As we circled each other, readjusting our armloads of papers, I again was struck by the whiteness of her skin. Under the harsh fluorescent light, her lower lids looked plum, her skin as pale as the underbel y of a lemon peel. It crossed my mind Jocelyn might be albino.

For some reason, I felt compel ed to speak to her.

"How are you getting along, Jocelyn?"

She stared at me with a look I couldn't interpret.

"I hope you're not finding the lab too overwhelming."

"I can do the job."

"Yes, of course you can. I just meant it's hard to be the new kid on the block."

As she opened her mouth to say something, a secretary emerged from an adjacent office. Jocelyn hurried off down the hal .

Jesus, I thought. This one could use a bit of charm school. Maybe she could get a two-for-the-price-of-one deal for her and Quickwater.

I spent the rest of the afternoon clearing my desk of message slips. Cal s from the media I threw away, those from law enforcement I returned.

I scanned a request from Pel etier, the oldest of the lab pathologists. Bones had been found by a homeowner in Outremont when he dug a hole in his cel ar floor. The remains were old and brittle, but Pel etier was unsure if they were human.

Nothing urgent.

My desk reasonably clear, I drove home and spent another glamorous evening in the oldest French city in North America.

Pizza. Bath. Basebal .

Birdie stayed through the eighth inning, then curled into a bal on the guest room bed. When I turned in at eleven-fifteen he stretched and relocated to my bedroom chair.

I fel asleep almost immediately and dreamed piecemeal scenarios that made no sense. Kit waved from a boat, Andrew Ryan by his side. Isabel e served dinner. A headless Cherokee Desjardins tweezered pieces of flesh and dropped them into a plastic sack.

When Kit came in I floated to the surface, but was too groggy to cal out. He was stil fumbling in the kitchen when I sank back into oblivion.

The next morning I was going through Pel etier's bones when Denis came into my lab.

"C'est la vedette!"

The star? Oh no.

He opened a copy of LeJournal de Montréal and showed me a picture of myself at the Vipers' clubhouse. Beside it was a short story recounting the recovery of Gately and Martineau, and identifying the mysterious third skeleton as that of sixteen-year-old Savannah Claire Osprey, according to the coroner, an American missing since 1984. The caption described me as a member of the Carcajou unit.

"C'est une promotion ou une reduction?"

I smiled, wondering if Quickwater and Claudel would see the error as a promotion or demotion, then resumed sorting. So far I was up to two lamb dinners, a pot roast, and more gril ed chicken than I planned to count.