“Your next step should be to get the hell out of there and come back here—both of you. My next step is to let these new facts sink in for a while. Sometimes when I go to bed with questions, I wake up with answers.”

“Is that true?”

“No, but it sounds good.”

Kyle laughed. “What questions are you going to bed with tonight?”

“Let me ask you the same thing. After all, you’re the one who made the discoveries. Being on-site creates a better perspective. What do you think the big questions are?”

Even in Kyle’s hesitation, Gurney could sense a palpable excitement. “As far as I can see, there’s one really big one.”

“Namely?”

“Are we dealing with an obsessed stalker or with something a whole lot nastier?” He paused. “What do you think?”

“I’m thinking that we might be dealing with both.”

Chapter 27

Conflicting Reactions

Gurney stayed up that night until Kim and Kyle arrived from Syracuse—Kyle on his BSA and Kim in her Miata.

After they’d reviewed everything they’d discussed on the phone, Gurney had two more questions. The first was for Kyle, and he got only half of it out before it was answered. “When you took off the covers of the smoke alarms—”

“I took them off very quietly, very slowly. All the while Kim and I kept talking about something completely different—about one of her courses at school—so no one listening would realize what I was doing.”

“I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be. I saw it in a spy movie.”

Gurney’s second question was for Kim. “Did you see anything in the apartment that wasn’t familiar—any kind of small appliance, clock radio, iPod, stuffed animal, anything at all you hadn’t seen before?”

“No, why?”

“Just wondering if Schiff ever got around to bringing in the promised video-surveillance equipment. In situations where the apartment renter is aware of the plan, it’s easier to bring in a video transmitter that’s prewired inside its cover object rather than concealing it in a ceiling fixture or something else on site.”

“There wasn’t anything like that.”

The next morning at the breakfast table, Gurney noticed that Madeleine had skipped her usual bowl of oatmeal and had hardly touched her coffee. Her gaze out through the glass doors seemed focused on dark thoughts rather than on the sunny landscape.

“You thinking about the fire?”