recovered.

Regards, H. G.

'Dead girl. Dead end,' Conklin said, running his hands through his hair. 'The kidnappers have no problem with murder. And that's all we know.'

'So what are we missing? We have a half-baked sighting from a witness who gave us nondescriptions of the perps and the car. We have no plate number, no physical evidence from the scene – no cigarette butts, no chewing gum, no shell casings, no tread marks. And no freaking ransom note.'

Conklin leaned back in his chair, said to the ceiling, 'The perps acted like muscle, not like sexual predators. Shooting Paola within a minute of capturing her? What's that?'

'It's like the shooter was itchy. High on crack. Like the job was subbed out to gangbangers. Or Paola was excess baggage, so they offed her. Or she put up a fight and someone panicked,' I said. 'But you know, Richie, you're right. Totally right.'

His chair creaked as he returned it to an upright position.

'We have to turn this investigation on its head. Work on solving Paola Ricci,' I said, planting my hand palm down on the autopsy report. 'Even dead, she could lead us to Madison.'

Conklin was putting in a call to the Italian Consulate when Brenda swiveled her chair toward me. She covered the mouthpiece of her phone with her hand.

'Lindsay, you've got a caller on line four, won't identify himself. Sounds… scary. I asked for a trace.'

I nodded, my heartbeat ticking up a notch. I stabbed the button on the phone console.

'This is Sergeant Boxer.'

'I'm only going to say this once,' said the digitally altered voice that sounded like a frog talking through Bubble Wrap. I signaled to Conklin to pick up on my line.

'Who is this?' I asked.

'Never mind,' said the voice. 'Madison Tyler is fine.'

'How do you know?'

'Say something, Maddy.'

Another voice came over the line, breathy, young, broken. 'Mommy? Mommy?'

'Madison?' I said into the phone.

The frog voice was back.

'Tell her parents they made a big mistake calling the police. Call off the dogs,' said the caller, 'or we'll hurt Madison. Permanently. If you back off, she'll stay alive and well, but either way, the Tylers will never see their daughter again.'

And then the phone went dead.

'Hello? Hello?'

I jiggled the hook until I got a dial tone, then I slammed the phone down.

'Brenda, get the Call Center.'

'What was that? 'They made a big mistake calling the police?' Conklin shouted. 'Lindsay, did that little girl sound like Madison?'

'Jesus Christ, I couldn't tell. I don't know.'

'What the hell?' Conklin said, hurling a phone book against the wall.

I felt dizzy, physically sick.

Was Madison really fine?

What did it mean that her parents shouldn't have called the police? Had there been a ransom demand or a phone call that we didn't know about?

Everyone in the squad room was looking at me, and Jacobi was standing behind me, literally breathing down my neck, when the radio room called back with the result of the phone trace.

The caller had used a no-name cell phone, and the location couldn't be traced.

'The voice was altered,' I told Jacobi. 'I'll send the tape to the lab.'

'Before you do that, get the parents to listen to it. Maybe we can get a positive ID on the child's voice.'

'Could still be a sicko getting his rocks off,' Conklin said as Jacobi walked away.

'I hope that's what it is. Because we're not 'calling off the dogs.' Not even close.'

I couldn't say what I was thinking.

That we'd just heard Madison Tyler's last words.

Chapter 55

BRENDA FREGOSI HAD BEEN the homicide squad assistant for some years and, at only twenty-five years old, was a natural mother hen.

She was clucking sympathetically as I spoke to Henry Tyler on the phone, and when I hung up, she handed me a message slip.

I read her spiky handwriting: 'Claire wants you to come to the hospital at six this evening.'

It was almost six now.

'How did she sound?' I asked.

'Fine, I think.'

'Is this all she said?'

'This is what she said exactly: 'Brenda, please tell Lindsay to come to the hospital at six. Thanks a lot.' '

I'd just seen Claire yesterday. What was wrong?

I drove toward San Francisco General, my mind swirling with terrible, sinking thoughts. Claire once told me this thing about brain chemistry, the nub of it being that when you're feeling good, you can't ever imagine feeling bad again. And when you're feeling bad, it's impossible to imagine a time when you won't be circling the drain.

As I sucked on an Altoids, a little girl's voice was crying, 'Mommy,' in my head, and it was mixed up with the bad knee-jerk reaction I had to hospitals ever since my mother died in one almost fifteen years ago.

I parked in the hospital lot on Pine, thinking about how good it had been having Joe to talk to when I felt this low, frustrated from three days of staggering blindly into dead ends.

My thoughts turned back to Claire as I stepped into the hospital elevator. I stared at my fried reflection in the stainless steel doors. I fluffed my bangs uselessly as the car climbed upward, then when the doors slid open, I stepped out into the antiseptic stink and cold white light of the post-op unit.

I wasn't the first to arrive at Claire's room. Yuki and Cindy had already moved chairs up to her bed, and Claire was sitting up, wearing a flowered nightgown and a Mona Lisa smile on her face.

The Women's Murder Club was assembled – but why?

'Hey, everyone,' I said, walking around the bed, kissing cheeks. 'You look gorgeous,' I said to Claire, my relief that this wasn't a life-support emergency bringing me almost to the point of giddiness. 'What's the occasion?'

'She wouldn't tell until you got here,' Yuki said.

'Okay, okay!' Claire said. 'I do have an announcement to make.'

'You're pregnant,' said Cindy.

Claire burst out laughing, and we all looked at Cindy.

'You're crazy, girl reporter,' I said. A baby was the last thing Claire needed at age forty-three, with two near- grown-up sons.

'Give us a clue,' Yuki blurted out. 'Give us a category.'

'You guys! Stomping on my surprise with your cleats on,' said Claire, still laughing.

Cindy, Yuki, and I swiveled our heads toward her.

'I had some blood work done,' said Claire. 'And Miss Cindy, as usual, is right.'

'Ha!' Cindy cried out.

Claire said, 'If I hadn't been in this hospital, I probably wouldn't have even known I

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