It took Marten seven seconds to step around her desk, look at her computer screen, scroll down, and retrieve what he needed. Three minutes later he left the office with a handful of tissues and the knowledge that Dr. Lorraine Stephenson was divorced, had graduated from Johns Hopkins University Medical School, had done her residency at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, kept professional offices at the Georgetown Medical Building, and lived at 227 Dumbarton Street, in the city's Georgetown section.

• 8:27 P.M.

Again Marten saw lights in his mirror. A car approached and then passed. Where was she? Out to dinner, to a movie, some kind of professional conference? Suddenly he thought of Stephenson's tone and manner, heard her words as she'd ended their conversation.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Marten," she'd said sharply, "there is nothing I can do to help you. Please don't call again." Then she'd hung up.

Maybe there was more there than he'd thought. Maybe what he'd heard as cold aloofness had really been fear. What if Caroline had been murdered and Stephenson had been involved or had even done it herself? And then he'd telephoned her saying he had a legal document giving him access to Caroline's medical records and that he wanted to talk about her illness and the cause of her death. If Stephenson had been involved, what if she had returned his call and put him off simply to buy time so that she could cut and run? What if at this moment she was on her way out of the city?

• 8:29 P.M.

Another vehicle came down the street behind him. It began to slow as it neared Stephenson's home and Marten saw that it was the same Ford that had slowed minutes before. This time it slowed even more, as if whoever was in the car was trying to see inside the house, to determine if a light or lights had been turned on, an indication that the doctor had come home.