“Vic, thank goodness! I’ve been trying to reach you since last night. I finally called Max this morning, and he told me you’re having to stay underground, so thank you for coming up for air and getting back to me. I’m sorry about your cousin, but Miss Claudia’s been asking for you. I’ve been afraid she’d pass while you were hiding.”

“If I go to Lionsgate Manor now, will I be able to see her?”

“If I’m with you, it should be okay. I’m home, but I can be there in twenty-five minutes. I’ll meet you at the main entrance, okay?”

“Not okay. I don’t know how long I can stay undercover, but I can’t have anyone know where I am. I’ll meet you outside Miss Claudia’s room.”

Karen wanted to know how I’d get into the building; you had to go past the guard station at night. I told her not to worry about that, just to give me the room number. She started to object, but I cut her off.

“Please, I don’t have enough time to do the things I have to do. Let’s not waste the last hours of Miss Claudia’s life arguing about this.”

I drove along Howard until I came to a shop that sold uniforms and business apparel. There are several ways to be invisible in a large institution. The best, in a nursing home, is to be a janitor. If you show up in a nurse’s uniform, all the other nurses think they know you and study your face too closely. A janitor, however, at the low end of the food chain, gets only a cursory look. I found a jumpsuit in gray, which I put on over my jeans, and a square-cut cap. I bought a big mop to complete the outfit. I stuck my gun into a side pocket—not the safest way to carry a firearm, but I wanted it close to hand.

When I reached Lionsgate, I parked on a side street so I could get away fast if I had to. Mop in hand, cap low on my forehead, I walked down the ramp at the manor’s parking garage and entered the building using one of those elevators. On the ground floor, I had to pass the guard station to get to the main elevators. The massive woman behind the counter, wearing a Lionsgate pale blue security blazer, was watching television. But she looked up as I passed and called out to me: Who was I? Where was my security ID?