“But Jay Becker is?”

I nodded. “He did a few years with the FBI before he decided he liked the money in the private sector more. He likes good restaurants, nice clothes, nice condo, that sort of thing. He looks good in a suit.”

“And as you said, he’s a good investigator.”

“Very,” Angie said. “He’s the one who helped blow the whistle on Boston Federal Bank and their mob ties.”

“Yes, I know. Who do you think hired him?”

“You,” I said.

“And several other prominent businessmen who lost some money when the real estate market crashed and the S and L crises began in ’88.”

“So if you used him before, why’re you asking us for a character reference?”

“Because, Mr. Kenzie, I recently retained Mr. Becker, and Hamlyn and Kohl as well, to find my daughter.”

“Find?” Angie said. “How long has she been missing?”

“Four weeks,” he said. “Thirty-two days to be exact.”

“And did Jay find her?” I said.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Because now Mr. Becker is missing as well.”

In the city this morning, it had been cold but reasonable with not much of a wind, the mercury hovering in the low thirties. Weather that made you aware of it, but not enough to make you hate it.

On Trevor Stone’s back lawn, however, the wind screamed off the Atlantic and the whitecaps churned, and the cold hit my face like pellets. I turned the collar of my leather jacket up against the ocean breeze, and Angie dug her hands deep into her pockets and hunched over, but Trevor Stone leaned into the wind. He’d added only a light gray raincoat to his wardrobe before leading us out here, and it flapped open around his body as he faced the ocean, seemed to dare the cold to infiltrate him.

“Hamlyn and Kohl has returned my retainer and dropped my case,” he said.

“What’s their cause?”

“They won’t say.”

“That’s unethical,” I said.

“What are my options?”

“Civil court,” I said. “You’d take them to the cleaners.”

He turned from the sea and looked at us until we understood.

Angie said, “Any legal recourse is useless.”

He nodded. “Because I’ll be dead before anything gets to trial.” He turned into the wind again and spoke with his back to us, his words carried on the stiff breeze. “I used to be a powerful man, unaccustomed to disrespect, unaccustomed to fear. Now I’m impotent. Everyone knows I’m dying. Everyone knows I have no time to fight them. Everyone, I’m sure, is laughing.”

I crossed the lawn and stood beside him. The grass dropped away just past his feet and revealed a bluff of craggy black stones, their surfaces shining like polished ebony against the raging surf below.

“So why us?” I said.