His eyes widened. “Gretchen’s in the ER?”

She told him what had happened and he was stunned. “My God. Kate Davis helped us find Mack O’Brien. She told us Garth’s wife had split with the kids because she was afraid for her life. I thought with Mack and the others dead she’d be safe, but now…”

“I guess Kate took issue with us accusing Garth. Daniel, I need to say some things and I need you to listen. Yesterday I told you that you didn’t know what I was.”

“I know. I didn’t understand then. I still don’t.”

“I’m going to tell you and if you want me to go, I will. But I realized standing next to Sheila’s grave that if you’d died yesterday, I would be all alone. I don’t want to be.”

“I won’t leave you again,” he said harshly.

One side of her mouth lifted sadly. “Well, let’s see how you feel when you hear the story. You’d hear it all from Luke at some point, but I’d rather you hear it from me.”

Atlanta, Saturday, February 3, 1:25 p.m.

Luke found Nate Dyer in The Room, the place they used to view the vile material that made decent people gag. Am I decent? he heard himself ask Susannah.

I’m afraid so, Luke. And she thought she wasn’t, because she’d done a one-night stand. Or more. He’d get her to tell it, if for no other reason than for her to hear a decent person tell her that she wasn’t hopeless. That she did deserve her soul.

But Susannah would have to wait. No matter how long he’d put this off, Luke had known he’d return to The Room as soon as he’d recognized Angel’s face yesterday.

The Room was windowless, with one door. Only those with a need to know, a need to see, were admitted. Luke wished he didn’t have the combination as he punched in the code. He’d spent far too many hours here. And a little more of you dies each day.

Yeah. Steeling his spine, Luke pushed the door open. “Hey, Nate.”

Nate looked up, no smile on his face. “You need to sit down for this.”

Luke did, preparing for the sick twisting of his stomach that occurred every time he opened a new Web page or viewed a new collection of obscenity. All the preparation, though, never made it easier. “Okay. I’m ready.”

“I’ve only started looking at the material from Deputy Mansfield’s computer,” Nate said. “The guy had five external hard drives, Papa. Each drive is five hundred gig.”

“Hundreds of thousands of pictures,” Luke murmured.

“This stash will keep us busy for months. The computer forensics guys imaged all the hard drives and I picked up the copies just a few hours ago. Mansfield’s hard drives are organized. A lot of the folder names are phrases. He’d marked one ‘Fine Young American Flesh, Inc.’ This is what I found inside.”

Luke sat in front of Nate’s computer and began scrolling through the pictures. Each was a girl, provocatively posed. Each was nude and each held a small American flag in one hand and in the other, a symbol of the state from which she came.

Each picture was labeled with a name and a profile and a “personal message” from the girl. “ ‘Hi, I’m Amy,’ ” Luke read. “ ‘I was born and raised in Idaho.’ ” Amy clutched a potato some sick bastard had computer-enhanced to resemble male genitalia. There was Jasmine, raised in sunny California, and Tawny, raised in Wisconsin. Each girl was smiling seductively, and Luke wondered what had been done to them to force the smile.

“There’s a price list at the end,” Nate said.

“It’s a catalog,” Luke said dully.

“Exactly. And the logo for the company is the swastika with the bent ends.”

“Buy American,” Luke said. “I had a feeling we’d be looking at supremacist groups.”

“Look on page twenty-four.”

Luke did. “It’s Angel.” But they’d named her Gabriela.

“And page fifty-two.”

Luke’s pulse spiked. “It’s Jane Doe. They call her Honey. I called her that last night. That’s why she got so agitated. Are there other editions, earlier ones?”

“Yeah, two more. Looks like the catalogs are done quarterly, and this one is dated about two months ago. Luke, further on in this catalog are the two girls that were with Angel on the Web site we shut down eight months ago.”

“We lost track of those girls. Couldn’t find them anywhere on the Web.”

Nate pointed to the screen. “Now, we know where they went.”

“So either Mansfield was somehow involved with that Web site or he knew who was. How else could he get all three girls?”

“Don’t know. George and Ernie are coming in so I can grab some sleep. Maybe they’ll find something that’ll take us to the perv that ran the site. I’d give a lot to get my hands on him.” Nate searched Luke’s face. “You look as tired as I do. Get some rest.”

“No. I’ve got an hour before I meet Kasey Knight’s parents. Give me one of those hard drives.” He sat in front of a computer and closed his eyes, mentally preparing.

“You need anything? Lunch, maybe?” Nate asked, and Luke realized he hadn’t eaten since Leo’s eggs almost twelve hours before.

“Yeah, I forgot to eat.”

“You always do,” Nate said, and gave him a container from their small fridge. “Moussaka.”

Luke blinked at it. “How…”

Nate smiled. “Your mother came by with food for the office yesterday. She was worried we weren’t eating right with you off helping Daniel Vartanian’s case.”

Luke’s heart squeezed. I love you, Mama. “She’s a good woman, my mama.”

“And a damn good cook. Eat, Papa. Then search. Your eyes are faster than mine.”

So, armed with his mama’s moussaka, Luke sat down to view the stuff of which his nightmares were made. He scanned the directory, looking for any name that popped out. Some of the folder names were more self-explanatory than others. Whips and Chains, No Means Yes, Boys Will Be Boys… Luke had a pretty good idea of what he’d find in those folders. Then his eyes froze on one of the names.

Sweetpea, my ass. He clicked it open and his heart rose to choke him. Slowly he put the plastic container of food aside. “Oh my God. Nate, come here.”

Nate peered over his shoulder. “Horrible quality pictures.”

They were, grainy and blurry and off center. “Mansfield probably took them with a cell phone or hidden camera. Look, it’s Granville. With a girl.”

“What’s he doing?” Nate leaned closer, then sighed. “Aw, fuck, Papa.”

“Goddamn bastard.” Luke scrolled, each photo more vile than the last. Granville had tortured these girls, unspeakably. And Mansfield had somehow captured it all.

“What does Sweetpea, my ass mean?” Nate asked, pulling up a chair.

“You know about the rape club, right?”

“Thirteen years ago. Daniel’s brother Simon was the ringleader.”

“Not exactly,” Luke said. “We think Granville was the leader, but Simon was his partner. Daniel talked to the widow of one of the men who’d been in the club and she told him all the boys in the club had nicknames. Mansfield was Sweetpea.”

“Why the ‘my ass’ part?”

“I don’t know. Everything went to hell and Daniel got shot before I could get any more information. I’ll go see him and find out, but my guess is that Mansfield took these pictures as protection, in case he needed to hold something over Granville’s head.”

Luke continued paging through the photos, then stopped, and what little he’d eaten threatened to come back up. It was Angel. In all the vile perversion he’d witnessed, what Luke now stared at might be the worst. “Aw, hell, Nate.”

Nate closed his eyes. “Shit.” He swallowed hard, pursing his lips. “Shit.”

“We missed something, Nate,” Luke said, his voice as dead as he felt inside. “We didn’t catch those assholes who ran the Web site, but Granville and Mansfield managed to. That’s why those three girls dropped off the face of the earth all of a sudden. Granville had them here. Doing that to them. How did they get them?”