Pressure was growing in the back of his skull. He could feel it, a true physical presence at the top of his spine, with another tendril starting to press against the inner canal of his left ear. A tumor, he was pretty sure. He’d had one before, years ago when he’d had his first “episode” of vanishing time. Had it been only minutes he’d lost in the beginning? He couldn’t even remember that anymore.

Time grew fluid, black holes took over his life. One tumor was removed. Another came back to eat his brain. It was probably the size of a grapefruit by now. Or maybe even a watermelon. Maybe his brain wasn’t even his brain anymore, but a giant malignant mass of constantly dividing cells. He didn’t doubt it. That would explain the bad dreams, the restless nights. It would explain why the fire came to him so often now, and made him do things he knew he shouldn’t.

He found himself thinking of his mother more. Her pale face, her thin, hunched shoulders. He thought of his father, too, and the way he always strode through their tiny cabin in the woods.

“A man’s gotta be tough, boys, a man’s gotta be strong. Don’t you listen to no government types, they just want to turn us into mealy-mouthed dependents who can’t live without a federal handout. Not us boys. We got the land. We will always be strong, as long as we got the land.”

Strong enough to beat his wife, abuse his kids and wring the neck of the family cat. Strong enough, and isolated enough, to live as he goddamned pleased, without even a neighbor to hear the screams.

The black storm clouds built, rolled, and roared. Now he was sitting tied to a chair, while his father took a strap to his brother, his mother washed the dishes, and his father told them both that next it would be their turn. Now he and his brother were huddled under the front porch, planning their big escape, while above their heads their mother wept and their father told her to go inside and wipe that goddamn blood off of her face. Now it was late at night and he and his brother were sneaking out the front door; at the last minute they turned, and saw their mother standing pale and silent in the moonlight. Go, her eyes told them. Run away while you still can. Her bruised cheeks were streaked with wordless tears. They crept back inside. And she clutched them to her breast as if they were the only hope she had left.

And he knew then that he hated his mother as much as he had ever loved her. And he knew then that she felt the same about him and his brother. They were the crabs stuck together in the bottom of a bucket, and pulling one another down so no one ever made it to freedom.

The man swayed on his feet. He felt the dark roll in, felt himself totter on the edge of the abyss… Time was slipping through his fingers.

The man turned. He drove his fist forcefully into the wall, and let the pain bring him back. The room came into focus. The dark spots cleared from his eyes. Better.

The man crossed to his dresser. He got out his gun.

He prepared for what must happen next.

Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

2:43 A . M .

Temperature: 88 degrees

RAINIE AND MAC WERE STILL WORKING THE VICTIM’S BODY when Quincy materialized before them. His gaze went from them to Kathy Levine, then back to them.

“She’s one of us,” Rainie said, as if he’d asked a question.

“Definitely?”

“Well, she risked ordering a search team based solely on Mac’s hunch, and now she’s picking rice out of a corpse’s pocket. You tell us.”

Quincy raised a brow and glanced at Levine again. “Rice?”

“Uncooked white,” she said briskly. “Long grain. Then again, I’m a botanist, not a chef, so you may want a second opinion.”

Quincy switched his attention to Mac, who was carefully going over the girl’s left foot. “Why rice?”

“Damned if I know.”

“Anything else?”

“She’s wearing a necklace-some kind of vial filled with a clear fluid. That might be a hint. Then we got about nine different bits of leaves, four or five samples of dirt, half a dozen kinds of grass, some crushed flower petals, and a whole lotta blood.” Mac gestured to a stack of evidence containers. “Help yourself to a sample. And good luck figuring out if it came from her hike through the woods or from him. This new strategy of his definitely puts a wrinkle in things. What’d you do with Kimberly?”

“Feds got her.”

Three heads shot up. Quincy smiled grimly. “I believe there’s been a change of plans.”

“Quincy,” Mac said curtly. “Tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”

Quincy didn’t look at him directly. Instead, his gaze went to Rainie. “The FBI case team arrived. No Kaplan, no Watson. In fact, I don’t recognize anyone on the team. They pulled in, spotted Kimberly, and immediately pulled her aside for questioning. I’m supposed to be waiting outside the lodge.”

“Those assholes!” Rainie exploded. “First they want nothing to do with this. Now it’s suddenly their party, and no one else is invited to play. What are they going to do? Start all over at this stage of the game?”

“I imagine they are going to do exactly that. The FBI can launch a pretty good search, you know. They’ll bring in computer operators, stenographers, dog handlers, search-and-rescue teams, topography experts, and recon pilots. Within twenty-four hours, they’ll have a full ops center set up roadside, while planes search the surrounding areas with infrared photography and volunteers stand by to assist. It’s not too shabby.”

“Infrared photography is bullshit this time of year,” Mac said tightly. “We tried it ourselves. Every damn boulder and wandering bear shows up as a hit. Not to mention deer also look roughly like humans in the still photos. We ended up with hundreds of targets and not a single one of them was ever the missing girl. Besides, that assumes the next victim is somewhere in these woods, and I already know she isn’t. The man doesn’t repeat an area, and the whole point of his game is to ramp up the challenge. The other girl is somewhere far from here, and believe it or not, someplace even more dangerous.”

“Judging from what I’ve seen so far, you’re probably correct.” Quincy turned around, looking back up the darkened path. “I give the new federal agents ten minutes before they arrive down here, and that delay is only because Kimberly promised to be unforthcoming with her answers. I know she’s good at that.” He grimaced, then turned back. “All right, for the next ten minutes at least, I’m part of this case and have authority over evidence. So, Ms. Levine, as a botanist, are any of these samples definitely out of place?”

“The rice,” she said immediately.

“I’ll take half.”

“The vial with fluid, maybe. Though that could be a personal possession.”

“Do we have an inventory of what any of the girls were last seen wearing?”

“No,” answered Rainie.

Quincy mulled it over. “I’ll take half the fluid.”

Mac nodded, and immediately produced a glass vial from the evidence processing kit. Quincy noticed his hands were shaking slightly. Maybe fatigue. Maybe rage. Quincy knew from his own experience that it didn’t really matter. Just as long as you got the job done.

“Why take only half the samples?” Levine asked.

“Because if I took the whole sample, something would be missing. The other agents might notice and ask, and then I might feel compelled to hand it over. If, on the other hand, nothing’s obviously missing…”

“They’ll never ask.”

“And I’ll never tell,” Quincy said with a grim smile. “Now, what else?”

Levine gestured helplessly to the pile of bags. “I honestly don’t know. Lighting’s not great, I don’t have a magnifying glass on me. Given the state of half of this stuff, I’d say she picked it up crashing through the underbrush. But without more time for analysis…”