Edge

my face, you know. ‘Oh, your sister’s perfect,’ none of that. But that’s what it smelled like. So I went the other way. I was the wild one. The big I—Irresponsible. Dropped out. I had a DUI, well, a couple, when I was seventeen or eighteen. Drugs, a little shoplifting.”
    Thanks to the boyfriends, I recalled. But said nothing.
    “I just didn’t fucking care. Squeaked by in a community college . . . Jo graduated second or third in her class. She majored in political science, nearly went into the army, like Dad, but he talked her out of that. I think she would’ve been good, actually. Drill instructor. You have brothers or sisters, Corte?”
    “No.”
    “And no kids. Lucky man.”
    One picture of Jo revealed that she’d lost a lot of weight and looked gaunt. “Was she sick there?”
    “Car crash.”
    I remembered that from duBois’s bio.
    She looked around. “Pretty bad. She lost control on some ice. Needed a lot of surgery. It’s why she can’t have kids but we don’t talk about that.”
    So the child question was answered. I realized one of the other attractions of the hero cop—he not only saved her life; he offered her a built-in family.
    The pictures slipped past again and I kept looking at them. Some of the scans were sepia pictures, going back a hundred years; some were black-and-white; some were oversaturated, from the sixties and seventies. Many were recent, direct digital.
    Finally, I’d had enough.
    “I really better get some things done,” I told her.
    “Sure.”
    “Those are good pictures.”
    “Thank you,” she said formally, maybe mocking my tone.
    Mr. Tour Guide . . .
    As I was walking up the hallway to find Ryan and tell him what duBois had found about his cases, my phone buzzed with a text message. I figured it would be from Westerfield or Ellis—not risking a voice call that would end in a coward’s voice mail. But I glanced down and saw it was from duBois. I was pleased, thinking maybe she’d finished her investigation from my espionage at Graham’s house. Or perhaps she’d returned to her chatty self and forgiven me for the trial she’d had to endure there.
    But the message was brief and about something else altogether.
    Problem . . . Hermes has a bot roaming websites, etc and he had a hit. This was posted fifteen minutes ago. Here’s the URL.
    I hurried into the den, unlocked my computer and typed the Web address she’d sent.
    The site was a blog, written by someone with the screen name SassyCat222. I was expecting something about Clarence Brown—well, Ali Pamuk—or Eric Graham or even Ryan Kessler himself: information that Loving might use. I skimmed quickly. The postings were typical of all blogs, containing more information about daily life than anybodycared to read. Some were humorous—a boring Saturday night at the mall when a date fell through and a music review of a really bad rock concert—and some sobering: a report about overcrowded classrooms, a call for an AIDS awareness campaign and the start of a series about the suicide of a teenager the blogger knew through her volunteer work for a self-harm prevention program at her school.
    I froze when I noticed that last entry. With a sinking heart, I grabbed my phone and dialed.
    “DuBois.”
    I asked, “SassyCat . . . she’s Amanda Kessler, right?” I remembered that she’d volunteered for a counseling program at her school.
    “That’s right. It’s her.”
    The girl must’ve thought it was safe to post under her screen name and from a friend’s computer.
    “Hermes says it was posted about an hour ago, with a naked IP address. It took him two minutes to find it was a private residence in Loudoun County. Near White’s Ferry.”
    “Bill Carter’s house?”
    “Next door.”
    If we had a bot, Loving would too. He’d check the property records of everybody in the area and find Carter’s name. He’d learn that Carter’s main residence was five minutes from the Kesslers’ in Fairfax. He’d know we’d stashed the girl there.
    Caller ID sounded on call waiting. It was Westerfield’s number. He’d just learned that the armored van was empty, I guessed. Then it buzzed again—I can juggle four calls on this phone. My boss’s number.
    I ignored them both. I told duBois, “I’m going toCarter’s myself. It’s less than a half hour from here. Call Freddy and have him get some tactical troops there. You have the location, right?”
    “Yes.”
    I disconnected all the calls