They had been quite civil to her in the car, but, of course, there was no point in being cruel to someone about to learn the ultimate lesson. Ming sat at ease in the backseat of the limousine, hands folded in her lap, staring at the eyes of the man who sat across from her.

He had not borne the wait well; for a small man he sweated profusely, and his body odor hung like a dirty cloud between them. He patted his knee and avoided her eyes. His larger partner, seated next to him, stared out the window, pouting.

“She is gone, you know,” Ming said. The small man flinched as if she’d slapped him. “There is no use in killing me. I cannot bring her back, if I am dead.”

“Look, it isn’t for me to say. I told you, eight hours or we take you in. We got to take you in.” He rubbed his stubbly chin. “Been a shitty day all around, you know? Want a drink?”

“I thank you, no.”

“Okay.” He fiddled with the khaki of his pants leg, picked at his thumbnail. “TV? We got TV in here, if you want to watch something. Tapes, too. Mostly sex stuff, but there’s a couple of comedies—”

“Thank you, no,” she murmured. “I don’t laugh.”

He tried to offer her a candy bar, then a meal at a fast food restaurant. She politely refused each, though the child inside her wanted to stop, to eat, to drink, to delay what must come.

Paolo had failed her. She had believed, to the last, that he would call, that he would come back.

She had not heard a word from him.

Ahead, the black shadow of a tall building, and over it, the lead gray of clouds. Cold, so cold, and this cold did not freeze her solid but chilled her into brittle pieces. She considered jumping from the limousine, but that might only wound her; they would hardly show mercy if her legs were broken, or her back. It must be as quick as a bullet, as certain as poison, or there was no point in piling one misery atop another.

So focused was she on seeking a way to die that she had almost forgotten the inevitable end of the journey. The dome light went on over her head to remind her. A door seal whispered open and the little man across from her said, not unkindly, “We’re here.”

She climbed out of the car without assistance, taking each step slowly to be sure she would not fall. The elevator seemed to rise for hours, leaving her weightless and oddly unbalanced, and in the closed metal box, the smell of her captor’s sweat seemed as thick as rancid grease.