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handle.
    She nodded, and he picked it up.
    His goal was to get Dunlap out of the
building before he had to introduce her to anybody. His instincts
told him she was too fragile to handle such a difficult
investigation, and there was no sense in wasting time introducing
her to people she might never see again.
    Crime-scene photos used to be black and
white, the argument being that they were less disturbing that way.
But there were a lot of things that didn't show up in black and
white, so now they were always in color. Color was good. Color
weeded out the people who couldn't hack it.
    The lobby was where the press waited, hoping
to get an unauthorized scoop. So far, the Sheppard murders hadn't
been publicly connected with the earlier homicides. There were
around four hundred murders a year in Chicago, down from an
all-time high of eight hundred. If the victim wasn't famous, the
homicide didn't attract attention, and was only given a few lines
in the Herald. But let somebody make some sort of comparison and
the lobby would soon be swarming with camera crews.
    Max spotted Alex Martin, a fairly new
reporter on the police beat. New reporters had it tough. Most
police officers trusted and worked with only a few journalists. The
others they ignored, so it was hard for anybody starting out to get
a fresh story.
    But Alex was young and ambitious, energetic
and relentless. He had so much energy it was exhausting to spend
five minutes with him. He jumped up from where he'd been sitting
scribbling notes.
    "Detective Irving!"
    Leaving his sandwich and wrapper on the
bench, he hurried up to Max, looking like he'd stepped right out of
a Gap ad with his khaki pants, his wild tie, his leather sandals.
"Detective Irving! May I talk with you a moment?" He glanced in
Dunlap's direction, a brief question bringing his dark eyebrows
together, quickly dismissed her as nobody important, then focused
back on Max.
    "About this murder." With the skill of a
desperate man, he stepped in front of Max, blocking his path. "The
Sheppard case. Any leads?"
    Max stopped in his headlong flight for the
door. He let out a deep, weary breath, wishing the guy in front of
him would vanish, taking the woman and her cat with him.
    "Is it true that a baby was murdered
too?"
    "You know damn well I can't talk about the
case right now. When I know more, we'll get you a copy of the
report."
    "What about a press conference? Do you
foresee this being big enough to merit a press conference?"
    "We don't hold press conferences for every
murder in Chicago."
    "Yeah, but I thought this might be
different."
    "Only if you make it different. You won't do
that, will you?"
    "You mean pad a story?"
    "Exactly."
    "Hell no. I mean, no. Of course not."
    "Good."
    Max glanced to his left, ready to indicate to
Dunlap that it was time to go. She wasn't there. He spotted her
near the check-in desk, talking to the street person they'd passed
earlier. She was holding up the cage so he could look in at her
cat. The man was nodding and smiling now—two pet owners comparing
notes. Ivy pressed something into the man's hand—money, Max
supposed—then quickly caught up with Max.
    "What a relief to see you treat everyone with
courtesy," she said conversationally once they were outside in the
parking lot with the noise of an overhead street ramp, the heat,
the people. "And here I thought it was just me."
    "Should I be more like you and give every
homeless person in Chicago money?"
    "The reporter was just doing his job."
    "I don't have the time or the inclination to
be charming."

Chapter 5
    The reality of being back in Chicago was
beginning to sink in. A part of Ivy couldn't believe she was here,
in the city where such awful things had happened, where her life
had changed so drastically.
    She could feel her mind slipping.
    Don't fall apart. Not in front of him. Not in
front of anybody. Don't fall apart.
    This is what I wanted, she told herself.
True, but that didn't mean it didn't scare the hell out of