The Burying Place

Chapter Forty-three

Valerie heard the front door open. She hadn't moved from where she sat near the fire. Her tears had dried on her cheeks. She heard the footsteps of her husband on the floor of the foyer, and the pounding of his leather heels felt like nails driven into her palms. He didn't call her name. He walked around the house the way a ghost would, ominous and unseen. She dreaded seeing him in the flesh. It was as if, all these years, he had hidden behind a disguise, and now she had finally seen his real face.

The footsteps stopped. When she looked up, she flinched, watching his tall frame fill the doorway. He brought a smell of cold and sweat. His suit was wrinkled, his tie loose. His angular jaw was dark with a long day's growth of beard.

'I need a drink,' he said.

He went to the wet bar and dropped ice into a lowball glass. He poured an inch of whiskey, drank it down in a single swallow, and gritted his teeth as the burn hit his chest. He poured more, draining the rest of the bottle.

'You heard?' he asked. When she didn't answer, he added, 'I'm sorry.'

He made no move to come to her or comfort her. Thank God. She couldn't bear for him to touch her. He sipped his drink and ignored the hostile silence. Her head swirled with words to say, but none of them felt right. It was like being caught outside in the rain, only to realize it was really the deluge.

'Is that all you have to say?' she murmured. 'You're sorry?'

'What else do you want from me? I don't have anything to give you right now.'

That was true. He had never had anything to give. Not from the very beginning.

'I want you to tell me what you did,' she said. 'I want to hear it from your mouth.'

He put down his drink and shook his head. 'Ah, fuck, not you, too.'

Valerie pushed herself off the floor. 'I always wondered how a father could hate his daughter,' she told him. 'Secretly. Deep in my heart. I never admitted it to anyone, even when I saw how you were with her. Denise used to tell me that she was scared, that I shouldn't leave Callie alone with you. I told her she was crazy, but somewhere inside, I wondered.'

'This is crap. I never felt that way. You've been brainwashed.'

'You're right, I have. By you. I've worn blinders for years. I wouldn't allow the thought into my brain. I willed it away. Even when Callie disappeared, I convinced myself that the rest of the world was wrong about you. Blair Rowe was wrong. Your lovers were wrong. You didn't really say what you said to them, about wishing Callie had never been born. Not you. You couldn't think that. No man could think that.'

'Valerie, I didn't mean it like that.'

'How did you mean it?'

'I was angry. I was blowing off steam. That's all it was.'

'Angry? At a little baby girl?'

'Angry at you.'

She tensed. 'OK. I deserve that. I cheated on you.'

'Oh, Christ, it's not that. I'm no saint, and I never pretended to be. Hell, if Tom Sheridan could make you happy, good luck to him, because I sure as hell could never figure out how to do it. I gave you all the money you could ever want. You had a life that every woman in this town envied. But that wasn't enough. You walked around this house like you were an empty shell. Once a week, you spread your legs and let me inside like you were doing me some kind of favor. Get it over with, Marcus, so I can get back to feeling sorry for myself. Yeah, I was angry. I'm still angry.'

'You could have divorced me,' she said. 'You could have found someone else. Why did you have to take your anger out on Callie?'

'I did not do that. And I don't want a divorce.'

'Were you waiting for me to go away?' she asked. 'Did you need a night when I wasn't in the house?'

'You're out of control. Let me get you a sedative.'

'Absolutely. Drug me up. That's the answer.'

He didn't reply.

'At least tell me it was an accident,' she whispered. 'Tell me you're not really that cold-blooded.'

'I'm tired of accusations,' he told her bitterly as he turned for the door. 'I'm going to bed.'

'You stand there and listen to me!' Valerie screamed.

He froze and slowly turned back. Valerie stalked across the room. Her face was twisted in fury.

'Did you ever love me, Marcus? God, look who I'm asking. You can't love anyone but yourself. I knew you were selfish, but I had no idea how far you'd go to keep me focused solely on you. Was that the problem? Were you jealous that Callie made me happy and you didn't?'

'Yes, a little,' he admitted. 'But that doesn’t mean anything.'

'Poor Marcus. His beautiful wife wasn't paying enough attention to him. She was too busy with another man's child.'

He opened his mouth to say something and then shut it. He rubbed his chin with the tips of his fingers. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. 'Are you telling me Callie's not mine?'

'Don't you lie to me and pretend you didn't know,' Valerie hissed. 'Don't you even dare.'

He shrugged. 'Having doubts isn't the same as knowing. It was three years, Valerie. You were having an affair. You must have wondered too.'

Three years.

Valerie heard the words and felt them cut her open. He was so casual about it. Three years. As if it were a moment in time, not the hell she had suffered month by month, falling into the blackness of a hole that never ended. The hole he had dug for her. Knowingly. Deliberately. With malice aforethought.

'Three years,' she told him, her voice raspy with grief. 'Three years, Marcus. You saw what I went through.'

It was in his eyes. They became nervous and feral. For the first time, the thought must have entered his brain that she knew.

'You agreed to have a child to make me happy,' she continued. 'To shut me up. To throw a bone to your poor, suffering, suicidal wife.'

'I told you from the beginning that I didn't want children,' he said. 'You said you were OK with that.'

Valerie shook her head. 'I really believed it back then. That was when I thought I would have a husband to live with, not a robot. But you. You sat there and agreed that we could have a baby. Did you see what it did to me? Did you see I was happy for the first time in my entire life? Was it really asking so much to make that a part of our lives?'

'I said yes,' he told her without conviction.

'Stop it! Stop! My God, how could you? How could you do that to me? How could you let me spend three years looking at myself like a broken machine? The one thing I had finally found to do with my life, and I thought I couldn't have it. I thought God was punishing me, Marcus. But it was you.'

'Valerie, don't.'

'Don't? Don't what? Don't say the word?'

She turned on her heel and grabbed the medical form where it lay on the carpet. The form Regan had given her. 'I want to make sure I use the right word,' she told him. 'Doctors have their own words for everything. Deferentectomy. Is that it? Is that what I should call it?'

He closed his eyes. 'Yes, that's it.'

'See, I would have just called it a vasectomy, Marcus, but I'm not a doctor like you.' She waved the paper in his face. 'This is what you were looking for in Regan's files, isn't it? This is what you were so desperate for no one to find. Two weeks after I nearly died, Marcus. Two weeks after you said we could have a baby, you went and got a vasectomy. To make sure it didn't happen. And then you let me lie there for the next three years, hoping and praying and blaming myself and blaming God when I didn't get pregnant.'

Her husband shook his head. 'Shit,' he murmured. He looked up at the ceiling and added, 'Regan, you fucking bitch.' 'Did you kill her? Is that how badly you wanted to keep the secret?'

'No.'

'Did she know all along? Did you tell her the truth about Callie?'

'She knew,' he acknowledged.

'God, you both must have laughed at me. Or was Regan laughing at you? You had the perfect plan, and then another man went and got me pregnant. And you couldn't say anything. You know what's ironic? I never doubted it was your baby. It didn't matter that I was sleeping with Tom. I always believed Callie was yours. I thought we would finally have something we made together.'

'I could have divorced you then,' he said, 'but I didn't. I let you bring her into our lives. I accepted her as our own.'

'Don't make it sound like you made the slightest effort, Marcus. Don't pretend you invested an ounce of compassion in my baby. I wish you'd told me the truth and chucked us out on the street. Instead, you took her away from me. The one thing in my life that I loved. You took her away.'

'We're done here,' he told her, walking out of the room. 'This is over.'

Valerie watched him go and knew he was right. It was over. The long fall ended here. There was nothing to do but wait in silence and guilt. Wait for the searchers to do their work and the forest to give up its secrets. Wait for the night to grow long.

Wait for the phone to ring.

Chapter Forty-four

Kasey awoke with the stench of death in her nose, like a fetid pool in which she was drowning. Dead flesh rotted somewhere close by, emanating a cloud of decay that hung in the air as thick as fog. She tried to breathe through her mouth, but the smell climbed into her nose and festered there. Her throat gagged. She coughed up a harsh mouthful of acid, and sour chunks bubbled out of her lips.

When she opened her eyes, she saw nothing. No light at all, just black darkness. She listened and heard a steady rain of water dripping and splashing into puddles from the ceiling. Animals scurried on the floor below her, their nails scratching on metal and stone. Rats. She had no idea how many.

It was bitterly cold. There was no wind, but the freezing air pricked at her skin and made her numb. Deep inside, pain lingered in her muscles from the impact of the stun gun. Kasey tried to move and found she couldn't. Her arms were overhead, fastened with handcuffs to some kind of pipe. Where her bare wrists brushed the metal, the frost was almost hot. Her ankles were taped together, and she stood on top of a wooden platform that swayed unsteadily when she moved.

'Where am I?' she said aloud. Her voice had a strange echoing quality in her ears. No one answered.

She turned her head. Something heavy and rough, a length of rope, was wound around her neck. The tightness constricted her breathing, almost choking her. She struggled at the bonds that confined her, and as she did, she felt the platform under her feet rocking on uneven legs.

His voice came out of the darkness. Shockingly loud and close.

'Careful, Kasey.'

She bit her lip and shut up. Fear mingled with the pain and cold. She thought about praying, but prayer was worthless.

'Where am I?' she repeated.

'This is my school,' he told her, still invisible, but no more than a foot away. 'It's where people come to learn the sad truth about life.'

A light flashed in her eyes, blinding her. She squinted and closed her eyes, seeing hot orange circles in her brain. The brightness dimmed. When she opened her eyes again, the flashlight was pointed at the ceiling. She could see bits and pieces of the room around her. It was some kind of ruin, littered with rusted machinery and debris. Gaping, crumbling holes were punched in the walls. Water fell everywhere, as if the ceiling was a sieve.

'What the hell kind of place is this?'

'A long time ago, it was a classroom. You see what happens when nature and vandals have a few decades to reclaim a building.'

Kasey tried to look up, but the rope around her neck constrained her. She couldn't see her hands. Below her, she was barely able to see her feet, which were tied with gray tape. He had taken off her shoes and socks. She stood precariously on a five-foot circular table, and her bare, cold t — s poked over the round edge of the surface.

He waited as she assessed her condition. He stood on top of a long oak desk, pacing slowly from one end to the other and avoiding the holes where the wood had rotted away. She tried to quash the terror in her face and focus on him with anger and contempt. When he stopped in front of her and leaned close to her face, she sucked in her breath and spat at him.

'You're a sick fuck.' Her voice was raspy. The rope squeezing her throat made it difficult to talk.

He wiped his cheek. 'You could teach other women something about courage, Kasey. That's why I put you behind the teacher's desk, so your students can look up to you.' With a flick of his wrist, he turned the flashlight behind him and toward the floor.

Kasey moaned. The beam of light illuminated four bodies — three women, one man — tied into schoolroom chairs. The women were naked. They had been dead for days, and the remnants of skin had caved in on their skeletons, leaving them sunken and hideously white. Their eyes were open, staring with empty horror. Two dozen black rats, caught as they gnawed on protruding bone and decomposed flesh, scattered in fear as the light struck them.

Kasey squirmed instinctively to escape. The table swayed underneath her.

'That's not a good idea, Kasey.'

He came up to her and stroked her face with the back of his hand. She cringed and tried to pull away.

'You're handcuffed to one of the old water pipes,' he told her. 'It's corroded. Not very sturdy.' He fingered the rope on her neck. 'The noose, though, that's tied to one of the joists in the ceiling.'

'You bastard. What do you want?'

'I told you I have special plans for you.'

'What plans?'

'This is school, Kasey,' he said. 'You have to pass a test.'

'Let me go. Don't do this to me. Don't kill me.'

He fingered the buttons on her shirt and idly popped the first three and spread the fabric apart. His hand pressed on her chest and felt it rise and fall. 'Maybe I won't need to kill you. Maybe we can leave together. Both of us. Would you go with me?'

She grimaced. 'Go where?'

'Away.'

'What if I did?'

'Are you saying you'd stay with me?'

'To save my life?' she stammered. 'Yes.'

Slowly, he undid the rest of her shirt and let it hang open. 'You forget, you can't lie to me. I'm just like you.'

'Why ask if you won't believe me?'

'Because I like to hear you say yes. I like it when you're scheming and ruthless. What would you do if we went away? Would you plot to kill me? Would you spend every minute looking for your chance?'

'You know I would,' she snapped. There was no point in a charade. She wasn't going to change the outcome.

'You may be the most exciting woman I've ever met,' he said with admiration.

He laid the flashlight at his feet. From inside his pocket, he pulled out Kasey's knife. She sucked in her breath. He extended the thin strip of elastic at the base of her bra. Dragging the rusted point of the knife against her skin, he sliced through the elastic and nudged the cups of the bra apart, baring her breasts. In the cold, her rose nipples puckered into rocks. He bent down and covered each nipple with his mouth in turn and sucked on it. She felt her breasts releasing milk.

He licked his lips, tasting her. 'I hear breast-feeding gets a woman horny. Is that true?' He straightened up, stroking the globes of her breasts with his hands.

'Don't touch me.'

'I can't stop,' he said.

He reached down to the button at the waist of her jeans and undid it. Her jaw hardened with fury as he slid the zipper down. She shunted her knees tightly together and made it hard for him to strip her. He paid attention to her clothes, not to her, and when she saw her chance, she took it. She jacked her knees into the air, dangling from the pipe above her, which groaned and sank two inches, pulling slack from the noose and nearly strangling her. Her knees caught her tormentor solidly under the jaw and snapped him backward, where he tumbled off the long desk and landed in a crash on the floor. The flashlight rolled away and went black. She hunted for the swaying table with her feet and caught it before it wobbled out of her reach. With a gasp, she eased on to the table and let go of the pipe. The rope remained taut, and she struggled to inhale.

Below her, she heard him moving slowly and painfully. Getting up. Limping. Hunting through debris for the light.

'That was a mistake, Kasey,' he growled from the darkness. The teasing in his voice was gone. Only the cruelty remained. She didn't care.

The light went on again, but it was dimmer. He climbed back on to the desk, and she could see his face. Blood trickled from his mouth. His eyes had narrowed into dots of fury and coldness. He reared back and drove his right fist underhanded into her abdomen. Her body doubled over with pain, and the rope grew more constricted, and air flooded from her lungs. Each breath felt labored as she tried to suck in oxygen. She thought she would gag and choke on her vomit.

'I was going to leave you like this to wait for me,' he told her. 'But not now. The test just got much harder.'

He drew out a key from his pocket and reached up and undid the handcuffs from each of her wrists and let them clang to the floor. Kasey dropped her arms back down to her sides. She didn't know what he was doing. Why he was freeing her.

Then he got down from the desk and dragged it away from her, and she understood his plan. She stood on the table with only its shaky base propping her up. The noose dragged on her neck, pushing her head forward. If the table fell, she would hang herself.

He breathed heavily and tended to the blood on his face. 'How long can you hold on to the pipe, Kasey? Five minutes? Fifteen?'

She didn't talk.

'I have to leave, but I'll be back soon. Can you hang on until then? Or will you just give up and die? I'm giving you a choice, Kasey, but remember, if you fail the test, your family dies. It's not pretty, but those are the stakes. Understand?'

She didn't say anything.

'Do you understand?' he repeated.

'Yes,' she gasped.

'Good. That's good. Now hold on tight.'

Kasey knew what was coming. She watched him closely, but she didn't put her hands up immediately. She wanted blood flowing into her arms as long as possible to give her strength. Only when she saw him moving closer, his face dark and menacing, did she finally reach up and take hold of the pipe again. The freezing metal was like a flame. Touching it burned her, and she could barely hold on. But she had to hold on.

He swept the table from under her feet. Her legs dangled in midair. Only her grip on the pipe kept her suspended.

'If you survive the next few minutes, the rest will be easy for you,' he said, stroking the bare skin of her stomach as she twitched over the floor. 'I want you to prepare yourself while I'm gone, because your family is counting on you. You see, I'm going to bring someone here for you, Kasey. A new student for our classroom. And all you have to do to pass the test… is kill them for me.'

Chapter Forty-five

Serena slid inside the patrol car next to Denise Sheridan, who propped a cigarette outside the driver's window and tapped ash on the ground. When Denise wasn't smoking, she jammed the fingers of her other hand between her teeth and chewed on her nails. They sat in silence on the dirt road near the cemetery. Fifty yards away, bright lights beamed like white sunshine through the trees. Silhouettes of evidence technicians came and went, carrying plastic bags. They'd been searching and digging in the forest for an hour, making their way through frost-hardened soil toward whatever was buried below.

'I'm sorry it's come to this,' Serena told Denise.

Valerie's sister sighed. Her face was tight with anger and resignation. 'I knew we'd end up in a place like this sooner or later.'

A place like this. A place to dig up the dead.

Serena was just as happy not to be in the woods. She wasn't sure she could handle it when the searchers found what they were looking for. This was a case where she couldn't switch off her emotions. She had sacrificed her objectivity by getting too close to Valerie and too close to Callie.

'It's better than not knowing,' Serena said.

Denise shrugged. 'If you don't know, you can still hope.'

Snow gathered in a wet film on the windshield as they waited. When it became hard to see, Denise flipped the windshield wipers, pushing the slush aside and clearing an arc on the glass. Inside, heat blasted from the vents, keeping the car warm.

'How are you?' Serena asked.

Denise said nothing. She chewed her nails harder.

'Sorry,' Serena said. 'Bad subject.'

'Yeah.'

'Do you want to talk about it?'

Denise looked at Serena as if she was crazy. Then she shrugged, as if anything was better than sitting in silence as the shovels carved up the ground.

'I wasn't expecting a bomb to go off under my life,' Denise replied.

'What happens next?'

Denise took a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and then scowled and put it back. 'When you've been married as long as Tom and I have, it's not like divorce is easy. There's a lot of practical shit standing in the way. Starting with the kids. Then again, I'm not going to do nothing. Some women can put on blinders and live with a crappy marriage, but not me.'

'What about Valerie?' Serena asked. 'If it's Callie out there in the woods, she's going to need your help.'

'Let her get help from someone else, not me.'

Serena hesitated. 'She's going to be alone.'

'Are you lecturing me?' Denise asked in annoyance.

'No, but Callie's her whole world.'

Denise took a photograph out of her pocket. Serena could see it was the picture of Callie that had been broadcast all over the country. 'What is it about wives married to shitholes? They always think having a kid will make it better. Like it's some kind of miracle cure. Valerie should have gotten a divorce, not gotten pregnant.'

Serena didn't reply.

'Don't get me wrong,' Denise added. 'I'm sick about Callie.'

'I know that. You don't hide it as well as you think.'

Denise frowned and put the photograph away. 'As long as you're prying into my secrets, what about you? What's up with you and Stride?'

Serena was caught off guard. 'What do you mean?'

'Oh, don't play dumb. I can see you two are having problems.'

Serena thought about making an excuse, but she realized that she needed to say it out loud. 'He slept with Maggie.'

Denise didn't look surprised. 'Well, they've been dancing around it for years. So what are you going to do?'

'Same as you,' Serena said. 'I don't have a clue. But we don't have kids to worry about. I guess that makes it easier for me to walk away.'

'You think it would have been different between you if you had a baby? It wouldn't.'

'Maybe I wonder if I would have been different.'

Denise twisted toward Serena and pointed a finger at her. 'It's not a magic bullet, Serena. You'll never feel more vulnerable than when you have a kid. If you let it, the responsibility will kill you. If something happens, it can drive you insane.' She turned back and looked through the steamy windshield of the patrol car. 'Oh, shit.'

Serena looked too. Through the snow, she saw Stride coming toward them, his face weary and grave. Even in the cold, he had his sleeves rolled up, showing bare arms, tracked with dirt. He stopped in the glow of the headlights.

They both climbed out and met him. Serena saw Denise's jaw trembling. She was a sister and an aunt now, not a cop, and she didn't want to hear the news. Neither did Serena. She had known from the beginning that the odds were against a happy ending. That wasn't how child disappearances played out. You hoped for a miracle, but you steeled yourself for the harsh reality. Most kids didn't come home. Most kids didn't stay alive.

Stride's face was bathed in sweat. He wiped his forehead, leaving a trail of mud. His thick hair was wet and flat. He didn't make them wait.

'We found the body of a child,' he said.

Denise spun around and lashed out at the tire of her car with her boot and pounded both fists on the hood. 'Goddamn it!'

'Hang on, Denise,' Stride said, but Denise didn't hear him. She hit the car until Serena was afraid she would break the bones in her hands. Tears streamed out of her eyes and ran in glistening streaks down her face.

It didn't matter if you knew it was coming. It was one thing to cxpect the truth and another to hear it. It was one thing to be furious with Valerie and another to hear that her daughter was dead.

'Denise, wait,' Stride called.

Serena watched his face. Behind his sorrow, something was different. Whatever had happened was not what they had all expected. Something else was going on.

'Listen to me, it's not Callie,' he said. Denise's head snapped around. 'What?' 'It's not Callie in the woods.'

Her hands flew to her mouth. 'Oh, my God, are you sure? How can you be sure?'

'It's not a girl,' Stride told her. 'The body that was buried there, it's a boy.'

Chapter Forty-six

Valerie stood in the doorway of their bedroom. The hallway light cast a rectangular glow from behind her. Marcus lay in bed, asleep on his back. His breathing came easily and steadily. She stared at her husband and wondered how he could sleep so calmly when men were hunting for Callie in the ground, when her precious baby was cold and alone.

She knew the answer. Callie had never been his daughter. She was a stranger who had lived in his house. Someone else's child. The offspring of his wife's affair. He had known the truth from the very beginning.

'Do you really wish she'd never been born?' she asked.

He slept without answering.

She approached the bed and stood over him. He was a handsome man. Fit, strong, attractive. She wondered if he was really asleep or just pretending. Part of her wanted to scream and make noise, to force him to acknowledge her, but she didn't. They were beyond that. Beyond rescue.

Valerie undressed and went into the master bathroom and closed the door behind her. The marble tile was cold under her bare feet. She turned on the shower and waited as the water grew hot. She studied the reflection of her naked body in the full-length mirror. People told her she was beautiful, but they didn't understand how she could hate her body. They never saw that one brown nipple was slightly larger than the other. That her knees were ugly. That her stomach was a constellation of pale freckles.

She got under the water, which poured from the shower like rainfall, straight down over her head. It flowed through her blonde hair and over her shoulders and breasts and between her legs and over her feet and then swirled into the drain. She didn't move or wash her body with soap or knead shampoo into her hair. Instead, she stood straight, with her eyes closed and her arms at her sides and her face tilted into the spray. Her skin became clean and pink. She stood, not moving, until she had been there for so long that the hot water drizzled away and became cold.

Outside the shower, she shivered on the bath mat. She toweled herself dry but left her hair wet. She returned to the bedroom and stared at Marcus and felt nothing. She dressed again, not for sleep, but for the day ahead. A day when she would finally be free.

She was hungry, so she went downstairs. It felt odd to think about food now, but she hadn't eaten in hours. She turned on the lights in the kitchen and took a small bowl from one of the cabinets. Inside the refrigerator, she found a stalk of celery, a cluster of green grapes, an avocado, a Granny Smith apple, a lemon, and a cup of yogurt. She put the ingredients on the counter.

'This is called a Waldorf salad,' she said to her daughter.

It didn't matter that Callie wasn't really there. In her imagination, she saw her little girl in the high chair beside the kitchen island, smiling back at her.

'I use yogurt instead of mayo, because who needs all the fat and calories? And I add in half an avocado, because I like avocados.'

She separated a piece of celery, sliced off its frilly head, and carefully cut the stalk into half-inch segments, which she dumped in the bowl. She ran the grapes under the faucet, pulled off a dozen, and cut each one in half. She added them to the bowl.

'It's supposed to include walnuts, but I don't have any walnuts. Apples are crunchy enough, so I won't miss them.'

Valerie sliced the apple down the middle and cut away slices from the core. She tasted one and made a face. It was tart. Like an angel, Callie giggled at her mother and slapped the tray in front of her with tiny hands. Her blonde curls danced on her forehead. Valerie winked and diced the apple slices and mixed them in with the celery and grapes.

'Now for my top-secret ingredient,' she said.

Valerie ran the knife all the way around the black avocado and twisted the two halves apart. As she buried the blade in the avocado seed to remove it, her phone rang on the kitchen counter. She froze, her lower lip quivering. The noise went on, musical and insistent. When she glanced at the phone, she saw her sister's name in the Caller ID box.

'That's Aunt Denise,' she said with a strange lilt in her voice. 'I don't think we need to talk to her right now, do we? Not when we're busy making a salad.'

The phone went silent. Her smile cracked as she stared at Callie.

'There's plenty of time to call her back. We can call her when we're done here. OK? Now where was I? I think we're almost ready.'

She scooped half of the avocado out of its husk and cut it lengthwise into strips, which she dropped one at a time into the salad. She pried the lid off the yogurt and spooned it into the bowl. She cut the lemon in half and squeezed juice over the salad. With a fork and spoon, she mixed everything together.

'Doesn't that look delicious?' she said. She took a forkful and tasted it. 'That's good.'

She sat down at the island and ate each bite of the salad slowly, staring at Callie as she did. Her daughter's eyes followed her. Callie made noises; she'd be talking soon, saying words. She memorized her little girl's face, her two new white teeth, her dimpled smile. She savored these quiet moments when it was just the two of them.

When her bowl was nearly empty, her phone rang again. She stopped with the fork halfway to her mouth. The horror of anticipation bled across her face.

The caller ID this time said Blair Rowe.

Valerie's eyes went blank. The phone rang and rang, and then the music ended. She snapped out of her trance.

'Isn't it amazing how everyone always calls when you're in the middle of a meal?' she asked her daughter. 'I think we'll just turn off that silly phone now. There really isn't anyone I want to talk to tonight. Other than you, of course.'

She switched off the power on her phone. When she bent over the salad bowl again, something dropped from her face and splattered on the counter. Tears. She touched her cheek in surprise. 'Look at that, I'm crying. Isn't that strange?'

Callie cocked her head with a serious expression on her face. It always looked to Valerie as if she was thinking about something very important.

'You're getting so big,' Valerie told her. 'And so beautiful. When you grow up, you're going to be a gorgeous young woman.'

She took her empty salad bowl to the sink and washed it and put it away. She returned the avocado half, the lemon half, and the celery and grapes to the refrigerator. Opening the chrome garbage pail with her foot, she slid the remnants into the trash and then used a paper towel to wipe the counter. She ran the knife under the sink and rubbed it with a sponge until it was spotless.

When she was done, she opened a spice cabinet and slowly spun the lazy susan inside until she found what she wanted. It was a bottle she had purchased a year ago, before she got pregnant. A bottle she had never opened. A bottle filled to its narrow neck with tablets of aspirin.

She turned back and looked at the high chair. Callie was gone. Valerie's smile slowly dissolved, and the light went out of her eyes.

'From now on, I'll never leave you alone,' Valerie promised her. 'Never ever. I'll always be with you.'

Kasey had no idea how long she had been clinging to the frigid metal pipe. It could have been seconds. It could have been an hour. Time had no meaning in the darkness. Her arms grew thick and heavy, and the cold burned her skin, and all she wanted to do was let go. But she didn't. She couldn't.

He was gone. For now. She had watched him take the flashlight and pick his way through the debris, and then the light had vanished behind a fragmented wall. Somewhere on the far side of the building, she'd heard a steel door opening and closing. Since then, she had heard only the other noises of the ruins: the water torture dripping from overhead and the morbid squeal of the rats.

She held out little hope of rescue. She screamed — 'Help me! Help!' — but her voice bounced around the decimated building, and in the aftermath, she heard nothing at all. No one came running. No one shouted back. Wherever she was, she was on her own.

In the early minutes, she didn't dare move for fear of dislodging the pipe or slipping and losing her hold on the metal itself. Eventually, as her strength waned, she decided she had to try. If she made a mistake, she died, but if she did nothing, she died anyway. She had to stay alive. She had to escape.

Carefully, she eased one hand off the pipe and examined the rope with her fingers, looking for a way to undo the knot and slip the noose from around her neck. She pried at the twine, but the knot was tight and unyielding. With two hands, she might have been able to dislodge it, but not with one. She worked at it until her other arm groaned in protest, and when she felt her grip slipping, she brought her hand back to the pipe.

She thought about shimmying up the rope itself to where it connected to the ceiling joist, but she didn't think she had enough strength in her arms to make the climb. She also thought about bringing up her legs like a gymnast and slinging them over the pipe, but she worried that the fragile metal would buckle under the pressure.

Kasey decided to see where the pipe itself went. Prying her fingers off the metal, she slowly moved her left hand three inches. She repeated the process with her right hand. The metal was cold and wet, and her fingers nearly gave way. She moved again, another three inches. And then again. The progress was excruciatingly slow. The pain and cold thumped in her brain and made her dizzy. Her eyes saw strange things in the darkness. She tried to move again and couldn't. When she screamed at her muscles, they refused to take orders. Instead, she hung there, paralyzed, feeling the pipe grow loose and slippery under her fingers.

It would be easy to let go. Easy to give up. Let the metal slip away, and let the rope take over.

No.

It was a test. She couldn't fail. Calm descended over her like a wave, and she sloughed her body along the stretch of pipe. She shunted her bound legs and slowly swept the space to her left with her feet extended. At the very edge of her t — s, she brushed something hard. Concrete. A wall. She peeled away her fingers and moved again, three more inches, and when she extended her legs, she could brace the bottom of her feet against the side of the wall. Flakes of paint scraped away under her skin. If she could find a t — hold, she could reposition herself and use both hands to attack the rope around her neck.

Kasey tried to slide another few inches, but her head snapped to her right, choking her against the coil of rope. She had extended all the play left in the rope where it connected to the ceiling. It wouldn't go any farther. She was trapped.

She reached out again with her legs, but this time, she moved too quickly, and her left hand lost its grip and fell. Her right hand clenched the freezing pipe and hung on, but the rope cut into her neck and choked off her breathing. She gasped and spat, dangling by one hand. Frantically, she grabbed for the pipe with her other hand, and as she did, her fingers brushed a scrap of metal hanging just above her. She grasped it, dropped it, and tried for the pipe again, and finally she curled her fingers around the thick length of pipe and pulled herself back up. The pressure on her neck eased enough for her to breathe.

Kasey gave herself a few seconds to recover, but she was running out of time. Running out of strength.

She groaned and reached up with her left hand. Her fingers bumped against something square and sharp, dangling on a thin strand of plastic wire. She yanked on it and felt it give way, but before she could grab it, her right hand slipped, and she had to stop and hold on to avoid falling. She took a few long breaths. Sweat gathered on her palms, making both hands slippery.

She tried again. This time, the metal plate and the thin wire came away. Dust settled over her face. She coughed and nearly lost her grip again, but she held the plate in her hand. Her right arm howled in pain as the fingers of her left hand traced the outline and found a metal corner that was bent and sharp, where it had obviously torn away from a larger frame.

Kasey knew she had only one hope. Cut the rope.

She found a reservoir of strength and bent her elbows to do a chin-up. Her body climbed, slow inch by slow inch. The pipe wobbled. Her fingers twisted and slipped as blood and sweat gathered under her skin. When she felt her chin touch the metal, she nudged her right arm over the pipe and then let go with her left arm, hanging by her crook of her elbow.

The pipe made an ominous lurch downward. The rope yanked her chin back and tilted her head up. Kasey sawed the edge of the metal plate against the rope around her neck. She felt the cord fraying, threads splitting and cutting loose.

The pipe shifted downward again. The rope choked her. She couldn't breathe, and she felt her cheeks puffing out and leaching the rest of her air. Her face was wet with tears. Her right arm grew numb and lifeless.

She sawed frantically. The rope thinned but refused to yield. Her body twitched as she jerked the jagged metal up and down, and the repeated pounding added to the stress on the pipe.

It was all too much. She had no air. She had no strength. Her left arm collapsed, and the metal plate dropped from her hand and fell to the ground below her with a clang. Unconsciousness began creeping in.

Oh, God, no.

Then, from the wall beside her, came the groan and squeal of metal tearing.

The pipe separated and gave way. Kasey felt her body falling, with the rope still clutching her windpipe like powerful hands.

Chapter Forty-seven

Troy Grange opened the door of his house with a bottle of beer in one hand. Over his shoulder, Maggie saw a basketball game on the wide-screen television in his living room. He wore an untucked flannel shirt and jeans. His eyes were rimmed in red, and his skin was pasty.

'Sorry to stop by so late,' she told him.

'It's OK. Come on in.' He led her into the main room and muted the sound on the television. 'You want a beer or something?'

'No thanks.'

'So did you lose a bet?' Troy asked.

'What?'

'The hair.'

'Oh. Yeah, funny. It was just a stupid whim.'

'Uh huh.' He added after a long pause, 'I saw the news.'

'Yeah.'

'Same guy, huh?'

'Looks that way.'

Troy swore. He finished his beer and wiped his mouth. 'Are you any closer to catching him?'

'I'd like to say yes, but so far, he's one step ahead of us. We're pursuing a lead down in Colorado, but it's too early to tell whether that will pan out. The car he was using was stolen in Colorado Springs, so we're checking on pattern crimes in the area.'

'You think he's been at this for a while?'

'I don't know, but these guys don't usually quit until they're caught.'

Troy shook his head. 'It's a fucked-up world.'

'How has it been for you at work?' Maggie asked.

'Oh, it's crazy, which is a good thing. I get into the office, and the first crisis hits about two minutes later, and the shit keeps up until it's dark and I'm driving home. I don't have time to think about anything until then.'

'Is the baby still with Trisha's parents?'

Troy nodded. 'I'll probably go get her this weekend. Debbie misses her. So do I.'

'The offer still stands, Troy. Anything I can do to help.'

'I know. I appreciate it.' He added, 'What about the kid? Do you have anything on Nick Garaldo?'

'We think he's one of these guys who likes to break in where he doesn’t belong,' Maggie told him. 'Urban ruins.'

'Really?'

'We found a photo card in his apartment. He was inside the Duluth Armory a few months ago.'

Troy rubbed his chin. 'We've had break-ins at a few of the unused areas of the port over the past couple years. I wonder if Nick was involved.'

'Half the fun for these guys is staying ahead of people like you and me,' Maggie said

'So you think he had an accident somewhere?'

Maggie nodded. 'That's our best guess right now. Nick may have been casing an abandoned school in Buckthorn. I've got a guy from a local security agency taking a look at the site. I haven't heard from him yet.'

'Well, keep me posted. Nick's girlfriend is worried sick.'

'I will.'

'You look tired, Maggie. Is the investigation wearing you down?'

'Yeah, a little,' she admitted.

'Stride's back on the job next week, right? That should help.'

She grunted affirmatively, but Troy picked up on her mixed emotions.

'You don't sound thrilled to have him back,' Troy said. 'Do you not want to give up the big chair?'

'He can have it.' 'So what's the problem?'

Maggie shrugged. 'It's complicated. I'm not going to bother you with my troubles.'

'Right now, it's easier to worry about someone else's problems,' he told her. 'We're friends. If you want to talk, talk.'

Maggie sighed. She was tired of keeping it a secret from everyone. 'It's me and Stride. Something happened.'

'Something?' Troy asked. Then he read her face. 'Oh, that kind of something. Yeah, well, that is complicated.'

'Tell me about it.'

'Isn't he involved with someone else?'

'Yeah.'

'So now what?'

'Now I tell myself what an idiot I am.'

Troy chuckled. 'Sorry. Wish I could help. Romantic advice isn't really my thing.'

'Me neither. Listen, keep this to yourself, OK? Nobody knows.'

'My lips are sealed.'

Maggie heard her cell phone ringing. She dug it out of her pocket and checked the caller ID, but the source of the call was blocked. 'This is Maggie Bei,' she answered.

'Ms Bei, my name is Jim Nieman.'

Maggie didn't recognize the name or the voice. 'What can I do for you, Mr Nieman?'

'I got a call from Matt Clayton in Buckthorn today. He said you were making inquiries about that falling-down school they've got out there. I handle security on the place for the township.'

She remembered the name now. 'Did you have a chance to check it out today?'

'I did. As a matter of fact, I'm over there right now. I was hoping to get out here earlier in the day, but I got pulled into some home security jobs.'

'What did you find?' she asked.

'Matt said something about looking for red pistachio shells. Is that right? What's that all about?'

'Did you find any?' she replied without explaining.

'Actually, I did.'

Maggie covered the speaker with her hand and said to Troy, 'This is the security guy for the Buckthorn School. I think Nick Garaldo was out there.' She spoke into the phone again. 'Did you check inside the school?'

'I was going to do that, but I thought I'd call you first. Since I found those shells, I didn't know if you wanted me to hold off on searching the interior. I didn't want to screw up any evidence if you think we've got a crime scene there.'

'When were you last inside?' she asked.

'A couple days ago, I guess.'

'Have you been inside since Saturday night?'

'Yeah, I think it was Sunday,' Nieman told her.

'Did you find anything out of the ordinary?'

He laughed. 'Well, the whole thing is pretty creepy, if you ask me.'

'Was there any evidence that someone had broken in recently? Could someone have been inside and you didn't realize it?'

She heard him pause. 'Anything's possible, I guess. There are a lot of nooks and crannies in the place. I didn't see evidence of a break-in, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.' 'OK.'

'You want me to go inside?' Nieman asked. 'Like I said, I'm outside the place right now.'

'Yeah, I do. Check it out carefully. We've got a missing person, and I think he's been at the school recently. It's possible he broke in, or tried to break in, and got hurt. Call me back when you've checked it out, OK?'

'Will do.'

Maggie heard him hesitate. 'Is something wrong?'

'Oh, no, I'm happy to do it. Anything for the boys and girls in blue, you know. I just thought, if something did happen to this guy inside, you might want to have a cop with me when I search the place. I know it's late, but I thought maybe you could get someone to join me here.'

Maggie thought about it. 'Sure, that's a good idea.'

'I'd leave it in your hands entirely, but I'm the guy with the keys,' he added.

'Understood.' 'I'll wait for the cavalry before I open the doors. Do you think it will be long?'

Maggie checked her watch. 'Tell you what, Mr Nieman. I'm just five minutes away from the school right now. I'll drive over there myself.'

Chapter Forty-eight

Denise Sheridan slapped her phone shut. 'Still no answer,' she said.

'Are you going to drive over there?' Serena asked.

Denise shook her head. 'It's late. If Valerie's in bed, let her sleep.'

Serena didn't think Valerie was sleeping. If she was in bed, she was staring at the ceiling. If her phone was off, it was because she didn't want to hear the news about Callie.

The two women rejoined Stride among the scattered headstones of the cemetery. Behind him, one of the light towers set up by the crime scene technicians cast his shadow across the grass into the trees. He stopped in front of a line of graves that all bore the name GLENN.

Serena watched him. His arms were folded over his chest, and his face was dark and thoughtful. Snow flew sideways through the light, landing on him and turning him into a white statue. He wore the leather jacket he had owned for years. His hair looked as if he had just rolled out of bed. In his eyes, she saw the intensity of a man who never let go. She couldn't help herself, she was still in love with him. She couldn't imagine turning her back on what she felt, not when they had spent three years together. The easy thing for her was to whisper, I'm not going anywhere. See what he did. See how he reacted. See if he still felt the same things for her.

But she didn't do that. She said nothing at all.

'So what the hell does this mean, Stride?' Denise demanded. 'Who's the boy in the ground?'

Stride stared at the graves. 'I don't know yet.'

'What's the medical team saying?' Serena asked. 'How did the baby die?'

'There's no sign of foul play,' he replied. 'There's no trauma, no obvious evidence of injury or abuse, but we won't know until the autopsy is completed.'

'Recent death?' Denise asked.

'Based on the condition of the body, yes. We're talking days, not weeks.'

'But nothing to help with identification?'

'No.'

Serena took a long look at the cemetery and at the surrounding forest. She put herself in the shoes of someone who would carry a baby to the woods and dig its grave. There were so many places you could lay a body where it would never be found. Why so close to the cemetery?

'How was the body placed in the ground?' she asked Stride.

She wanted a sense of the kind of burial that had happened here, whether it was something sacred or profane. Their eyes met, and she knew he had been thinking the same thing. That was another part of their relationship she couldn't escape — their minds were connected.

'He was wrapped in a white sheet.'

'Carefully?'

Stride nodded. 'Someone took time to do it right. It was almost tender.'

'This doesn’t make sense,' Denise protested. 'Who takes the care to wrap up a dead child and then buries it in the woods like garbage?'

'Not like garbage,' Serena said, shaking her head. 'Whoever did this couldn't bury the baby in a cemetery where he might be discovered. But the baby was close to the cemetery. I think that's significant.'

'I agree,' Stride said. 'It feels ritualistic. Almost religious.'

'But what does it have to do with Callie and Marcus?' Denise asked.

'I don't know. Maybe nothing at all. Maybe we stumbled on to something unrelated to Callie's case.'

'Or maybe Micki's lying,' Denise suggested.

They heard a harsh, tired voice cut through the wind. 'I'm not lying.'

When they turned, they saw Migdalia Vega on the slope of the cemetery behind them. Her round face glistened with melting snow. Her feet were planted in the ground, and she had her hands on her hips. 'You hear me?' she continued. 'I'm not lying. I did what you asked. I showed you where I found the toy. Where Mama saw the light.'

'You knew we'd find a body,' Denise snapped, 'but we only have your word that you found the toy there at all. Who's the kid, Micki? Who did we find buried there?'

'I don't know. And I found the horn in the woods, just like I said.'

Stride put a hand gently on Denise's arm. He stepped closer to Micki, his voice calm. 'We don't think you're lying,' he told her.

'Tell that to her!' she retorted.

'We're all tired, Micki. It's been a long night. You've helped us a lot, and I appreciate it, OK? But I need to know if you have any idea who that little boy could be.'

'I already told you, I don't know. But it's not Callie, and that's good, right? I knew Dr Glenn wasn't involved. He couldn't do something like that to his daughter.'

'What if Callie wasn't his daughter?' Denise interjected.

Stride shot her a warning glare. He turned back to Micki. 'You told me that you lost your own son early in your pregnancy,' he said softly. 'I'm sorry, but I have to ask. Was that really true?'

'Yes! You know what happened to my baby!'

'OK. I know. And the light your mother saw in the woods, you're certain this was on the night that Callie disappeared?'

'Yes, she told me about it on Saturday, and that's when I went to search. That's when I found the toy.'

Stride nodded. 'OK, Micki. That's all for now. You can go home.'

The girl stamped past them up the slope. Serena watched her disappear between the trees as she headed for the lights of the mobile home. 'Where does that leave us?' she asked.

'Nowhere,' Stride said.

Denise reached for a cigarette and put it in her mouth without lighting it. 'Look, the toy horn was obviously intended to make us think there was a connection to Callie. Right?'

Stride thought about it but shook his head. 'No, that doesn’t make sense. As soon as we put a shovel in the ground, we were going to find out that it wasn't Callie buried there.'

Serena thought again about someone bringing a child's body to the woods in the darkness and how much the burial felt like a religious ceremony. Something private and painful. 'What if the toy is exactly what it looks like?' she suggested. 'A memorial.'

'What do you mean?' Stride asked.

'I mean that no one ever expected us to find that toy. It was put there the way you'd put flowers on a grave.'

'But whose grave?' Denise asked.

Serena retraced her conversations with Valerie. She realized that when Stride had told her about Micki's discovery of the toy horn, it had felt familiar to her. It had already been part of her consciousness about the case, because she had heard about it before. Valerie had told her about her night at the hospital on New Year's Eve, about the staff blowing toy horns when the clock turned to midnight.

She could almost picture the scene in her mind. See it. Hear it. Valerie drowsy with pain and drugs. The noise and excitement of the New Year in the maternity ward. The horns squealing. Lullabies playing on the hospital speakers with each new baby born.

'Another baby,' Serena said.

Denise looked at her. The unlit cigarette drooped in her mouth. 'What are you talking about?'

'There must have been other babies born in the hospital that night. New Year's night.'

'So what?' Denise asked.

'So I'd like to find out who they were. And whether Regan Conrad was the nurse for any of the mothers.'

'Yes, but if it was a stranger's child, why bury him here?' Denise asked. 'What does this have to do with Callie?'

'I don't know,' Serena admitted.

Even so, her instincts told her that the body in the ground was inextricably linked to Callie's disappearance. Somehow, she knew that this child, whoever he was, was the key to everything.

Stride was already on the phone. Serena watched him dial.

'Guppo, it's Stride,' she heard him say. 'I need some information. I'm looking for a list of babies born on January first, preferably those at St Mary's. See if you can find birth announcements on the News-Tribune website, OK? Boys only, don't worry about the girls. I'll hold.'

He waited. He stared at Serena, and she stared back at him. She realized that more than anything else right now, she wanted to kiss him.

'I'm here,' he said into the phone. 'That was fast. Give me the names and addresses of the parents, OK?' Then he said, 'Hang on, repeat that. Are you serious?'

Stride hung up the phone.

'We have to get back to Duluth right now.'

Troy Grange activated the security system on the downstairs level of his house before he went upstairs to bed. It was a useless gesture. He had purchased the system to protect Trisha and the kids, and the killer had gotten inside anyway and taken away his beautiful wife. He wanted to rip the panel off the wall and throw it in the fields.

Troy cried. He didn't let himself cry often, never in public, and never in front of his children. He needed to be strong for them. He couldn't bring back their mother, so the only thing he could do was go on with life. Keep them safe. Try to keep them happy. But when he was alone, in his private moments, he cried. He remembered Trisha's face as vividly as if she were still there beside him. Her touch. Her laugh. How her skin felt when they were in bed. He pounded the wall as he realized that those sensations would begin to dim now, and eventually they would slip out of his memory altogether.

Safety. Security. There was no such thing. You could live in a fortress and still not keep out the monsters. The sensors, the alarms, the locks, the bars were mostly an illusion. If someone wanted to come in, they could. People like Nick Garaldo would always figure out a way. Sometimes their motive was no more than mischief, to say they went where no one else wanted them to go.

Sometimes their motive was to kill.

Troy thought about Nick Garaldo. And Maggie. And the ruined school. He wondered if they would find Nick inside, trapped, suffocated, neck broken, or blood drained from his body. There were so many ways to die in ruins.

That was when the thought, the memory, poked into Troy's head.

He stared at the security panel on the wall and remembered the man who had installed it a few weeks earlier. A tall man with scarred skin and eyes like a dead fish. The kind of man who smiled in a way that made you think he wasn't smiling at all. Troy hadn't liked him.

He didn't know why his mind had dragged up a memory of the security man's face, and then he remembered that he had been thinking about Maggie's phone call. A security guard had called her about Nick and the pistachio shells. A security guard out at the old school.

Jim Nieman. That was the name. He was almost sure of it.

Nieman was the same man who had been inside his house.

Chapter Forty-nine

The rope snapped Kasey's chin back as she fell, and a shiver of pain coursed through her spine. She felt a crushing weight on her throat as her body dragged the thick cord into a vise around her neck. Her legs danced spastically. She clawed at the cord with her fingers, but the knots held, and all she felt was blood oozing from her abraded skin. She reached above her head to pull herself up and relieve the pressure, but she had no strength to lift her body.

Her mind grew cloudy. She knew she was dying.

Then the frayed section of rope where she had sawed with the metal plate split and gave way. The rope broke, and she fell in darkness and landed with an agonizing, bone-deep blow as her calves slammed the cement floor below her. A loose nail drove into the meat of her leg, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from wailing in pain.

But she could breathe. Sweet air flooded her lungs. She collapsed on to her hands and knees and air swelled her chest.

Something scurried across her fingers, and she reared back. It was a rat, and it wasn't alone. The squeals of the animals were excited and close. She clawed the tape from her ankles and lurched to her feet. The blackness made her dizzy, and she waited for her head to clear. She listened for the noises of her captor, but for the time being, she was alone. Alone with no light. No weapon. No phone. She may as well have been lost in the fog again.

She started to walk with her hands and arms outstretched in front of her. Almost immediately, she tripped and fell. When she squatted and ran her fingers along the floor, she found a jagged block of concrete, three feet by four feet. She traced its edges and then stepped around it. As she inched forward, her numb feet crushed against pebbles of glass with each step and bled. Water dripped on her face. She kicked a piece of scrap metal that clanged on the cement and hissed in pain. She bent down and picked up an L-shaped joist, heavy and rusted. She nestled it in her fist and felt better that she had something she could use in self-defense.

Her hands touched a smooth wall ahead of her. She explored it with her fingers and felt lines of grout between square tiles. With her palms flat, she followed the wall, letting it lead her steps. She found the opening of a door frame where the wall ended, but the doorway itself was blocked with a sodden, rotting stack of wooden planks at least three feet high. She stopped, squinting, trying to see if there was an escape route on the other side of the doorway, but the interior was black.

Beyond the doorway, the wall continued, and she followed it until her fingers bumped into a new wall, made of plywood, not tile. She had walked herself into a corner. She turned, making her way along the perpendicular wall, moving more quickly than before. Her hands missed a wooden beam propped against the wall at waist level, and before she could stop it, the beam toppled noisily to the floor. She froze, expecting him to come for her, anticipating a cone of light stabbing through the darkness.

Nothing happened. Only the rats continued to stalk her.

Kasey grew bolder as she wondered if he had left her entirely on her own. She decided that time, not noise, was her biggest enemy now, and she stumbled quickly along the wall. Water dripped louder and faster, and her fingers banged into cold pipes hanging from the ceiling like spider webs. She collided with a concrete I-beam and weaved around it. The wall ended, and she took two steps into open space, in the middle of a dark nowhere.

She heard something close by. Soft, like a distant hiss. Wind.

The outside world wasn't far away. She steered for the sound and realized she was near a boarded-up window, and on the other side of it was freedom. Her fingers frantically examined the frame, looking for a spongy weakness where the water had softened the wood. Snow pecked against the window an inch away from her. She could feel the cold.

'Let me out,' she whispered.

Before she could punch through the heavy plywood with the metal joist in her hand, she ran out of time. She heard voices. His voice.

Down the long, black tunnel, she saw light streaming through the cracks.

Maggie climbed out of her yellow Avalanche outside the Buckthorn School. The moon, which was no more than a haloed glow behind the gray clouds, illuminated the desolate ruins. Snow drifted against the tan brick walls and weighed on the flat roof. The school, or what was left of it, was sheltered by two giant oaks with spindly branches that looked like witches' fingers. Every window was shuttered with heavy plywood. Every metal door was looped with chain and locked shut.

She imagined the school as it had been after the war, beside a dusty dirt road, surrounded by corn fields, with farm boys dropped off at its doors in shirts and ties. That was long ago. Now it was forgotten, falling down, eroding a little more with each bitter winter. After thirty years of abandonment, the animals and the weather owned it. That was what attracted explorers like Nick Garaldo.

Maggie saw a tall, athletic man in his early thirties approaching her truck. He wore a black fleece jacket, and he shoved his hands in his pockets and gave her a cocky smile. He had a backpack over one shoulder.

'Nieman?' she asked.

'That's me.'

'Thanks for sticking around,' she told him.

'No problem.' He gestured at the school with a flick of his head. 'You want to go inside?'

'Let's take a walk around the perimeter first.'

'Sure thing.'

He led her across the field, which crackled with snow, oak branches, and dead leaves. The ground sloped sharply downward as they hiked around the western wall. She shuffled down the hill in her boots past a cluster of towering spruce trees. Where the ground flattened, they were at the rear of the school. The lower level was open to the elements. She poked her head past the exposed concrete pillars and studied the mess of bricks and pipes.

Nieman turned on a flashlight and pointed it at the ground. 'Those are the pistachio shells,' he said. 'That means something to you, huh?'

'It does. Keep that light on them, will you?'

Maggie bent down. The ground was littered with shells, and she noticed that they weren't covered with dust and that their color was still bright red. Nick Garaldo had been here recently. She stood up and asked, 'Have you noticed any evidence of intruders recently? Anyone prying back the window coverings or tampering with the locks?'

'No, nothing like that. The place is sealed up pretty tight.'

Maggie nodded. The wind shifted, swirling snow down from the roof of the school and into the debris of the lower level. She smelled the sweet, cold air, but somewhere in the eddy of the breeze, something else came and went. It was so fleeting she wasn't sure if it had really been there, or if her senses had imagined it.

She backed up into the field behind the school and looked at the upper level, which was boarded shut with a wall of plywood covering the rear windows. Nieman eyed her curiously.

'Something wrong?' he asked.

'I'm not sure. Did you smell something?'

He shrugged. 'Lots of dead animals inside. Raccoons. Dogs. Squirrels. Rats. They don't pay me to play animal control officer.'

'Yeah.'

The stench that had flitted through her nostrils was vile and fresh. She stood in the field as the choppy currents of the storm fought with each other, and when the air blew directly toward her across the roof of the school, the smell hit her again. This time, it lingered, and even in the crisp night, it made her pinch her nose shut.

This was no dead squirrel. This was a corpse smell, the kind of revolting gas that a body gives off when it's shut inside with the dead air.

'What the fuck is that?' Maggie asked.

Nieman sniffed the air. 'Shit, you're right. That's new. It wasn't like that over the weekend.'

'Let's go. Somebody's dead in there.'

She led the way this time, back up the hill and around the corner to the front of the school. Four concrete steps led up to a series of steel doors. Here, where the wind didn't reach them, she didn't notice the smell. She felt an urge to hurry, but she knew the urge was irrational. If Nick Garaldo was inside, he wasn't alive.

'Open this up, will you?' she asked.

Nieman hunted for the key to undo the lock that held the chain together on the doors. When he found it, he unlocked the padlock and slid it in his pocket. He let the chain fall on the steps. Maggie pushed past him, swung open the door, and bolted inside. Nieman followed, letting the door swing shut behind him.

She stopped, because she couldn't see. The world turned black.

The smell suffocated her. Locked inside the ruins, the stench multiplied like a runaway strain of bacteria, turning the air rank. It was so sudden and overwhelming that she could barely breathe, and she wanted to bend over and vomit. She clapped her hand over her entire face, trying to keep out the smell, but it wormed inside her anyway.

'Oh my God,' she screamed. 'Turn on your flashlight!'

Nieman didn't answer. Maggie reached out in the dark to make sure he was there, and as she did, she heard her phone ringing in her pocket. She pulled it out and saw on the caller ID that it was Troy Grange.

'Troy—' she began, but then someone slapped the phone from her hand, and she heard it shatter on the concrete floor.

When she tried to shout, the words died in her throat as a steel wire encircled her neck.

Chapter Fifty

Stride and Serena barely spoke on the drive across the empty night highways. He drove fast. They both felt the urgency of time and of not knowing what they would find when they arrived. He concentrated on the road, which was slick with snow, but every now and then he stole a glance across the front seat at Serena. He knew she felt his eyes, but she never looked back. Her face was in dark profile beside him.

'Watch out for deer,' she warned when they entered a long stretch of highway bordered on both sides by thick forest. 'They come out when you least expect it.'

'I know.'

He thought about the advice that Minnesota drivers learned in school. Don't steer for deer. Drive right over them. Kill them. Better them than you, because you're more likely to kill yourself trying to avoid them. He'd hit deer a few times over the years. Each time, he told himself it would be different if he slowed down, if he kept his eyes on the road, if he used his high beams. But it didn't matter. You couldn't stop deer from running, and if they crossed the road at the moment you were there, you were going to have a collision. The best thing to do was come out of it alive.

They come out when you least expect it.

Serena wasn't talking about deer. She was talking about the two of them. Or maybe the three of them. Their collision.

He knew that, at the end of the day, she didn't care about Maggie. Serena had known all along about Maggie's feelings for him, and she had dealt with them for better or worse. What mattered was whether he could walk away from the accident alive. Whether he could walk away and leave Maggie behind. That was what she was waiting for him to say. He didn't know if she could live with the idea of him working side by side with Maggie every day, but the first step was his. He had to tell her. I love you more. I want you to stay.

He thought about Maggie. He could still feel her in his arms. After all their years together, it had been strangely easy to glide across a line from friends to lovers. His feelings for her had become entangled with their history. That was why he couldn't say what Serena wanted. He couldn't lie to her when he didn't know what he felt. By not saying anything, he knew he had told her something she didn't want to hear.

They didn't speak for the rest of the trip. They crossed back into Duluth, and then into the north farmlands, in silence.

Stride parked on the shoulder of the highway, and they both got out of the car. Guppo was parked in a pickup truck on the other side of the road, and he squeezed out of his truck when he saw them. The highway was deserted. Snow whisked across the pavement.

'Do you have the warrant?' Stride asked.

Guppo yanked a folded white paper out of his back pocket. 'Judge Kassel isn't too happy with you. I interrupted her beauty sleep.'

'She's never very happy with me,' Stride said. He looked at the two Duluth patrol cars parked behind Guppo's pickup. 'These guys didn't use sirens on the way in, right?'

'Silent running,' Guppo said.

Stride saw Serena staring at the farmhouse. She was unusually tense, and he didn't know if it was caused by the stress between the two of them or her anxiety over the investigation. He knew without her saying a word that she had become emotionally engaged with Valerie and Callie. It was one more thing they hadn't talked about.

Serena turned to Guppo and asked, 'Have you been up to the house yet?'

'No, I was waiting for the two of you.' He shoved his hands in his pockets and added, 'So how do you guys want to play it?'

'I'm hoping we can do this the easy way,' Stride said. 'Whatever the hell is going on, I don't think anybody wants to get hurt. The biggest risk is someone bolting. Have one of the squad cars block the driveway, and keep your motors running.'

'You want me to go with you?' Guppo asked.

'We'll call you up when we're ready to do the search. But Serena and I want to go first and have a chat. I don't want anyone getting spooked, OK? The key is to do this calm and steady.'

'You got it.'

Guppo sloughed his body toward the patrol cars to give them instructions. Stride and Serena continued across the highway and stood at the base of the driveway. The farmhouse was fifty yards away, sheltered by trees. They could see lights inside.

'Did you call Valerie?' Stride asked.

Serena shook her head. 'We don't know what we're going to find up there. We could be wrong about this.'

'I said we want to do this the easy way, but do you have your gun with you?' he asked.

She looked at him. 'I have it, but do you really think that's necessary?'

'I don't know. I hope not, but they could be desperate.' He added, 'I didn't want to say anything, not until we knew, but this whole thing raises a lot of questions.'

'You mean Regan,' Serena said.

'Not just her.'

Serena thought about it and cursed under her breath. 'My God. Do you really think that's possible?'

'Right now, anything's possible,' Stride said. He heard his phone ringing, and he pulled it out of his pocket. He held it closely against his ear to hear the call over the roaring of the wind. 'This is Stride.'

'Lieutenant, it's Troy Grange calling.'

Stride was surprised. 'Troy, what's going on?'

'I'm sorry to call you so late, but this has been bothering me, and I couldn't sleep.'

'What is it?'

'Maggie stopped by my house earlier this evening. While she was here, she got a call from a security guard who keeps an eye on the Buckthorn School property. You know, it's that ruined building out on Township Road.'

'I know it,' Stride said. 'Was this about Nick Garaldo?'

'Yeah, exactly. The guard told Maggie he found something out there, and he wanted a police escort before he went inside the school. The old building's not too far from me, so Maggie told him she'd meet him there herself.' 'OK.'

'The thing is, I thought about it afterward, and I realized that the guard at the school was the same guy who did the security installation on my house. That was right after the killings began up here.'

'Is that a problem?'

Troy hesitated. 'Oh, hell, I don't know. I just don't like coincidences, you know. And to tell you the truth, I didn't really like the guy. So I called Matt Clayton, the township administrator. He and I play tennis a couple of times a year. I asked Matt what he knew about this security guy, Jim Nieman.'

'What did he say?' Stride asked.

'He said he's never had any complaints. But here's the thing. When I asked if he'd checked references on Nieman, he said he had. Nieman gave him the name of a guy who owns a strip mall in Pueblo.'

'I'm still not following you, Troy.'

'Pueblo's half an hour from Colorado Springs. Maggie told me that the van the killer was using was stolen in Colorado Springs.'

Stride gripped the phone tighter.

'I called Maggie to tell her about it,' Troy continued, 'but just as she answered, the phone cut out. I've tried her several times since then, and there's no answer.'

'I'll check it out, Troy,' Stride told him. 'You did the right thing by calling.'

'Let me know when you talk to her, OK?'

'I will.'

Stride hung up. Serena studied him with her eyebrows arched in a question, but he didn't answer right away. Instead, he dialed Maggie's cell phone and listened. The call went directly into her voicemail.

'Is something wrong?' Serena asked.

He told himself that nothing was wrong, but his gut told him otherwise. Everything was wrong. The cold air wrapped fingers around his neck. His stomach knotted in fear. He didn't hesitate.

'I have to go,' he told her. 'Maggie's in trouble.'

Chapter Fifty-one

Kasey huddled in the darkness. She lay on her stomach, freezing and wet, hidden behind a stack of rotting wooden beams. Her hair fell in limp curls across her face, and she clenched her fists to keep her body from shivering. Cold water dripped from overhead, landing on her back and legs. She could barely feel her feet. She wasn't sure how long she had been hiding, but she knew he was looking for her, and sooner or later he would find her.

The flashlight beam searched the room like a laser. He shot it into corners and crevices, hoping to surprise her. The light lingered over the wall just above her head, and she flattened herself further against the concrete floor and held her breath. Where the beam illuminated the wall, she could see orange rust stains, graffiti spray-painted by vandals, and pockmarks where someone had used the stone for target practice. Five seconds later, the light disappeared, and she was blind again.

He spoke to her out of the darkness. He couldn't have been more than twenty feet away.

'I know you're here, Kasey.'

She waited with a growing desperation for him to search elsewhere in the school, but after a long minute of silence, he switched on the light again. It lit up the floor inches in front of her face, and she shrunk backwards. The concrete was littered with nails and bricks. A foot-long rat froze, staring at her with pink eyes. The animal was inches from her face. Caught in the light, it charged directly at her, and she had to cover her mouth not to scream as its furry body scratched across the skin of her back.

'You can't hide forever, Kasey.' He added, 'Someone's waiting for you.'

Kasey tensed and inched forward. She heard a violent clap and a wince of pain. 'Talk,' he barked.

She heard a new voice.

'Forget about me, Kasey. Save yourself.'

Maggie. It was Maggie's voice. Kasey wanted to pound her fists on the floor. She pushed part of her face past the pile of wooden beams, far enough to see as he shone the light on Maggie's body. She was tied to a chair with her hands behind her back. Her neck was ringed in blood, and Kasey had a flashback of that night in the fog and of Susan Krauss appearing out of nowhere at her car window. Looking just like that, with her throat half cut. Behind Maggie, in the dim glow of the flashlight, she saw the other bodies, posed as if they were decomposing dolls.

She was angry. Angry that God had dropped her in the middle of this, when she wasn't prepared. Angry that God had abandoned her. But maybe this was His revenge. Over the past year, she had stopped believing in God and found herself believing only in despair and betrayal. She had grown bitter at the world. She had simply never imagined that the awful road would lead her here.

'You can't run, Kasey,' he taunted her. 'What do you do now?'

She bit her lip, listening to his slow footsteps as he walked away. The beam of the flashlight shifted, streaming through a gaping hole in the far wall. His back was to her. This was her chance, and she didn't dare wait any longer.

I kill you, she vowed to herself. That's what I do now.

She scrambled to her feet and picked up the heavy metal joist. She held it like a club as she edged around the stack of wooden pilings. She put a foot ahead of her, tested the ground, and laid her heel down without a sound. She kept an eye on the flashlight beam in the corridor as she inched across the floor, but as she watched, it went dark. She froze where she was, feeling exposed. She thought about retreating to her hiding place, but she knew she was close to Maggie. In a voice that was barely audible, she murmured, 'I'm here.'

She heard noises of struggle. The chair to which Maggie was tied rocked loudly on the floor, and she heard Maggie grunting with effort as she strained against her bonds. Trying to free herself.

She took another step and spoke again in a soft hiss. 'Maggie.'

This time, Maggie whispered back immediately. 'Get out of here, Kasey.'

It was too late to run. Light flooded the room and pinned Kasey like a convict in a searchlight. She still had the metal joist poised over her head, but he was in the doorway, twenty feet away, too far for her to charge him. Behind the light, he was in silhouette, but she could see that he held Maggie's gun, pointed at her chest. He walked closer, stepping over dirty glass, and stopped six feet away from her. The gun was outstretched in his left hand.

Kasey's back stiffened in defiance. 'You better shoot. That's the only way you're getting close to me again.'

'That's not how this goes down, Kasey,' he said. 'You know what I want you to do.'

'Fuck you, you sick bastard.'

'I want to see you kill her,' he said.

'You're crazy.'

'Take the joist, and crush her skull.'

'I won't do it.'

'Yes, you will. You'll do whatever it takes to save yourself.'

'You don't know me.'

'I know you better than anyone,' he said. 'You're just like me.'

'I'm not like you,' Kasey snapped, breathing harder, watching him.

'We both know you are. Kill her.'

'I'll kill you instead,' Kasey swore, raising the joist higher over her head and clutching it tightly with her hand.

'Don't be stupid.'

'I don't care what happens to me any more.'

'Yes, you do. You know the stakes, Kasey. You know what happens if you fail the test.'

'Leave my family alone. They're not part of this.'

'You weren't a part of my game, but you put yourself in the middle of it. You can't stop playing now.'

'You are done,' she shouted, taking a step toward him. 'You are dead:

He read the violence in her face. 'It's a powerful feeling, isn't it? To hate so much you want to kill. That's when you know you're really alive.' 'This ends right now,' she said.

'I'll sweeten the deal for you, Kasey. Kill her, and I'll let you go.'

'What?'

'I'll let you go,' he told her. 'Game over.'

'You're a fucking liar.'

'I'm not lying.'

The joist felt slippery in Kasey's hand. 'You'll never let me go. I've seen you.'

'But you're not going to turn me in, are you? You wouldn't take that chance. Come on, Kasey, what's another death on your conscience? I'm giving you a chance to walk away.'

'Kasey.' It was Maggie's voice, interrupting him sharply. 'Kasey, look at me. Don't listen to him. Don't believe him.'

Maggie's eyes were calm and focused, as if she were talking Kasey down off a high ledge.

'This guy is pathetic,' Maggie went on, her voice growing loud and sarcastic. 'He's a joke. Look at him. Acne Face here probably had dates laughing at him in high school, and now he's taking it out on women everywhere. Or maybe Mommy liked to dress him up in her lingerie. Which was it, Nie-Man? Nie-Man, isn't that like German for "not a man"? Wow, the shrinks'll have a field day with that one.'

'Maggie,' Kasey murmured.

Nieman didn't move or say a word, but Kasey saw his muscles quiver as his body knotted up in rage. His smile froze on his face and turned ugly.

'So what's your story, Nie-Man?' Maggie asked. 'What turned you into such a miserable excuse for a human life, huh? Did Aunt Penny like to take you into the closet when you were a boy and play with your little wee-wee? Did you grow up on a farm and spend too much time fucking the pigs and goats?'

Nieman's eyes never left Kasey's face. 'Kill her, Kasey,' he said calmly. 'Kill her right now, and you are free.'

'The whole school thing, what's that about?' Maggie persisted, buzzing around his brain like a mosquito. 'Was it a teacher? Did one of your teachers introduce your ass to the end of a broom handle? Or was it the other kids? Did they make the girls watch? Did they laugh at you? Poor, pitiful little Nie-Man.'

'Kill her, Kasey,' he growled. 'Do it right now, or I'll torture both of you in ways you can't even imagine. Do you hear me? Do you think I won't do it?'

Kasey recoiled as he shouted at her, but she understood. Maggie was trying to give her a split second to get to him. One moment of distraction. One chance to attack. And it was working.

'So what's the deal? Are you just an impotent piece of shit, Nie-Man? Can't get your tiny noodle off your balls? You blame women because all you've got is a floppy inch of licorice between your legs? Maybe next time you should pick a name like Harry No-Dick, huh? That's a good name for you.'

Kasey could see it in his eyes. So could Maggie. She had scored a direct hit. Nieman blinked faster, and his blood rage bubbled toward a boil.

'Drop your pants, No-Dick. Go on, do it. Give us a last laugh.'

'Shut the fuck up! Shut up! Shut up!'

Nieman stormed toward Maggie with his right hand clenched into a fist and his arm cocked for a back-handed blow across her face. The barrel of the gun followed his body. His head turned. One split second.

Kasey leaped. He wrenched back and fired as he saw her coming, but he wasn't fast enough. The gun went off with a flash and roar, burning past her ear, and before he could fire again, she hurtled the joist down on to his wrist. The heft of the metal snapped the joint with a loud crack. He howled in agony, and the gun tumbled to the floor.

Kasey reared back to swing again, aiming at his head this time, but he grabbed her shoulders and toppled them both off their feet. They landed hard amid the glass and debris. The flashlight spun away but stayed lit, casting a tunnel of light across their bodies. Before she could twist free, she felt him on top of her, leaning into her throat with his thick forearm. He loomed above her, his eyes black and intense. Seeing his eyes, she took her index finger and jabbed a sharp nail directly into the moist center of his pupil. He screamed, loosening his grip and covering his face with his hand. She hammered a fist into the center of his throat, and then again, slamming the side of his head and rolling him off her.

In the triangle of light, she saw the gun among the rubble on the floor and threw herself toward it. He kicked as he felt her move, and his boot connected with her skull, dizzying her and spinning her on to her back. He jumped and landed on her chest and drove the side of her head into the floor, where the broken glass sliced her cheek and lips. Before he could grab her skull again, she clutched his other hand and twisted his broken wrist. He let go with a screech of pain, and she wriggled backwards.

Her hands scrabbled on the floor for the gun but couldn't find it. He crawled toward her, and she skittered away from him, bumping against something cold and wet. She wrapped her hand around it, and her fingers sank into dead, decaying flesh. She was among the bodies, drowning in the smell. She kept backing up, using the row of corpses to block him from her, but he came forward, climbing from his knees, towering above her. His right eye was squeezed shut. His left hand dangled at an odd angle. But he was standing, and she was on her back.

Kasey reached the wall and couldn't go any further. He threw aside the chairs, grotesquely tumbling two bodies to the ground and scattering rats. Their eyes met. He smiled and came for her. As he landed, his body crushed her with his weight, forcing the air from her chest in a rush. His good hand locked around her throat like the jaws of a dog and choked off her windpipe. Kasey clawed at his fingers and pummeled his head and body with her fists, but he hung on.

Blood pounded in her ears. Her open mouth sucked for air and found none. She pawed the ground, hunting for a weapon. When she found a shard of glass, she scored his skin in streaks, but the blood and pain didn't dislodge him. His hand was a clamp, crushing the cartilage of her neck.

'You lose, Kasey,' he hissed.

Maggie screamed at her. 'On your left! Kasey, on your left!'

Her left arm swept the floor in a twitching, up-and-down motion. Blood vessels popped like firecrackers on her face.

'Higher!'

Kasey reached backward until her shoulder almost separated. That was when she felt it. Her fingers closed over a jagged block of heavy concrete. She clutched the stone like a baseball and hefted it off the floor. Her arms swayed with the weight, and she nearly lost her grip.

'Yes! Do it! Hit him!'

She took an unwieldy swing and missed. Her fingers grew numb. The brick tottered in her hand. Drunkenly, she swung again, down into the back of his head, and this time she heard the block land with a fierce, satisfying crack as it broke bone.

His hand loosened from her throat. She felt him crumple and become dead weight, unconscious as he lay on her body. Lines of blood trickled through his hair and on to her face. With a heavy thrust, she flipped his body over and staggered to her feet. The world spun. She coughed, gasping for air.

'Kasey!' Maggie shouted. 'Are you OK?'

Kasey stumbled toward the flashlight. She bent down and picked it up, and the beam of light danced crazily in her hand as she steadied herself. She scanned the floor and located Maggie's gun, and she retrieved it and held it tightly in her other hand. She took a tentative step toward the wall and cast the light down on his body.

'Is he dead?' Maggie asked.

Kasey watched Nieman in the light. A dark pool grew under his skull, but she could see his chest rise and fall. She hadn't hit him hard enough to kill him. The nightmare wasn't over yet. He groaned, and his limbs moved. Blood bubbled from his mouth. His eyes fluttered as he began to wake up.

'Quick, help me get free,' Maggie urged her.

Kasey stood frozen. She couldn't move. She stared at him as he slowly regained consciousness. Her own blood ran in streams down her neck. Beside him, sprawled on the floor; she saw the blue skin of one of the women he had killed, and something wriggled in the wound on her neck. Maggots.

'Kasey.' Maggie said, her voice a warning.

His eyes opened. That was what she was waiting for. They opened just enough for him to see her standing over him. For him to realize she was there and for her face to penetrate his mind.

He saw the gun in her hand. He knew what she was going to do. And why.

'You're a killer, Kasey,' he breathed, his lips folding into a broken smile. 'Just like me.'

She nodded. 'You're right.'

Kasey lifted the gun and fired a single shot into his brain.

Chapter Fifty-two

Serena left tracks in the snow with her boots as she marched up the driveway. The farmhouse was ablaze with light, and through the windows, she saw the shadow of someone moving on the second floor. As she got closer, she found the front door wide open. A moving truck was parked outside, its engine running. Behind the truck, hooked for towing, she saw an old Ford Escort.

It was the car she had seen at Regan Conrad's house, the car that had vanished while she was inside.

Everything made sense, but she wished it didn't.

Serena was conscious of her gun hidden in her shoulder holster under her jacket, but she left it where it was. At the threshold, she hesitated. The house was mostly stripped, but she saw an old television in the family room, tuned to the local network. She heard the breathless voice of Blair Rowe and saw the crawl for breaking news scroll across the bottom of the screen.

POLICE RECOVER CHILD'S BODY NEAR CEMETERY.

The news explained the frantic rush to escape. They knew about the search. They knew what the police were going to find in the woods. After that, it wouldn't be long before someone wound up at their doorstep.

Serena walked silently into the house. The main floor was empty, but upstairs she heard heavy, panicked footsteps in the hallway. As she watched, a burly, bearded man thundered down the stairs and froze in horrified surprise when he saw Serena.

Her heart lurched. The man carried a baby wrapped in a blanket in his arms. She couldn't see the baby's face, which was covered by a hood, but she knew who it was. She had suspected all along what she would find inside the house, even though she hadn't allowed herself to believe it could end this way. The baby's hand reached up out of the folds of the blanket and tugged at the man's beard. The hood slipped off her head, and Serena saw her blonde curls. Her beautiful face with its wide eyes and toothy grin. Valerie's child.

It was Callie Glenn. Alive. Safe.

Serena put up her hands to steady him. 'Stay right there, OK? Let's be calm about this. No one wants anyone getting hurt.'

He didn't move. He didn't say anything.

'Where's Kasey?' Serena asked Bruce Kennedy.

Bruce wilted on to the steps. His head burrowed into his thick neck. 'She's out.'

'Did you two really think you could get away with this?'

Bruce put out a thick finger, and Callie grabbed it and put it in her mouth. His eyes welled with tears. 'I don't know what I was thinking. You have to believe me, I never thought any of it would go this far. But when I saw the news, I knew you'd be coming for us. I knew you'd want to take her back.'

Serena gestured toward the sofa. 'Why don't you come downstairs, Bruce? Tell me about it. Tell me why you and Kasey did this.'

Bruce held Callie like a treasure as he came downstairs. She was a tiny bundle in his huge arms. His eyes shot to the open door behind Serena, and she shook her head.

'Please don't try that,' she told him. 'There are police outside. All you would do by running is put her in danger.'

'I'd never do that.'

He sat on a corner of the sofa, and Serena sat opposite him. She couldn't take her eyes off Callie. The little girl was even more beautiful than she had dreamed. All she had seen until now was a photograph, and for days she had steeled herself to the eventual reality of finding her dead. Or never finding her at all. And here she was, perfect and gorgeous. She wanted to take her in her arms and never let go. She was so happy that she thought her heart would break, and she realized that she was crying herself. The reality of seeing Callie hit her harder than she could ever have imagined.

'Isn't she wonderful?' Bruce said.

Serena nodded mutely. She couldn't speak.

'You can't take her away from us,' he said.

'Tell me what happened,' Serena told him, her voice cracking. 'For God's sake, why would you two do something like this?'

Bruce sank back into the sofa with Callie on his chest. 'Our own little boy never had a chance.'

'Your son? He was the baby we found in the woods?'

'Yes.'

'What was wrong?'

'Jack's lungs didn't develop properly.' Bruce shook his head. 'That poor little boy, he would turn blue fighting for breath. As he grew, he struggled more and more.'

'Did you take him to the doctor?' Serena asked.

'Of course we did. They ran tests and scans and put him through hell and all they could say was the defects were too severe. Surgery would have killed him, and he was going to die without it. It was just a matter of time. We didn't want him to die in a hospital. We wanted him home with us. At least we could make him comfortable as long as we could.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Kasey was so depressed. She never slept. She would have killed herself to make that baby healthy, and she thought it was her fault that we were losing him.'

'You're talking about severe congenital defects. It's nobody's fault.'

'I know, but Kasey thought God had abandoned us. She was desperate.'

Serena watched the frantic longing in Bruce's face. She could imagine their minds fraying after months of their child slowly getting worse. 'What about Callie?' she asked.

Bruce stared at the girl in his arms. 'Regan put the idea in Kasey's head. She was our nurse at the hospital. She helped us all year. She came by our house every day. I don't think Kasey would have survived without her.'

'What did she tell you?'

'Jack was dying,' he said with a sigh. 'There was nothing we could do. Regan told us how unfair it was and how we'd been cheated.

She said we deserved to have a baby. She told us about Marcus Glenn and how he didn't love Callie because she wasn't his, and how he and his wife were both cheating on each other, and how awful it would be for a baby to grow up in that household. She said it was like God had made a mistake that night and switched the babies. That's what it was — a mistake. They had a wonderful, healthy little girl, and we were forced to live through the agony of watching our sweet little boy fighting and fighting and not making it. Don't you see? It wasn't supposed to be that way.'

Serena grew angry, imagining Regan preying on their vulnerable souls, using them as pawns in her own game of revenge against Marcus and Valerie Glenn. 'What happened?' she asked.

'Jack finally passed away last week,' Bruce said. 'We lost him.'

'What did you do?'

'I thought, if it really was God's mistake, I could put it right, you know? So I had the idea that I should bury him with the Glenn family. I wanted him to be protected. Taken care of. I took him with me that night and I buried him near the cemetery. He was finally at peace. He was where he was meant to be all along.'

Serena closed her eyes. 'What about Kasey?'

'Kasey went to get Callie,' Bruce said. 'Regan told us it was the only way. She offered to help us — she had a key to the doctor's house. She said we had to go rescue her.'

Serena stared at Callie in Bruce's arms. The little girl knew none of the heartache around her. None of the sorrow and desperation that had become focused on her.

'Bruce, may I hold her?'

She waited, holding her breath, to see what he would do. To see if he could give her up and let her out of his hands. Somewhere in his mind, he had to know that he would never get her back. She would never be in his arms again. She was someone else's child. Their child was in the ground.

Bruce sobbed. He laid a soft hand on the girl's curls. 'I can't lose another baby,' he murmured.

'I understand. Just let me hold her for a while.'

Give her to me. Let her go back home to her real parents. Grieve for your son.

Bruce held up Callie in his outstretched arms. She giggled as he held her. His mouth contorted in an awful, wounded frown, even as he tried to smile for the girl's benefit. Serena got up and reached out her hands. Her fingers touched the child's blanket, and her hands took hold of her soft sides. For an instant, Bruce didn't let go. He clung to Callie, as if the moment of parting were too painful to bear. Then, with gentle pressure, Serena took the girl into her own arms and folded her up against her chest.

Bruce watched the two of them sit down and then buried his face in his hands. He was grieving for both babies now. One dead, one alive, but both of them out of his life. Serena knew he loved Callie, even if she wasn't his own.

'Tell me what happened that night, Bruce. What did Kasey do?'

'She drove to Grand Rapids. She went inside the doctor's house. She got Callie.'

'And then?'

'And then she got lost in the fog.'

Chapter Fifty-three

'Are you crazy?' Maggie screamed. 'Kasey, what did you do?'

The gun smoked in Kasey's hand. The burnt powder briefly rose above the stench of the dead. She watched him lying there with the gray tissue of his brain blown against the wall behind him. Bloody, dazed, she found a concrete pillar and slid down to the floor, laying the gun beside her. She turned the flashlight toward Maggie's face.

'He knew,' she told Maggie.

'What are you talking about?'

'He knew about Callie.'

Maggie stared at her, and her mouth fell open. The confusion in her eyes became something else. Recognition. Horror. Anger. Kasey felt Maggie judging her, and she hated it, because she liked Maggie. She had never wanted it to end this way. All she had wanted to do was drive away to the desert with her husband and her daughter.

'Why?' Maggie asked.

Kasey shrugged. 'God took away my son for no good reason. He just let him die. I didn't deserve to lose my baby like that. There was no reason I got a sick baby, and Valerie Glenn got a beautiful, healthy baby. I decided that I wasn't going to live with it.'

It was a relief to say it out loud. To tell someone the truth. She had accepted what she was doing, accepted who she was. She had made up her mind that she would do whatever it took to erase the previous year and all the hell and suffering she had gone through. She had faced the truth about herself that night in the fog, and once you choose to cross the line, you can't go back.

Maggie understood. She was smart. 'Susan Krauss,' she said quietly. 'What really happened?'

'Callie was in the back seat of my car that night,' Kasey explained. 'I was almost home. Can you believe it? I was a mile from home when I got lost. And suddenly there I was in the woods, and Susan Krauss was bleeding outside my car. She saw Callie. It's not like I could let her go. I had to go after her. And after him, too.'

'Nieman didn't kill her.'

Kasey shook her head. 'No, she was still alive when he ran for the highway. He dropped the garrote. She was barely breathing. I went over to her, and I thought, I can save her. That's what I should do. But then she would see the pictures of Callie on TV, and she'd know what I'd done. After all that sacrifice, I couldn't let that happen. I figured that this woman was almost dead anyway, and he'd be blamed for it. So I took the garrote, and I finished the job.'

Maggie struggled against the bonds that held her to the wooden chair. 'My God, Kasey.'

'I know. I've disappointed you. I'm sorry.'

'Nieman knew you'd killed that woman, not him. That's why he was hunting you.'

'Yeah. He knew I was a bad girl. What can I say?'

The light on the flashlight dimmed. Kasey jiggled it, and the brightness came back. Her head snapped round as she heard a noise beyond the crumbling walls of the classroom. She waited, but nothing moved.

Except the ghosts. There were plenty of ghosts here to haunt her.

Kasey stared at the bodies near the wall and their lifeless eyes. Every night, Susan Krauss had visited her in her dreams with those same dead eyes. She had stood over her in the field behind the dairy, and her eyes had pleaded for help. For rescue. She had looked at her as if Kasey had brought her salvation. And then the look had turned to panic and disbelief as Kasey tightened the wire around her neck.

Once you cross the line, you can't go back.

'What about Regan Conrad?' Maggie asked.

Kasey's face flushed with anger. 'Regan and I planned the whole thing, but she couldn't keep her mouth shut. I realized she had lied to me all along. This wasn't about me and my baby. It was about her hating the Glenns. She started taunting Valerie, and I knew she would ruin everything. Serena told us that night at dinner that she was getting a search warrant. If she did, she'd find records about me and Regan and our son. So I had to take care of Regan first. I pulled my file so no one would find it. I assumed Nieman would get the blame for that murder, too, but I never thought he'd be watching me. He must have seen me go in, and then he stole the body. To drive me crazy.'

Maggie stared at her as if she were seeing her for the first time. 'Kasey, what happened to you?'

Kasey eyed her with regret. Her heart hardened, the way it had time after time in the past year. 'Just imagine watching your little boy slowly waste away. Day after day, night after night, and all he does is get worse, and there's nothing you can do. You just have to watch him die. And you're alone. No God. No mercy. All you can do is blame yourself and tell yourself what a worthless excuse for a mother you are. You try living through eleven months of hell…' she began to shout, 'and then you tell me why Valerie Glenn should have Callie, and I should have fucking nothing nothing nothing.'

She slammed her fist repeatedly on the concrete. The rats scampered in fear. She breathed hard in the aftermath, and the room was silent except for the sound of her breath and the ceaseless dripping of water overhead.

Then, in another room, she thought she heard a noise again. Her eyes narrowed. Her imagination ran wild.

'I'm sorry,' Maggie murmured.

Kasey shrugged. She was anxious to get away from this place. 'Don't patronize me.'

'What happens now?'

'You know what I have to do. I wish there was another way. I've gone too far to go back now.'

'You can't expect to escape. They'll figure it out. They'll find out about Callie and about everything else.'

'It's too late now,' Kasey told her. 'Believe me, I never wanted you in the middle of this. It was between me and him. But now I have no choice.'

'Kasey, you're not like him. If you kill me, you're no better than he was.'

'You're right. I'm not.'

Kasey picked up the gun, which was still warm. Tiredly, she pushed herself to her feet against the concrete pillar. She jiggled the flashlight again and watched the beam flicker. She went over to Nieman's body and dug a hand in his pocket and found his keys. Her escape route. When she turned back to Maggie, her hand trembled. She knew what she had to do, but she didn't want to do it. She was in a corner with nowhere to go. In the last week, she had killed three times. This was just one more murder. The last. And then she was finally free.

Six feet away, Maggie struggled, squirming to get free. 'Don't do this,' she told her. 'Kasey, I know you, this is not who you are. Don't do this.'

Kasey realized that no one knew who she really was. Not Bruce. Not Regan. Not Maggie. The man on the floor, the man who had chased her, the man she had killed, had boasted that he understood her. He had claimed to be able to see into her head. Claimed that they were kindred spirits. The terrible irony was that he was right. In the end, he had known her better than anyone.

'I'm sorry,' she said.

She raised the gun and pointed it at Maggie's head. She took a step closer.

Then she froze. The noise was real and unmistakable this time, not the product of her wild fear. She heard the echo of footsteps on glass, getting closer. Someone else was in the building.

'Stop,' said a voice from the darkness across the ruined space.

Chapter Fifty-four

Serena's Mustang was a cocoon of perfect silence. Just her and Callie. In the mirror, she could see the little girl sleeping in the car seat she had taken from Bruce Kennedy's Escort. She slept the way an angel sleeps, in peace and innocence, unaware of anything that had happened to her. That was the bliss of being so young. She would never remember Kasey lifting her out of her crib or getting lost in the fog, never remember being left alone in the back of the car as Kasey chased Susan Krauss through the woods. She would never remember the days spent in a strange house. In her sleep, she had probably already forgotten and was dreaming of being back home in Valerie's arms.

That was the sad part of being so young. She wouldn't remember her mother's tears of joy at their reunion. The cry of relief and exultation. The never-ending embrace. She would never know that she had once been gone, and now she was back.

Serena drove slowly. She told herself that the roads were lonely and dark in the middle of the night, and she didn't want to take any risk in the snow. It was too easy to hit a deer. Too easy to skid off the road. The reality was that she didn't want the drive to end. For one hour, Callie was totally within her care, almost as if she were her own, and she realized that Valerie had been right all along. Without kids, Serena couldn't understand the desperation of loss or the depth of responsibility. Now, for a brief moment, she did understand. She would have thrown herself in front of a bullet for Callie.

She wished she could hold this moment in a kind of suspended animation, until she passed the responsibility for the little girl back to Valerie. Tomorrow would be different, when the press surrounded the house, and photographers shot pictures for magazine covers, and champagne flowed in the war room in Grand Rapids. Tomorrow would be filled with noise and elation.

Tomorrow would be her first day to confront the new world. Her own new world. Alone.

Tonight was for her and Callie.

'You can read all about it when you're older,' she told Callie, who slept calmly and didn't hear a word.

She wondered at what age a girl would want to learn more about being kidnapped as a child. Fifteen? Eighteen? Maybe never. Maybe Valerie would try to keep it a secret, but Serena knew there were no secrets about that kind of experience. It would seep into Callie's consciousness as she grew older, something people talked about but that she didn't understand, something that made her different. Someday she'd want to know more.

It wouldn't be easy. It wouldn't be happy. The ending was happy, but everything else about the time in between would have been better kept as secrets. When do you choose to read that the father you lived with was the principal suspect in your disappearance, a man that everyone in the world assumed had murdered you and buried your body? When do you want to read about him wishing you had never been born?

When does your mother tell you that this man was not your father at all? When do you begin to think you're alive not because of love, but because your mother was so lonely she turned to comfort with another man? When do you realize that no one is innocent and understand what betrayal is all about?

Not now. Not for a long time.

'I hope you never blame yourself,' Serena told Callie in the back seat. 'I know it's easy to do. The mind is a funny thing. Something happens and you have no control over it all, and somehow you still think it's your fault.' She smiled as she looked in the mirror and added, 'If you ever feel that way, call me, OK? I'll come back and talk to you. I'll tell you how you rescued your mother long before she ever rescued you.'

She passed the turn-off that led through the dirt roads to the

Sago Cemetery, and she shivered. That was how fate worked. Two children were born on the same night; one lived, one died. It wasn't fair.

'You're almost home, Callie,' she said.

The last miles melted away, disappearing with the hypnotic throb of the engine. The forest thinned, and she drove closer to civilization again. Buildings appeared. Dark houses hugged the highway. It was two in the morning as she wound through the downtown streets, which were as vacant and artificial as a movie set. The silence followed her across the last bridge over the water.

Then, behind her, the noisy whine of a police siren shattered the peace. Red lights swirled and grew large in her mirror, and a Sheriff's vehicle sped past her. The car turned where she was about to turn, on the road that led to Valerie's house.

Serena didn't need to be told. She realized with despair where it was going.

'Oh, no,' she said.

Stride watched Kasey's flashlight swivel in his direction and capture him where he stood amid the rubble and hanging wires of a jagged gap in the wall. He held his gun with both hands. Kasey's head turned, and she saw him, but she didn't lower her gun. She aimed it at Maggie at point-blank range.

'It's over,' he warned her.

Her face was covered with blood and dirt. Her ripped shirt hung open, exposing the swell of her breasts. Her red hair was matted down. The gun quivered in her outstretched arms. He held her stare and didn't like what he saw in her eyes. Behind the exhaustion and panic, she was obsessed. Desperate to escape.

'Put the gun down right now,' he said.

Kasey's lower lip trembled. Her chest heaved as she hyperventilated. The cage she had built began to close in around her.

'Kasey, I'm not alone. Do you understand me? Cops are coming. There is no way out. Are you listening? No way out. Just put the gun down, so no one else gets hurt.'

His eyes flicked to Maggie. She was pale, and her neck was bleeding. She showed no fear with the barrel of a gun inches from her face.

Instead, when she saw him watching her, she mouthed two words back to him.

I'm OK.

But she wasn't. Kasey's finger was still curled round the trigger.

'We know about Callie,' Stride said. 'Listen to me, Kasey, it's over. The police are at your house right now. Callie's going home to her parents. Nothing you do here is going to change that.'

'You're taking Callie?' Kasey murmured. Her voice sounded like a lost little girl.

'I'm sorry.'

'You can't take her away from me.'

'The secret is out, Kasey. Everyone knows the truth. It's time to get help.'

Hopelessness and horror washed across Kasey's face. 'My God, it was all for nothing.'

He watched the gun. He watched her finger. Neither moved. 'I need you to put the gun down now.'

'Nothing,' she repeated. 'It was all for nothing.'

'Kasey, do what he says,' Maggie instructed her sternly. 'Put the gun down.'

Kasey's wide eyes turned toward Maggie again. 'I'm sorry. I can't. I need to get out of here.'

Maggie's voice softened. 'Listen to me, Kasey. I understand. I've had miscarriages, and I blamed myself. I went crazy. I did things I'll always regret. I know how it must have been for you. You loved your boy, and there was nothing you could do for him. That's the worst pain a woman can endure. It's worse than dying yourself. But this isn't the answer. You know that.'

Kasey's elbow sagged downward. The barrel of the gun tilted toward the blasted foam tiles in the ceiling. Her whole body caved in on itself. Stride took a step closer, with both hands still tightly wrapped around the butt of his gun.

'That's good, Kasey, now bend down and lay it on the floor, and put your hands on the top of your head.'

Kasey stared at him with those same wounded eyes, putting him off guard. She knelt to the floor. He began to relax, but then he realized that her hand was still locked fiercely around the gun. Her grip hadn't changed. She hadn't taken her finger off the trigger. He looked into her eyes and realized that her submissiveness was a ruse.

She wasn't giving up.

Maggie saw it too. 'Stride,' she warned him, her voice urgent, but he reacted too slowly.

Kasey's finger moved, not on her gun hand, but on her other hand. She switched off her flashlight, throwing the ruins into blackness again. Stride knew what was coming next. He threw himself sideways as fire flashed from Kasey's gun. Something hot burned through the skin of his neck, and he felt warm blood running on his skin and soaking into his shirt. He hit the ground and spun, rolling through sharp glass and a mountain of fallen stone.

More bullets exploded, pounding the floor and walls around him, ricocheting madly. Dust and flakes of concrete fell in a cloud over his face. He kept rolling until his body collided with a concrete pillar, and then he slid behind it and pushed himself up into a crouch. He peered around the beam, but he couldn't see or hear anything in a room filled with blackness and silence. The air around him was choked with smoke.

Twenty feet away, Kasey's flashlight flicked on again, but before he could aim and fire, the light switched off. He heard her footsteps in the aftermath, running, getting further away. The light went on and off again in a split second in a room beyond the far wall, as she used it to guide her.

'Mags,' Stride hissed.

'Over here.'

He followed the sound of her voice, leading the way with his hands. He kicked through a jumble of metal spikes and ducked as the noise clanged through the open space, but no one fired at him. He could still hear Kasey stumbling through another room, looking for a way out.

'Stride,' Maggie whispered. He felt along the chair to find where she was tied.

'Are you OK?' he asked.

'I'm alive.'

He clawed at the tape with his fingers but couldn't unwrap it. He felt on the floor and found a sharp piece of glass and used it to tear a cut in the tape that he peeled open, ripping it quickly off her skin. Maggie gave a strangled cry. He used the glass to free her other hand and then her feet.

'Don't stand up too fast,' he whispered, but she didn't listen. She bolted off the chair, then wobbled and fell backward. She toppled against him, and he caught her in his arms. The chair overturned. Her hands wrapped around his neck and got lost in the blood flowing from the open wound.

'Fuck, you're hurt,' she said.

'It seared me. It burns like hell, but I'm OK.'

A cone of light stabbed through the corridor opposite them, throwing shadows past the concrete towers. For the first time, Stride caught a glimpse of the bodies hidden in the school, and he swore. Maggie gestured at the nearest body on the floor — a large man with a bullet hole in the center of his forehead.

'That's our guy. The farmland killer. Kasey shot him.'

Stride nodded. In a distant corner of the school, at the source of the light, they heard Kasey hammering against the plywood boards nailed over the windows. Explosions rattled between the walls as she fired twice more. Wood splintered and broke. They saw smoke in the beam of light. After a pause, they heard the impact as Kasey threw her entire body against the wooden barrier.

The plywood tore away with a scream. They felt the air pressure change as a gap opened in the school wall. The light vanished.

'She's out,' Maggie said.

Stride put an arm around her waist to steady her. 'We have to get out of here,' he said. 'The first thing she'll do is go after Callie.'

Chapter Fifty-five

'Valerie's disappeared,' Denise told Serena.

'Disappeared? What happened?'

Serena didn't get an answer. Denise looked over her shoulder to where Callie slept in the back seat. The mask of the tough cop on Denise's face melted away. Serena heard Denise catch her breath and watched her cover her face with cupped hands as if she was praying. Denise opened the back door and gently undid the straps of the car seat. She lifted Callie like fragile china into her arms. The little girl didn't wake up.

'Oh, my God,' Denise murmured. 'Oh, baby, I never thought I'd see you again.'

She wrapped her niece in a bear hug and buried her face in the girl's mop of curly hair. For a moment, nothing else mattered. There was no infidelity. No anger. No complicated life. There was only jubilation.

'I didn't have any hope,' she said. 'We always tell the families not to give up, but I didn't believe it. I thought she was gone. God forgive me, I should have had faith.'

Serena got out of the car. 'Denise, what about Valerie?'

'She left a note,' Denise said. The relief on her face disappeared, and her eyes turned grim with worry. 'Marcus found it and called the police.'

'A note?'

Denise nodded. 'It's pretty clear what she was going to do.'

'Oh, damn it, no, not now!' Serena exclaimed. 'When was this?' 'The cop on the street saw her leave about two hours ago.'

'He didn't report it?'

'We were watching Marcus, not Valerie. We haven't been following her. When Marcus called, I scrambled units all over town to look for her car. Nobody's spotted her yet.' She added, 'Come on, let's get Callie out of the cold.'

Denise carried the girl up the driveway. A police officer at the front door let them inside. They followed the hallway to the kitchen at the rear of the house, where they found Marcus sitting at the island with a mug of coffee. He wore a chocolate-brown silk bathrobe and slippers and had half-glasses pushed down his nose. He was reading an online medical journal on a laptop in front of him.

Marcus saw Callie in Denise's arms. He'd known for an hour that she was coming home, but it was one thing to know it and another to see her alive. Serena watched him and tried to decipher the changing emotions on his face. He stripped off his glasses. His mouth tightened, and he blinked faster. A smile flickered on his lips, like a flame that couldn't quite catch.

Denise made no effort to hand Callie to Marcus or to hide her hostility. She stared at her brother-in-law, her eyes fierce.

'May I hold her?' he asked finally.

Denise clung to Callie and didn't move. 'She's not yours, is she?'

'Do you think that matters right now? Do you think I care about that?'

'I think the only person you care about is yourself.'

'You're wrong. You've always been wrong about me.'

Serena murmured under her breath, 'Come on, Denise.'

With her jaw clenched, Denise took a step closer and eased the girl away from her shoulder. Marcus put his coffee down and climbed out of his chair. He reached out his arms, and Denise passed Callie to him with obvious reluctance. The girl stirred and made a noise but didn't wake up.

Marcus held Callie against his chest. She looked small in his big hands. He sat down again.

'Well?' he said to Denise.

'Well what?'

'Don't you have something to say to me?'

'You don't want to hear what I have to say, Marcus.'

'I was expecting an apology,' he told her.

'Excuse me?'

'An apology,' he repeated, his voice hushed, but his tone harsh and bitter. 'For the last week, I've seen my name trampled through the mud and rumors flung around town about me. People calling me a murderer. Friends not returning my calls. Patients dropping my services. My marriage in ruins, my private life put on display for the world. I know where it all started, Denise. It started with you. Well, guess what, the truth is exactly what I said it was all along. I had nothing to do with any of this. And I think the least you can do is have the decency to tell me you're sorry.'

'Sorry?' Denise put her hands on her hips. 'Sorry? You caused this, Marcus. You let it happen. You and your little psycho bedmate, Regan Conrad. Yeah, I'm sorry. Sorry Valerie ever laid eyes on you. Sorry you're such an arrogant bastard. Maybe instead of feeling pity for yourself you could thank God for the people who brought this little girl back home safely. And maybe you could shed a tear and pretend to show an ounce of concern as we try to find your wife.'

She stalked from the room with heavy footsteps. The noise made Callie stir, and her eyes blinked open before shutting again. Marcus scowled as his eyes followed Denise, but then he scrubbed the anger from his face and nodded at Serena.

'I am grateful for everything you did,' he told her. 'Don't misunderstand. I'm just furious at how I've been treated.'

'I do know how you feel,' Serena replied. 'Innocent people often wind up destroyed by these crimes. I won't pretend it's fair.' She added, 'Do you have Valerie's note? May I see it?'

He gestured at a three-by-five card on the kitchen counter. 'It was taped to the mirror in our bathroom. I saw it when I got up overnight.'

Serena read the note, which said: Now we're both free. She tried to reconstruct Valerie's fragile state of mind, and the implications scared her.

'Did anything happen between the two of you this evening?' she asked. 'A fight.'

'About Callie?'

'Yes.'

'Do you think she would harm herself?'

'I don't know,' Marcus said. 'She was poisoned by all the rumors against me. She was in despair of ever seeing Callie again. I think she was capable of anything.'

'If she turns on her phone, or turns on the radio, she'll know Callie is safe.'

'Yes, if it's not too late,' he said. He glanced down at the sleeping child and added, 'I should put Callie to bed now.'

'Did Denise tell you about the woman who took her?' Serena asked. 'Kasey Kennedy?'

'I hear she's still at large.'

'That's right, and we don't know what she's going to do. With your permission, we'll keep police officers around the house. I'd also like to have a policewoman stay inside in the nursery with Callie.'

'Fine, but you don't really think this woman is foolish enough to try this again, do you?'

'She's desperate and unstable. Until we find her, I think we need to take every precaution. It might be better for you to take Callie somewhere else for a few days, with police protection. Your house is an obvious target.'

He shook his head. 'I won't be driven out of my home.'

'I understand.'

They both looked up as Denise Sheridan reappeared in the doorway of the kitchen. Her face was stricken, and her voice caught in her throat.

'Someone spotted Valerie's car by the river near the radio station,' she said. 'It's empty.'

Valerie sat on the wet ground with her arms wrapped around her knees. In front of her, the dark water of the Mississippi was crusted with ice. It was the kind of brittle sheen that would crack like glass and open up a hole for her as she walked from the shore. She wondered if that was the easier way to do what she had to do. Walk on the ice. Let herself be swallowed up by the grip of the frigid water.

She was numb with cold. Tears had frozen into pearls on her face. She couldn't feel her fingers, and her feet tingled as if they had been stung by bees. She had been sitting here, alone with the chill and the water, for an hour, and still she couldn't bring herself to do it. She had taken the bottle of aspirin from her pocket a dozen times, and each time, she had put it back without opening it. She hoped if she simply sat here a little while longer, the cold would do its work for her, taking away her sensations until she felt nothing at all.

Nearby, she heard voices floating in the wind like the whispers of ghosts. People were above her, on the crest of the river bank at Canal Street. Shouting. Insistent. On the bridge of Highway 169 upriver, she saw the speeding lights of cars. She ignored them all.

She withdrew the bottle again. Her raw fingers felt clumsy as she handled it. She stared at the tablets and imagined washing them down her throat with melted snow. Last time, she had used a bottle that wasn't full. That had been her mistake. That was why she had awakened in the hospital. This time, the bottle brimmed with hundreds of pills. She could swallow them all before they dulled her system and lulled her to sleep.

She fingered the plastic wrapper around the neck of the bottle. With the edge of her nail, she tried to cut it away, but her hands felt thick. She put the cap in her mouth and scraped the wrapper with her teeth. A little piece of it tore. She tugged at the flap and finally pulled it free, unwinding it like a ribbon. That small success felt like a huge victory.

Valerie squinted to line up the arrows on the cap in the darkness. She tried to pry off the cap with her thumb, but her skin was damp, and her fingers slipped on the ridged plastic. Finally, attacking it with both thumbs, she popped the cap off the bottle, and it flipped like a coin into the air. She punched through the foil seal, and the bottle squirmed in her numb fingers. A dozen tablets spilled on to the ground around her legs. She didn't care about losing them. They weren't enough to make a difference.

She put out her left palm. Her arm trembled. The bottle shook as she overturned it, tumbling a pyramid of white pills into her hand. She balanced the open bottle in her lap and stared at the tablets. It wasn't hard. Put them in your mouth. Grab a handful of fresh snow. Do it over and over until the bottle was empty.

But she couldn't. She wanted to, and she couldn't.

'Oh, Callie, I'm sorry,' she said.

She was angry with herself for hesitating. Her baby needed her. Her daughter was alone. All it would take to rescue her was one small, meaningless step; all she needed was to do the right thing, and they would be together. Even so, she couldn't bring herself to die like this. Giving up felt like a selfish and faithless act for which she would never be forgiven. It was as if she could hear a lonely voice talking to her grave and shaming her: How could you give up on me?

Valerie listened to the voice and spread her fingers wide. The aspirins fell and bounced and made dimples in the snow. The wetness began to dissolve them into paste. She got up, limping as the blood made its way back into her legs. She wandered until she was nearly in the water. Ice crept from the shore like a foggy window. She put one foot down in the water, cracking the ice with the heel of her boot, and then again, making jagged holes in the surface. She turned the bottle upside down and let the tablets cascade through the ice and disappear into the river. Finally, when it was empty, she flicked the bottle end over end beyond the ice. It floated for a while, and then, as water leached through the neck, it turned over and sank.

She knew she should feel like a failure, but she felt a rush of adrenaline instead. A new sensation washed over her, coming from nowhere, making her feel restless. Somewhere, somehow, something had changed, like a shifting in the earth under her feet. She felt drawn away from here. When she touched her face, she found warm tears streaming down her cold face again. Pouring. A waterfall. A deluge. It didn't matter why. She only knew she had to go. Go now. Go fast.

Valerie walked, and then she stumbled, and then she ran. She clawed her way up the slope away from the river. Her breath hammered in her chest. She couldn't go fast enough to satisfy the impatient urge that had taken hold of her brain. She heard them again, louder and closer as she neared the street: people calling for her, shouting her name.

She burst from the low brush near the parking lot where police had surrounded her car. Red and blue lights lit up the street like fireworks. She saw Denise. She saw Serena. Everyone looked everywhere in the empty town, except at her. She was invisible. She stayed where she was, catching her breath, unable to move or to shout, 'I'm here.'

Then Serena turned. Their eyes locked on each other, thirty yards apart. Valerie watched Serena's face erupt into a smile and heard her yelling excitedly, the same words over and over. The wind drowned her voice, but it didn't matter, because she already knew what Serena was saying. She knew the impulse that had drawn her away from the river and back to her life.

She knew who had saved her. She knew.

'We have her,' Serena repeated, running toward her. 'We have her, we have her, we have her.'

Valerie crumbled to her knees and wept for joy.

Chapter Fifty-six

Kasey still had the key.

The key that Regan had given her. The key that had let her inside the Glenn house. She had used it once, and she would use it again tonight, and then she and Callie would drive west and disappear. They would lose themselves in the small towns of the desert, where they would both be safe.

She still had the gun, too. Maggie's gun. It was shoved in the waist of her jeans, and she felt the hard metal when she breathed.

She had avoided Highway 2 and used the twisting back roads on the drive from Duluth. She had stopped only once at a roadside convenience store, where she'd broken into the dark shop and cleaned up and bandaged her wounds. The bleeding had quit for now, but she was exhausted and weak.

Her mind and body were both fraying. But she couldn't give up.

Nieman's car was parked in the trees on the shoulder of County Road 76, out of view from the highway. From there, she had plunged into the woods and hiked half a mile to her hiding place fifty yards from the Glenn house, on the shore of Pokegama Lake. She hunkered down near the water and studied the activity around the house.

Police officers patrolled the backyard, and she knew they were hunting for her. She didn't care. Her goal was the side door leading into the garage, where the yard was unlit. No one would see her breaking from the woods, and she only needed a few seconds to get inside. Then she could wait for the right moment to move deeper into the house.

With the snow silencing her footsteps, she zigzagged to the edge of the forest bordering the rear lawn of the mansion. Despite her care, she flushed a rabbit that shot noisily from the brush and made tracks across the open snow. She froze, sheltered behind the bushy arms of a spruce. A policewoman near the corner of the house spied the rabbit and scanned the forest where it had emerged. She studied the darkness, staring right at Kasey. Her hand rested on the butt of her gun.

The policewoman wandered closer and stopped twenty feet away. Kasey tensed. In her head, her breathing sounded loud. The cold made her shiver, and the branches swayed where her body touched them. Water dripped from her red hair. Behind the policewoman, she could see the dark recess of the doorway leading inside the garage. It was only a few steps away across a trail of flagstones.

The policewoman lost interest in the rabbit. She dug in her pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, then blew her nose loudly and unleashed a hacking cough. She took a last look at the woods before turning on her heel and disappearing around the front of the house.

Kasey waited to make sure the cop didn't return. The strip of ground between the woods and the garage was dark and empty. The lake wind had blown the snow into drifts by the side of the house, leaving most of the stonework clear. Taking a breath, she bolted from the trees and across the flagstones and ducked inside the doorway. When she looked back, she saw that she had left two footprints near the edge of the forest. They were barely visible, but if she looked closely, she could see them in the snow near where the policewoman had stood. Two boot marks four feet apart.

She couldn't worry about them now.

Kasey slid the key from her pocket. It was warm in her hand. With a cautious glance in both directions, she pushed the key into the dead-bolt on the side door and turned. The key didn't budge. She jiggled it and tried again, twisting furiously, but the key didn't fit. She yanked it out and squeezed it in her fist and shut her eyes. In frustration, she threw her shoulder against the door, but it was locked and solid.

She cursed silently and spun round. She had to retreat to the woods, but she ran out of time before she could move. As she stood in the doorway, paralyzed, she heard the scrape of footsteps on rock. The policewoman was back.

Kasey squeezed her body hard against the door, but she couldn't hide. As soon as the cop glanced in her direction, she would see her, no more than six feet away. She watched the woman get closer, and she slid the gun out of her belt and nestled it in her sweaty hand. The policewoman's eyes were focused on the forest. If she looked closely at the snow, she would see the footprints emerging from the woods. And then she would turn around and spot Kasey in the doorway.

Kasey held her breath. Her mouth was open. Her eyes were scared and wide. The cop's body swung toward her, and Kasey coiled like a spring, ready to pounce. She had to be on top of her before she could shout.

Then, in the moment before their eyes met, the cop stopped and sprinted back toward the front of the house.

Kasey knew why. In the driveway around the corner from where she was, a woman was screaming.

'Where is she?'

Valerie didn't wait for the car to stop. The wheels rolled as she scrambled out of Serena's Mustang. She screamed Callie's name and ran for the door and pounded until a police officer let her inside. Serena got out of her car and held up both hands to calm a policewoman who appeared from the side of the house at a run, her hand on her gun. 'It's OK,' she told her. 'Everybody's fine. Don't worry, this is a good thing.'

She followed Valerie into the house. Upstairs, through the open door of Callie's bedroom, she heard wrenching sobs of relief. Serena made no move to join her. It was a private moment for mother and child. It was also one of those rare moments in her life when she believed that there really was some justice in the world.

Marcus Glenn, still dressed in his bathrobe, joined her in the foyer. He heard the noise of his wife upstairs and glanced at the bedroom door. 'So she didn't go through with it,' he said.

'You must be relieved.'

'Yes, of course.'

Serena didn't hear relief or joy in his voice. He frowned, as if he could read her mind. 'I'm trained to consider what might go wrong,' he told her. 'I didn't think this situation would end happily for any of us.'

'But it did,' Serena said. She wanted to add: No thanks to you.

She stared at the surgeon as he waited by the banister at the stairs and realized that the naked outpouring of emotion they could hear above them was painful for him. He preferred an environment that was as sterile as his operating room. Clinical. Passionless. That was what made him so easy to dislike. That was why he was capable of doing so much damage.

More quickly than Serena expected, Valerie reappeared in the hallway. Callie was in her arms, wrapped in a heavy coat, her small hands in mittens and pink boots on her feet. Valerie carried Callie with an easy grace, as if she were floating. She never took her eyes off her daughter's face, and the girl, who was wide awake now, stared back at her mother with delight.

Valerie took each step slowly and carefully until she was at the bottom of the stairs. She carried a duffel bag over one shoulder, which she laid at her feet. She handed Callie to Serena long enough to grab a winter coat from the hall closet and slip her arms into the sleeves.

'Where are you going?' Marcus asked. He looked genuinely surprised.

Valerie ignored him and looked at Serena. She took back Callie and picked up her bag. 'I know it's late, but can you drive us to a hotel?'

'It would be safer if you stayed with me,' Serena told her. 'We can keep police around the house. Will that be OK?'

'Yes, that's fine. Let's go.'

'Valerie,' Marcus interrupted them. He reached for Valerie's shoulder, but she shrugged away his touch. 'What do you think you're doing? Don't be rash about this.'

Valerie hugged Callie to her chest and marched through the open door leading out of the house. She didn't look back. She deposited her bag in the back seat of Serena's Mustang and fitted Callie into the car seat with tender hands. The police on the lawn watched her, and no one moved or spoke.

Marcus followed her as far as the porch and called after her. He folded his arms over his chest in anger and annoyance.

'Do you want me to say I'm sorry?' he said. 'All right then, I'm sorry. But remember, I was innocent in all this.'

Valerie stiffened. Her back was to him. She turned around slowly, and her eyes were like stone. 'Innocent?'

'You know what I mean.'

Valerie didn't say anything more. She waited in silence. Her breath came and went in clouds of steam that dissipated into the cold air.

'Oh, for God's sake, come inside,' Marcus told her. 'What do you want from me?'

Valerie shook her head. 'I don't want anything from you,' she replied. 'I'll have someone come by to get my things.'

'You're not in any shape to be making decisions,' Marcus insisted. 'Take a few days with Callie. It's been a difficult week for all of us, and you need some time. When you come back home, we'll talk.'

Serena joined Valerie outside and climbed into the driver's side of her car and started the engine. Valerie stood by the open passenger door.

'I'm not coming back,' Valerie said as she got into the car and reached for the door. 'Goodbye, Marcus.'

Chapter Fifty-seven

The two of them drove in silence as the town gave way to the empty lands and the bright lights gave way to darkness. The highway felt familiar to Serena now, as if she had gone back and forth so many times that the distance to the city had grown smaller. It was still hours from dawn.

'Are you OK?' she asked finally.

Valerie twisted round and stared at Callie, who had drifted back to sleep with the motion of the car. She reached out a hand to touch the girl and then pulled it back so she didn't disturb her. 'I'm perfect,' she replied.

'Did you mean what you said?' Serena asked.

'About not going back? Yes. I'm done. I'm free.'

'Good for you.'

Valerie reached out and put a hand over Serena's on the steering wheel. 'I owe you my whole life.'

'You don't owe me anything,' Serena said. 'I should thank you. Seeing the two of you together restores a little of my faith.'

Valerie smiled. 'I used to think about all the terrible mistakes I've made in my life. Now I realize, without them, Callie wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be together. That can't just be an accident, can it?'

'Maybe you're right.'

'At least I won't wish I could go back and change them. Not anymore.' She added, 'I appreciate your doing this for me. Will Stride mind my staying with you?' 'It's fine,' Serena said. 'We'll both feel better knowing you and Callie are safe.'

She didn't say anything more. Instead, she thought about Stride and wondered where she would sleep herself tonight. It wouldn't be in their bed. It wouldn't be beside the man she'd loved for the past three years. They had both made their share of mistakes, and now she wondered where their mistakes would lead them and whether, like Valerie, she would be able to live with her regrets.

'Tell me something,' Valerie said. 'The woman who took Callie, this young cop, did you know her?'

'I met her this week, but I didn't really know her.'

'She escaped?'

'Yes, but don't worry, we'll find her. We won't let her get near you.'

'What was she like?' Valerie asked.

Serena glanced across the seat. 'What do you mean?'

'I mean, what was going through her head? How could she do this? I just want to understand.'

'It doesn’t really matter, Valerie.'

'I know, but I don't want to hate her.'

'She put you through hell,' Serena said. 'You can hate her if you want to.'

Valerie shook her head. 'That wouldn't accomplish anything.'

'All I know right now is that her own baby died,' Serena said. 'She couldn't deal with it. She became obsessed with Callie.'

Valerie was quiet. 'So she was desperate,' she said finally. 'I know what that's like.'

'Don't put yourself in her shoes,' Serena told her. 'She crossed lines you can't cross. It doesn’t matter how many bad things happen to someone. You don't do what she did.'

'I know, but I've been at the end of my rope, too.'

'That's the past,' Serena said.

She watched Valerie's face and saw exhaustion and emotion catching up with her. The roller coaster of the night was taking its toll. 'Why don't you get some sleep?' she suggested. 'We won't get to Duluth for another hour.'

'I'm not sure I want to sleep,' Valerie admitted. 'I want to be sure this is really happening. I'm afraid I'll wake up and it'll be a dream, you know?'

'It's not. You're both safe.'

'I'll sleep when we get there,' she said, but she leaned against the window anyway, and her eyes blinked shut. When Serena looked over again, Valerie was sleeping peacefully.

Serena was tired herself, and the dark highway was hypnotic, but she had plenty of adrenaline to keep her awake. Part of it was the knowledge that, like Valerie, she was about to be free, even though it wasn't a freedom she had sought or expected. Part of it was the knowledge that Kasey Kennedy was out there somewhere, and she didn't know how far Kasey would go or what she would do next.

I know what it's like to be desperate.

She followed her high beams down the lonely road and thought about Kasey on this highway as the fog gathered in a cloud around her. A young cop who was blind and reckless, toppling a set of dominoes that would leave so many people in ruins. She would have been alone on the road then as Serena was alone now, alone with the deer, lakes, and trees of the northland.

Except as Serena drove, she realized she wasn't alone.

As the road flattened into a long straightaway between the swamplands of the Indian reservation, she glanced into her mirror, and there they were again, a mile behind her. She had first spotted them five miles outside Grand Rapids, coming and going behind the shelter of the curves.

Headlights.

Kasey leaned against the wall of the old house, almost too tired to stand. She knew she had to keep going, but she didn't know how. She was bleeding again under all the bandages. When she touched a finger to her neck, it came away sticky and red. Her head throbbed. She was dizzy. She could barely hold the gun in her hand.

All she wanted to do was lay down. Lay down and sleep. Lay down and die.

She waited in the frigid night for her last chance. The harbor water lapped at the shore behind her, and she could hear the louder rumbling of Lake Superior on the other side of the street. Behind the dune. Behind Stride's house.

When she looked up and down the Point, she didn't see cops waiting for her. There were no squad cars, no flashing lights, no one patrolling in the shadows. There was only Serena and Valerie, at home where she had followed them along the deserted highway. She could see them in the front bedroom that looked out on the street. Bright lights were on, shining through the clean glass of the window. Valerie held Callie in her arms.

Kasey's heart broke, seeing Callie. Her anger came back, the same anger that had propelled her for the past week. Fury that her child was dead. Fury at God's mistake. Desperation to hold a child again. Crying, breathing raggedly, she coughed and tasted something wet in her mouth and realized it was blood. She staggered and propped herself up with a hand on the wall. The gun slipped from her fingers and hit the pavement with a clatter. She bent down and picked it up.

She checked the street again. Empty.

In the bedroom, behind the window, Valerie hugged Serena as they separated for the night. Kasey saw Serena return to the great space behind the front door, and she ducked as Serena peered through the sheer curtains out to the street. Serena opened the door and stepped out on to the wooden porch, where she carefully studied the house and shadows around her. Kasey huddled behind a trash bin, hiding. When she peered past the bin, she saw Serena go back inside and heard the sharp click of the deadbolt. Inside the house, the lights of the living room went black.

A moment later, in the other room, she saw Valerie reach for the light too. The entire house was dark. Valerie and Callie were alone.

Kasey let fifteen minutes pass before she pushed herself off the wall and weaved across the narrow street. She eyed the parked cars as she passed quickly in and out of the glow of a street light. Flurries blew down in a cold rain and bit at her skin. The roar of the lake got louder, as if it were a large animal out of sight on the other side of the sand.

She avoided the front door. On the west side of the house, she spotted a twisting wrought-iron staircase that led to the upper floor. She limped toward it, not caring about the tracks she left in the snow.

When she tried to climb, she found the metal steps slippery with ice. She put a hand on the railing and dragged herself up step by step. The effort exhausted her, and the openness of the iron frame made her light-headed when she looked down. By the time she reached the top, she had to stop to let her vertigo subside.

She looked down at her feet. Drops of blood dotted the snow like cherries.

Kasey tugged the sleeve of her coat over her hand and punched the small chambered window near the doorknob. The window shattered with a low, musical crash. Glass sprayed on to the floor. She bent down to the broken window and listened for noise from the floor below. When she heard nothing, she reached through the hole for the doorknob, undid the lock, and let herself inside the house.

The attic level was dark and cold. Nails hung down like teeth from the wooden beams in the ceiling. The unfinished floor was littered with boxes and equipment. Through the shadows, she spied a staircase leading to the ground floor, and she stepped carefully over broken glass to reach it. The stairs were pitch black, and she felt for a handrail and didn't find one. She held her breath and put her foot blindly on the first step. Then the next. She swayed and thought she would fall. Her eyes adjusted and she could see the outline of a dozen steps below her, but she froze with every footfall as the wood squealed in protest. She didn't know if the noise would carry through the closed door below her. To her, it sounded loud.

Kasey reached the bottom step and waited. She felt warm air on the other side of the door. Silently, she turned the handle and pulled the door open. She could make out the shapes of leather furniture in the great space. Another handful of wooden steps led to the carpet. She heard wind sucking air up the chimney with a rush. The front door and the wall of windows leading to the porch were on her right. So was the bedroom where Valerie and Callie were sleeping.

She made wet tracks to the door. She undid the lock and opened it, giving herself an easy escape to the street, and she thought about going through that door and walking away. Go back to the car. Drive. Start a new life. But it was too late for that. She had already lost Jack. And Bruce. She wouldn't lose Callie, too.

Kasey stared at the closed door of the bedroom. No light shot under the crack between the door and the carpet. She listened for breathing inside and heard nothing at all. The gun was heavy in her hand. She wondered if she would have to kill again and hoped it didn't come to that. She was tired of death. Tired of killing. Nothing had gone as she'd planned and dreamed.

She reached for the knob and opened the door silently, pushing it inward. On the wall to her right, in the gloom, she saw a twin bed and the humped outline of a body. She took two tentative steps until she was fully inside the room. She lifted the gun and crept toward the bed.

With blinding brightness, the overhead lights burst on and turned night to day.

Kasey squinted involuntarily and thrust her arm in front of her eyes. When she lowered her hand, she realized that the bed was empty. The outline of a body was just pillows lumped under a blanket. When she looked at the opposite wall, she saw someone sitting in an easy chair by the window, staring at her, a gun in her hand, pointed at Kasey's chest.

It was Maggie.

'Put the gun down right now, Kasey,' she said.

Kasey backed away toward the bedroom door, but as she did, she felt another gun, this one in the back of her skull.

'She said put it down,' Stride said. 'It's over.'

Kasey heard the thunder of boots everywhere around the house. On the porch. In the yard. In the great space. There were police at all of the windows. Faces. Guns. She stood, paralyzed and trapped, and felt Stride reach round and peel the gun away from her fingers.

'Serena saw you coming, Kasey,' Maggie told her, getting up from the chair. Her voice was hard and sad. 'She called ahead to arrange a welcoming party.'

'Oh, my God,' Kasey murmured. 'Oh, God, no.'

Stride yanked her hands behind her, and she felt him clamp cuffs tightly round her wrists. He pulled her on her heels out of the bedroom. She let him drag her, and then she couldn't feel her legs anymore or support her weight. She toppled backward into Stride's chest. Her body collapsed in on itself. She felt him holding her under her shoulders and easing her on to the floor, and when she stared at the ceiling, she saw all of their faces going in and out of focus as they looked down at her. Stride. Maggie. Police in uniform.

Somewhere in her head, she heard Stride say, 'She's lost a lot of blood. Get an ambulance down here.'

She tried to get up, and hands gently pushed her down. The room spun and floated lazily away from her, carrying her down a river. She watched bodies come and go in a blur of motion, and among all the people crowding around her, she saw a new face. Valerie Glenn. Serena was behind her in the brightly lit living room, holding Callie. Kasey saw Valerie staring at her the way a mourner stares at a grave, and she wanted to say something, wanted to explain, wanted to scream, but she was lost in the fog.

Valerie said aloud, 'Does anyone know what her child's name was?'

Jack, Kasey wanted to say. It was Jack. He was my baby, and God took him away from me. Don't you understand? Doesn't anyone hear me?

'Jack,' Maggie answered for her. 'It was Jack.'

Valerie nodded. Kasey saw her squat down beside her. Her face was inches away, and her skin emanated the fresh smell of a mother holding a child. She put a hand on Kasey's cheek and caressed it, feeling the dampness of her blood and sweat. Valerie was crying. Kasey realized she was crying too.

'I'm sorry for what happened to Jack,' Valerie murmured in her ear.

Kasey tried to speak again but heard only the wheeze of her own breath. The metal of the cuffs gnawed at the small of her back. She closed her eyes, but she could still feel the touch of Valerie's hand, and she felt it there, soft and warm, until the sirens drew near.

Chapter Fifty-eight

First day. Last day.

Stride sat in a folding chair in the long grass behind his cottage on the Point, watching the angry lake waters in the early morning. Red clouds on the horizon marked the glow of dawn, but it was still more night than day. His leather jacket was zipped to his neck, providing meager protection against the cold and wind. His hands were in his pockets.

He waited for Serena. He didn't want to be inside as she packed the last of her things and loaded them in her Mustang. It was one thing to know she was leaving, another thing to watch her go. Sooner or later, he would have to go back home, after she was gone, and face the emptiness she had left behind. That could wait until later. He would be working until midnight, catching up on everything that had gathered in his absence, postponing the moment when he returned to a house where the only thing that lingered was her scent.

He didn't look when he heard her footsteps in the snow behind him. She sat down in the chair next to him and didn't say anything. The two of them spent a minute of silence, putting off the inevitable.

'You're ready?' Stride asked finally, when he couldn't stand the tension anymore.

Serena nodded without looking at him. 'Yeah.'

'You don't have to go,' he told her. 'You can stay in a separate bedroom for a few weeks if you like.'

'We've talked about this, Jonny.'

'I know.'

That was the reality staring him in the face. It was done between them. Over. At least for now. At least for a while. 'You know I love you,' he told her.

'I love you too, but you need time, and I need time. I don't know whether it was just the heat of the moment, but you're more comfortable with Maggie than you are with me. You opened up to her, and you shut me out. That doesn’t work for me.'

'I'm sorry.'

'So am I. I'm not blaming you, Jonny. It's my problem, too.'

'What's next?' Stride asked.

Serena shook her head. 'I don't know yet.'

'Are you going back to Las Vegas?'

'No,' she told him. 'Not now, anyway. I could go back there and get a job, but it's not really home anymore. I'm not sure where home is to me. I'm not like you. I don't have roots.'

'So what will you do?'

Serena shrugged her shoulders, as if the future were a small thing compared to the present. 'Denise asked me to stay on with the Sheriff's office in Grand Rapids. I may do that for a while. Valerie's getting settled on her own with Callie, and I'd like to help her. She's renting a house and said I could use one of the spare bedrooms.'

'I like the idea of you staying close by,' Stride said.

It was an olive branch, but she left it where it was. He watched the sadness in her face and wished he could wipe it away. He knew there had always been something missing in Serena, some part of her unfulfilled. Maybe she just needed to be on her own. The prospect didn't seem to scare her as much as it scared him.

'I have to go,' she told him, standing up. She cast her eyes out toward the lake and then at the cold sand of the beach. Three years ago, on a hot summer night, they had made love out there for the first time.

'If you need anything at all, call me,' Stride said. 'Any time, day or night. You know that, right?'

'You're always trying to protect the women in your life, Jonny,' she murmured. 'We don't all need protection.'

'I'm just saying.'

'I know. If I do need someone, you're my first call.'

'I may show up on your doorstep someday,' he said.

She gave him a weak smile. 'You never know, I may show up on yours first.'

Serena put a hand on his shoulder as she turned away to walk over the snowy slope toward the cottage. He didn't watch her go. The lake was loud, and he couldn't hear the sound of her car engine on the street as she drove off. He waited on the beach, not moving, getting colder and feeling numbness on his face. Time passed, and by the time he got up, the sun had climbed over the edge of the water.

The Detective Bureau in City Hall was mostly empty. No one was there to greet him. He had been gone, and now he was back. He went inside his office the way he had done thousands of times over the years and hung up his coat. The room still held a trace of Maggie's perfume about it. Otherwise, nothing had changed. Time had stood still while he was away.

Stride didn't sit down immediately. He ran his fingers over the framed photos on his credenza and picked up the one of himself and Serena, taken atop the Stratosphere tower in Las Vegas. He remembered thinking back then that he had borrowed time with her and that one day someone would ask for it back. Suddenly, unexpectedly, that time was now. He put the picture back down where it had always been, so he could still see her face.

Leaning against the window frame, he looked out at the traffic on First Street and at the lake beyond the city buildings. Duluth was a city of struggle, of faded glory, of the new always colored by the old. It was small enough that you could wrap your arms around it and big enough that you could never quite hold it in your grasp. It was bitter cold, primitive, and intimidating, like an outpost on the border of the frontier.

He realized he had an advantage that Serena didn't. He knew where his home was. Home was here. Home was Duluth.

Stride sat down in his chair. He hadn't replaced it in years. It molded to his body the way old jeans did, moving when he moved. The three months he had spent away from this place felt like the longest, ugliest detour of his life. It had been a mistake to take refuge in a cabin in the woods; he should have followed his instincts and come back early. This was where he belonged.

'Welcome back, boss.'

He looked up and saw Maggie in his doorway. Her neck was bandaged, and she grimaced in pain as she came into his office, but she slid sideways into the chair in front of his desk the way she always did. It had been the same for more than a decade.

Boss, she said.

Was that how it was going to be? Partners, not lovers? He wondered if they could really stay that way. Or if either of them wanted it that way.

He pointed at the bandage. 'Shouldn't you be flat on your back right now?'

'Is that the way you want me?' she asked with a wink. She was serious but not serious. Joking but not joking. Things were already complicated.

'You're such a pain in the ass,' he said.

'Actually, that's the one place where I don't have any pain.'

He shook his head and looked away. Maggie read the soberness in his face and followed his eyes, which had wandered to the photograph of Serena.

'So?' she asked.

'She's gone.'

Maggie swore softly. 'I'm really, really sorry.'

'It's not your fault.'

'Yeah? Then why do I feel like it is?'

'Don't go there, Mags. It won't change anything.' After a moment, he added, 'Maybe things happen the way they do for a reason.'

'Or maybe things just suck on a completely random basis,' she replied. 'Did you think about that?'

'I'm trying not to think about it at all right now.'

She nodded. 'Understood.'

He dragged his eyes away from the photograph and changed the subject. 'Did you see the news? Kasey's lawyer is going to use an insanity defense. He claims the death of her child and the manipulation by Regan Conrad left her incapable of distinguishing right from wrong.' 'A jury just might buy it,' Maggie said.

'Do you think she was insane?'

'Don't you think so?'

'I think she kidnapped a baby and killed three people,' he said.

'Yeah, but she was also a mother who had to watch her child die.' Maggie added pointedly, 'We all have our breaking points.'

He didn't reply, but he thought to himself, yes, we do.

'What about Nieman?' he asked. 'What have you found out about him?'

'Nieman's a ghost,' she said. 'We're going to be unraveling his secrets for months. So far, we've linked him to murders in Colorado, Iowa, and New Mexico, but we still don't know exactly who he is or where he came from. The FBI is helping us put the pieces together.'

'Kasey's lawyer will claim that killing him was a public service,' he said.

'It was.' Maggie stared at Stride with her hair falling across her face. 'What now? Do you and I plead temporary insanity too?'

'Minus the temporary part,' he said.

'So do you want to get to work right away or do you want to do it on the desk first?' she asked.

Stride couldn't do anything but laugh. 'You're going to make sure this isn't easy for me, aren't you?'

'Damn right.'

'Are you done?'

'For now.'

'Then let's get to work,' he said.

Maggie pointed at a file folder on his desk. 'Remember that teenage boy who washed up from the lake last year? We called it suicide, and the parents said it was murder. We got some new evidence, and it looks like they might be right.'

'OK, I'll catch up with the file,' he said. 'We can go talk to them this morning.'

'You got it.' Maggie climbed out of the chair and headed for the door. He realized that nothing had changed, and nothing was the same.

'Hey,' he called after her.

She turned and looked back at him.

'I like your hair,' he told her.

Maggie grinned, pushed the blood-red bangs out of her eyes, and left.

Stride stared at the dusty oak surface and everything that crowded his desk. The silver letter opener, shaped like a knife. The stacks of yellow pads scribbled with notes. The clock ticking away the seconds, minutes, hours, and days. The crime files. His whole life.

He grabbed the case folder and pulled it toward him. As he did, his hand bumped against the silver letter opener and sent it tumbling to the floor. His eyes followed it. He tensed, waiting for the flashback to wash over him. His heart rate accelerated. He felt sweat on the back of his neck as he wondered how bad this one would be and how long he would be gone. But the attack never came. He didn't fall through the black night air toward the unforgiving water. The bridge was somewhere else, out on the lake, and he was still in his office.

Stride reached down and retrieved the letter opener and put it in his drawer. Then he put his feet on his desk and began to read.