“Okay, then how about the guy who just called you? The goofy Cone brother that doesn’t do anything and wants to be a junior G-man. He’s always wanting to take you out, right? I bet you could get him to let you in. I bet he doesn’t even like his brother.”

“No. I’ll never get rid of him. It would be like feeding a stray cat. Once you give it a bowl of food you’re stuck with the cat for life. I don’t even talk to Clyde Cone.”

“Too bad,” Lula said, “because I bet he’d let you in and you could go snooping through ol’ Bart’s files and drawers and everything. You couldn’t get into his email, but you could take a look at the desktop on his computer.”

Truth is, I didn’t want to go into the building. Not even with Cal and Junior doing backup. There was something bad in the building. The monster was there. He was waiting for me.

I got a call from Morelli wondering where I was. I didn’t know what to say. I was sitting in an empty parking lot. Waiting for the mystery to be resolved. “I’ll be home soon,” I told him. “Don’t worry.”

The don’t worry message was insincere. I was worried. I was really, really worried.

“Steph,” Lula finally said. “Maybe we should go home.”

She was right, of course. So I cranked my yellow Escape over and drove out of the lot. I dropped Lula off at her car at the office and then I went home to Morelli.

I made peanut butter and olive sandwiches for supper and we ate in silence in front of the television. Probably we should have talked about the motel thing, but neither of us knew how to begin. Maybe it wasn’t important anyway. We seemed to still like each other.

At nine o’clock Morelli was glued to the television and I was still fighting the fear or dread or whatever the hell it was that had its grip on me. I went to the kitchen and got a beer and took it out to the back porch. The air was soft and smelled nice, like fresh dirt and new grass. Joe didn’t do much with his backyard, but his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Lukach, had flower beds and a dogwood tree. Joe and I had gardening skills that were almost as good as our housekeeping and cooking skills.

I finished my beer and stood. I turned toward the house and I felt a familiar piercing pain in my back. In my mind I called for Morelli, but either he didn’t hear over the drone of the television or else it was only a mental plea for help, because the blackness came and there was no Morelli.

EVEN BEFORE I opened my eyes I knew I was in trouble. Fear filled every part of me. The fear was a hard knot in my chest. The fear clogged my throat. The fear slid in a greasy wave through my stomach. I forced my eyes open and I looked around. I was on the floor, in the dark. I didn’t seem to be hurt. I wasn’t restrained. I moved my leg and realized I had a chain padlocked around my ankle. There were jingle bells attached to the chain. The potential significance of the ankle chain took my breath away.