Niceville

now?”
    “Everyone’s in it. Belfair and Cullen County, the state police, the Cap City office of the FBI.”
    “Do they have any leads?”
    “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
    A pause.
    Then he spoke again, with a kind of forced calm in his voice.
    “Did anything—anomalous—happen?”
    “
Anomalous
, Dad? Like what?”
    “I don’t know, really. I know you’re asking me because of the research I was doing, but I don’t know any more about this kind of thing now than I did then. That’s why I quit. It was pointless.”
    “You quit when Mom died, Dad.”
    He was quiet again.
    She waited.
    She had crossed his line—she knew that—but she also knew she was his favorite child, the one he had always been closest to.
    “I guess, by anomalous, I mean anything hard to explain.”
    “Other than the fact that Rainey just vanished into thin air while being filmed by a security camera?”
    “In front of Uncle Moochie’s pawnshop, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “You said he was standing on the sidewalk, looking at something in Uncle Moochie’s window?”
    “Yes.”
    “What was it?”
    “It was a mirror.”
    Silence from her father, but she could feel his tension, like a vibration humming down the wire.
    “What sort of mirror?”
    “An antique. Moochie said it was pre–Civil War. It came from Temple Hill. Delia Cotton gave it to the lady who does the cleaning and shopping.”
    “Teagues and Cottons,” he said in a flat tone.
    “Yes. Two of the old families.”
    More silence.
    Finally …
    “Can you describe the mirror?”
    “Gold frame, baroque, ancient glass, with the silvering coming off the back. Maybe seventeenth-century Irish. Or French. About thirty inches by thirty inches. Heavy. Has an antique linen calling card glued to the back.”
    “What was on the card?”
    “Very fine handwriting, in turquoise ink. ‘With long regard … Glynis R.’ ”
    A taut silence again. Kate could hear him breathing, slow and steady, as if he were trying to calm himself. When he spoke again, all the genial warmth had left his voice.
    “Where is it now? The mirror? Still at Moochie’s?”
    “No. It’s here. It’s upstairs, actually. In our bedroom closet. Why?”
    Walker was quiet for so long that Kate began to think he had fallen asleep.
    “Dad? You there?”
    “Yes. Sorry. I was thinking.”
    This sounded like … not a lie, because he never lied to her, but at least an evasion.
    “Can you make any sense out of all this, Dad? The connections between the old families? Nick tried to establish who Glynis R. was, but Delia said she had no idea. Does the name mean anything to you?”
    “No. No, it doesn’t.”
    Again that sense of … wary distance.
    Evasion.
    “What should we do, Dad? I’d like to help Nick. And Sylvia’s family. Rainey was—is—such a sweet kid. I know it’s late, Dad. I know you need to sleep. So do I. Can you think of anything at all?”
    She waited.
    “Do you
use
the mirror?”
    “No. Of course not. It’s evidence, sort of.”
    “You should give it back to Delia. Or to her cleaning lady. As soon as possible. I’m sure it’s quite valuable.”
    “As I said, right now it’s part of the case. At least Nick thinks so. Anything else, Dad?”
    “Yes. Don’t
ever
use it. The mirror.”
    “I’m not sure I understand.”
    “Neither do I.”
    She tried to be light.
    “Is it cursed?” she asked with a smile. “Like if we break it, we’ll get seven years of bad luck?”
    “Maybe you should do just that.”
    “Do what?”
    “Break it. Smash it. Throw the pieces into Crater Sink.”
    “You’re teasing me now.”
    A silence.
    “Yes. I’m just teasing you. I’m sorry not to have been more helpful. Honey, I need to sleep. You do too. How about you call me in the morning? Around eleven? We can talk some more?”
    “I will, Dad. Love you.”
    “Love you too, Kate. Love you very much.”
    Kate never quite got around to calling Dillon Walker at eleven the next morning, mainly because of the flurry of activity following a call that came at daybreak, Tig on the line to say that Sylvia Teague’s red Porsche Cayenne had just been found by a patrol cruiser doing a routine check of the parking area near Crater Sink. Sylvia’s ballet flats were found at the rim of the sink itself. Of Sylvia Teague, no trace was found, in spite of the deployment of a robot dive camera which was brought in by Marty Coors, head of the State Police HQ in Cap City.
    The camera went down and down