THE PHONE RANG A FOURTH TIME. Fifth. Gaia thumped her hand against the metal pay phone and listened as a sixth ring came from the other end. She could picture the old wall phone ringing in the kitchen of the brownstone, the sound echoing off all the expensive -- and unused -- cookware. She could see the curving staircase. Was the house completely empty, or was old George Niven stumbling down those stairs toward the phone? George had been there just last night -- Gaia and Tatiana had seen him. Maybe George was just about to answer. Gaia let the phone ring one more time.

Come on, Georgie. Pick up.

The phone rang twice more. Gaia sighed and was about to hang up when the receiver made a sudden click.

"Hello, there," said a woman's voice. The tone was cool, self-possessed. "I'm afraid that we can't take your call at the moment. Please leave..."

Gaia hung up the pay phone before the message could end. It was Ella. The voice in the message was George's wife, Ella. Only Ella Niven had been dead for months. A little tingly feeling went up the back of Gaia's neck, once again demonstrating that just because you didn't feel fear didn't mean you couldn't be solidly creeped out. Wasn't George ever going to get around to changing the message? It was kind of sweet that he had left his wife's voice on the phone. It was also pretty sick.

For a few seconds Gaia stood and looked at the pay phone. She thought about calling again, but she didn't want to take the chance of hearing Ella's voice a second time. Hearing Ella had never been a blast when she was alive. Hearing her dead... that was a thrill Gaia would just as soon skip, thank you.

She flipped up the hood on her sweatshirt, hunched her shoulders, and walked away from the phone booth. A businesswoman went past on her left, followed by a college-age guy in some ridiculous parka thing that looked like something you would wear on top of the Matterhorn instead of in lower Manhattan. Gaia gave them both a quick exam as they passed. Were they part of Loki's organization? Was one of them following Gaia, making notes about her, reporting on her every move? Somebody was. Gaia knew that much.

Loki's agents were out there. Tracking where she went. Who she saw. When she came in, when she went out. Probably taking notes on what kind of Jell-O she had for lunch at the stupid school cafeteria.

Of course, the first one to tell Gaia that she was being followed was George Niven. So maybe she really wasn't being followed. After all, everything else George had told her had been a big fat slimy sack of lies.

Gaia had bought into all of it at first. That was the worst part, how quickly she had swallowed the whole story. But why shouldn't she? Good old George was her father's best and oldest friend. He was going to help Gaia. He was going to help her catch the bad guys. Good old trustworthy George.

Only George was one of the bad guys. George had told her that Tatiana's mother, Natasha, was the enemy. That Natasha had been spying on Gaia's father. And Gaia had believed it. Even after she found a stack of love letters between her father and Natasha, Gaia had still been ready to believe George. Gaia had been willing to do anything, even hurt Natasha or Tatiana, to protect her father. She had been stupid on a galactic scale.

If it hadn't been for Tatiana, Gaia would have still been convinced that George was trying to help. Gaia had never doubted which side George was on. Come on, George Niven? Best friend and mentor to her father? The same George Niven whose brownstone Gaia had lived in for months? Paunchy, gray-haired, harmless old George? George could be clueless, sure, but no way could he be on the Dark Side. That wasn't possible.

Okay, so maybe buying into the lies wasn't the worst part. Having Tatiana prove her wrong; that was the worst part.

Tatiana hadn't been fooled by good old George. No matter what Gaia said, she didn't trust the ex-agent. Tatiana had badgered and pleaded and whined until she finally got Gaia to agree to make a trip to George's brownstone. The only reason Gaia had gone along was to prove once and for all that she was right, Tatiana was wrong, and Tatiana should just shut up. Only that wasn't how it worked out.

When they snuck through the window of the room that used to be Gaia's bedroom, they had gotten a glimpse of a meeting between good old George and the seriously un-good Loki. Maybe George had been a friend to Gaia's father once. Maybe he had even been a friend to Gaia. That wasn't true anymore. George was working for Loki and lying to Gaia.

So maybe there wasn't anybody following Gaia. Maybe that was all part of the big pile of steaming hot crap that George had put in Gaia's eager hands. Maybe Loki was laughing somewhere about making Gaia look over her shoulder. After all, it was perfectly obvious that George had been lying to her from the start.

But Gaia didn't think so. Not this time. The part about being followed every moment of her life. That part Gaia still believed.

It had rained that morning, and the sidewalks were still splotched by puddles. Gaia hopped over a wide muddy spot and managed to keep from getting her sneakers soaked. Then a car went past on the street and sent a wave of oily water washing across her feet. Gaia gave the driver a glance. The guy behind the wheel looked weird, but half the people in the city were weird. This guy in a Buick probably wasn't keeping a Gaia notebook, and he probably hadn't gotten her shoes wet on Loki's orders. Probably. But even paranoids had enemies. Gaia tromped on down the damp sidewalk toward the park.

This whole phone call thing had probably been a bad idea. The latest in a long series of Gaia's Really Bad Ideas. She knew that, really. If Gaia had actually believed calling George was a good idea, she would have done it from the apartment. She would have had Tatiana on the other line so they could talk about it. She wouldn't have left Tatiana snoozing and snuck out to make the call from some pay phone.

After all, how smart was it to call the guy you just found out was setting you up? But Gaia was hoping that if she could convince George she was still in the dark, she could turn this thing around. If he didn't know that he had been caught with Loki, Gaia might be able to feed him bad information, get him to make mistakes, maybe even get him to spill something about what had really happened to her father and Natasha.

Gaia squeezed her eyes shut and stood still for a moment. Just trying to think it through was enough to make her head hurt. Anyway, it was hard to pass bad information to someone if they wouldn't even answer the phone.

She walked across the street and slipped into Washington Square Park. She fought the temptation to look over her shoulder as she passed through the gates. If people were following her, they were probably pretty good at it. After all, they had been following her for months and she hadn't seen them yet. It wasn't like they were suddenly going to start waving or carrying signs that said I'm Following Stupid. Gaia kept her face forward and kept walking.

The chess players were mostly gone from their place near the center of the park, and those few that were still at their tables seemed deep in the endgames of long matches. Gaia skirted around the area, anyway. She didn't want to play at the moment and didn't want to deal with Zolov, or Mr. Pak, or anyone else that might be looking for a late game. She had to think. She had to figure out the next step.

She thought about going back to the East Side apartment and meeting Tatiana. Together they might have a better shot at coming up with a plan. After all, it was Tatiana that figured out the truth about George. Maybe she would have some good ideas. Something better than playing phone tag with the enemy.

But Gaia didn't go home. She just kept marching.

Part of it was that she wasn't ready to meet with Tatiana. Part of it was that she liked walking -- it was what she did when she needed to think. Most of it was that she had been doing things on her own for so long that it was hard to change. The last person she had trusted was George, and that had been a big mistake. Once you convinced yourself that you couldn't trust anyone, how did you ever start trusting again?

Without planning it, Gaia found herself coming out the north side of the park and turning toward George's brownstone. She wasn't sure she really wanted to confront the old agent face-to-face. She definitely wanted to try her plan of passing along misinformation, but there was one big problem with that plan -- she wasn't sure she could look at George without trying to remove his head from his shoulders. He had lied to her. He had betrayed her father. He was helping Loki. For all Gaia knew, George might even have been involved in the deaths of Sam and Mary.

Convincing George that they were still pals was going to mean swallowing a lot of anger and not letting it show. It was going to take some serious acting. Gaia wasn't sure she was up to it. Hiding her feelings and playing happy was not exactly a Gaia Moore specialty. Turning every hurt into anger and making a solid fist-to-face connection -- that was more her style.

Gaia was still over a block from George's place when she spotted something wrong. There was something in front of the house, something yellow. From that distance Gaia couldn't tell quite what it was she was looking at, but as she walked slowly up the block, it became clear. Yellow tape. Police tape. The front of the brownstone was blocked off with a line of police tape.

Gaia stood across the street with her hands shoved down into the pocket of her sweatshirt and watched as the tape fluttered in the chill, damp breeze.

If the brownstone was marked off with police tape, then it had to be a crime scene. Gaia supposed there could have been a burglary or a robbery. Ella had stocked the brownstone with several ugly but expensive bits of art. Some thief with equally bad taste might have broken in for that. But Gaia didn't think so. She didn't think the police would have taped off the entrance if it had been a robbery. This had to be... something worse.

Gaia stayed on the sidewalk and watched the house for a few minutes as the sun slipped behind the taller buildings on the far side of the park and the cars rolling slowly down the street turned on their lights. She turned around to leave, took a couple of steps, then turned again and marched through the traffic to the front steps of the brownstone.

Close-up, it was easier to read the words on the yellow banner.

NYPD CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATIONS -- DO NOT CROSS

Gaia took the plastic tape in her hands and snapped it. The two ends fluttered away as she stepped to the door and took the knob in her hand. It was locked, of course. The NYPD wouldn't want thieves breaking in and messing up their nice clean crime scene.

It wasn't a problem for Gaia. She fished in her pocket and came out with a single key. She slotted it into the door and turned the knob again. This time it opened with a soft click. It figured that if George wasn't even going to change his answering machine message after his wife's death, he wasn't going to change the lock on the front door just because Gaia moved out.

It was weird stepping inside. It was always strange to go back to someplace where you used to live. Gaia almost expected to see herself coming down the stairs, like the brownstone was some kind of four-story time machine. But she didn't see her past self, or the ghost of Ella or George. The front hallway was dark and quiet.

Gaia closed the front door and walked on into the living room. There was a light on beside the couch, but the room still seemed to swarm with shadows. Could a house get haunted overnight? Gaia could hear the soft hum of the refrigerator purring on in the kitchen. It was a comforting sound. The brownstone was still, in some way, alive. But the fridge seemed to be the only living thing in the house.

It was cold. Either the refrigerator was working overtime or the heat was busted. The temperature inside the house didn't seem much warmer than it did outside. It was damp, too. Clammy. That was the right word. The inside of the brownstone was way clammy.

Gaia finished a lap around the lower rooms without seeing anything wrong. She took a chance and turned on some additional lights in the kitchen and hall. The lights drove away the shadows but didn't give any clue about what had happened. The books were still on the shelves. Ella's ugly postmodern prints were still hanging on the walls. There were a couple of dirty glasses on the counter beside the sink, but it was obvious that George had been keeping the place neat. There was no sign of theft. Or a fight. Or anything. Just the clammy empty quiet.

The bedrooms on the second floor were much the same. Everything neat. Everything in its place.

Gaia stopped again on the landing leading up to the top floor. It was dark at the top of the stairs, but the room up there was so absolutely familiar, Gaia could have walked through it with her eyes closed. It was the room where she had lived for the months she spent here with George and Ella. It was the same room that she and Tatiana had climbed into the night before. It was a place she had seen a thousand times.

But for almost a minute, Gaia just stood there and looked up the stairs as if they led to some alien world. She wasn't afraid of what she would find. She just didn't know if she'd like it.

She walked up the stairs to her old bedroom. There was another strand of police tape here, strung across the bedroom door. Gaia looked past it into the room. The lights were off, and Gaia made no move to turn them on. The only light in the bedroom came from the streetlights streaming through the window. It was dim enough that it took her a few seconds to realize the window was open. The white curtains moved slowly in the cold breeze. That explained the cold and damp -- the clammy -- feeling in the brownstone.

The open window was the same one that Gaia and Tatiana had used to get into the apartment. Did they leave it open when they left? Gaia couldn't remember. If they did leave it open, then why didn't George close it?

Gaia's eyes slowly adjusted to the dimly lit room. She began to make out more details in the room. Most of it was still the way it had been when she lived there. The bed was still in its place. The other furniture hadn't changed. But there was one big difference. In the middle of the floor was an outline made from short strips of white tape.

The outline of a human body.

Something ran along Gaia's spine that was far bigger than a shiver. This was more like some kind of convulsion. Her throat tightened painfully, and tears pushed against her eyes. Gaia stepped into the room, barely noticing the length of yellow crime scene tape as it pulled away from the door frame. The body outlined on the floor was clearly an adult man. The tape showed where one hand was thrown back behind the head. The other was pressed against the chest. From the tape, it was clear that the body had been big, maybe a little overweight. It had to be the outline of George Niven.

Oh God, George. Gaia angrily rubbed at her eyes and shook her head. No. She wasn't going to be sorry for George.

In the middle of the outlined form was a dark stain that was nearly invisible in the poor light. Gaia crouched down beside the taped figure and reached toward the dark spot at the center. Her hand was trembling. Not with fear, but with some emotion she couldn't even name.

George was a traitor. He had gone against her father, given information to Loki, and lied to Gaia. She shouldn't feel any sympathy for him. Rats got killed. Nobody cried over the rats. It didn't matter why George had done the--

"Wow," said a voice behind her. "Look at that."

Gaia jumped to her feet and turned. She had her arms ready, her hands formed into curving blades and her muscles tensed to attack. She was expecting Loki, expecting one of his goons, expecting anything. Okay, almost anything. She was not expecting what she saw.

Standing in the doorway of the bedroom was a dark form lit by the light from below. The form was slender, a girl's form. Gaia could just make out thick shoulder-length dark hair that hung in a loose, uncombed tumble. The shadowed contours of a face.

"Heather?"

The bedroom lights came on with a snap. Gaia winced and squinted against the sudden brightness.

The girl in the doorway was Heather Gannis. Or at least, she looked like Heather. But not the Heather that Gaia knew. Heather had always been picture perfect. Perfect hair. Perfect clothes. Any time Gaia spent with Heather made her feel like something found under a rock. But this girl... this girl made Gaia look neat.

Heather's hair was a mass of untamed chestnut strands guaranteed to break the toughest comb. Her jeans were ripped out at one knee. Her worn gray sweater was muddy at the elbows and flecked with bits of dried leaves. There was a dark smudge across her face that might have been smeared makeup but looked more like plain, old-fashioned dirt.

"Surprise," said Heather. She favored Gaia with a big, lopsided very un-Heather smile.

Gaia relaxed her fighting stance. "What are you doing here?"

"Me? I'm being a good citizen." Heather stepped into the room and paced slowly across the floor. "I saw someone breaking into a house. A crime scene, no less. That seems like something any good citizen should stop." She scuffed her toe across the carpet. "Pretty messy in here, huh?"

Gaia looked down. What had been only a dark stain with the lights off was clearly blood. And not just a little blood. The floor was dotted with fine fans of blood, as if someone had taken a can of spray paint and given the carpet a couple of good shots. It wasn't red like on TV. The blood had darkened, turning a deep brown that was almost black, but Gaia didn't have any doubt about what it was. There were little smears of the dried blood on the sides of her sneakers.

"Just look at this," said Heather. "What kind of housekeepers are these people?"

"The dead kind," Gaia replied. She stared at Heather's face, trying to get some clue about what was going on. Heather might be a world-class pain in the butt, and she might think the world revolved around her, but usually she demonstrated at least a tablespoon of sanity. "Are you on some kind of drug?"

Heather laughed. "Yeah, I guess you could say that. Or maybe it's that I'm the only one off drugs. A drug that makes everybody else act nuts." She walked into the center of the bedroom and started to circle around the outline on the floor.

"Right. Sure. You're the sane one." It was starting to seem like a good time to hide the sharp objects. "So, how did you get here?"

"Same way you did. Walked through the park. Took a little stroll along the sidewalk." Heather scuffed at the outline of George Niven's left arm. "I followed you."

Gaia scowled. "Followed me?" If Loki still sent his people to follow her and Heather followed her, did that mean there was a whole line of people behind her? "Why would you do that?"

"To show you I could. A little test. And I passed it. See what I'm saying, sister?"

"Sister?" Was she kidding? It had to be some kind of sick joke.

Heather kicked more tape from the floor, removing one of George's hands. "I followed you to this place, and it was easy. So, so easy." She closed her eyes and smiled again.

Gaia felt a little angry that Heather had been out there following her. Angry at herself, mostly. After all, if she couldn't spot Heather Gannis stumbling along after her, what chance did she have of catching Loki's agents?

But anger wasn't the main thing Gaia was feeling. Something was wrong with Heather. Seriously wrong. "Listen," said Gaia, "you need to get out of here and stop following me around. It's dangerous."

"Dangerous? What do I care about dangerous?" Heather started circling the room again, moving more quickly this time. She waved her arms in the air to accent her words. "What do you think I am, some mouse? That's what you think, isn't it? You think I'm a mouse."

"Mouse?" Gaia started to feel dizzy as she spun to face Heather. The nearly dry blood squished under her feet. The taped outline of George Niven was being torn apart. Heather's arms went up and down; her shadow on the wall seemed alien. Inhuman. The whole thing suddenly didn't feel like any kind of joke. It felt more like a scene from a nightmare. Madness and violence. Blood and shadows.

"Heather." Gaia reached out to stop Heather, but the dark-haired girl batted Gaia's hands away.

"You're right," said Heather. "You're right about the following. I shouldn't be following you now. It's too late for that." She danced across the head of the tape outline, tearing up the few pieces that were still attached to the floor. "I shouldn't be following anyone."

"Heather, stop." Gaia reached out again. This time Heather didn't push her hands away. This time the girl unloaded with a looping, right-handed punch that caught Gaia just in front of her ear.

Gaia had been punched a hundred times. Probably more like a thousand. But no punch ever caught her so much by surprise. She hadn't expected Heather to hit her. She had never expected Heather to hit anyone. And she hadn't expected Heather to be so fast or so strong.

Gaia went to her knees on the blood-soaked floor. Her ears rang from the impact. Since when was Heather Gannis able to hit like that? Gaia looked up to see Heather standing in the doorway. Heather's face was tilted down and her tangled hair shadowed her features, but Gaia could still see the smile on Heather's lips.

"I'm all through following," said Heather. "From now on, I'm going to take the lead."

"You're going to lead, all right," said Gaia. She stood up and looked down at the stains on her jeans. There was blood, human blood, all over her. "You're going to lead the way right to the land of rubber rooms and straitjackets."

There was a noise from the hallway. When Gaia looked up, Heather was gone. A moment later Gaia heard footsteps moving rapidly down the stairs, followed by the slamming of the brownstone's front door.

Gaia took one last look around the room. Everywhere there were smears and streaks of the brownish, nearly dry blood. The outline that had looked so like a human figure a few minutes ago was now meaningless, scattered bits of tape spread all over the floor. The scene looked terrible enough to Gaia. How would it look to anyone else? How would it look to the police? What are you doing in this room, Ms. Moore? How did you get into this brownstone? Were you returning to the scene of the crime? Where were you at the time of the murder?

These were not questions Gaia was in a big hurry to answer. All at once her stomach took a major elevator ride toward her throat, and Gaia had to press a hand over her mouth to keep from throwing up. The way the tape was torn up, the way the blood was scattered. It made it look like... not a murder. A massacre. Like someone had been torn to pieces in the apartment.

Gaia fled from the room and tore down the steps so fast, she nearly broke her own neck before she made it to the main floor. She went out the door, not worrying about whether she bothered to lock the brownstone behind her. If someone stole Ella's bad taste collection now, what difference would it make?

A cold tear ran down Gaia's cheek, and she brushed it away angrily. George had betrayed her. He had betrayed her father. He didn't deserve her tears. Only... did he really deserve to die?

Gaia took deep breaths as she ran. It helped to calm her stomach. Too bad it didn't do so much for her head. What had happened to George? Had Loki double-crossed him? Or had he suspected that George was telling Gaia more than he was supposed to?

There were way too many questions, not enough answers, and the list of people that might be able to help her was getting shorter all the time.