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old house, and she could even pick up the faint scent of the wax that her mother and her grandmother had rubbed into the floorboards and the woodwork for decades, the old paint her grandfather had brushed on for the first time eighty years ago. Maybe there was still, lurking somewhere beneath the paint, the particular scents of her family—her grandmother's corn soup, or the French pastries her mother had learned to make when she was a girl in New York.
    As she moved through the house, her senses took in everything. She could feel that the air was as it should be, that the doors and
windows had been shut for a long time, but she had to be sure that the house had been that way for the three days since she had been here. She examined all the locks and latches and scanned the panes of glass. Before she walked on the living room carpet she knelt at the edge to see if shoes had left an impression on it. She climbed the stairs to the second floor and looked in each of the bedrooms and bathrooms, but detected no evidence that anyone had been inside.
    She stopped in her old bedroom and picked up the telephone to dial the message number. It said, "You have eight new messages." She heard the voice of Sharon Curtis. "This is Sharon, from a long time ago. I'm calling from a pay phone. I'm still well, still safe. I'm sending a girl to you. I hope you can give her the kind of help that you once gave me." The rest of the messages were all the voice of the young girl downstairs. The first began "You don't know me, but—" and the last said, "I'm going to try the place Sharon said to look for you. If you get this message, please call me. Once again, my number is—"
    She went back downstairs and held the door while the young woman stepped into the kitchen, then closed and locked the dead bolt before she turned on the light. "It's safe for the moment. Nobody's been in here."
    The young woman said, "It's nice here. Cozy. Do you live alone?"
    "This is the house where I grew up. My grandfather built it. I don't live here anymore." She pulled out a chair from the kitchen table. "Have a seat. I won't be long."
    Jane went upstairs again and dialed Carey's cell phone. She waited through the message: "You have reached Dr. McKinnon. If this is a medical emergency, please call the following number: 5559852. If you would like to leave a message, you may begin at the tone." Jane heard the tone, and said, "Carey, I'm afraid I have to
leave tonight without seeing you. The bomb was planted by a crew of professionals. There are six of them—four men and two women—who have been trying to kidnap a pregnant girl who had checked in for observation yesterday. I'm with her now. One of the men got a dislocated knee tonight, so if you have a way to check with other hospitals, you might find something out and tell the police." She paused. "I love you, and I'm sorry." Jane went down the hall and descended the creaking stairs.
    When she reached the first floor Jane stopped for a second to look through the lighted doorway at the girl sitting in the kitchen. She looked exhausted, as if only the fear was keeping her from collapsing. Her light green eyes looked faded, almost gray, and her face was pale. Jane moved on. She opened the door to the cellar staircase and descended into the cool underground. The old walls were made of big stones held together with mortar, but she'd had them reinforced with rebar and concrete a few years ago.
    Jane opened the stepladder and climbed it to reach the hiding place in the rafters, the old heating duct from the coal furnace that her father had removed when she was a child. She reached in, pulled out the steel box she kept there, balanced it on the top step of the ladder, and rifled through the items she had hidden there. She set aside a large stack of hundred-dollar bills, and selected four different driver's licenses with her picture on them and sets of credit cards in the same names. She took one quick look at the