Nothing besides remained, as Shelley said of Ozymandias. Gone were the plastic milk cartons and the books they’d housed. Gone was the brassbound footlocker and the shrine that had perched on top of it, candles and crystal and icons and animals and all. Gone was the stiff family snapshot of Ilona and her parents, gone too the framed photo of Vlados and Liliana. Gone from the wall was the map of Eastern Europe, gone from its nail the bird calendar.

Gone whatever the desk and dresser had contained; I checked their drawers and found them empty. Gone, except for three wire coat hangers and a grocery bag collection, whatever the closet might have held. Gone, lock, stock, and barrel. Gone, kit and caboodle. Gone.

The bed linen remained on the bed, the twisted sheets still holding her scent.

I walked over to the desk and picked up the phone. I got a dial tone, and if the phone had been equipped with a redial button I could have determined the last call she made before she disappeared. Instead I dialed my own number, which didn’t answer, and then dialed the store and wondered what Raffles would make of the ringing. I dialed Candlemas’s apartment on East Seventy-sixth and let it ring a few times, but there were no cops there this time around and no one answered.

I cradled the receiver and sat down in the hideous green chair, taking care to avoid the broken spring. It wasn’t terribly comfortable, but it would serve. I had some thinking to do, and this seemed like the time and place to do it.

Ordinarily I don’t like to hang around after I break into somebody’s home. It’s an unnecessary risk, and one I prefer to avoid. But I couldn’t think of a safer spot than where I was right now. I was like Mowgli, holed up in an abandoned building. No one lived here, and it took some imagination to believe that anyone ever had.