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and gave Claire’s hand a firm shake. “It will be a pleasure to work with you.”
    â€œI’m looking forward to it,” said Claire.
    ******
    When Tim came by the next morning to pick up his photocopy, he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, possibly even the same jeans and T-shirt he’d had on when Claire had seen him a few days ago. But today his clothes were clean, and he wasn’t covered with a layer of dust, although his running shoes seemed to be tinted permanently pink.
    â€œDid Curt Devereux get in touch with you?” Claire asked him.
    â€œHe came to my place.” Claire had deduced from Tim’s address that he lived in the student ghetto. “We’re meeting at the trailhead to Slickrock Canyon.”
    â€œI’m going, too,” Claire said.
    â€œAre you?” Tim replied, with an expression in his green eyes that Claire couldn’t read. “What did you think of the guy?”
    Claire, who hadn’t made up her mind yet, chose her words carefully. “He seemed agreeable.”
    â€œAgreeable!” Tim’s lips started to form an expletive, but then he remembered that he was a graduate student and Claire was an assistant professor. “He’s a potato head.”
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œYou know the kid’s toy where you stick plastic face parts onto a real potato? Devereux puts on the right expression for every occasion, but basically the guy’s a blank.”
    â€œHe’s preparing to retire from the federal government. Most likely he’s spent most of his working life concealing his thoughts.”
    â€œIf he ever had any to conceal. I don’t have a lot of confidence in him. I’d never trust a man who wears his pants around his armpits.”
    When a man has a stomach, his pants have to go somewhere, Claire thought.
    â€œIf someone discovers what happened to Jonathan Vail, it won’t be Curt Devereux. Did you find any clues in the journal?”
    â€œLet’s talk about that after you read it,” Claire said. “I think it’s better to approach the journal without preconceptions.” She suspected, however, that Tim’s interest was too proprietary to allow him to approach anything related to Jonathan Vail without preconceptions. “Ada Vail gave me permission to give you a photocopy, but she is restricting access to people who work at the center. Please don’t show this to anyone.” She gave the photocopy to Tim and watched while he put it into his backpack.
    â€œI won’t,” he said. “Did you mention publication to Ada Vail?”
    â€œYes. There are things in the journal she wants to suppress.”
    â€œShe can’t suppress a word,” Tim cried. Once again Claire had the sensation that he was radiating canyon heat. “The journal has to be published exactly as it is.”
    Claire wondered if this was the moment to tell him that it wasn’t his decision to make—but she decided against it. She was meeting with an editor at UNM Press that afternoon, but there were many issues to be resolved before publication could even be considered.
    â€œI’ll see you in Slickrock Canyon,” she said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
    â€œMe, too,” Tim said, hoisting his backpack.
    ******
    Other than getting around the UNM campus, people seldom walked in Albuquerque, or in Tucson either, where Claire had lived and worked before coming to the center. By the time the sun rose, it was too hot to walk in Tucson, but people didn’t have that excuse in Albuquerque, where the nights and mornings were always cool. Claire had been too rushed to do her tai chi this morning and needed some exercise, so she walked to the UNM Press office, where she had an appointment with an editor named Avery Dunstan. She passed through the exhibition room and went out the front door of the center. The bicycle rack had a sign that had once read, LEAVE YOUR