"Did she have problems at school?"

No.

Poor interrogation technique. Need to get the witness to do the talking instead of me.

"What about that day? The day Chantale disappeared?"

She looked at me, her eyes unreadable.

"Can you tell me what took place that day?"

She took a sip of lemonade, swallowed deliberately, set the gla.s.s back on the table. Deliberately.

"We got up around six. I made breakfast." She clutched the gla.s.s so tightly I feared it would shatter. "Chantale left for school. She and her friends rode the train since the school is in Centre-ville. They say she went to all her cla.s.ses. And then she . . ."

A breeze teased the gingham off the window frame.

"She never came home."

"Did she have any special plans that day?"

"No."

"Did she normally come right home after cla.s.ses?"

"Usually."

"Did you expect her home that day?"

"No. She was going to see her father."

"Did she do that often?"

"Yes. Why do I have to keep answering these questions? It"s useless. I"ve told all this to the detectives. Why do I have to keep repeating the same things over and over? It doesn"t do any good. It didn"t then, it won"t now."

Her eyes fixed on mine, the pain almost palpable.

"You know what? All the time I was filling out missing persons forms and answering questions, Chantale was already dead. She was lying in pieces in a dump. Already dead."

She dropped her head and the thin shoulders shuddered. She was right. We had nothing. I was fishing. She was learning to bury the pain, to plant tomatoes and live, and I"d ambushed her and forced an exhumation.

Be kind. Get out.

"It"s all right, Madame Trottier. If you can"t remember further details, they are probably not important."

I left my card and standard request. Call if you think of anything. I doubted she would.

Gabby"s door was closed when I got home, her room quiet. I thought of looking in, resisted. She could be so touchy about her privacy. I got into bed and tried to read, but Genevieve Trottier"s words kept jamming my mind. Deja mort Deja mort. Already dead. Champoux had used the same phrase. Yes. Deja dead. Five. That was the chilling truth. Like Champoux and Trottier, I too had thoughts that would not lie quiet in my mind.

27.

IWOKE TO THE SOUND OF THE MORNING NEWS. JULY 5. I" 5. I"D SLIPPED through Independence Day and not even noticed. No apple pie. No "Stars and Stripes Forever." Not a single sparkler. Somehow the thought depressed me. Every American anywhere on the globe should stand up and strut on the Fourth. I had allowed myself to become a Canadian spectator of American culture. I made plans to go to the ball park at the next opportunity and cheer for whichever American team was in town. through Independence Day and not even noticed. No apple pie. No "Stars and Stripes Forever." Not a single sparkler. Somehow the thought depressed me. Every American anywhere on the globe should stand up and strut on the Fourth. I had allowed myself to become a Canadian spectator of American culture. I made plans to go to the ball park at the next opportunity and cheer for whichever American team was in town.

I showered, made coffee and toast, and scanned the Gazette Gazette. Endless talk of separation. What would happen to the economy? To aboriginals? To English speakers? The want ads embodied the fear. Everyone selling, no one buying. Maybe I should go home. What was I accomplishing here?

Brennan. Stow it. You"re surly because you have to take the car in.

It was true. I hate errands. I hate the minutiae of making do in a techno-nation-state in the closing years of the second millennium. Pa.s.sport. Driver"s license. Work permit. Income tax. Rabies shot. Dry cleaning. Dental appointment. Pap smear. My pattern: put it off until unavoidable. Today the car had to be serviced.

I am a daughter of America in my att.i.tude toward the automobile. I feel incomplete without one, cut off and vulnerable. How will I escape an invasion? What if I want to leave the party early, or stay after the Metro stops? Go to the country? Haul a dresser? Gotta have wheels. But I am not a worshiper. I want a car that will start when I turn the key, get me where I want to go, keep doing it for at least a decade, and not require a lot of pampering.

Still no sounds from Gabby"s room. Must be nice. I packed my gear and left.

The car was in the shop and I was on the Metro by nine. The morning rush was over, the railcar relatively empty. Bored, I grazed through the ads. See a play at Le Theatre St. Denis. Improve your job skills at Le College O"Sullivan. Buy jeans at Guess, Chanel perfume at La Baie, color at Benetton.

My eyes drifted to the Metro map. Colored lines crossed like the wiring on a motherboard, white dots marked the stops.

I traced my route eastward along the green line from Guy-Concordia to Papineau. The orange line looped around the mountain, north-south on its eastern slope, east-west below the green line, then north-south again on the west side of the city. Yellow dived below the river, emerging on ile Ste. Helene and at Longueuil on the south sh.o.r.e. At Berri-UQAM the orange and yellow lines crossed the green. Big dot. Major switching point.

The train hummed as it slithered through its underground tunnel. I counted my stops. Seven dots.

Compulsive, Brennan. Want to wash your hands?

My eyes moved north along the orange line, visualizing the changing landscape of the city. Berri-UQAM. Sherbrooke. Mount Royal. Eventually, Jean-Talon near St. edouard. Isabelle Gagnon had lived in that neighborhood.

Oh?

I looked for Margaret Adkins"s neighborhood. Green line. Which station? Pie IX. I counted from Berri-UQAM. Six stops east.

How many was Gagnon? Back to orange. Six.

Tiny hairs tingled at the back of my neck.

Morisette-Champoux. Georges-Vanier Metro. Orange. Six stops west from Berri-UQAM.

Jesus.

Trottier? No. The Metro doesn"t go to Ste. Anne-de-Bellevue.

Damas? Parc Extension. Close to the Laurier and Rosemont stations. Third and fourth stops from Berri-UQAM.

I stared at the map. Three victims lived exactly six stops from the Berri-UQAM station. Coincidence?

"Papineau," said a mechanical voice.

I grabbed my things and bolted onto the platform.

Ten minutes later I heard the phone as I unlocked my office door.

"Dr. Brennan."

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing, Brennan?"

"Good morning, Ryan. What can I help you with?"

"Claudel"s trying to nail my b.u.t.t to the wall because of you. Says you"ve been running around bothering victims" families."

He waited for me to say something but I didn"t.

"Brennan, I"ve been defending you because I respect you. But I can see what"s shaping up here. Your prying could really hang me up on this case."

"I asked a few questions. That"s not illegal." I did nothing to defuse his anger.

"You didn"t tell anyone. You didn"t coordinate. You just went off knocking on doors." I could hear breath being drawn through nostrils. They sounded clenched.

"I called first." Not quite true for Genevieve Trottier.

"You"re not an investigator."

"They agreed to see me."

"You"re confusing yourself with Mickey Spillane. It"s not your job."

"A well-read detective."

"Christ, Brennan, you are p.i.s.sing me off!"

Squad room noise.

"Look." Controlled. "Don"t get me wrong. I think you"re solid. But this isn"t a game. These people deserve better." His words were hard as granite.

"Yes."

"Trottier is my case."

"What exactly is being done on your your case?" case?"

"Bren-"

"And what about the others? Where are they going?"

I was on a roll.

"These investigations aren"t exactly heading everyone"s agenda right now, Ryan. Francine Morisette-Champoux was killed over eighteen months ago. It"s been eight months since Trottier. I have this bizarre notion that whoever killed these women ought to be reeled in and locked up. So I take an interest. I ask a few questions. What happens? I"m told to b.u.t.t out. And because Mr. Claudel thinks I"m about as helpful as a boil, these cases will drop lower and lower until they"re off the charts and out of everyone"s minds. Again."

"I didn"t tell you to b.u.t.t out."

"What are you saying, Ryan?"

"I understand Claudel wants your a.s.s in a sling. You want to fry his b.a.l.l.s. I might too if he"d stonewalled me. I just don"t want you two s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up my case."

"What"s that supposed to mean?"

He took a long time to answer.

"I"m not saying I don"t want your input. I just want the priorities in this investigation perfectly clear."

For a long time no one spoke. Anger rushed the line in both directions.

"I think I"ve found something."

"What?" He hadn"t expected that.

"I may have a connection."

"What do you mean?" A little of the edge was gone from his voice.

I wasn"t sure what I meant. Maybe I just wanted to derail him.

"Meet me for lunch."

"This better be good, Brennan." Pause. "I"ll see you at Antoine"s at noon."

Fortunately I had no new cases, so I was able to get right to work. So far nothing had fit together. Maybe the Metro was the tie.

I opened the computer and pulled up the file to check addresses. Yes. I had the right stops. I dug out a map and plotted the stations, just as Ryan and I had done with the victims" homes. The three pins formed a triangle, with Berri-UQAM in the center. Morisette-Champoux, Gagnon, and Adkins had each lived within six stops of the station. St. Jacques"s apartment was a short walk away.

Could that be it? Catch a train at Berri-UQAM. Pick a victim who gets off six stops away. Hadn"t I read about that type of behavior? Fixate on a color. A number. A series of actions. Follow a pattern. Never deviate. Be in control. Wasn"t careful planning characteristic of serial killers? Could our boy take it one step further? Could he be a serial killer with some sort of compulsive behavior pattern into which the killings fit?

But what about Trottier and Damas? They didn"t fit. It couldn"t be that simple. I stared at the map, willing an answer to materialize. The feeling that something lurked just over the wall of my conscious nagged stronger than ever. What? I hardly heard the tap.

"Dr. Brennan?"

Lucie Dumont stood in my doorway. That"s all it took. The wall was breached.