vigorous smell of fresh air, crushed grass, and male sweat.

'Dio, this is my friend Lee Cooper. Lee, this is Dio, known as Dio Kimbal, for reasons known only to himself.'

Dio absently wiped his right hand on the leg of his sweatpants before putting it over the seat for Lee to shake, but he was looking only at Kate.

'More third degree, eh?' he asked.

'I have my truncheon ready.'

'Where are we going?'

'Someplace quiet, where your screams won't be heard.'

They ended up at a place where indeed screams would barely be heard, but not because of the quiet. There could be little attempt at interrogation over the blare of the jukebox, or even conversation, although Lee's mouth moved a great deal as the music played up and down through the songs of her own adolescence. They had burgers and shakes and apple pie, and it was half past seven when they went back out onto the street, all three of them beaming and replete.

In the car, Kate paused with her hand on the key. 'Wanda said you wanted to talk to me.'

'Maybe you'd like to drop me somewhere first,' Lee immediately offered.

'No, that's okay,' Dio said. 'I didn't really want to talk.'

Kate wondered if she'd imagined the very slight stress on the final word. 'What did you have in mind?'

'I thought…' He took a deep breath. 'I thought I'd show you something.'

'Good,' Kate said approvingly. 'Showing me things is good. While you're thinking, though, you might also think about where the name Kimbal came from.'

'It's Jules's name.'

'Her name is Cameron,' Kate pointed out.

'Her real father's name was Kimbal.'

Kate whirled around so fast, she nearly strangled herself on the seat belt. 'She told you that?'

'Yeah.'

'Marsh Kimbal?'

'I don't know. She never told me his first name.'

'What is Cameron, then?'

'I don't know that, either, but it's not his name. It isn't her mother's name, either. At least that's what Jules said.'

'How did she find this out? Did she come across her birth certificate?'

'It isn't on her birth certificate, not the one her mother has. There isn't a father listed on that one. Jules hunted it down in the records of some hospital somewhere, over the computer.'

'How long have you known this?'

He wouldn't meet her eyes. 'Since last summer,' he said in a small voice.

'Shit, Dio.' She turned and smacked her hand hard against the steering wheel. 'How could you keep this kind of information to yourself? I've been trying —'

'Kate,' Lee said quietly. 'He's given it to you now. Work with it.'

Kate grasped the wheel firmly with both hands and took several slow breaths. 'Okay. I'm sorry, Dio. Thank you for telling me. I'm glad the hamburger torture worked. Now I'm going to have to find a phone.' She pulled the keys out of the ignition and began to peer at the surrounding buildings, but she was interrupted by Dio's hand tentatively touching her shoulder.

'Could the phone wait?' he asked. 'I promised Reg I'd be back by nine, and I'd really like to give you the other thing tonight.'

'What is it?'

'An envelope Jules gave me last month, with something lumpy in it. I didn't open it.'

'Where is it?'

'At the squat. It was the only place I could think of to hide something.'

She looked at the clock. To the squat and back across town would indeed leave little time for hunting down first a telephone and then Al Hawkin.

'Why didn't you ever have a car phone put in?' she complained to Lee, starting the engine and pulling out with a squeal onto Van Ness Avenue.

The three of them sat in the silent car and looked at the dark, dreary bulk of the warehouse.

'We don't haye a key for the padlock,' Kate said, 'and they've nailed the metal sheet down.'

'I got in another way last month,' Dio told her. 'It'll only take me a minute.'

'I'll go with you.'

'You don't have to.'

'Yes, I do.' She left the keys in the ignition and turned to Lee. 'If anyone comes, anyone at all, lean on the horn. I'll be here in twenty seconds.'

'Be careful,' was all Lee said.

'I wonder if my tetanus shots are up-to-date,' Kate muttered, reaching under the seat for the flashlight.

The boy's alternate entrance was around the back of the building. He dragged a crate from its resting place against the wall to a position under the metal fire escape and boosted himself up onto it. To Kate's relief the box proved itself sturdier than it looked by not collapsing as Dio jumped up to catch the lowest rung. He pulled himself up, Kate following with a good deal more effort. Halfway up the stairway, he swung his leg over the handrail and onto a narrow decorative ledge on the building. Kate kept the light shining on his feet as he picked his way along to a small window half a dozen feet away, which easily pushed open. He turned and grinned at Kate, his teeth gleaming in the indirect glow of the flashlight.

'I was afraid they'd fastened it shut.' He placed both hands on the sill and pulled himself up and over. After a muffled thump, he reappeared and stretched his hand out for the light, then guided Kate's steps until she, too, had dropped into the strategically placed mattress. She coughed violently at the dust raised, and moved away.

'Let's hurry this up. I'd rather not have to explain what we're doing to the local patrol.'

They went down the hall, passing the room where Kate's head had been bashed in, and down the stairs past the communal living quarters to the ground floor. It was still filthy, and there were still heaps of decaying carpet filling one of the rooms and sagging Sheetrock on the walls.

'Can I borrow the light?' Dio asked. Kate handed it to him, watching as he picked his way across the floor to one bit of ruined wall, where he shone the light up into the dust-colored studs and then worked his hand up into the recesses. When he drew out the envelope, Kate released a breath she had not known she was holding: She did not like spiders.

He came back and handed her the dirty white envelope. She took it by one corner and looked at it curiously. The back had been opened and then taped shut. 'It was like that when Jules gave it to me,' he said. 'Look at how it's addressed.'

She turned it over. On the front was typed:

JULIE KIMBAL

(JULES CAMERON)

'Can we open it?' he asked eagerly.

In answer, she patted her clothing, found a lack of anything that would do as an evidence bag, and shook her head. 'Not yet. Jesus, I hope this case never comes to trial; the defense will have a field day. No, Dio, we can't look at it yet. Give me the light.'

Still holding the lumpy envelope by the same corner, she retraced her steps upstairs to the small window and peered down in dismay. One-handed and backward, it was an ugly proposal.

'Isn't there another way out?' she asked.

'The top of the fire escape is at the roof, but there's a padlock on the door. This window's so small, nobody bothered.'

'The hell with it. Let's see if we can break the padlock.'

It was a small lock and a thin chain, held on by a couple of feeble staples. Kate raised a leg and kicked it, and the whole thing went flying out onto the roof. She had Dio prop the door shut against the wind when they left:

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