“Megan Breen just called on my cell,” he said. “She told me you were coming, explained you’d like to view the scene.”

Ricci nodded.

“She’s been very cooperative,” Erickson said. “There are certain restrictions on where you can and can’t go. You guys agree to abide by them, I’ll try to return the favor.”

Thibodeau didn’t hesitate for an instant.

“Be appreciated,” he said.

Erickson nodded.

“Follow me,” he said, and then turned to walk back up the drive.

They followed.

An eight-month stint in Antarctica had raised Megan Breen’s command of her patience to a sublime level, and she had done everything she could to keep herself occupied while awaiting word from Africa and Ashley’s callback. Whatever else was happening, she had a company to manage, as she’d had an ice station to run amid a wide spectrum of crises brought on by both man and nature throughout the polar winter. Her waking nightmare had begun today with two small-city detectives arriving out of the blue to deliver the most unexpected and shocking of messages. The tense, rapidly called huddle with Ricci and Thibodeau had followed without segue in Megan’s numbed mind. But the constant reminders that it was still a day at the office were among the nightmare’s most surreal components. There were matters she needed to track in every area of operation. Routine decisions to make, clusters of problems to address, requests to grant, deny, or put on hold. Many of them were duties she would have normally considered headaches but counted as blessings right now in her attempts to stay busy. She did not expect to give better than partial attention to anything in front of her, nor stop her fears about Julia from obtruding on her thoughts. Still, Megan could only believe that being partially diverted, maintaining even the flimsiest semblance of normalcy, was preferable to giving in to the sense of helpless, useless, agonizing despair that would be the sure and terrible alternative.

When the e-mail arrived, she was at her office computer making an immense effort to focus on a contractor’s bid for the expansion of an UpLink optics and photonics R&D facility outside Seattle. On any other morning, she almost certainly would not have noticed the new inbox item for quite a while. Though she had never bothered to disable the sound notification option on her messaging program—default settings tended to remain in place on her machine out of casual apathy—Megan considered its bell tone an annoying nuisance given the large volume of electronic correspondence she received, and for the most part left her desktop’s speakers switched off. Typically, she would check for messages at semiregular intervals throughout the course of her workday—while having her morning coffee, before and after her lunch break, then again perhaps an hour or so before heading home.