subject, but I don’t. Sitting here facing this woman I’ve never met, it strikes me that I’ve been surrounded by men ever since I arrived from Hong Kong. There’s Agent Wendy, of course, but she’s fifteen years my junior, and seems almost like a kid. Thalia is close to my age, and I feel a surprising comfort with her, a kind of relief in the essentially feminine security of her home.

“I am,” I concede.

“What do you do?”

“How do you know I do anything? How do you know I’m not a housewife?”

“Because you don’t act like one. And you don’t look like one, even in that skirt. You should pick a better disguise than heels next time, unless you have plenty of time to practice in them.”

I can’t help but laugh. “My sister was a housewife. Before she disappeared, I mean. I’m a photojournalist.”

“Successful?”

“Yes.”

She smiles. “I’ll bet it feels good, doesn’t it? That validation?”

“It does. You’ll get there too.”

“I wonder sometimes.” Thalia strokes the cat’s back, and with each caress it rises against the pressure of her hand. “I see you want to ask me questions. Go ahead. I’ll tell you if I mind.”

“Some of these questions are the FBI’s. But if I don’t ask you, they will.”

“I’d rather have you ask them.”

“Why did you leave Terrebonne Parish and go to New York?”

“Have you ever been to Terrebonne Parish?”

“Yes.”

Surprise flickers in her eyes. “Really?”

“I worked for the newspaper here once. A long time ago. I spent a few days down there.”

“Then you know why I left.”

“What I remember is people who didn’t have much in the way of material things but loved the place they lived.”

She sighs bitterly. “You weren’t there long enough.”

“Why did you want to study under Roger Wheaton?”

“Are you kidding? It was a one-in-a-million opportunity. I always loved his paintings. I couldn’t believe it when he selected me.”

“You submitted female nudes for your audition paintings?”

“Yes.” Her hand goes to her mouth. “My nudes make me look like a suspect, don’t they?”

“To some people. Why did you switch from nudes to painting people in their homes?”

“I don’t know. Frustration, I guess. My nudes weren’t selling, except to businessmen who wanted something for their offices. Something arty with tits, you know? I wasn’t put on earth to fulfill that function.”

“No.”

“Have you seen any of my work?”

“No. It’s just a feeling I have about you.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Thalia, do you know a man named Marcel de Becque?”

She shakes her head. “Who is he?”

“An art collector. What about Christopher Wingate?”

“No.”

“He’s a big art dealer in New York.”

“Then I definitely don’t know him. I don’t know any big dealers.”

“You’ll never know this one. He was murdered a few days ago.”

This sets her back a little. “Was he part of this? The disappearances? ”

“He’s the man who sold the paintings of the victims. The series is called The Sleeping Women.”

“May I see one? Do you have a photo or something?”

“No. I wish I did.”

“Are they good?”

“Connoisseurs say they are.”

“Do they sell?”

“The last one sold for two million dollars.”

“God.” She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “And the woman looked dead in that picture?”

“Yes.”

“The buyer was a man, of course.”

“Yes. A Japanese.”

“Isn’t that typical?”

“What do you mean?”

“A dead naked woman sells for two million dollars. Do you think another type of painting by the same artist would have sold for that? A landscape? An abstract?”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course it wouldn’t! Roger’s paintings don’t sell for that.”

“They sell for a lot.”

“A quarter of that. And he’s been working for decades.”

“Now that I think about it, you’re right. This artist’s first paintings were more abstract, and they didn’t sell. What started the phenomenon were the ones where it was clear the women were Occidental, nude, and asleep or dead.”

Thalia sits with her mouth shut tight, as though she refuses to lower herself to discuss what makes her so angry.

“Tell me about Leon Gaines. What do you think about him?”

“Leon’s a pig. He’s always sniffing around, telling me what he’d like to do to me. He offered me five hundred dollars to model nude for him. I wouldn’t do it for ten thousand.”

“Would you model nude for Frank Smith for five hundred?”

“I’d model for Frank for free, but he only paints men.”

“What about Roger Wheaton?”

A strange smile touches her lips, an emblem of private thoughts that will not be shared. “Roger would never ask me to model for him. He’s still distant after two years. I think I intimidate him. Maybe he’s attracted to me and doesn’t want to cross some line, I don’t know. He’s a complex man, and I know he’s sick. He doesn’t talk about it, but I can read the pain in his face. Once I walked into his studio when he was buttoning his shirt, and his chest was covered with hemorrhages, from coughing. It’s in his lungs now, whatever it is. He feels something for me, but I don’t know what. He’s almost embarrassed around me. I think he may have seen some grad student’s paintings of me in the nude.”

“Does he know you’re gay?”

Thalia’s body stiffens, and her eyes go on alert. “Has the FBI been spying on me?”

“No. But the police have. You didn’t notice them?”

“I saw some cops watching the house. I thought they were narcs, staking out the two guys who live here.”

“No. They’ve only been on you for one day, though.”

She looks relieved.

“The FBI does want to know whether you’re gay or not. They do a lot of psychological profiling in these cases, and they feel that’s important.”

She purses her lips and looks at the coffee table between us, then raises her eyes to mine. “Do you think I’m gay?”

“Yes.”

She smiles and strokes the cat. “I’m strange. I don’t really fit anywhere. I have a sex drive like anyone else, but I don’t trust it. It betrays me. It makes me want to use sex to get noticed. So when I need someone, I go to women.”

“What about love and tenderness?”

“I have friends. Mostly women, but men too. Do you have a lot of friends?”

“Not really. I have colleagues, people who do what I do and understand the demands of my life. We share experiences, but it’s not, you know, the real thing. And I spend so much time traveling that it’s hard to make new friends. I have more ex-lovers than friends.”

She smiles with empathy. “Friends are hard to find when you’re forty. You really have to open yourself up to people, and that’s hard to do. If you have one or two friends left from childhood, you’re lucky.”

“I left the place I grew up, like you did. Do you have friends left back home?”

“One. She’s still down on the bayou. We talk on the phone sometimes, but I don’t go back to visit. Do you have any kids?”

“No. You?”

“I got pregnant once, when I was fifteen. By my cousin. I had an abortion. That was that.”