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you.  Plus, you’re always late – and that’s caught up with you, only you don’t know it yet.”
    Phoenix felt his guts somersault.  “Go on.”
    “And that’s not going to matter anyway,” the man said.  “Oooh, did you see that?”
    Phoenix turned around in time to see Chief Cobb and Alaia leave the lab.  The three officers in the room remained hovering near the glass doors; but they turned to ogle Alaia and, when the door closed, one of them grunted.  “See what?  What am I looking at?”
    “Dr. Albin is starting to twitch.”
    “He’s dead.”
    “Obviously – but he’s about to pull a June Buckner, only from the other side of he grave.  I suggest you go and get your gun.  Oh, and you were right.  You are getting close on that missing person’s case, by the way.  But have you ever thought of listing the missing people alphabetically by profession?  Sounds strange, I know.  But look into it.  You might find something interesting.”
    Phoenix stood there without moving, staring into the blackness of the moment.  He was thoroughly out of his league on this one, and he could only marvel at just how dark this whole business had suddenly become.  He scrunched up his eyebrows and shook his head.  “Is this a joke?”
    “And find out who they were giving money to while you’re at it,” the man said.  “That’s it – that’s all I’m going to give you for now.  So---”
    “I am being framed then, right?”
    “You’re being taken into hand,” The voice replied.
    “And---?”
    “And what?” the voice asked impatiently.
    “What about June Buckner?”
    “Just go get your gun,” the voice said.  “And I’d hurry if I were you.  The guy who does the autopsies?  Don’t worry.  He’s going to find somebody else’s thirty-eight inside Dr. Demachi.  But if you can make some evidence disappear – like a certain syringe – and take it to your old pharmacy friend at St. David’s University, you’ll throw Cobb off and learn something.”
    “Wait.”
    “What now?”
    “June Buckner – and Albin Demachi – they’re all part of this?”
    The man paused.  Then he sighed, maybe, like an adult wearying of a child’s questions.  “Let’s look at it this way.  June Buckner and Albin Demachi are missing right?  So add them to your missing persons’ files.  Or do you need another hint?”
    Phoenix kept his eyes trained on the wreck that was Albin Demachi. Not looking away, not blinking, not understanding.
    “And there’s something else,” the man said.  “I want to save you.  Goodbye, Phoenix Malone.”
    He is being watched, and he knows this, but Phoenix just stands there, not once taking his eyes off the body crumbled up against the cabinet.  But Phoenix suddenly finds himself in motion, and he’s walking apprehensively towards the crime scene, knowing that he doesn’t look casual because he’s trying to look casual.  Chief Cobb and Alaia are coming back through the glass doors, followed by one of the captains and two paramedics steering a stretcher.  Phoenix stops near the body of Dr. Demachi and he feels himself kneeling down, and he’s paying special attention to Albin’s two bloody hands.  They’re still, those hands, and Dr. Demachi is dead, as dead as dead can be.  A gunshot wound to the chest?  That would do it every time. 
    Phoenix rose to his feet.  Alaia had done the necessary work – he’d allow her that much.  Not because she might have done it correctly – that had nothing to do with the situation. 
    Because he hated seeing one of his friends sitting dead in such a horrific pose, Phoenix decided to leave, to let Alaia Jenkins have her crime scene.  But just before he turned, he saw the left hand of Dr. Albin Demachi twitch.
    Phoenix didn’t believe it, but neither did he call anyone’s attention to it for fear they’d think him mad.  He rubbed his eyes and tilted his head to one side, trying to get a better angle.  He knelt