“Put it on,” he said. “Please.”

She put her palms on the table, pushed out her chair, and stood up with an exaggerated sigh. Then she grabbed the purse and slung it over her shoulder, so the body of the purse rested behind her left hip. “There,” she said. “Happy?”

“Turn around,” Archie said.

Susan turned, and then looked over her shoulder, at the purse, at the detectives at the table, at Archie.

Archie took a step toward her, so that there was barely a foot between them, and moved his hand over the open top of the purse. Susan’s eyes followed his hand.

“He just came up behind her,” Ngyun said.

“That motherfucker,” Susan said.

The killer had been close enough to touch her, and her reaction was to be pissed. Archie liked that about Susan.

Archie heard a knock and looked over at the door, which Susan had left ajar, to see a female patrol cop peering in at them. He didn’t know her—she was one of the officers that the chief had sent to help. But she was holding a sheet of paper in each hand, and fluttering them like drying Polaroids.

“Yeah?” he said.

“I think I found something,” she said, coming into the room. “I was going through missing persons reports, like you asked. It’s out-of-state, so it didn’t turn up right away.” She moved to the table and slapped down the grainy surveillance photo of the boy leaving the hospital. Then she put down another picture—unmistakably a school photo—from a missing persons report.

Archie looked from one image to the next. The shape of the head, the symmetry of the features, the hair color—it looked like the same kid.

“His name is Patrick Lifton,” the patrol cop continued. “Nine years old. He left his house in Aberdeen, Washington, to walk to a friend’s house three blocks away and never made it.” She pointed to the date across the top of the page, the date when the boy had left his house that last time and the missing persons report was filed.

It was a year and a half ago.

The kid had been missing a year and a half, and Archie had had him in his arms.

And let him go.

“Get out,” he said to Susan.

“What?” she said.

Archie recovered himself. “Please,” he said. “We need to have a meeting. You can wait for me in my office.”

She crossed her arms. “Why do I have to wait?”

“Your purse,” Archie said, searching for a reason. “We need to print it. I’ll call a tech.”

Her eyes fell on the bag and he thought she was going to protest.

“Can I get my phone and cigarettes?” she said.

“Go ahead,” he said.

She picked up one of the tampons off the table. “And I’m going to need this,” she said.

Chapter 28

CHAPTER

28