N AMBULANCE ARRIVED. RYAN HELD ME IN HIS ARMS AS TWO paramedics worked on Pete. Boyd whined and scratched on the far side of the pantry door. I shared his fear. The kitchen seemed awash in blood. Could anyone survive the loss of so much?

Though I asked question after question, I was repeatedly ignored. After furious manipulation involving tubes and wound packing, Pete was strapped to a backboard, placed on a stretcher, and whisked away.

Two Isle of Palms uniforms arrived and asked a lot of questions. Their name tags read CAPER and JOHNSON. At one point Caper asked about the bruise on my arm. I described the previous Thursday's bottle-throwing incident. Caper put it in his notes.

Ryan told the cops he was on the job, showed his badge, and tried to deflect the interrogation. Caper and Johnson said they understood, but needed to file an incident report.

Tersely, I outlined what Pete was doing in Charleston. Caper wanted my thoughts on who might have shot him. I suggested he interrogate Herron and the GMC clinic staff. Caper's expression suggested that was unlikely to happen.

"Probably a beach prank," Johnson said. "Damn kids sneak Daddy's gun, get wasted, start firing bullets into the air. Happens every long weekend."

"Someone get drilled every long weekend?" Ryan asked.

I too knew that explanation was stupid, but I wasn't in the mood to argue. I was anxious to follow the ambulance.

An hour after the shooting Ryan and I were in the emergency room waiting area at the MUSC hospital. This time we'd entered on the Ashley Street side. The life side. I prayed Pete would be exiting through the same door.

An hour crept by. Another. Pete was in surgery. That's all they would tell me. He was in surgery.

The ER was chaos, the staff pushed to its limits by the full onslaught of an American holiday. A family of six burned in a barbecue grill explosion. A child pulled from a backyard pool. A drunk trampled by a horse. A woman beaten by her husband. A man shot by his lover. Drug overdoses. Dehydration. Sunburn. Food poisoning. It was a relief to be moved to the surgical waiting area upstairs.

We were entering our third hour when a doctor approached, face tired, scrubs spattered with blood. My heart seized. I tried but couldn't read the doctor's face.

Ryan took my hand. We both stood.

"Dr. Brennan?"

I nodded, afraid to trust my voice.

"Mr. Petersons is out of surgery."

"How is he?"

"I removed the bullet and fragments. There's some damage to his right lung."

"Don't lie to me."

"He lost a lot of blood. The next twenty-four hours will be critical."

"Can I see him?"

"He's been moved to the ICU. A nurse will take you."

The ICU was a sharp contrast to the bedlam downstairs. The lights were low, the only sounds the squeak of an occasional heel or the hushed murmur of a distant voice.

Exiting the elevator Ryan and I followed our guide to a configuration of four glass-walled units. A nurse sat in the middle, monitoring the occupant of each bed.

Tonight, the glass quadrangle held three patients. Pete was one of them.

If the sight of Emma in the ER had caught me off guard, that paled in comparison with the shock of seeing post-surgical Pete. Despite his six feet, powerful shoulders, and boundless energy, the Latvian Savant looked ashen and shrunken in his bed. Vulnerable.

Tubes ran from Pete's nose and mouth. Another from his chest. A fourth from his arm. Each was taped with adhesive. An IV tree at the head of his bed dangled several bags. Machines surrounded him, pumping and whirring and sucking. A monitor displayed an undulating series of peaks and valleys, and blipped a constant rhythm.

Ryan must have heard my sudden intake of breath. Again, he enveloped my hand in his.

I felt my knees buckle. Ryan's arm went round my waist.

Pressing a palm to the glass, I closed my eyes and conjured up a long-abandoned childhood prayer.

Disregarding hospital regs, I called Katy's cell. Got a recording. What message to leave? "Katy, it's Mom. Please call me as soon as you can. It's very important."

Go or stay? The nurse assured me Pete would neither hear nor see during the night. "Go get some rest. I'll call if anything develops."

I took her advice.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Lying in bed that night, Ryan voiced the questions I'd been asking myself.

"Do you think Pete was the target?"

"I don't know."

"That bullet might have been meant for you."

I didn't say anything. I thought the shooter had been close enough to distinguish male from female, but perhaps he'd aimed at a silhouette.

Ryan pushed his point. "No one was thrilled to see us at that clinic. If you're closing in on something, folks could be getting antsy."

"The IOP cops weren't impressed. It's America. It's Memorial Day. People fire guns."

"What's that developer's name?"

"Dickie Dupree." Ryan was thinking along lines I'd considered. "A strange car shows up. Someone beans you with a beer bottle. All around the time you're digging Dupree's site."

"The bottle could have been totally unrelated to the shooting."

"Dupree threatened you."

"Dupree could be a bottle thrower, but not a shooter or employer of shooters. That's too big-time for him. Besides, my report to the state was already in. What does he gain in having someone take a shot at me? Everything happened after we found Willie Helms's bones on Dewees. Maybe Helms is the triggering factor."

"Maybe it's Montague."

"Maybe it's that clinic." I sat bolt upright. "Oh my God. I was so upset about Pete I forgot."

Throwing back the covers I dashed downstairs, Boyd at my heels.

The contents of Cruikshank's second envelope lay scattered across the den. Snatching up the papers and the crime book, I raced back upstairs, Boyd matching me tread for tread.

"Ever heard of William Burke and William Hare?" I asked when I was once again under the blankets.

Ryan shook his head.

"Burke and Hare were responsible for sixteen murders spanning a period of less than a year."

"When and where?"

"Edinburgh, 1827 to 1828. At that time, under British law, only the bodies of executed criminals could be used for dissection. Demand exceeded supply for the fresh corpses needed to teach anatomy and surgery, and grave robbing became common."

"Gotta admire those Scots. Entrepreneurial. Even the criminal set."

"Bad news, Ryan. Burke and Hare were Irishmen who moved to Scotland to work on the Union Canal. Both ended up living in a boardinghouse owned by Maggie Laird. Helen MacDougal also roomed there, and the four became drinking buddies.

"In 1827 one of Laird's boarders fell ill and died owing back rent. On the day of the funeral Burke and Hare robbed the coffin and sold the man's body to Robert Knox, an anatomy professor at the Edinburgh Medical School."

"How much?"

"Ten pounds seven shillings. Big bucks back then. Seeing an income stream of easy money, the dynamic duo made a career change into the cadaver supply business. When another boarder fell ill, Burke and Hare suffocated him by pinching off his nose and mouth. That became their MO, and the origin of the modern term "burking."

"Next came a relative of Helen's, a street busker, a string of prostitutes. Eventually, Burke and Hare grew lazy, or complacent, and started taking victims close to home. The neighbors began to notice that locals were disappearing, and Dr. Knox's students began to recognize faces on their tables. The downfall came with the murder of a hooker named Mary Docherty.

"When arrested, all four turned on each other. Burke and Helen MacDougal were charged and tried, Hare and Maggie Laird turned king's evidence. Helen won a verdict of not proven, Burke was found guilty and sentenced to death. Before his hanging, Burke admitted to a total of sixteen murders."

"Why risk murder? Why not read the obits and buy a good shovel?"

"These guys were slugs. Digging a grave was too labor intensive."

"Cruikshank was collecting articles on Burke and Hare?"

"Lots of them." I held up the papers.

Ryan considered this for several seconds.

"You think someone at the GMC clinic is knocking patients off for their corpses?"

"Cruikshank must have been considering the possibility."

"OK. Suppose that's it. Why? Where's the profit?"

"I'm not sure. Wait. Maybe they were harvesting skeletal parts to sell for medical purposes. Remember that scandal involving a funeral home and a number of tissue procurement companies?"

Ryan shook his head.

"The funeral home was removing bone from corpses without permission, and replacing it with polypropylene pipe. Alistair Cooke was reported to be one of the victims."

"You're not serious."

"It was all over the news. The stolen bone was sold to companies that supply hospitals with tissue. Cadaveric bone is routinely used for grafting."

"But bone doesn't make sense. Helms was buried. Montague was tossed into the ocean. Their skeletons were intact."

"Maybe their bones turned out to be unsuitable for some reason."

"Such as?"

"I don't know. OK. Maybe it wasn't a problem with the bones. Maybe the perp got spooked, the drop-off was spotted, the cleaning apparatus broke down. A thousand things could have gone wrong."

"What about the cut marks?"

What about the cut marks? Lower back. Pelvic and abdominal area.

Think outside the box, Brennan. Outside the bones.

My mind tossed up a gruesome possibility.

"But you're right about one thing," Ryan was saying. "Helms lived in a scrap-yard trailer. Montague was homeless. Aikman was mentally ill. Teal was unstable and lived on the streets. Who else is missing? Hookers. Druggies. Those on the fringe, those no one notices. The same people who fell victim to Burke and Hare."

It couldn't be. The idea was too terrible to contemplate.

"But there's no proof anyone's dead except Helms and Montague." Ryan's voice was barely registering. "So what have we learned? Cruikshank was digging into Burke and Hare. Cruikshank was staking out the GMC clinic. Helene Flynn worked there. Montague and Teal were patients there. But we don't even know that Teal is dead."

"Cruikshank sure is," I said. "Because he uncovered something that got him killed. Ryan—"

"Shh."

"No. Listen."

Clicking off the light, Ryan pulled me to him. When I tried to protest, he hugged me tighter. I fell silent and we lay together in the dark. Sometime later, Birdie hopped onto the bed. I felt him circle, then curl at my side.

Tired as I was, sleep wouldn't come. My mind kept offering up the same dreadful suspicion. Kept repeating the same horrified response: It can't be.

I refused to think about my appalling hypothesis. To calm myself I chanted silently. Tonight, rest. Tomorrow, pursue.

It didn't work. My thoughts raced from topic to topic. I kept seeing the rigging and tubes pumping to keep Pete alive. I relived mopping Anne's kitchen floor, pictured my tears falling and mingling with his blood. I went cold at the prospect of telling Katy that her father was dead. Where was Katy?

I remembered my recent call to Emma, dreaded the awful conversation I would have upon her sister's return from Italy.

I considered Gullet. Was his attitude toward me resistance, or merely indifference?

I thought of Dupree and his threats. Were they threats? What could he really do? All developers bitched to their friends in government about archaeologists interfering with progress.

Faces strobed in unending spirals through my brain. Pete. Emma. Gullet. Dupree. Lester Marshall. Corey Daniels. Adele Berry. Lonnie Aikman. The gargoyle features of Unique Montague. The fleshless skull of Willie Helms. Pete again.

The digits on the bedside clock glowed orange. Outside the ocean rolled, a soft, murmuring whisper. Minutes passed. An hour. Beside me, Ryan's body hadn't relaxed. His breathing hadn't steadied into the rhythm of sleep.

Share my suspicion with Ryan?

No. Wait. Dig. Be sure.

"You awake?" I whispered softly.

"Hm."

"Thinking about Lily?"

"Among other things." Ryan's voice was dusky.

"What?"

"Cruikshank's code."

"You crack it?"

"Except for the Helms file, I think it's mostly initials, dates, and times."

"C means case closed."

"Breakthrough noted."

I jabbed Ryan with an elbow.

"CD is Corey Daniels. AB, Adele Berry. LM, Lester Marshall. Not sure about some of the others. The dates are obvious. I think the numbers after each set of initials indicate the times that person entered or left the clinic."

"It's that simple?"

"There's more to it, but I think basically Cruikshank was keeping track of when people came and went."

"Staff only?"

"I think some were patients. Helms is another story. Those notes must have to do with research rather than surveillance since Helms disappeared before Cruikshank was hired to find Helene."

"If Cruikshank's system is so easy, why didn't Pete get it?"

Earlier, Ryan wouldn't have missed an opportunity for a dig. Not tonight. "When Pete was working it he didn't have the names of the clinic staff. Or Willie Helms. What time is it?"

I looked at the clock. "Three ten."

"Doesn't matter. I don't think the notes will yield much." Ryan pulled me to him. "You sleepy?"

"I'm not in the mood, Ryan."

"I was thinking of Cruikshank's laptop."

"Gullet wants it back tomorrow."

"Want to take one last run at the password?"

"Yes." And there was something else I wanted to check into. Could it be?

"Did you find Cruikshank's police ID number?" Ryan asked.

"There's a badge, but the Charlotte PD doesn't number them."

"Did Cruikshank keep any other police equipment? A holster? Handcuffs? A handcuff key?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Contrary to our glamorous public image, we in law enforcement aren't all that complex. Old cop trick: use your ID number as your password. Older cop trick: scratch your ID number onto your belongings."

Boyd and I set a land speed record bolting down the stairs. Ryan followed at a more dignified pace. By the time he'd joined us I'd hit pay dirt.

"Cruikshank scratched digits beside the keyhole." Thrusting the handcuffs at Ryan, I dashed to the desk, opened and booted the Dell. "Read them off."

Ryan did. I hit the keys. Black dots appeared in the little white window, then the screen changed to the Windows desktop.

"We're in!"

"Mailbox first?" Ryan asked.

I spent ten minutes poking around.

"The PC's set up for wireless, but there's no e-mail. I doubt Magnolia Manor's plugged in, so Cruikshank probably used coffee shops or libraries to access the Net. He's got hundreds of downloads. You might as well go back to bed."

"You sure?"

"This is going to take a while."

Ryan kissed my head. I heard footfalls on the carpet, then his tread on the stairs. Boyd stayed at my feet.

Everything faded from my consciousness but the softly lit monitor of a dead man's PC. Beyond its glow, Anne's picture window was a shiny black rectangle of glass. As I read file after file, a hard knot formed in my gut.

When I finally sat back, the window had gone gray, and the vast Atlantic was emerging from an early morning mist.

The hunt for explanations was over.

My guess had been correct. I knew. And the reality was as ruthless as any I'd imagined. But that would have to wait.

I had my own reality to contend with. I called the ICU. No change. No obvious improvement, but Pete was stable.

Try Katy again? No point. She'd get my message if she had her cell on. If she didn't, another call would just result in another message. If I didn't hear from her within a few hours, I'd call the university and ask for help in locating her.

I stretched out on the couch.