THE CALL CAME IN on Kate’s cell phone too early on a Monday morning. She was up but not necessarily coherent. “What?”

“It’s Kurt Pletnikof, Kate.”

“Your name on the display was the only reason I answered,” she said. “What?”

“Victor Boatwright’s son is missing.” Steam rose from her first mug of the day, stopped halfway to her mouth as she stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows on the south side of her house. The Quilak Mountains were as yet only a ghostly presence against the light of the rising sun. “Kate?”

“Then find him,” she said. “It’s what you do.”

“I did just mention that to him,” he said. “The General says he wants you.”

—”Any Taint of Vice”

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