Brazen Virtue

was in the room with a stranger. But it was his son, his well-bred, well-educated son. The excitement, Hayden assured himself. It was only the strain of the afternoon. “Jerald, I don’t condone losing your temper, but it happens to all of us. I also understand that when we’re provoked we say things, do things that are uncharacteristic.”
    Jerald’s lips curved almost sweetly. He loved his father’s rich orator’s voice. “Yes, sir.”
    “Wight said you tried to strangle the other boy.”
    “Did I?” Jerald’s eyes were blank for a moment, then cleared with his shrug. “Well, that’s the best way.”
    Hayden discovered he was sweating; his armpits were dripping. Was he afraid? That was ridiculous, he was the boy’s father. He had no reason to be afraid. Sweat ran in a jagged line down his back. “I’ll take you home.” Just a small breakdown, Hayden told himself as he led Jerald from the room. The boy had been working too hard. He just needed to rest.

    G RACE SIGHED WHEN THE phone rang. She’d been able to work for the first time that day. Really work. For hours she’d enveloped herself in her own imagination and had produced something that had pleased her.
    She’d harbored a deep, secret fear that she wouldn’t be able to write again. Not about murders and victims. But it had come back, rough at first, then with the old flow. The story, the act of writing, the world she created had nothing to do with Kathleen and everything to do with her. Another hour, maybe two, and she’d have enough to send to New York and ease her editor’s nervous twitch. But the phone rang and brought her back to reality. And reality had everything to do with Kathleen.
    Grace answered, then noted the number. After drawing out a cigarette, she dialed. “Collect call, from Desiree.” She waited until the call had been accepted and the operator clicked off. “Hello, Mike, what can I do for you?”
    A hell of a way to spend the evening, she thought some minutes later. Ed was downstairs playing gin with Ben and she was pretending she was a peasant to Sir Michael’s black knight.
    Harmless. Most of the men who called were just that. They were lonely, looking for companionship. They were cautious and looking for safe, electronic sex. They were tense, pressured by family and profession, and had decided a phone call was cheaper than paying for a prostitute or a psychiatrist. That was the simple way to look at it.
    But Grace knew, better than most, that it wasn’t really that simple.
    The newspaper reproduction of the police artist’s sketch was on her nightstand. How many times had she studied it? How many times had she looked at it and tried to see … something? Murderers, rapists should look different from other men in society. Yet they looked the same—normal, unmarked. That was so frightening. You could pass them on the street, stand with them in an elevator, shake their hands at a cocktail party and never know.

    Would she know him when she heard him? His voice would be as normal, and as harmless, as Sir Michael’s. Yet somehow she thought she would know. She held the sketch in her hand and studied it. The voice would fit, and she’d put it together with the sketch of his face.
    Outside, Ben crossed the street to an unmarked van. Ed had already taken him for twelve-fifty at gin, and he thought it was time to check on Billings. He pulled open the side door. Billings glanced up, then saluted.
    “Amazing stuff.” Billings cackled to himself. “Yes, sir, it’s capital A amazing. Want to listen in?”
    “You’re a sick man, Billings.”
    Billings only grinned and cracked a peanut. “The lady gives great phone, old buddy. I have to thank you for letting me make her acquaintance. I’m tempted to give her a ring myself.”
    “Why don’t you do that? I’d love to see Ed rip off your arms and stuff them up your nose.” But it was precisely to avoid that possibility that Ben had come out to do the checking. “You doing anything with the taxpayers’ money in here besides jerking off?”
    “Don’t get hyper, Paris. Remember, you came to me.” He swallowed the peanut. “Oh yeah, she’s really got this one going. He’s about to—” Billings broke off. “Hold it.” With one hand pressed against his headphones he began to fiddle with dials on the equipment lined up in front of him. “Sounds like somebody wants a free ride.”
    Ben moved forward until he was leaning over Billings’s shoulder. “Have