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breath. It was an exercise in futility, this story she had taken on so obsessively.
    She retrieved her pen and drew a line firmly through the first two names on the list: Letitia Cameron and Adora Archer.
    "What are you doing, dear?"
    Brendan stood up and held the notebook where Dorothy could see it. "These are just my notes on the four girls I was trying to track down. I've crossed off Letitia and Adora. If they're dead, I can't very well interview them, now can I?"
    "Letitia?"
    "Letitia Cameron, the daughter."
    "Tish Cameron is dead? When?"
    "Well, I'm not sure." Was the old woman losing touch with reality? Brendan eyed her cautiously. "You told me she was dead."
    "I told you no such thing. For a reporter, Miss Brendan Delaney, you don't listen very well. You never asked me about Tish Cameron—just about her daddy and about the Archers. Get your facts straight, dear."
    Dorothy lifted a gnarled finger and pointed toward the east door. "Unless somethings happened since dinner last night, Letitia Cameron is alive and well and living in Apartment 1-D of the East Mansion."
    Brendan sank back into the vinyl chair, reeling as if she had been struck by a left hook to the jaw. "She's alive? Here?"
    "Of course. Some of us old Presbyterians don't die, honey. We just go on forever at Many Mansions."
    "Why didn't you tell me?"
    Dorothy smiled broadly and adjusted her upper plate with an unsteady hand. "If I had told you right off, would you have spent all this time talking to me?"
    Brendan narrowed her eyes at the old lady. "You're a sneak."
    "Maybe so. But now that we know each other so well, you'll come back and visit me, won't you?"
    "I wouldn't miss it for the world." Brendan stood, gathered her notebook and bag, and gave Dorothy Foster a gentle kiss on her weathered cheek. "Thank you."
    "You know," Dorothy murmured as Brendan started to leave, "maybe the Lord didn't forget about me, after all."
    Brendan turned and leaned down over the wheelchair. "What do you mean?"
    "Maybe he left me here just for you. So you could find Letitia—and whatever else you're looking for."
    "Maybe." Brendan sighed.
    "You have doubts about the purposes of God?" The old woman cocked her head to one side.
    "You might say that, Dorothy. You might even say I don't believe in God anymore."
    "That's all right, child," she murmured. "God still believes in you." She reached up and patted Brendan's cheek with a hand as soft as old flannel. "Go on now and find Letitia. Find your destiny."
    The words—an odd parting, to be sure—dogged Brendan's steps as she made her way through the maze of sidewalks and finally stood at East Mansion, Apartment 1-D. She tried to push them out of her mind, but they echoed inside her like a haunting refrain:
    Find Letitia. Find your destiny.
    "It's only a story," she muttered under her breath as she stood on the tiny square stoop in front of Letitia Cameron's door. "Only a story, like a thousand other stories."
    Why, then, could she not still the hammering of her heart?

4
    TIME IN A BOTTLE
    Y es? What is it?"
    Brendan's head snapped up as the door to Apartment 1-D jerked open. A broad, square woman in white towered over her, completely blocking the doorway. Her florid face pinched in an expression just shy of a snarl.
    "If you're selling something, we're not buying."
    "No, no, I'm not selling anything—" Brendan fumbled in her bag and handed over a business card. The woman took it gingerly between a thumb and forefinger and held it away from her as if it might be contaminated. "I'm Brendan Delaney, of television station WLOS," she stammered, pointing at the card.
    The woman gave no ground. "So I see."
    "This is Letitia Cameron's apartment?"
    "What if it is?"
    Brendan took a deep breath and met the narrowed gaze of the solid woman who stood before her. "Miss—" Her eyes focused on the small brass name tag pinned above the left pocket. Gertrude Klein, LPN. "Miss . . . Klein, is it?"
    The woman nodded and said