Alex thought about that while they scraped plates and loaded the dishwasher. "So if you are being ... invited to change what you see, then there must be a clue buried there somewhere. A sign, a symbol. Right?"
"I assume so." Liz was delighted to find him willing to discuss the subject so calmly, since he'd always scoffed — however gently — in the past.
They carried their wine into her living room, where a crackling fire in the old stone fireplace made it warm and cozy, and sat on the couch. Liz tried to take heart from the fact that there was nothing separating them but the space of half a cushion, but since Alex was clearly preoccupied by signs and portents she didn't count it as much of a victory.
"Signs," he muttered. "Signs are visible, they stand out. What stood out to you in what you saw? Was there anything that seemed . . . out of place?"
"His shirt," Liz said immediately.
"His shirt?"
"Yeah. There was snow on the ground, it was cold — and Bishop wasn't wearing a jacket. Not even a long-sleeved shirt. It was a T-shirt, so white it almost hurt my eyes."
"A T-shirt. A very white T-shirt." Alex drained half his wine. "Symbolic of what — that he does his laundry?"
Liz didn't blame him for feeling frustrated. Gently, she said, "It takes a lot of practice to read signs, Alex, and even then it's often guesswork."
"So what do you guess that white T-shirt means?"
She sipped her wine as she considered it. "If the color is important, white means purity."
"I don't think," Alex said, "that Bishop is all that pure."
She hid a smile. "It might not have anything to do with him personally. The sign is for me to see, remember? So white can mean purity or innocence. It also used to be a color of mourning. On the other hand, it might not be the color at all, but the vivid cleanness of the shirt, or the fact that it's short-sleeved. It might not be the shirt at all, but the lack of a jacket that's important."
"This just keeps getting better," Alex muttered.
"I'm afraid it may take some time to interpret, assuming we can. Alex ... do you think I should tell Randy about this?"
"Could she do anything to change it?"
"Probably not."
After a moment, he said, "I think Randy's got about all she can handle right now. No matter how she feels about him, telling her Bishop might be slated to get himself shot is just going to pile on the stress."
"I didn't warn Bishop," Liz confessed. "But when we shook hands yesterday, I was thinking he should be careful — and he knew that. He said he would."
"Then let's hope he will. For what it's worth, I can't see anything we know so far in the investigation leading to a snooting like that."
"If it has anything to do with the investigation," Liz reminded him. "It might not."
"Great. Then we really don't have a clue." He drained his glass and set it on the coffee table. "I should get out of here and let you get some rest. Thanks for Supper, Liz."
"You're welcome." The part of her Liz couldn't seem to control went on in a casual tone that didn't fool either one of them. "And you're welcome to stay, you know that."
His face changed, and she didn't need The Sight to read reluctance, regret — and a touch of discomfort.
"Liz—"
"It's all right." She was desperate to head him off before he said what she didn't want to hear. "I thought you might want to talk or something, but—"
"Liz, what happened at Christmas was a mistake, you know that. I was lonely, and I'd had too much to drink." His voice was gentle. "Hell, I'm still lonely — and I hate sleeping alone. But you deserve more than gratitude."
She forced herself to say, "Stop apologizing, Alex. I was there too, remember? And I'm a big girl, all grown up and everything. Go on home. I'll see you tomorrow."
He lifted one hand as though he would touch her, then swore under his breath and left.
By the time the fire died down, Liz had emptied the bottle of wine. But it didn't help her sleep.
It didn't help anything at all..
TEN
Saturday, January 15
When Miranda came into the conference room late in the morning, she found Tony Harte writing a list of names on the blackboard, and Bishop sitting at his accustomed place on the end of the table while he studied a file.
"Missing kids?" Miranda asked.
Bishop looked up and frowned slightly, but nodded. "Your deputies are backtracking through the files, and following up on missing persons reports to rule out kids who later turned up somewhere either alive or dead. So far, we have three missing teenagers from '98, five from '97, and two from '96."
Hardly aware of doing it, Miranda sat down in a chair near Bishop. "Ten kids? Ten kids in three years?"
"All either last seen or last known to be within a fifty-mile radius of Gladstone," Bishop confirmed. "The youngest was fourteen when she ran away from home in '96 — in the company of her nineteen-year-old boyfriend, who wanted to go to Nashville to become a singer. Nobody reported him missing, but so far we've been unable to trace either of them beyond this area, so we're including him on the list."
Tony turned from the blackboard. "Of course, we have no evidence that any of these kids only got as far as Gladstone. Falling between the cracks of the system is all too easy, especially for kids on the streets. They could have made it to Nashville — or wherever else they were headed. They could have been picked up on the road somewhere along the way and wound up six states from here."
"All we do know," Bishop finished, "is that none of these kids reappears anywhere in the system under these names. We've cross-checked FBI files, NCIC, every database available. No sign of them."
Slowly, Miranda said, "Before the new highway, a lot of strangers passed through Gladstone from week to week. Aside from the Lodge on Main Street, we had two more motels just outside town that were usually at least half full."
Tony came to the conference table and consulted a legal pad. "Let's see . . . The Starlite Motor Lodge and the Red Oak Inn, right?"
Miranda nodded. "The Starlite burned to the ground about six months ago, long after it had been abandoned. The Red Oak closed its doors the day the new highway opened. The town bought the property, and the fire department's been using the building for practice drills."
"Some of these kids may have had a few bucks for a room," Tony noted. "Any way to get our hands on the guest registers?"
"Oh, hell, I don't even know if they still exist." Miranda thought about it. "No problem getting the registers from the Lodge, since they're still doing business, but the owners of the other two places cleared out when they closed. I assume they took their records and other paperwork with them."
Tony made notes on the legal pad. "Well, we can check the Lodge at least. If we can actually place any of these kids here in Gladstone, at least we can ask a few more questions. Maybe somebody will remember something."
Bishop said to Miranda, "I looked through that special edition of The Sentinel this morning. Some of the letters to the editor were a bit..."
"Bloodthirsty?" She grimaced. "Yeah. We've had to disarm a few citizens, especially since the Penman boy disappeared. I've doubled the usual patrols just to try and keep an eye on things, but if and when suspicion falls on any one person I'm going to have a lynch mob on my hands."
"Justin Marsh isn't helping matters," Bishop said.
"With his street-corner harangues? I know. I've warned him twice, told him he's crossing the line between free speech and yelling fire in a crowded theater. If I catch him one more time urging people to purge the evil in Gladstone with their own hands, I'll see if a night in jail helps him see reason."
"His kind doesn't see reason," Tony said. "Ever."