Page 13 of Hunger

And then — once — months ago — Jenny saying:

I used to play the violin. I was going to study it.

Are you any good?

I was, once.

The conversation ends there. Jenny turned away. Tammy didn't push.

I pull back from the feeding. I lower Tammy the rest of the way to the asphalt beside her car. Her head rolls back. Her eyes are half-open and unseeing. The breath fogs in front of her mouth in slow, regular puffs.

I take the keys from her loose hand and unlock the driver's side door of the Oldsmobile. Lifting her gently into the seat, I arrange her against the headrest, her coat pulled tight, her purse on her lap. Then I close the door and look at her through the window.

She'll wake in twenty or thirty minutes. The cold of the car will help her come around. She'll be foggy and confused and she'll probably blame herself for falling asleep at the wheel. She won't remember me.

I leave her keys on the dashboard.

I walk away from the Oldsmobile and across the lot. The wind is in my face. The cold doesn't reach me tonight. I have what I came for.

Jenny Lin. Twenty-three years old. Dropped out of the University of Nebraska two years ago. Parents in Omaha. Her father is a doctor. Her mother is a nurse. She used to play the violin. She used to be good at it.

She used to be good at it.

The phrase repeats in my head as I walk.I was, once.The sound of her saying it. The look that must have crossed her face. The way she turned away.

I drive home through the dark fields. The eastern sky is beginning to gray when I let myself in through the back door. I don't have much time. I cross to the kitchen table and lift the phone receiver from the cradle.

I dial the number from memory. The cord is taut against the wall.

The line rings four times. Then there's a click, and a voice.

"Whitfield."

"It's me."

There's a pause, brief and professional. The voice on the other end shifts.

"Sir. Good morning."

It's three in the morning where he is. He doesn't say so.

"I have a name," I say. "Jenny Lin. L-I-N. She attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. She left two years ago without a degree. Her father is a doctor in Omaha. Her mother is a nurse."

"Yes, sir."

"I require two things. The home address of the parents."

"Of course, sir."

"And the name and home address of a music faculty member at the university who'd have known her during her time there. Someone she studied with, or who supervised her. The violin specifically."

"The violin," Whitfield repeats. There's the faint scratch of a pen on paper. "Understood, sir."

"How long."

"Forty-eight hours, sir. I can have a courier deliver it by Monday evening."

"Acceptable."