are too tired to go any further. They can rest here for a couple of hours while I find a place for them in one of the regular city or private facilities. We haven't got enough money to open a bed facility of our own. Yet. Right now, I'm just an outreach and referral program. But that was more than they had. Plenty of people are willing to help runaways, but no one is willing to stand in the open and offer it. It's easy to burn out."
"Why so many telephones?" Auntie Lil nodded toward the row of instruments as she settled into a plastic chair across from his enormous desk.
"That's the one thing I can offer them. A free phone call home. Sometimes that's all it takes. But not very often. We're part of a corporate-sponsored program that pays for toll-free calls anywhere in the U.S. I encourage them to at least touch base with their parents and let them know they're okay."
"What about getting them to go home?" Auntie Lil suggested.
"Home is not such a great place for some of these kids to be." He folded his hands and stared at her. "Frankly, many are better off on their own."
Auntie Lil did not ask him to elaborate. She'd been around the world dozens of times and seen many, many different kinds of homes, including what modern psychologists liked to call dysfunctional ones. She'd seen and heard enough horror stories to last until the day she died.
"So you want to help out?" He was gazing at her strangely.
"Not exactly," she confessed, finding it impossible to lie. Which was a switch. She was usually an outrageous and prolific liar, untouched by pangs of conscience. "Why are you looking at me that way?" she asked defensively.
"Because I knew you were lying earlier when you said you wanted to volunteer," he told her calmly. "Believe me, I've met every kind of liar there is in this world and I can usually spot even the good ones. You're a pretty good one, you know. I bet the little old lady act throws everyone off."
"That's true," Auntie Lil confessed. "Obviously, not you."
"Yes. But you've redeemed yourself by immediately telling me that you are a liar. Why, and what is it that you really want?"
"I'm looking for someone. Three people actually. Do you know them?" She rummaged around in her bag and produced two photographs. The first, of Emily, received only a cursory glance from Bob Fleming.
"Can't help you," he said quietly, handing it back to Auntie Lil. He did not ask how she had obtained the gruesome photo. He stared more closely at the dime store strip showing two young boys. His eyes flickered across the series of small photos, but his expression was unreadable. "Why do you want to know?" he asked. "Are you a relative?
"No. Not exactly." She hesitated, unsure of how to proceed. With one woman dead, how could she afford to trust someone she didn't even know?
"You don't want to tell me," he answered his own question. "Have they done something to you? Snatched your pocketbook? Broken into your apartment? Do you work for the police?"
"The police! Good heavens, no. I'm far too old."
"They used a seventy-nine-year-old woman two years ago to expose nursing home fraud," he pointed out. "And you look just like the type who could handle it."
"You're a very suspicious man." Auntie Lil couldn't decide whether to feel complimented or insulted. "But for your information, there is no love lost between me and the New York Police Department."
"Me, either." He was silent. They stared at one another and just as it looked like it would be a dead end, Bob Fleming sighed and combed his beard absently with roughened fingers. "How about if I lay my cards on the table, then you lay yours beside them?"
She considered his proposition. "All right," she agreed. "But you go first."
"Something funny is going on and I think it has to do with me." His voice was level, but his eyes had narrowed to hard slits. "People who used to talk to me won't talk to me anymore. People I don't even know are giving me the cold shoulder. You saw how that deli owner treated me." He stared at Auntie Lil. "Some woman has been snooping around and asking the kids questions about me. She's middle-aged. Small. Dark hair worn to the shoulders. Who is she? What does she want?"
"I assure you I have no idea," Auntie Lil replied. "I'm