“No, thanks,” Eli replied, moving a stack of newspapers from one of the couch cushions to sit down. “I wouldn’t mind some water, though.”

Russ moved into the adjoining kitchen area, which resembled a museum diorama depicting the last quarter of the twentieth century, with its harvest-gold appliances, red-and-black-checkered tile floor and white metal cabinets.

Eli rubbed his eyes, giving his beleaguered brain a chance to assimilate the jumble of textures and colors.

He heard the fridge open and close, and then Russ was back in the living room, offering a bottle of water.

The liquid was cold, and pure, and it flowed into Eli like a magical elixir, clearing his brain, strengthening his muscles, boosting his energy, which had begun to flag at some point without his noticing.

Russ sank into an ancient recliner on the other side of the coffee table, the surface of which lay hidden beneath a variety of clutter—junk mail, old copies of TV Guide and Reader’s Digest, generic books of crossword puzzles, candy wrappers and a few coffee mugs, none too clean.

One of the reasons Eli had been glad to receive bottled water, instead of a glass from the tap.

“You taking your meds, Russ?” Eli asked thoughtfully, not as a gibe, but out of real concern. The man had made a lot of strides lately, but he’d suffered for years from chronic depression on a scale few people were made to endure.

“Yes,” Russ said, sounding more resigned than defensive. “I’m on some new stuff. Takes a while to kick in.”

“Stick with it, okay?”

Russ made a harrumph kind of sound. “Trust me, I will. After what happened out there—” He cocked a meaty thumb over one shoulder to indicate the lot where he and Cord had stumbled across the body. An event guaranteed to eff-up a man’s day. “I might just double up on the happy pills.”

Eli was through making small talk. “Russ, if you have any idea who that girl might be, I need you to tell me. Now. There’s a family resemblance, I’m told, and that can’t be a coincidence.”

Russ startled Eli a little by practically bolting from his chair. He crossed the room, rustled around in stacks of stuff on top of a bookshelf and came to stand just on the other side of the coffee table, holding out a framed photograph.

Eli took it, examined the face behind the dust-coated glass.

“That’s my sister,” Russ said. “She was sixteen when that was taken. It was the year before she would have graduated, if she hadn’t run away.”

Bethanne had been a pretty girl, at least when this picture was taken, even with mild acne scars, cat-eye glasses and crooked teeth. Her hair was dirty blond and badly cut, and her eyes, a soft shade of blue, revealed a depth of sorrow few sixteen-year-olds ever encounter.