Behind the wheel of the Ford Expedition, Amy Redwing drove as if she were immortal and therefore safe at any speed. In the fitful breeze, a funnel of golden sycamore leaves spun along the post-midnight street. She blasted through them, crisp autumn scratching across the windshield. For some, the past is a chain, each day a link, raveling backward to one ringbolt or another, in one dark place or another, and tomorrow is a slave to yesterday. Amy Redwing did not know her origins. Abandoned at the age of two, she had no memory of her mother and father. She had been left in a church, her name pinned to her shirt. A nun had found her sleeping on a pew. Most likely, her surname had been invented to mislead. The police had failed to trace it to anyone. Redwing suggested a Native American heritage. Raven hair and dark eyes argued Cherokee, but her ancestors might as likely have come from Armenia or Sicily, or Spain. Amy’s history remained incomplete, but the lack of roots did not set her free. She was chained to some ringbolt set in the stone of a distant year. Although she presented herself as such a blithe spirit that she appeared to be capable of flight, she was in fact as earthbound as anyone. Belted to the passenger seat, feet pressed against a phantom brake pedal, Brian McCarthy wanted to urge Amy to slow down. He said nothing, however, because he was afraid that she would look away from the street to reply to his call for caution. Besides, when she was launched upon a mission like this, any plea for prudence might perversely incite her to stand harder on the accelerator.