With Child

gas station to buy a map and borrow a phone book.

Jules had said her summer computer class was at the university, which Kate took to mean the university her mother taught at. The departmental listings in the telephone book took up an entire column, but there was no answer, not in the Computer Sciences office, nor in the German department, nor in any of half a dozen others she tried at random. The secretaries had left for the weekend.

However, Kate reflected, the computer maniacs she had known would not be diverted by the hour hand of a clock - or, for that matter, by a ringing telephone. There wasn't much else to do, short of going home, so she bought herself a cup of bad coffee from the gas station cashier and drove to the university.

Darkness had fallen before Kate's flashed badge and firm reiteration of her name and rank got her into the computer labs.

'See?' said the elderly security guard who had been Kate's guide for the final stages of her quest. 'Told you they'd be here.'

The four people at the computer terminal did not stir until Kate had actually hung her badge down over the front of the monitor, and even then the only response was one of vague irritation. The hand of the man sitting next to the keyboard reached up and brushed her ID away.

'You'll have to wait a minute,' he said.

Kate had to admit that she hadn't anything better to do, so she waited a minute, and then five more. After that, she got up and went into the next room, an office filled with copy machines old and new, a long table with a motley group of chairs, and various kitchen machines. She found a can of coffee in the refrigerator and filters in with the reams of Xerox paper. When the coffee was made, she carried the carafe into the lab, along with half a dozen Styrofoam cups, the top one filled with packets of sugar and creamer. The woman and the three men had not changed position, although it was now the woman's hands that flew across the keyboard.

'Coffee?' Kate asked loudly. One of the men, a young boy with red hair and freckles, tore his eyes from the monitor long enough to glance at his watch.

'Two minutes,' he murmured, though not necessarily at Kate. She considered interrupting, by pulling out a few plugs perhaps, but decided to give them the two minutes. Actually, she thought as she poured herself a cup and sipped, it was almost refreshing to meet people who were not only unintimidated but also seemingly unaware of her status as an authority figure.

Two minutes and twenty seconds later, some invisible sign on the screen caused the four attendants to slump back in their chairs. The woman gave the keyboard a few perfunctory taps, and across the room a laser printer hummed to attention.

'Coffee?' Kate asked again. This time, the four of them, chatting in incomprehensible shorthand, came over to where she sat at a worktable. She poured and pushed the cup with sugar and creamer toward them. The redheaded boy was the only one to add sugar, stirring it in with a ballpoint pen that he took from his pocket.

'What was all that?' Kate asked politely. 'It didn't look like English.'

'It wasn't. Bloke in Moscow,' said the woman, her voice thickly Australian. 'He can only talk when his partner goes on a break.'

'Full of interesting stuff,' commented the oldest man, who might have been thirty. 'However, his English isn't up to it. Hence Sheila here,' he said, nodding at the woman.

'Kate Martinelli,' Kate offered, taking the name as an opportunity for introductions, although the woman's name was Maggie, not Sheila. The others were Rob, the young redhead; Simon, the older man; and a young Chinese man with the unlikely name of Josiah. 'My adoptive parents were missionaries,' he said, offering a well- worn explanation in a voice with no accent.

'Do any of you know Jules Cameron?' Kate asked as soon as introductions had subsided. Four sets of eyes looked at her blankly. 'She's a junior high school student who was in a class that was taught here last summer, something about programming. There was a boy in the class, her partner in some project. He sold a game to Atari when he was ten years -'

'Richard!' three voices chorused.

'We all know Richard,' Maggie said. 'We've all heard the story about Atari a thousand times.'

'I haven't,' said Josiah.

'You've only been here a week.'

'I bet you know him anyway,' said Simon. 'He uses Albert Onestone as his nom de clavier.'

'Oh, Albert. Sure, I know Albert. Is he as bigmouthed in life as he is on the net?'

'Worse.'

'God.'

'Do you know where I can find him?' Kate asked.

'He's always on the Internet. I don't think he sleeps. Or do you mean actually him, as in his body?' Maggie asked.

'His actual physical person, yes.'

'I'm not sure where he lives.'

'Could you ask him?' Kate asked.

'You mean when I see him?'

'If he's always on-line, what about now?'

Richard, the computer genius whose pomposity had come across clearly even in choppy Internetspeak, had nonetheless agreed to meet Kate in the flesh. First, though, she needed to reach Rosa Hidalgo, to gain access to the Cameron (now Cameron-Hawkin) apartment. Richard, she trusted, would be able to open the computer inside the apartment, on the slim chance that Jules had left something - diary, letters, mutterings to herself - in its electronic recesses. It was this thin thread that she had followed down here, and she could only hope it led her a bit further before it snapped, or unraveled. She'd been an investigator long enough to be resigned to any number of fruitless days, but that did not mean she relished them.

Rosa was home. Her voice sounded strained, and she obviously held the memory of December's conversation with Kate in the front of her mind. Kate sat at the telephone in the corner of the computer lab and gradually wore Rosa down, grinding away with a steady application of Jules's name and an attitude of profound apology. She hung up feeling more than a bit nauseated, but with the permission at hand. Now all she needed to do was drag Richard away from his keyboard.

She was interrupted in her dialing of his number by the beeper somewhere on her person. She hung up, dug the tiny machine out of her pocket, and held it up. It displayed her own home number, with no message.

Old familiar panic feelings flooded over her as she punched the numbers, and when Lee herself answered, Kate went querulous with relief.

'What do you want, Lee?'

'Where are you? We expected you hours ago.'

'Is that why you beeped me, because I missed dinner? I'm working.' Damn it, Kate groused to herself. She can take off for months, yet I can't have a couple of hours without checking in. Well, she corrected herself after a glance at her watch, six hours. 'Sorry, I guess it is late. I should've called. I've gotten out of the habit of having someone at home.'

'It doesn't matter. Oh, look Kate, I'm sorry - I'm not thinking straight. I just got off the phone with Al Hawkin.'

Kate held her breath.

'They've arrested the Strangler,' Lee's voice in the receiver said.

'What?' The four people at the computer turned to look at her, but she did not see them.

'Just a little while ago. He wanted you to know before you heard it on the news.'

'How good a make is it?'

'Sorry?'

'How sure are they that they've got the right man?'

'Al said it looks positive. He said to tell you a witness came forward who saw the letter being mailed. I assume that makes sense to you?'

'It does, yes. Where is he? Al, I mean.'