"You got me," he admitted. "All I can suggest is that we try the police again in the morning."

"She didn't want to see them last night," Caroline pointed out, making a face as she climbed under the comforter and blankets and hit the chilly sheets. "I doubt she'll want to see them tomorrow, either."

"Then she has to tell us what's going on," Roger said firmly. "She tells us, or she tells the cops."

"Or she does her disappearing act again."

"Maybe by morning she'll trust us a little more," Roger said, climbing into bed beside her. "Pleasant dreams."

"You, too," she said, rolling half over to give him a kiss.

He turned off the bedside light and nestled down under the comforter, shivering against the cold sheets. At least Caroline seemed to have forgiven him for whatever it was he'd done wrong earlier in the evening.

It had been a long twenty-four hours, and he was deathly tired. But perversely, sleep refused to come. He lay quietly beside Caroline, listening to her slow breathing, staring at the edges of the sliding door where the glow of the city seeped in around the light-blocking drapes. Over and over again he played back the incident in the alley, trying to remember every word the man had said, every nuance of his tone or body language, every unusual thing or event that had happened before or after he'd shoved that gun into Roger's hand. But the mystery remained as tangled as ever.

And it was way beyond people like him and Caroline. In the morning, he decided firmly, they would give Melantha one last chance to come clean; and after that it was the cops, whether she liked it or not. And as for her disappearing act, this time he would sit on the girl to make sure she stayed put.

Literally, if it came to that.

And then, from somewhere on the outside wall, he heard a soft thump.

He froze, straining his ears. Had he imagined the sound? Or could it have just been Melantha tossing in her sleep?