His nephew rose, straightened his suit jacket, and strode toward the door, a rapier banging at his side. Angbard stared at the door in silence for a minute after he had gone, then turned his eye back to the items in the file box. Which included a locket that he had seen before—almost a third of a century ago.

“Patricia,” he whispered under his breath, “what has become of you?”

Daylight. That was the first thing that Miriam noticed. That—and she had the mother of all hangovers. Her head felt as if it was wrapped in cotton wool, her right arm hurt like hell, and everything around her was somehow wrong. She blinked experimentally. Her head was wrapped in cotton wool—or bandages. And she was wearing something unfamiliar. She’d gone to bed in her usual T-shirt, but now she was wearing a nightgown—but she didn’t own one! What’s going on?

Daylight. She felt muzzy and stupid and her head was pounding. She was thirsty, too. She rolled over and blinked at where the nightstand should have been. There was a whitewashed wall six inches from her nose. The bed she was lying in was jammed up against a rough cinder-block wall that had been painted white. It was as weird as that confused nightmare about the light and the chemical stink—

Nightmare?

She rolled the other way, her legs tangling up in the nightgown. She nearly fell out of the bed, which was far too narrow. It wasn’t her own bed, and for a moment of panic she wondered what could possibly have happened. Then it all clicked into place. “Gangsters or feds? Must be the feds,” she mumbled to herself. They must have followed me. Or Paulie. Or something.

A vast, hollow terror seemed to have replaced her stomach. They’ll ‘bury you so deep,’ she remembered. ‘So deep’ that—

Her throat felt sore, as if she’d spent the entire night screaming. Odd, that. Maybe it was anticipation.

Somehow she swung her legs over the side of the strange bed. They touched the floor much too soon, and she sat up, pushing the thin comforter aside. The far wall was too close, and the window was set high up; in fact, the whole room was about the size of a closet. There was no other furniture except for a small stainless-steel sink bolted to the wall opposite the door. The door itself was a featureless slab of wood with a peephole implanted in it at eye level. She noted with a dull sense of recognition that the door was perfectly smooth, with no handle or lock mechanism to mar its surface: It was probably wood veneer over metal.

Her hand went to her throat. The locket was gone.