Immoral

He heard the ding of the elevator a few feet away. That rarely happened at night. It meant someone from above, in the real city offices, was coming downstairs. He waited for the doors to open and recognized K-2's dwarflike silhouette.

"Evening, Jon," Deputy Chief Kyle Ki

K-2 used an open-toed walk and strolled through the open door of Stride's cubicle. He looked down, frowning, at the pile of papers in the empty chair. Stride apologized and moved the stack to the floor so the chief could sit down.

"So you think she's dead?" Ki

"That's the way it looks," Stride said. There was no point in sugarcoating what both men knew. "Nine out of ten don't come back alive at this point."

Ki

"There's no evidence of that."

"Well, since when did evidence mean a damn thing to these people?" Ki

Stride smiled. He was remembering the leprechaun parody of K-2 that Maggie did at a bureau party the previous St. Patrick's Day.

"This fu

"No, sir. Sorry. You don't have to tell me about the media. Bird's all over me."

Ki

"You realize we don't have a lot of time here?" Ki

Stride knew there was no point in reminding the chief that he had been the one to ask Stride to lead the case personally. It was all political and bureaucratic calculation with K-2. The city wanted this to go away-fast. "The perps are cooperating," Stride said. "There's nothing big here that needs me."

"And we both know that we're already outside the zone on this one. Odds are it's not going to clear. I'm going to have to pull you and Maggie. Give the lead to Guppo. He can take this going forward. If we find something, you're back in."

"That'll just give more ammo to Bird," Stride protested. "It's too soon. Give us a few more weeks. We don't want to look like we're walking away from the investigation."

"You think I like this?" Ki

"I need another three weeks. You said yourself, the mayor's hot on this one. If we don't have anything by then, I agree, it's a cold case. Guppo can take the lead. He's already got Kerry."

Ki

Stride nodded. "I appreciate that. Thank you, sir."

The chief pushed himself out of the chair and wandered back to the elevator without saying anything more. The doors opened immediately and swallowed him up. The machinery hummed as it returned to the fourth floor.

Stride took a deep breath. He knew how it worked. K-2 hadn't come down here to pull him off the case. It was too soon for that. But he wanted Stride to know that the clock was ticking.

"What should I do?" Maggie asked. She stared down at three cards, adding up to twelve. The dealer's up card was a six.

Stride propped his cigarette in an ashtray, where its smoke curled up and merged into the gray cloud hovering over the blackjack tables. The haze clung to the low ceiling. When he inhaled, he tasted stale smoke. His eyes burned, partly from the unventilated air and partly because it was now after midnight, more than eighteen hours after his day began. He had stayed at city hall until Maggie called and threatened to haul him out by force.

"Stand," Stride said.

"But I'm only at twelve. I think I should take a card."

Stride shook his head. "Odds are the dealer's got a ten. He'll have to draw at sixteen, and he's likely to bust. Stand."

"Hit me," Maggie said. The dealer slapped a king of hearts on the table. "Shit."

Stride waved a hand over his cards, which showed fourteen. The dealer flipped his hole card, which was a jack, then dealt another card to his hand. It was a ten.

"Asshole," Maggie said.

Stride laughed as the dealer added two more chips to his stack.

The tiny casino reeked of sweat, collecting on the skin of a hundred people crammed into its claustrophobic quarters. Most were dressed in fla

They had been playing for almost an hour, and he was up forty dollars. Maggie was down twenty. He took two chips and slid them into the betting area.

"You're wi

"Big talk from a gal who's losing her shirt."

"Don't tempt me," she said, winking.

All day long they had reinterviewed people who knew Rachel. The late-night jaunt to the casino was a way to forget the case that had obsessed them for three weeks. But they couldn't escape. Bird Finch's interview showed up on the television suspended over the bar. They didn't need to hear the sound. It was bad enough to read Bird's angry body language.

"Maybe Bird is right," Maggie grudgingly acknowledged. "Maybe we have a serial."

Stride glanced at Maggie out of the corner of his eye. Then he shook his head, not convinced. "The two just don't feel the same."

"Don't they? Or do you not want them to be the same? We've got two teenage girls who lived within a couple miles of each other, both disappearing without a trace."

"The method doesn't feel right," Stride said. "We both agree that Kerry was either a stranger perv or a hit-and-run, right?"

Maggie nodded. "Except I don't really buy the hit-and-run. They just run, they don't hide the body. I think someone grabbed her."

"Fair enough. That's what I think, too. But can you imagine the same guy stalking the i

The blackjack dealer, who sported long black hair and a wimpy mustache, assessed them nervously. He caught Stride's eye, then pasted a sober expression on his face and kept dealing cards.

"So it's just coincidence?" Maggie asked.

Stride shrugged. "We're not a small town anymore. Shit like this happens. My bet is that whoever stalked Kerry isn't still in the state. And Rachel-the more I see of this case, the more I feel like the answer's at home."