"I bet you they're going to hire their own people to stick their noses into this."

Will recognized a sucker bet when he saw one. Atlanta's wealthy had a bevy of private security forces at their disposal. Hoyt Bentley had enough money to buy every last one of them. "I'm sure Paul and his father-in-law think they can take care of this themselves."

"I hope whoever they hire knows the difference between paying off a CEO's mistress and negotiating a ransom."

Surprised, Will said, "Do you think there will be a ransom demand?"

"I think there will be several-none of them from our kidnapper." She crossed her arms, leaning against the counter. "Tell me what's bothering you."

Will didn't have to think in order to answer her question. "Two teenage girls, at least one teenage boy, alone in a house during the middle of the day. The parents don't know where any of them are. They say their daughter has changed lately, that she's been acting out. Somebody had sex in that bed upstairs. Where were Emma and Adam when Kayla was being butchered? Where was Emma when Adam was stabbed?We have toask whether ornot Emma Campano is a victim or an offender."

Amanda let that sink in, considering the possibilities. "I'm not saying you're wrong," she finally told him. "But there's a big difference between being a rebellious teenager and being a coldblooded killer. Nothing about the scene points to anything ritualistic. I'm not saying you're wrong to consider the possibility, but let's just treat this as a straight abduction until we find something that points to more nefarious origins."

Will nodded.

"What's your game plan?"

"Charlie's going to be here all night, so anything big forensic-wise should be on your desk first thing in the morning. We've got APD pulling parking tickets in the area for the last week. I've got a two-man unit checking storm drains to see if anything was ditched-another weapon, some clothing, whatever. I want to talk to some folks at the school where these girls went and see if they have any enemies-and spread that out to the Alexanders, too. I think it's sketchy they left their kid alone for three weeks while they're half a world away. Do you have an ETA on the dogs?"

"Barry Fielding was on a training run up in Ellijay when I called," she told him, referring to the director of the GBI canine unit. "He should be here with a team within the next half hour." She returned to something Will had said earlier. "Let's go back two months on those parking tickets in the area. Go ahead and pull 9-1-1 calls, too. There can't be that many, but touching on what you said about the kids being alone here today, if this has been an ongoing thing…" She let Will fill in the blank: Don't stop questioning what Emma Campano's role was in all of this. "What are you going to be doing?"

"I'm going to go to the school myself to get a better idea of who these girls are. Were. I also want to talk to the mother. She was out of it today. Maybe she'll be more helpful tomorrow."

"She's a lot stronger than she looks."

"She strangled a man with her bare hands. I don't think you need to tell me to watch out for her."

Amanda looked around the kitchen, appraising the stainless steel gleaming from every corner, the granite countertops. "This is not going to turn out well, Will."

"You think the girl is already dead?"

"I think if she's lucky she is."

They were both silent. Will couldn't guess what was on Amanda's mind. For his part, he was thinking how ironic it was that Paul had everything they could only dream about when they were kids-family, wealth, security-and yet one violent intervention by fate had managed to sweep it all away. You expected that kind of thing to happen when you were living in an orphanage, kids stacked twelve to a room in a house that was no larger than a shoebox. You didn't expect it living smack-dab in the middle of Mayberry.

Movement outside the kitchen window caught Will's attention. Faith Mitchell looked grim as she walked along the back patio by the pool. She opened one of the French doors, asking, "Am I interrupting?"

Amanda demanded, "What've you got?"

The young woman closed the door and walked into the kitchen, looking almost contrite. "Adam Humphrey was a student at Georgia Tech. He lives in Towers Hall on campus."

Amanda pumped her fist in the air. "This is your break."

Will told Faith, "Call campus security. Have them check the room."

"I did," she answered. "The door was locked, but the room was empty. I've got a number to call when we get on campus. The dean wants to talk to legal before they give us access to the room, but he says that's just a formality."

"Let me know if I need to find a judge." Amanda glanced at her watch. "It's coming on four o'clock now. I'm late for a closed door with the mayor. Call me the minute you have anything."

Will crossed the room to leave. Then he realized that he still didn't have a car. He realized Amanda was still here, leaning against the counter, waiting for him to do exactly what she wanted.

Faith asked, "Do you want me to go wait outside the Alexander house to see if the parents have anyone checking in on Kayla?"

Will thought about Adam Humphrey's dorm room, all the papers and notes that would have to be catalogued, all the drawers and shelves that would have to be searched.

He said, "You're going to come to Tech with me."

Her expression turned from surprised to cautious. "I thought I was only doing scut work."

"You are." Will opened the door she'd just closed. "Let's go."

THE LITERATURE ON Faith's Mini Cooper claimed that the front seats could easily accommodate a passenger or driver over six feet tall. As with anything, a few extra inches made all the difference, and Faith had to admit that it brought her a small amount of pleasure watching the man who had helped force her mother off the job awkwardly trying to fold his long body into her car. Finally, Will moved the seat back so that it was almost touching the rear window and angled himself in. "All right?" she asked.

He looked around the cab, his neatly parted, sandy blond hair brushing against the glass sunroof. She thought of a prairie dog poking its head outside its hole. He gave a small nod. "Let's go."

She let off the clutch as he reached around for the seat belt. For months, even the thought of this man's name could invoke the kind of deeply felt hatred that made Faith feel like she should vomit just to get the taste out of her mouth. Evelyn Mitchell hadn't shared many details of the internal investigation with her daughter, but Faith had seen the toll the relentless questioning had taken. Day by day, her strong, impervious mother had been whittled into an old woman.

Will Trent was a key factor in that transformation.

Being honest, there was plenty of blame to go around. Faith was a cop, and she knew all about the blue code of silence, but she also knew that it was the betrayal of Evelyn's own men-those greedy bastards who thought it was okay to steal so long as it was drug money-that had finally taken all the fight out of her mother. Still, Evelyn had refused to testify against any of her team. That the city had let her keep her pension was a miracle of sorts, but Faith knew that her mother had friends in high places. You didn't become a captain with the Atlanta Police Department by shunning politics. Evelyn was a master at knowing how the game worked.

For her part, Faith had always assumed Will Trent was some kind of bumbling, rat squad jerk-off who loved to put his thumb on good cops and grind them out of the force. She hadn't anticipated that Trent would be the clean-cut, lanky man crammed into the car beside her. Nor had she considered that he might actually know his way around the job. His reading of the crime scene, the way he had been right about Humphrey being a college student- something that Faith, of all people, should have picked up on-had not been the detecting of some Bureau pencil pusher.