Tony’s job, as Manager of Marketing, was to make healthcare contacts, sell advertising space on the site, and also to reach out to potential clients. That is what he had been doing by giving a speech to the women’s club. He had used his newfound listening skills to good advantage, had not judged his audience, and had shown empathy when answering questions. For example, he had not laughed when a woman complained about the crow’s-feet beside her eyes that nobody else could see. Mona, who was president of Bodyalternatives. net, would be pleased. He intended to emphasize the good things he had done in his call report.

Tony had made several other calls during the day, but he had always listened to the tapes when he was in his car. He had grabbed a quick dinner in a fast-food restaurant and gone directly to the Hotline, without going to the office or coming home. That’s why he had been out of the loop.

He rolled his chair back to the computer to look for news reports. They weren’t difficult to find. The story had a sensational aspect, and it had been picked up by all the news services. The first thing he read was that Joy’s body had been discovered in a pocket park behind the mall, cut and bruised, almost naked. Some items of her clothing had been lying nearby.

When Joy hadn’t returned home last night, her parents had driven to the mall. They had found her car parked in the lot behind it. Listeners on the seven-to-ten shift were supposed to call the guard when they left and could request an escort out of the building. They exited by the back door because the front door was locked at night. On the three evenings Tony had worked, he had acted as the escort. Actually, the time he had worked with the boy, they had escorted each other.