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"It doesn’t matter," Quinlan said "Please, Mrs St John, you h your house? Her car is parked just down the street She’s probably hiding here in the house waiting for us to leave before she coentlemen, but look to your hearts’ content None of the help sleep here, so the house is e anyone" She sant stride back into the library

"Upstairs first," Quinlan said

They wentin the corridor as Quinlan searched, to ensure that Sally couldn’t slip between adjoining rooms and elude them When Quinlan opened the door to a bedroom at the far end of the hall, he knew iht It wasn’t a frilly room with a pink or white canopied bed and posters of rock stars plastering the walls No, three of the walls were filled with bookshelves, all of them stuffed with books On the fourth ere fra with ones for papers she’d written in junior high school on the US dependence on foreign oil and the gasoline crisis, on the hostages in Iran, on the countries that beca Carter’s administration and why There was a paper that had won the Idleberg Award and appeared in the New York Tiainst the Russians at Lake Placid at the 1980 Olyh school awards were for papers that ran more toward literary theh school--no nition for excellent short stories or essays, at least no etown University, n that she’d ever written another word or won another prize

"Quinlan, for God’s sake, what are you doing? Is she in there or not?"

He was shaking his head when he rejoined Dillon He said, "Sally isn’t here Sure, she was here, but she’s long gone Somehow she kneere close How, I don’t know, but she knew Let’s go, Dillon"

"You don’t think her mother would have any idea, do you?"

"Get real" But they asked Mrs St John anyway She gave them a blank smile and sent them on their way

"What now, Quinlan?"

"Lethe had a cup of coffee, not good coffee, but the rotgut stuff at the bureau He drove to FBI headquarters at Tenth and Pennsylvania, the ugliest building ever constructed in the nation’s capital

Tenon the stuff that could be used to plug a hole in a dike He took Dillon a cup and set it near the ot the Oldsmobile"

"No APB, Dillon"

Dillon swiveled around in his chair, the co behind his head "You can’t just keep this a two-man hunt, Quinlan We lost her You and I, my friend, lost a rank amateur Don’t you think it’s tiot my wallet See what you can do with that"

"If she keeps purchases below fifty dollars, chances are no one will check Still, if someone does check, we’ll have her almost instantly Hold on ahands and large, blunt fingers Quinlan watched those unlikely fingers race over the computer keys Dillon hit a final key and nodded in satisfaction "There’s just so about coive you shit, they never contradict you You tell ’ee and they do it"

"They don’t love you, either"

"In their way they do They’re so clean, Quinlan Now, if she uses one of your credit cards and there’s no check, then I’ve got her within eighteen hours It’s not the best, but it’ll have to do"

"She ht have to use a credit card, but she’ll keep it below fifty dollars She’s not stupid Did you know she won a statewide contest for a paper she wrote about how much credit card crooks cost the Aht eighteen hours, and she h, thank you"

"How do you know that? Surely you had other things to talk about with her? Jesus, you had two murders in that damned little picturesque town, and the two of you found both bodies Surely that’s enough fodder for conversation for at least three hours"