Chapter One

*  ONE  *

Several Moves Ahead

They're barefoot, moving silently along the carpeted hallway, searching for some clue to which hotel room might be Jenna McNulty's.

217? 219? All of the doors look the same. What were they expecting to tip them off? Some definitive prep-school snore?

Pramod puts a finger to his lips-Like I don't know enough to be quiet, Zeke thinks-and kneels by a room-service tray someone had shoved into the hall. He lifts a silver-colored cover to reveal a sprig of parsley swimming in a congealed smear of steak grease and blood at the edge of the plate. He sticks his tongue from his open mouth and grimaces.

There's a half-full bottle of Heineken on the tray, recapped and upright. Pramod carefully puts two long, nimble fingers on the neck and raises it from the tray.

Zeke gives him a look that says, No way you're drinking that.

Pramod walks-with the beer-a few feet away, so he's equidistant between the doors of rooms 219 and 221. He leans against the pale striped wallpaper and motions Zeke over.

"He didn't drink from the bottle," he whispers.

"Who didn't?"

"Whoever's in that room." He points to the tray. "He used a glass, see?"

There's a clear drinking glass on the tray with an obvious trace of dried beer foam. In other words, the bottle holds untouched Heineken. Warm, certainly, and probably flat.

Pramod checks to make sure the cap is on tight, then puts the bottle in the pocket of his loose green gym shorts and starts walking toward the elevators. His T-shirt says JESUIT LACROSSE, and his straight black hair is badly mussed.

Zeke c