By the time I entered the main office, half the lights were out and only one secretary remained, locking up. But the right secretary— a plump, ginger-haired young woman named Mary Lou Whiteacre, whose five-year-old son I'd treated last year.

Brandon Whiteacre was a nice little boy, soft and artistic, with his mother's coloring and scared-bunny eyes. A freeway pileup had shattered his grandmother's hip and sent him to the hospital for observation. Brandon had escaped with nothing broken other than his confidence, and soon he began wetting his bed and waking up screaming. Mary Lou got my name from the alumni referral list, but the department wasn't picking up the tab. She was reeling from the crash and still chafing under the financial hardships imposed by a three-year-old divorce. Her HMO offered the usual cruelty. I treated Brandon for free.

My footsteps made her look up, and though she smiled she seemed momentarily frightened, as if I'd come to revoke her son's recovery.

“Dr. Delaware.”

“Hi, Mary Lou. How's everything?”

The red hair was a flyaway frizz that she patted down. “Brandon's doing great— I probably should have called you to tell you.” She approached the counter. “Thanks so much for your help, Dr. Delaware.”

“My pleasure. How's your mom?”

She frowned. “Her hip's taking a long time to heal, and the other driver's being a butt— denying responsibility. We finally got ourselves a lawyer, but everything just drags out. So what brings you here?”

“I'm trying to locate a student who was involved in research.”

“A grad student?”

“Undergrad. I assume you have a record of ongoing projects.”

“Well,” she said, “that's generally not public information, but I'm sure you've got a good reason. . . .”

“This girl's gone missing for a week, Mary Lou. The police can't do much, and her mother's frantic.”

“Oh, no— but it's midquarter break. Students take off.”

“She didn't tell her mother or her roommate, though she did say she'd continue to come here even during the break, to do research. So maybe the job took her out of town. A conference, or some kind of fieldwork.”

“She didn't tell her mom anything?”

“Not a word.”

She crossed the room to a wall of file cabinets. Same golden beige. The outcome of someone's experiment on color perception? Out came a two-inch-thick computer printout that she laid on a desk and flipped through. “What's her name?”

“Lauren Teague.”

She searched, shook her head. “No one by that name registered with personnel on any federal or state grants— let's see about private foundations.” Another flip. She looked up, with the same worried expression I'd seen on her first visit to my office. Psychology's code of ethics forbids bartering with a patient. I'd traded something with her, wondered if I'd stepped over the line.

“Nothing.”

“Maybe there's a misunderstanding,” I said. “Thanks.”

She crossed her mouth with an index finger. “Wait a second— when it's part-time work, sometimes the professors hire out through one of those employee management firms. It avoids having to pay benefits.”