"I drove a couple of my analysts up to Quantico for a VICAP training session. Since I was there, I decided to sit in to see what's new

"What was?"

"Other than the fact that your biker boys are knocking each other off with greater alacrity than most social clubs, looks like the same old."

"I don't think I've worked a Carolina biker case in years. Who's down home these days?"

"We've stil got three of the big four."

"Hel s Angels, Outlaws, and Pagans."

"Yes, ma'am. No Banditos yet. And it's been quiet for some time, but you never know. Things could heat up next month when the Angels hold their run at Myrtle Beach."

"It's stil pretty wild up here, but that's not why I'm cal ing."

"Oh?"

"Ever hear of a young girl named Savannah Claire Osprey?"

There was a long silence. Across the miles the connection sounded like the ocean in a seashel .

"Is this a joke?"

"Absolutely not."

I heard her take a deep breath.

"The Osprey disappearance was one of the very first cases I worked for the bureau. It was years ago. Savannah Osprey was a sixteen-year-old kid with a lot of medical problems. Didn't hang with a wild crowd, didn't do drugs. One afternoon she left her house and was never seen again. At least that was the story."

"You don't believe she ran away?"

"The local police suspected the father, but no one could find a thing to prove it.

"Do you think he was involved?"

"It's possible. She was a timid kid, wore thick glasses, rarely went out, didn't date. And it was common knowledge the old man used her for a punching bag." Her voice was fil ed with contempt. "The guy should have been locked up. Actual y he was, but not until later. Got busted on a drug charge, I think.

Died about five years after his daughter disappeared."

What she said next hit me like a blow to the chest.

"He was such a peckerwood shit and she was such a pathetic little thing that the case real y bothered me. I've kept her bones al these years."

"What did you say?" I gripped the phone, barely breathing.

"The parents never accepted it, but I know they're hers. I stil have them stored at the ME office. Doc cal s every now and then, but I always ask him to hang on to the stuff"

"Her remains were found?"

"Nine months after Savannah disappeared a female skeleton turned up near Myrtle Beach. That was the thing that shined the light on Dwayne Osprey.

While he was never what you'd cal a steady worker, around the time she went missing he was making deliveries for a local cheesecake company. The day of his daughter's disappearance Daddy made a trip to Myrtle Beach."

I was so shocked I could hardly formulate a question.

"But did you ever get a positive on the remains?"