Private

Actually, what she meant was, how was it going for me and Colleen-and I didn't want to get into that with her. Instead I said, "I have a new case to work on. It's heavy-duty and personal. You remember me telling you about my uncle Fred."

"Football guy."

"Yeah. He's worried that some of the games are being fixed. Could result in a huge scandal, the biggest since the Black Sox in baseball."

"Wow," Justine said.

"I'm having dreams again," I said.

Justine's eyebrows lifted. I had wanted to talk to her, but now I was going to have to really talk. Tell a shrink you're having dreams, it's like dangling string for a kitten.

"Dreams about what?" she asked. "The same ones?"

So I told her. I described the vivid explosions, running across the field with someone I love over my shoulder, never making it to safety.

"Could be survivor's guilt, I guess. What do you think, Jack?"

"I wish the dreams would stop."

"You're still funny," she said, "with the one-liners."

I opened the folder I had wedged under the armrest and looked at the photo that Bobby Petino had e-mailed to Justine this morning. It was a school portrait of a pretty sixteen-year-old girl named Serena Moses. She'd been reported missing last night. Serena lived in Echo Park, a section of East LA that Justine called "the red zone," the Schoolgirl killing field.

Two hours after Serena's parents called the police, an anonymous and untraceable call had come in to 911 saying that Serena's body was here in the landfill.

Just then, voices came over the police radio, one sharper and louder than the others.

"I've got something. Could be human. Oh, Christ…"

"Let's go," I said, opening the car door on my side.

"No, Jack. I've got to do this alone. If you come with me, I'll lose my street creds. Just hang tight."

I said okay. Then I watched Justine cross the empty street and head toward where the police were already taping off a section of the stinking terrain.

Chapter 26

JUSTINE LIFTED HER hand in a wave to Lieutenant Nora Cronin, who gave her the customary dirty look before turning back to the black construction-grade trash bag lying like a crashed balloon at her feet.

Justine's chest tightened as she remembered another schoolgirl who'd been dumped here a year ago encased in a similar black plastic bag. Her name was Laura Lee Branco, and she had been knifed through the heart.

Cronin cut the tie with a pocketknife, and the bag fell open.

An arm tumbled out, almost in slow motion, the palm and fingers outstretched. It took Justine a long, heart-stopping moment to understand what she was seeing.

"What the hell?" Cronin said, pulling back the edges of the bag to reveal a department store dummy. Two other cops tugged the mannequin out of the bag.

Cronin turned over the female form and inspected it. There was no writing on the dummy, no note inside the black bag.

"So what's the big message?" Cronin asked the air. "You're the shrink, right?"

"The medium is the message," Justine said. "It's a dummy, get it? The implication is that we're being played."

Cronin said, "Why, thank you, Justine. That's very astute. It's a frickin' waste of time, that's what it is. And it definitely isn't Serena Moses."

Justine reeled from a wave of relief that was immediately followed by sadness. Serena Moses was still missing, wasn't she? They still didn't know where she was, or whether she was alive or dead.

She glared back at Cronin. "So where is Serena, Lieutenant? I guess you're going to have to keep looking. I hope you're as good as you think you are."

Chapter 27

JUSTINE THANKED PRINCIPAL Barbara Hatfield for her introduction and then she took the stage of the auditorium.

The newly refurbished Roybal High School had five thousand students, but only the junior and senior girls were permitted to attend her talk that afternoon. The principal had told Justine that her presentation was just too graphic and scary for the younger girls.

Justine thought she understood, but frightening the girls was a necessary by-product of informing them. And most of the girls who'd been killed were in the lower grades. The principal hadn't budged, though.

"I'm a psychologist," Justine told the students in the auditorium. "But I'm also investigating the murders of the high school girls that you've all read about on the Internet and seen on TV."

Someone sneezed up front. There was nervous laughter, and Justine waited it out.

"First, I want you to know that Serena Moses is safe. She was hit by a car and taken to a hospital. When she woke up this morning, she told the doctors her name. Serena has a broken arm, but she's fine and she'll be back at school soon."

The kids broke out into applause. Justine smiled. But Serena's being safe had raised a question for her: How did the killer know to fake an e-mail about her? Had he been watching the girl? Had they been watching her?

"It's a big relief," she said, feeling her eyes get moist. "But we have to talk about the girls in this area who weren't so lucky."