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By Root 320 0

wall was lined with shelves from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, each shelf filled with the books she had read and written in her life. She kept them all, could never bear to throw any of them away. The southern wall, like most of the southern walls of the house, was glass, exposing the view she cherished. On the floor, a rich brown wall-to-wall carpet felt like velvet beneath her feet. Beside the glass wall a large sofa and over-stuffed chair of sienna Italian leather faced each other. Over the couch she had draped a blanket given to her by a Tibetan monk. Velvet pillows of gold, green, and red picked up the colors of the blanket. Between the chair and table lay a huge wooden door she had purchased from an auction of an eighteenth-century Spanish castle and converted into a coffee table resting on a mahogany base. The wall behind the couch was a clutter of original black-and-white photographs from Alverez Bravo, Ansel Adams, Tara Popick, and a photo of herself taken by Herb Ritts for a profile written for New York magazine. A gothic iron candelabra sat on top of the table. On the floor over the carpet lay a large, elaborately embroidered Oriental rug.

Her desk, made of a rich, varnished mahogany, was nearly invisible beneath piles of notes, newspapers from around the country, videotapes, and her computer. Her chair was covered in the same Italian leather as the couch. The wall behind her desk was covered with awards she had won over the years, her Pulitzer the centerpiece among them.

The room, utterly silent, warm, and profoundly comfortable, was a womb. Here she found in turn solace, inspiration, seclusion. She had spent many hours sitting in her leather-bound chair, staring out the window, since she’d had the house built two years ago. She was untouchable here, completely relaxed. The only people who had ever been inside were Jeffrey and her grandparents when they came to visit. It was here she sat, surfing the Web, looking for more information on the items she had clipped from the paper.

The missing people Lydia had read about in the clippings clearly were not the concern of anyone important. Shawna Fox was a chronic runaway. It seemed like the investigation was half-assed, but the argument she had had with her foster parents led police to assume she had taken off just like she had from her three prior foster homes. The boyfriend, Greg Matthews, insisted vehemently that Shawna never would have left him, but no one seemed to give his opinion much weight. Christine and Harold Wallace were recovering addicts who had been in and out of rehab for most of their adult lives. Their disappearances probably wouldn’t even have been notable if every single thing they owned, including their wallets and car, hadn’t been left behind—and if they hadn’t owed two months rent to their landlord. He was the one who had reported them missing to the police. There were no detailed profiles of any of the victims in any of the papers. The bigger Albuquerque Journal did not even carry a mention of the events, except a small item about the surgical-supply warehouse break-in.

There was of course a slew of articles on the congresswoman’s son and his battle with leukemia, the missing dog, and the family’s graceful forbearance in the face of tragedy. The usual human-interest stuff. But Lydia could find nothing more on the Internet to expound on the Santa Fe New Mexican article that reported the dog’s body having been found mutilated at the Church of the Holy Name. So what do we have here, Sherlock? she asked herself in the sometimes mocking, sometime scolding tone that was her inner voice. It was partially her, partially her mother … Whoever it was, she could be a real bitch.

Not much, except the buzz. What she had was three of what the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit termed “high-risk victims,” people like prostitutes, drug addicts, or runaways whose lives or actions make them an easy mark for predators. She had arson and animal mutilation, two elements of the textbook “triad” of warning signs for a serial offender. Missing hospital supplies and