"His house is a five-minute drive from here." "I know that," she said bitterly. "So what do we do?" "Keep them watching Wilkins," I said. "And in the meantime, you go talk to Starzak." "You're coming with me, right?" she said.

"No," I said, thinking that I certainly didn't want to see Starzak, and that for once I had a perfect excuse in place. "I have to get the kids home."

She gave me a sour look. "And what if it isn't Starzak?" she said. I shook my head. "I don't know," I said. "Yeah," she said. "I don't know either." She started the engine. "Get in your seat."

THIRTY-FIVE

I T WAS WELL PAST FIVE O'CLOCK BY THE TIME WE GOT BACK to headquarters and so, in spite of some very sour looks from Deborah, I loaded Cody and Astor into my own humble vehicle and headed for home. They remained subdued for most of the ride, apparently still a little bit shaken by their encounter with the scary guy. But they were resilient children, which was amply demonstrated by the fact that they could still talk at all, considering what their biological father had done to them. So when we were only about ten minutes from the house Astor began to return to normal.

"I wish you would drive like Sergeant Debbie," she said.
"I would rather live a little longer," I told her.
"Why don't you have a siren?" she demanded. "Didn't you want one?"
"You don't get a siren in forensics," I said. "And no, I never wanted one. I would rather keep a low profile." In the rearview mirror I could see her frown. "What does that mean?" she asked.

"It means I don't want to draw attention to myself," I said. "I don't want people to notice me. That's something you two have to learn about," I added. "Everybody else wants to be noticed," she said. "It's like all they ever do, is do stuff so everybody will look at them."

"You two are different," I said. "You will always be different, and you will never be like everybody else." She didn't say anything for a long time and I glanced at her in the mirror. She was looking at her feet. "That's not necessarily a bad thing," I said. "What's another word for normal?"

"I don't know," she said dully.
"Ordinary," I said. "Do you really want to be ordinary?"
"No," she said, and she didn't sound quite so unhappy. "But then if we're not ordinary, people will notice us."

"That's why you have to learn to keep a low profile," I said, secretly pleased at the way the conversation had worked around to prove my point. "You have to pretend to be really normal."

"So we shouldn't ever let anybody know we're different," she said. "Not anybody."
"That's right," I said.