Chapter One I have had nightmares all my life. I do not know if this is unusual. But sometime late last September, when the leaves were on the verge of turning, and the sun was still strong in the afternoons, I started sleeping the night through. Gone were the two A.M. sweats; the late nights surfing the Net; flipping channels to catch a movie at four A.M. It felt like happiness.

I stood on the front porch of a gray stone cottage on a gentrified and tree-lined street. I held a newly made key in my right hand, a bucket of paint in my left. The wind blew rain at my back and a sudden gust toppled the Sold sign in the middle of the yard. Joel and I started looking for a place to buy together six months ago, in September. I knew as soon as we pulled into the driveway of 1802 Washington Avenue that this cottage was it, and before Joel had even stopped the car, I told him this was our place. Joel never gets excited. He glanced up at the porch where the realtor was waving and said, "You want to make an offer now, or should we take a quick look around?" Joel''s humor is so low-key and dry that he has friends who don''t know he makes jokes. Our little cottage is in an eclectic neighborhood called Chevy Chase.

Due to the ever-rising real-estate values in Lexington, Kentucky, this means we pay top dollar for our square footage. We are close to the university, not too far from downtown, and a ridiculously short drive from Billy''s Barbecue. Chevy Chase Inn, a watering hole popular with divorcées in their forties, is right across from Billy''s, as is an ice-cream store, a doughnut place, and a bar that used to be called The Library. The bar has burned down twice that I know of. After that the name was changed to Charlie Brown''s, and it hasn''t burned down near as much since. If you want to go dancing you can hit the Blue Moon Saloon, which is on the opposite side of the road from Charlie Brown''s. Some nights they have a line of people waiting to get in. This strikes me as funny.

Lexington is not big enough to have clubs with long lines, but at least they don''t have velvet ropes. It took a moment for me to work the key in the lock -- old doors always have little tricks. The door was a solid oak arch with black hinges. Inside, to the left of the foyer, a staircase went straight to the second floor, or you could go right, through an arched doorway that opened into the living room. I went right. The smell of fresh paint made the cottage seem like a brand-new gift. The house was built when ten-foot ceilings were run-of-the-mill, all floors were wood, and heating registers blew warm air through scrolled metal grilles in the floor. My boot heels sounded loud.

They echoed. It was chilly in the house and I looked at the fireplace, wishing. It was the last day of February, the rain was cold, and I was damp and shivery. February is the worst month of the year in Kentucky. Rain pounded the windows -- broad, heavy panes of glass that stretched from midwall to a foot below the ceiling. The glass was so old it looked wavy. The fireplace was flanked by built-in bookshelves enclosed with diamond-paned wooden doors, in the style of barristers'' bookcases. It was the shelves that sold Joel the house.

And I was missing Joel, who was supposed to help pick out the paint. He was in charge of drop cloths and brushes, and today was his scheduled day off. But Joel was a cop, a homicide cop, and days off were a maybe at best. He''d left in a hurry this morning without saying why, and I''d been edgy all day, because it was the Cheryl Dunkirk case that he worked. Joel had spent eight sleepless weeks on the trail of this girl, and had yet to come up with anything other than her car -- neatly parked in the lot of her apartment house, stained with traces of blood and bodily fluids, and ravaged by a web of newly made cracks in the windshield. Her trail ended abruptly at a Pilot gas station on Richmond Road. Joel did not know that I was considering taking Cheryl Dunkirk''s family on as clients. And I saw no reason to tell him until I made up my mind.

I will have no argument before its time. Cheryl''s stepfather, Paul Ellis Brady, a Pittsburgh developer who dealt in multimillion-dollar commercial and government projects, was dead set on hiring me to "do anything" I could. He and his daughter, Miranda, who lived in Lexington, were due in less than an hour to work out the details -- as in look me over, and bring me a check. Brady was very clear on the phone. He wanted me to keep the investigation going until I could find out every detail of what happened to his daughter. He wanted me to take up the slack in the official investigation. The first thing I told him was that there wasn''t any slack in the police investigation. This I knew firsthand, though I didn''t tell Brady that.

I tried to talk him out of hiring me. Uncertainty is the hardest thing to live with, but in the case of Cheryl Dunkirk, I didn''t think she would ever be found. I was uneasy about Joel''s reaction to me working this case. I''d almost told him the night before, when he came to bed after working late, and had been deciding exactly what to say when he pulled me close, my back to his front, and put his arms around me to keep me warm. The truth is that I chickened out, but what I told myself was that it was better to make a decision on my own, uninhibited by the thought of his disapproval. Because that''s how women get lost in relationships -- pleasing everyone but themselves. Joel and I had been together for two years and counting, and I found that the longer we were together the happier I was. We bought this house jointly and were scheduled for official cohabitation in two days.

Our loan folder was so new it was still piled in some In-box, waiting its turn to be filed. The mortgage papers had been signed, the closing, always tense, had been endured, and everyone who was anyone had taken a percentage from our fees. It took me two years to completely commit -- to Joel, or to happiness, or both. Joel, ever patient, was delighted, if you can use such an energetic word for his understated ways. I was good for him. In the months we''d been together, his face had filled out and he looked younger. The lines of fatigue in his brow had smoothed; the stress creases that ran from his nose to his lips had faded. We began our evenings in the kitchen.

Joel cooked and I watched. We talked long into the night about the things that interested us -- why people kill, why men beat women, how a mother could be so drug addicted she would aid and abet a nightmare childhood for her kids. We talked forensics and DNA, and our most heated arguments involved either the death penalty, or how much garlic should go into the pasta. Joel is a "less is more" kind of cook, and I am a "more the merrier." So we talked and argued about food and work: the merits of wheat beer over ale; Joel''s job in homicide; and mine as a private detective -- a woman''s equalizer, specializing in cases involving women and children who fall between the cracks of the legal system. I set the paint bucket down gently so as not to mar the floor. The heating control was a simple round dial, likely installed before I was born. Turning it on reminded me of the combination locks you use in school.

There was that moment of hesitation, when you think, Hey, does this work? , then a rumble and a sigh as the compressor kicked in; the noise of air rushing through cramped, old-fashioned vents; and the toasty smell of burning dust. And I was home. More at home than in Joel''s austere warehouse loft; more at home than in my sister Whitney''s haunted suburban ranch -- recently sold to make a substantial down payment on this cottage. Joel and I had agreed that I would make the down payment and he would handle the bulk of the mortgage -- a reasonable arrangement. Joel had a regular salary, generating cash flow and good credit. I was paid by economically challenged women in the midst of domestic chaos. I survived by a form of medieval barter. It''s a complex system that generates satisfaction, a million-odd privileges, but very little ready cash.

There is no financial security, and none of the sort of documentation that impresses mortgage companies or any reputable bank. On the other hand, my freezer was stocked with homemade meatballs, chicken casseroles, and Chicago steak fillets. My car insurance would be provided for the next eighteen months. I could walk into the Asian Pearl and have free martinis, which was a shame, since I didn''t drink martinis. My yard maintenance would be taken care of for the next year, a bouquet of flowers arrived from Ashland Florist every two weeks, and I had gift certificates on hand to spend whenever I wanted: one from Lazarus for $175; another for Victoria''s Secret for $50; and one I had just cashed in at Joseph Beth Booksellers for a Miles Davis CD. One very grateful client had signed over a 1994 Mazda Miata with 85,000 miles and a tear in the tan canvas roof. Another had a brother who kept the Miata in good repair. Clients cleaned my oven, brought over casseroles on a scheduled dinner plan, offered me the professional services of family members who moved furniture, worked in restaurants, and repaired antiques.

The arrangement has advantages for the lazy at heart. That would be me. I thought about making coffee while I unwrapped the new CD and put it in the portable stereo. Coffee would require me to go back outside. On the other hand, it was coffee. I went back out to the car, avoiding the lawn and the mud loosened between the drowning blades of grass. Rain ha.