“Peter, it’s the Crocodile Dundee hat and outback oilcloth coat she got in Melbourne. She was so proud of them. Even in this picture, I can tell.” She looked at me through her wet lashes. “Vic, someone must have forced her to do this. We’re meeting with Special Agent Hatfield at the FBI in an hour. Give me some names, some people the FBI can talk to.”

“Yeah, cookie,” Mr. Contreras put in. “This ain’t the time to hold your cards close to your chest, the way you like to do.”

“Have you talked to her college roommate, to Kelsey?” I asked. “I don’t know her last name, but she’s the person Petra talks about most.”

“Kelsey Ingalls. She called me when she saw the news online this morning. She said she’d tried calling Petra—we all have, and we keep getting rolled over to her voice mail.” Rachel’s voice quavered. “Vic, there must be someone you’ve talked to who can lead the FBI or the police to Petra. Please, please tell me their names.”

I shook my head helplessly. “My apartment was trashed a few nights ago, and I did wonder if a cop, ex-cop, named Alito had been involved, but I don’t have any real reason to suspect him. Other than that, Johnny Merton, the head of the Anacondas, if he was mad enough at me he might do anything, but I was talking to him when this was going on. He didn’t lose his cool with me until the end of the meeting.”

Peter seized on Johnny and the Anacondas. If Peter had known I was working with violent criminals, he’d never have let Petra come within twenty miles of me.

“I understand,” I said, when he’d shouted himself hoarse. “But look at the times recorded on my door monitor. It looks as though Petra was waiting for Tessa—my lease-mate, the sculptor, you know—for her to leave. There’s a ten-minute gap. Tessa leaves, Petra types in the code and goes in with those two punks.”

“Vic, coincidences happen,” Rachel said, trying to stay calm. “How would Petra know people like that? She just graduated from college in May, she’s never lived in Chicago, she’s been working in an office downtown with a bunch of other twenty-somethings. She’s just a suburban Midwest girl who’s never seen a criminal in her life and wouldn’t recognize one if she did. I’m not saying it’s your fault, but you’re the one who knows gangsters and people like that. Not Petra. Please, please turn your files over to the FBI or to Bobby Mallory. They can look into everyone you’ve been talking to.”

“Bobby came to my office last night,” I said.