Matt did not go to Debra’s house. He swung by the library instead, found a book on DNA testing and paternity cases. He didn’t have to read long to learn what he needed. It took only a week to determine who the father of a child was. In the back of the book was a list of laboratories that performed the test. Matt used the library pay phone to call a lab in San Francisco. The woman who answered was informative. All they needed was a cheek swab of the child and the suspected father—plus five hundred dollars. Matt had feared it would cost a lot more.

“Do these tests hold up in court?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” the woman said.

Matt reached for a pen. “Tell me exactly how I should send the swabs.”

SIX

SIX

When the call came, Kelly Fienman was at her desk and contemplating quitting the FBI. Five months had elapsed since the Acid Man had wrecked her life. Six weeks had gone by since Amy Techer’s baby had been kidnapped. Now it was mid-June, and summer already looked like it was going to be hot and miserable.

What did the passage of time mean anyway without love? The days just made her older. It was bullshit that time healed all wounds. It merely buried them, she thought, and not that deeply. She still went to sleep and woke up thinking about Anna and Tony. They called so seldom.

But Amy’s call, that got her attention. Kelly had an apple in her mouth when the phone rang. She could eat them, along with other fruit, if she chewed slowly. But she still could not digest much else. She was twenty pounds lighter than when she had gone to see Professor Gene Banks.

Charlie sat across from her at his desk, devouring a romance novel. He moved his thick dark lips as he read, intent on every comma and orgasm. Go figure—he said he had bought a box of the books for two bucks at a yard sale and he was determined to get his money’s worth. He did not look up at the ringing phone. They were both bored with their jobs. If she quit, he said he was quitting too.

“Hello?” she said, swallowing carefully. Her esophagus hurt on top of everything. Her stomach acid preferred to travel up rather than go down because her guts were still so messed up.

“Agent Fienman?” Small voice, big expectations.

“Amy? How are you?”

The words burst. “I got a letter from him!”

Kelly dropped her apple and it rolled over and bumped Charlie’s foot. He looked up and stared into her wide eyes and motioned for her to put it on the speakerphone. But she shook her head.

“The kidnapper?” she asked.

“Yes. It’s him, I know it’s him. He sent a tape of Jimmy talking and crying and a few of his hairs. Jimmy’s alive!”