Description: Chapter One 6:00 A.M. IT WAS AS DARK as it ever gets on Fifth Avenue, and as quiet. Jennifer Maloy glanced at the streetlights and the steady stream of traffic, and pursed her lips in annoyance. She didn't like all the light and activity, but there wasn't much she could do about it. This was, after all, Fifth Avenue and 73rd Street in the city that never sleeps. It had been equally as busy the past few mornings she'd spent checking out the area and she had no reason to expect that conditions would ever get any better. Hands thrust deep into the pockets of her trench coat, she strode past the five-story graystone apartment building and slipped into the alley behind it. Here was darkness and silence. She stepped into an area of the alley that was screened by a garbage Dumpster and smiled. No matter how many times she'd done this, she thought, it was still exciting. Her pulse speeded up and she breathed faster in anticipation as she put on a hoodlike mask that obscured her finely sculpted features and hid the mass of blond hair tied in a knot at the back of her head. She took off her trench coat, folded it neatly, and set it down next to the Dumpster. Under the coat she wore only a brief black string bikini and running shoes. Her body was lean and gracefully muscular, with small breasts, slim hips, and long legs. She bent down, unlaced and removed her sneakers and put them next to the trench coat. She ran a hand almost caressingly over the rear wall of the graystone apartment building, smiled, and then walked right through the wall. It was the sound of a power saw biting into sodden hardwood. The whine of steel teeth made Jack's own teeth ache as the all-too-familiar boy struggled to hide deeper within the cypress tangle. "He in dere somewhere!" It was his uncle Jacques. The folks around Atelier Parish called him Snake Jake. Behind his back. The boy bit his lip to keep from crying out. He bit deeper, tasting blood, to keep from changing. Sometimes that worked. Sometimes- Again the steel saw shrieked into wet cypress. The boy ducked down low; brown, brackish water slopped against his mouth, into his nose. He choked as the bayou washed over his face. "Tol' you! Dat little gator-bait right dere. Get 'im." Other voices joined in. The power saw blade whined one more time. Jack Robicheaux flailed out in the darkness, one arm trapped in the sweaty sheet, the other reaching for the phone. He slammed the Tiffany lamp back against the wall, cursed as he somehow caught its petals-and-stems base and steadied it on the bed table, then felt the cool smoothness of the telephone. He picked up the receiver in the middle of the fourth ring. Jack started to curse again. Who the hell had this number? There was Bagabond, but she was in another room here in his home. Before he could get his lips to the mouthpiece, he knew. "Jack?" said the voice on the other end of the line. Long-distance static washed out the sound for a second. "Jack, this is Elouette. I'm callin' you from Louisiana." He smiled in the darkness. "Figured you were." He snapped the lamp switch, but nothing happened. The filament must have broken when the lamp toppled. "Never actually called this far before," said Elouette. "Robert always dialed." Robert was her husband. "What time is it?" Jack said. He felt for his watch. "'Bout five in the morning," said his sister. "What is it? Is it Ma?" He was waking up finally, pulling free from the fragments of the dream. "No, Jack, Ma's fine. Nothin'll ever happen to her. She'll outlive us both." "Then what?" He recognized the sharpness in his voice and tried to tone it down. It was just that Elouette's words were so slow, her thoughts so drawn-out. The silence, punctuated by bursts of static, dilated on the line. Finally Elouette said, "It's my daughter." "Cordelia? What about her? What's wrong?" Another silence. "She's run off." Jack felt an odd reaction. After all, he'd run away too, all those years before. Run away when he was a hell of a lot younger than Cordelia. What would she be now, fifteen? Sixteen? "Tell me what happened," he said reassuringly. Elouette did. Cordelia (she said) had given little warning. The girl had not come down for breakfast the morning before. Makeup, clothing, money, and an overnight bag were also gone. Her father had checked with Cordelia's friends. There weren't many. He called the parish sheriff. The patrols got the word. No one had seen her. The law's best guess was that Cordelia had hitched a ride out on the blacktop. The sheriff had shaken his head sadly. "Gal looks like that," he'd said, "well, we got cause to worry." He'd done what he could, but it had all taken precious time. It had finally been Cordelia's father who'd come up with something. A girl with the same face ("Purtiest little thing I seen in a month," the ticket clerk had said) and long, luxuriant, black hair ("Black as a new-moon bayou sky," said a porter) had boarded a bus in Baton Rouge. "It was Greyhound," Elouette said. "One-way fare to New York City. By the time we found out, the police said it wasn't none too practical to try and stop it in New Jersey." Her voice shook slightly, as though she wanted to cry. "It'll be okay," said Jack. "When's she supposed to get here?" "About seven," Elouette said. "Seven your time." "Merde." Jack swung his legs off the bed and sat up in the darkness. "Can you get there, Jack? Can you find her?" "Sure," he said. "But I gotta leave now for Port Authority, or I won't make it in time." "Thanks be," Elouette said. "Call me after you've met her?" "I will. Then we'll figure out what to do next. Now I go, okay?" "Okay. I'll be right here. Maybe Robert will be back too." Trust filled her voice. "Thanks, Jack." He put down the phone and stumbled across the room. He found the wall switch and finally was able to see in the windowless room. Yesterday's work clothes were strewn over the rough slab bench to one side. Jack pulled on the well-worn jeans and green cotton shirt. He grimaced at the fragrant work socks, but they were all he had. Today being his day off, he'd planned to spend it at a laundromat. He laced the steel-toed leather boots quickly, catching every other pair of eyelets. When he opened the door leading into the rest of his home, Bagabond, the two huge cats, a passel of kittens, and a goggle-faced raccoon were all there in the doorway, silently staring at him. In the dimness of the lamp-lit living room beyond, Jack made out the gleam of Bagabond's dark brown hair and even darker eyes, her high, shadowed cheekbones, the lightness of her skin. "Jesus, Mother Mary!" he said, stepping back. "Don' scare me like that." He took a deep breath and felt the tough, grainy hide on the back of his hands become soft again. "Didn't mean to," said Bagabond. The black cat rubbed up against Jack's leg. His back nestled along the man's kneecap. His purr sounded like a contented coffee grinder. "Heard the phone. You okay?" "I'll tell you on the way to the door." He gave Bagabond a prcis as he stopped in the kitchen to decant the last of yesterday's coffee sludge into a foam cup he could carry with him. Bagabond touched his wrist. "Want us to come along? Day like this, a few more eyes might be valuable at the bus station." Jack shook his head. "Shouldn't be any problem. She's sixteen and never been in any big city before. Just watched a lot of TV, her mama says. I'll be right there at the bus door to meet her." "She know that?" said Bagabond. Jack stooped to give the black a quick rub behind the ears. The calico meowed and moved over to take her turn. "Nope. Probably she was going to phone me once she got here. This'll just save time." "Offer's still open." "I'll have her back here for breakfast before you know it." Jack paused. "Maybe not. She'll want to talk, so maybe I'll take her to the Automat. She won't have seen anything like that back in Atelier." He straightened up and the cats yowled disappointedly. "Besides, you've got an appointment with Rosemary, right?" Bagabond nodded dubiously. "Nine." "Just don't worry. Maybe we can all have lunch. Depends on how much of a zoo downtown turns into. Maybe we can pick up take-out at a Korean deli and have a picnic on the Staten Island Ferry." He leaned toward the woman and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. Before she could even halfway raise her hands to grasp his arms and reciprocate, he was gone. Out the door. Out of her perception. "Damn it," she said. The cats looked up at her, confused but sympathetic. The raccoon hugged her ankle. Jennifer Maloy slipped through the lower two floors of the apartment building like a ghost, disturbing nothin

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