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“There had to be a baby,” Eric snapped. “A little girl.” He stopped short of describing her.

“Look, buddy, there ain’t no baby. The way I hear it, the pilot radioed in to the control tower and reported chest pains. He said there was one, repeat one, passenger aboard. And there he is.” The fireman lifted his eyes to the stretcher bearing an adult, the body covered to give death its dignity.

Summers spotted someone he knew—Detective Sergeant McGivern. Rushing over, he grabbed the burly man’s arm. “Who was the passenger?”

“Get out of here, Summers. You’re not on this. And you’re sure as hell asking a lot of questions. Now get out of my hair!” McGivern turned back to one of the uniformed officers, ordering him to take the names and addresses of any eyewitnesses.

Eric went back to his colleagues, who were watching the frenzied proceedings in amazement. “They’re dead. The pilot and the passenger. It had to be the right plane. But no little girl, thank God,” he heard himself say. “Angela was wrong.” He realized for the first time how relieved he was. If Angela had been wrong about the little girl, she could be wrong about other things, too.

“There’s just one thing I want to do before we call it a night. I want to go down to the hospital and find out the identity of those poor guys they pulled out of that wreckage.”

“Barely identifiable,” the morgue attendant said clinically. “But we managed. Take a look if you want.” He pulled back the sheet.

“Is there any way we can find out which is the pilot and which is the passenger?” Noel asked with authority.

“Sure thing. This one here, the shorter guy, was the pilot. Ephraim Evans was his name, and this man was Dr. William Maxwell. There was a lady and gentleman here a few minutes ago and she identified the doctor. She knew the name of the pilot but had never met him. Seems she heard the broadcast on the radio shortly after it happened. She’s been here waiting in the hospital for Maxwell to arrive. Said he was a specialist in childhood cancer from Lahey Clinic in Boston. He was supposed to do a bone marrow transplant on her little girl tomorrow—actually, today,” he said, glancing at his watch.

Summers tensed. “Where are these people? The ones who identified the doctor.”

“Upstairs on the surgery floor, unless they went home,” the attendant said, pulling up the sheet.

Eric led the way from the basement to the lobby and scanned the nearly empty room. A woman, her head bent, was crying into her hands while a tall, heavyset man stood awkwardly beside her, patting her shoulder.

“I’m with the Woodridge Police,” Eric said, quickly opening his badge holder as he tapped the man on the arm. “I wonder if you would mind stepping over here for a moment. It’s about the plane crash.”

“Of course,” the man said, looking relieved. He introduced himself. “What can I help you with?”

Andretti. Eric made a mental note of the last name and got to the point. “They told me in the morgue that you identified Dr. Maxwell.”

“Yes, I did. My wife and I were sitting here waiting for his plane to get in. He was called in on my daughter’s case this morning. She’s too sick to be moved to Boston.”

“What do you mean?” Eric asked sharply.

“Without Dr. Maxwell, there may be no hope. She’ll die,” he said huskily.

“There are always other specialists, other doctors—”

“Let me explain. She needs a bone marrow transplant. Maria has high-risk lymphoblastic leukemia and it didn’t go into remission with chemo. My wife and I aren’t a match and neither are our other kids. So it has to be an unrelated donor transplant and it has to be done quickly.”

“I see.”

“He was the only one who would even consider doing the procedure. Maxwell said he would try. Now it’s all over.”

“Where is your little girl?” Eric managed to ask as a hard lump settled in his throat.

“Down the hall. They have her in room thirtyfour, a private room with a nurse. They didn’t want her in the pediatric ward with all the noise and commotion.”

Eric walked back to