Jack spotted Gia cradling a baby in her arms on the far side of the glass, but he didn’t pause. He didn’t want her to see him.

“You do a lot here,” he said as they moved on.

“Yeah, we’ve had to become a clinic, a nursery, a day-care center, and a foster home.”

“And all because of a single virus.”

“But we have to deal with more than the virus,” Alicia said. “So many of these kids aren’t born merely HTV positive—as if ‘merely’ can somehow be used with HIV—but addicted to crack or heroin as well. They hit the world screaming like any other baby at the insult of being ejected from that warm cozy womb, but then they keep on screaming as the agonies of cold-turkey withdrawal set in.”

“A double whammy,” Jack said. Poor kids.

“Yes. Some parents leave their kinds an inheritance, some leave hidden scars; these kids were left a virtual death sentence.”

Jack sensed something very personal in that last sentence but couldn’t latch onto what it might have been.

“Perhaps ‘death sentence’ is overstating it. We can do a lot for these kids now. The survival rate is way up, but still… once they get through withdrawal, they still have the aftereffects of addiction. Crack and heroin burn out parts of the nervous system. I won’t bore you with a lecture about dopamine receptors, but the result is fried circuits in the pleasure centers. Which leaves our little crack babies edgy and irritable, unable to take solace in the simple things that comfort normal infants. So they cry. Endlessly. Until the strung-out junkie mothers who made them this way beat them to shut them up.”

Jack realized she probably gave this spiel to all the visitors, but he wished she’d stop. He was getting the urge to go hurt somebody.

“The lucky ones”—she cleared her throat harshly—”try to imagine a lucky HIV-positive crack baby—wind up here.”

She stopped before a windowless door.

“Here’s the storeroom where the toys were kept.”

She showed him the room, empty but for some Scotch tape and wrapping paper.

“The toys will be wrapped in this paper?” he said, memorizing the pattern.

“Most, but not all.”

He pulled open the door to the alley, and checked the alley itself. Easy to see how it had been done. The outer door frame and the surface around the latch were deeply gouged and warped. Looked like the work of a long pry bar in the hands of someone with the finesse of an orangutan.

He saw Dr. Clayton shiver in the cold wash from the open door. She rubbed the sleeves of her white coat. She was very thin—no insulation.

“How are you going to handle this?” she said as Jack closed the door.

Jack said, “Not here. Can we talk in your office?”

“Follow me.”

On the way to her office, Dr. Clayton stopped at the front door and peered out at the street. He saw her stiffen, as if she’d seen something that frightened her.