I handed back the sheets. “Might have an overactive thyroid.”

“Yeah?”

“The bulging eyeballs. Or it could be the lighting. Mug shots don’t bring out the best in folks.”

“Edmonton PD says the address Ruben provided after the second collar turned out to be an abandoned warehouse. They’ve had no contact with her since ’08, know nothing about her current whereabouts.”

Ryan pocketed his iPhone and hip-planted his hands. There was stiffness in his movements, tension in his shoulders and jaw. Familiar signs. This case had gotten to him.

But there was more. A hardness in Ryan’s eyes that I hadn’t seen before.

I wanted to ask if there was something wrong, to say I was here if he wanted to talk. I didn’t. Just waited.

“Are you familiar with Project KARE?” Ryan spelled out the acronym.

“Isn’t it an RCMP task force created to investigate deaths and disappearances of women in and around Edmonton? I understand there have been quite a few.”

“That’s an understatement. But yeah, essentially, you’re right. Their mandate is to collar the scumbags responsible for HRMP murders.”

“High-risk missing persons.”

“Yes.” Ryan was keeping his voice carefully modulated.

“Meaning those involved in prostitution and drugs.” I sensed where this was going.

“Yes.”

“Annaliese Ruben is on the Project KARE list,” I guessed.

“Since 2009.”

“Who reported her missing?”

“Another prossie.”

That surprised me. “Sex-trade workers usually steer clear of the cops.”

“No shit. But the hookers in Edmonton are totally freaked.”

“Wasn’t someone arrested for those killings?”

“Thomas Svekla. A real piece of work. Charged with two murders, convicted of one.” Ryan shook his head in disgust. “He’d stuffed his victim into a hockey bag and hauled her from High Level to Fort Saskatchewan.”

“At least they got him.”

“Word is there’s more than one perp responsible.”

“So a predator may still be out there.”

“Yeah. Predator or predators.”

Ryan’s eyes looked dark and troubled. And too intensely blue to be real.

“But if Annaliese Ruben gave birth in Saint-Hyacinthe last Sunday, obviously she’s alive,” I said.

“And murdering babies.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Who but the mother could kill three different newborns at three times? And why’d she go rabbit?”

“What’s your next move?”

“Run the mug shot past Ralph Trees. See if Annaliese Ruben is Amy Roberts/Alma Rogers/Alva Rodriguez.”

“Then?”

“Then find her ass and haul it to the bag.”

* * *

I went with pad thai from the Bangkok at Le Faubourg on rue Sainte-Catherine. The line was short and I was running late.

St. Mary’s Hospital started life in 1924 as a forty-five-bed affair in Shaughnessy House, now the Canadian Centre for Architecture. A decade later, operations moved from there to avenue Lacombe in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood, just over the mountain from centre-ville. Today the old girl is a multipavilion institution offering 316 patient beds and a staff active in teaching and research.

Le stationnement was a replay of twelve hours earlier. At eight-fifty a car finally pulled out on rue Jean-Brillant. I fired into the spot, grabbed my things, and bolted.