In which case they'd vanish in five minutes, he knew.

“I'll come down. What office?”

“One-oh-three. If I don't answer right away I might be on the phone,” she said. “I'll just be a minute.”

Tucker pulled on his tweed jacket, with its leather elbow patches and torn satin lining. He forwent his hat. He walked into the dark corridor, locking the door after him. He pressed the big black button to summon the elevator and waited for three minutes until it arrived. He stepped inside and began the grinding journey down to the first floor.

Rune tried a dental pick.

She'd bought it at a pharmacy from a clerk who didn't seem particularly curious why someone wearing Day-Glo Keds and a miniskirt printed with pterodactyls would be interested in a dental tool. Then she'd gone back to the houseboat. She'd practiced on the locks to some of the interior doors and got them open pretty fast. She hadn't graduated to the front door, which had a doorknob cylinder and a Medeco, because she got impatient. Anyway, she figured, the theory was undoubtedly the same.

It wasn't.

Sweating, the panic growing, she worked at Arthur Tucker's door for five minutes. Nothing happened. She'd get the pick in and twist it and turn it and hear clicking and snapping and unlocking sounds, all of which was real satisfying.

But nothing happened. The door remained snugly locked.

She stood back. There was no time. Tucker'd be back in three or four minutes, she estimated.

She looked up and down the corridor. There were only two other tenants on this floor: a lawyer's office, with signs in English and Korean, and an import company. There were no lights under either door.

“Oh, hell.”

Rune shoved her elbow through the glass. A large triangular piece fell inside. She reached in and turned the latch.

Four minutes... you've only got four minutes.

But it turned out she didn't need even that much time.

Because right in the middle of Tucker's desk was what she was looking for — the stack of papers he'd been going to great lengths to cover up. But it wasn't just any stack of papers; it was a play. The title was Delivered Flowers. Tucker, it seemed, had been making notes in the margin — additions, deletions, stage directions. Not many, a few words here and there. One change was pretty radical, though, Rune thought. Not in the play itself, but on the cover page: Tucker had crossed out by Shelly Lowe and written his own name in.

The copyright line had been changed too, his name substituted for hers.

On the cover was another note: Haymarket Theater, Chicago — interested.

Shelly's been dead a few days, Rune thought angrily, and this prick's already stolen her script and sold it to somebody.

Take it, she told herself. It's evidence.