Sheltered but precocious Robbie Segal has run away from home, a small brick house on an unexceptional street. Her desperate mother has asked Harry Stoner to find her. What begins as an ordinary missing-persons case, a case that should be settled without any violence at all, suddenly changes in an impossibly terrifying way.

Now Harry is on the trail of a shockingly brutal act of murder, because it might lead him to a runaway girl, because

To PI Harry Stoner, Ira Lessing had everything to live for: money, a beautiful wife, good friends, and a reputation that would do credit to a saint. But Lessing disappeared one hot July night, and Stoner knew in his gut that the man was dead. Years on the street had taught Stoner that no man is what he seems. Peeling away layers to the bone would reveal what had become of Lessing. It would lead Stoner into the underbelly of Cincinnati, into the

A phone ringing after midnight means trouble, especially in private eye Harry Stoner's business. This time the 1:30 call is trouble, all right. A motel clerk wants somebody to pick up the loser registered as Harry Stoner who just tried to kill himself. When the real Stoner gets to the Encantada Motel, he finds his old college roommate nearly dead and too many memories still alive. It's a suicide attempt that forces Stoner back into his own past,

Clients never tell the whole story. Harry Stoner had taken a snowy drive to Cincinnati psychiatrist Phil Pearson's mansion to hear the tale of daughter Kirsten—emotionally disturbed and missing. But the doctor left out the parts about his first wife's suicide and his second wife's bedroom eyes that were already chasing the winter cold from Stoner's blood. That's why Stoner suspected the search for Kirsten could take a kinky turn. He'd seen