looked at the clock. Four twenty-three. Birdie was gone. Ryan was snoring softly beside me.

I'd been dreaming about Tamela Banks. I lay there a minute, trying to reassemble fragmented images.

Gideon Banks. Geneva. Katy. A baby. A pit.

My dreams are usually a piece of cake. My mind takes recent events and weaves them into nocturnal mosaics. No subliminal puzzlers. No Freudian brainteasers.

So what the hell was this dream all about?

Guilt over my failure to return Geneva Banks's call?

I'd tried.

Twice.

Guilt for not telling my daughter about Ryan?

Katy had met him when she dropped Boyd off.

Met him, yes.

Fear for Tamela? Sadness over her baby?

Then my mind was off and running.

Why was Tamela Banks's driver's license at a farm belonging to Sonny Pounder, a man recently busted for dealing drugs? Had Tamela gone there with Darryl Tyree? Did the cocaine belong to Tyree? To Pounder? Why had it been left in the basement?

Where was Tamela?

Where was Darryl Tyree?

A sudden terrible thought.

Could the victim in the privy be Tamela Banks? Had Darryl Tyree killed her out of fear she'd reveal what had happened to the baby? Out of anger that the child wasn't his?

But that was impossible. The bones in the privy were devoid of flesh. Tamela's baby was found only a week ago.

But when had the infant died?

I recapped what I knew about timing.

Tamela told her sister about the pregnancy last winter. She left her father's home sometime around Easter. Witnesses reported she'd been living with Tyree in a South Tryon Street house for four months.

The baby could have been born in July, or even late June. When had Tamela last been seen? Could she have died several weeks ago? Could the highly organic environment in the privy have hastened decomposition?

If not Tamela, who was the privy victim? Why was he there? Who had shot him?

I thought the skull looked male, but was it a he?

Where was Darryl Tyree? Could I be wrong about the skull looking Caucasian? Could we have pulled Tyree's head and hands from the pit?

Had I really seen a reaction in Rinaldi's eyes? Had the head and hands triggered some recollection? If so, why keep it to himself?

Slidell's question was a good one. How had two of the privy pit hand bones ended up in a shallow grave with bears and birds?

Who had killed all of those animals?

If the privy remains were not Tamela's, could she have suffered the same fate as that victim?

Questions looped and spun in my head.

From the privy pit farm, my mind traveled west across the county to a cornfield crash site. I pictured Harvey Pearce and his anonymous passenger, their corpses encased in crispy black shrouds.

Who was Pearce's passenger? What was the strange lesion on his nasal bone?

Jansen found charred matter under the Cessna. Was it more cocaine, or some other illegal drug? Something else entirely?

What was the relationship of the men in the Cessna to Ricky Don Dorton? Had Pearce and his passenger stolen Dorton's plane, or were the three part of a drug trafficking ring? The doggy door and the missing seat seemed inconsistent with a recently stolen plane.

I turned my head on the pillow.

Was I making a mistake with Ryan? Could this work? If not, could we hold on to the friendship we had? To an outsider, our constant bantering might look like hostility. That was our way. Sparring. Teasing. Jousting. But underneath lay respect and affection. If it turned out we couldn't be lovers, could we once again be colleagues and friends?

Did I want to be a couple? Could I really yield my long-fought-for independence? Would I have to?

Did Ryan want a committed relationship? Was he capable of monogamy? Was he capable of monogamy with me? Could I again believe in it?

It was a relief when day finally dawned. In the gathering light I watched familiar objects take shape in my room. The conch shell I'd collected on the beach at Kitty Hawk two summers back. The champagne glass into which I tossed my earrings. The framed pictures of Katy. The kabawil I'd purchased in Guatemala.

And the unfamiliar.

Ryan's face was darker than usual, tanned from his days at Kings Mountain and the farm. The early light lay golden on his skin.

'What?' Ryan caught me gazing at him.

I stared into his eyes. No matter how often I experienced it, the intensity of the blue always surprised me.

I shook my head.

Ryan raised up on an elbow.

'You look tense.'

I wanted to say what was on my mind, to form forbidden words, ask prohibited questions. I held back.

'It's scary stuff.'

'Yes,' I agreed.

What's scary, Andrew Ryan? You? Me? A baby in a woodstove? A HydroShok to the head?

'I'm really sorry about the beach.' Safer ground.

Ryan broke into a grin. 'I've got two weeks. We'll get there.'

I nodded.

Ryan threw back the covers.

'I think today it's the Queen City.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

Ryan and I swung by Starbucks, then he dropped me at the MCME office. Immediately upon arriving, I phoned Geneva Banks. Again, I got no answer.

A prick of apprehension. Neither Geneva nor her father worked outside the home. Where were they? Why wasn't someone picking up?

I was dialing Rinaldi when he and his partner walked into my office.

'How's it going?' I asked, replacing the receiver.

'Good.'

'Good.'

We gave each other prefab smiles.

'Have you spoken to Geneva or Gideon Banks recently?'

Slidell and Rinaldi exchanged glances.

'Geneva phoned Monday,' I said. 'I returned her call, but got no answer. I just tried again. Still no answer.'

Rinaldi glanced down at his loafers. Slidell looked at me flatly.

Cold fingers wrapped around my heart.

'This is the part where you tell me they're dead, right?'

Slidell answered with one word.

'Gone.'

'What do you mean, gone?'

'Splitsville. Vamoosed. In the wind. We're here to see if you might know something, you and Geneva being girlfriends and all.'

I looked from Slidell to his partner.

'The shades are drawn, and the place is secured tighter than a nuclear reactor. A neighbor saw the Bankses' car pull out early Monday. No sign of them since.'

'Were they alone?'

'The neighbor wasn't sure, but thought she saw someone in the backseat.'

'What are you doing about it?'

Rinaldi adjusted his tie, carefully centering the top flap over the bottom.

'We're looking for them.'

'Have you spoken to the other Banks kids?'

'Yes.'

I turned back to Slidell.

'If this Tyree's the scumbag you say he is, Geneva and her father could be in danger.'

'Uh-huh.'

I swallowed.

'Tamela and her family could already be dead.'

'You're preaching to the choir, Doc. Far as I'm concerned, the faster we haul their asses to the bag, the better.'

'You're kidding, right?'

'Ever heard of aiding and abetting?'

'Gideon Banks is in his seventies, for God's sake. Geneva probably has the IQ of parsley.'

'How about obstructing justice, or accessory after the fact?'

'After what fact?' I wasn't believing this.

'Let's start with infantalcide.' Slidell.

'The word is "infanticide,"' I snapped.

Slidell put a fist on each hip and leaned back, stretching his lower shirt buttons to their tensile limits.

'You wouldn't have any idea as to the whereabouts of these folks, now, would you, Doc?'

'I wouldn't tell you if I did.'

Slidell's hands dropped and his head came forward. We glared across my desk, baboons challenging for first dibs at the watering hole.

'Let's talk about this other situation,' said Rinaldi.

As if on cue, a cell phone rang. Slidell scooped his out of a pocket. 'Slidell.'

He listened a moment, then stepped into the hall.

I looked Rinaldi straight in the eye.

'When I was describing what we found in that privy yesterday, something clicked for you.'

'What makes you say that?'

'Something in your eyes.'

Rinaldi tugged his shirt cuffs from underneath his jacket and smoothed them against his wrists.

'Have you completed your examination of the skull and hand bones?'

'It tops my agenda.'

The fluorescents hummed overhead. Slidell's voice drifted in from the hall.

'Who is this Darryl Tyree?' I asked.

'A pimp, a drug dealer, and a pornographer. Although I'm not sure that's the order Mr. Tyree uses on his resume. Let me know what you decide about the skull.'

Rinaldi started toward the door just as Joe Hawkins appeared in it. Both men stopped. Hawkins reached past Rinaldi and handed me a large brown envelope.

I thanked him. Hawkins withdrew.

Rinaldi did a slow turn and rolled his eyes in his partner's direction.

'Skinny can be a bit gruff. But he's a good cop. Don't worry, Dr. Brennan. We'll find the Bankses.'

At that moment Slidell stuck his head through the door.

'Looks like Green Acres ain't the crime scene for the privy vic.'

Rinaldi and I waited for him to continue.

'CSU shined a LumaLite around the place this morning.' Though Slidell smiled, the corners of his mouth stayed flat. 'No blood. Dark as a mall on Christmas Day.'

When Rinaldi and Slidell had gone, I took Hawkins's envelope to the stinky room and began popping X rays onto the light boxes.

Each film inspired a fresh title for Slidell.

Dork.

Prick.

One-syllable appellations worked best. Unless a corner slipped and the film needed readjustment.

Asshole.

Dickhead.

Plate by plate, I worked my way through the passenger's infrastructure. Ribs, vertebrae, pelvis, arm, leg, breast, and collarbone.

Other than massive deceleration trauma, the skeleton looked perfectly normal.

Until I popped up the last four plates.

I was staring at the passenger's hands and feet when Larabee came up behind me. For a full ten seconds neither of us spoke.

Larabee broke the silence.

'Jesus Christ in a blooming pear tree. I hope that's not what I think it is.'