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Lessa,” he murmured back.
    The bittersweet memory caught in the little whirlpool over the tub’s drain and went round and round, finally disappearing. He had relived that night a thousand times. And at the zenith of her need he had changed it all…changing history. He had taken her in his arms and whispered fiercely, “Yes. Gather your things and we will go. If we are wrong, we will laugh at ourselves. And we can tell our children how foolish we were. It will be a humorous memory to grow old with.”
    But he hadn’t changed history. He hadn’t fled with her. And his memories were all that was left of Lessa. Memories rich with the attendant anguish of his failure.
    He was a tired old man alone in the tub with his swirling troubles, a troubling task before him. He stood up and grabbed a towel, then walked back into the suite to begin.

Chapter Three
    F ive hours later, the phone interrupted his immersion in homeless mortality. It was his editor.
    “For God’s sake, Isaac, it’s been a major bitch tracking you down! What are you still doing in St. Louis? You were supposed to be in Baton Rouge two days ago. You’re going to have to hustle now because the deadline has been moved up by three days. Are you catching this, Isaac? Isaac?”
    “And good evening to you, Adam. Yes, I am quite well, thank you for asking. I will leave for Baton Rouge tonight. And I will finish the piece on time, as usual. Not to worry. Bon soir, Adam.”
    He hung up with the editor’s strangled reply choking to escape the mouthpiece.
    Baton Rouge was a distraction to him right now. There was a subtle but startling pattern in those files, too much to cite coincidence. He had little faith in coincidence anyway. It seemed certain that someone was killing homeless people in Atlanta and St. Louis. The pattern dated back to the beginning of the five-year period that he had access to. One or two people, always afflicted with life-threatening illness, and morphine. It maintained a cycle that repeated itself at roughly-annual intervals.
    It was easy to see why the authorities hadn’t noticed anything amiss. The police, when they bothered at all, only dealt with the homeless in their own towns. They would be oblivious to similar deaths in other parts of the country. And, after all, they were homeless people. There was no one to miss them. No one to demand an answer to suspicious questions. What was suspicious about unhealthy drug users living on the streets, anyway? For someone who enjoyed killing for killing’s sake, this was an almost perfect paradigm.
    In fact, there really was little reason for alarm. Not officially. If he hadn’t had the disquieting encounter with the stranger in Atlanta, even he would have put this matter to bed days ago. But it was undeniable. There was something sinister and purposeful about that man. Wasn’t there?
    Or was it him? An old man, who had witnessed too much horror, jumping at shadows?
    He had to slow down and think rationally. Perhaps Baton Rouge wasn’t a distraction after all. If there was a pattern in the two cities he had already visited, it was possible that the pattern was in place elsewhere…in other southern cities.
    Whatever the case, he would certainly need more information before he approached anyone else with his discoveries. If he was wrong, there was a world of implication for his future that he didn’t care to think about.
    “Come on, Lessa. Let’s go see if our phantom has been busy in Baton Rouge…”
    *
    “Good evening, Mr. Bloom, we’ve been expecting you. How was your flight?”
    “Uneventful, Thom. My favorite kind. How have you and your family been getting on since I saw you last? That must be five or six years now.”
    “Just fine, sir. Thank you for asking. What can we do to make your stay more comfortable? Still fond of old Gevrey-Chambertins?” The concierge asked with a wry smile.
    “I am still Chambertin’s slave, Thom. Please have a bottle of the ’85 sent up, and some