"We wait till it's dark?" Tomel asked.

"Oh, with little miss tit-less deputy coming up behind us? I don't think that'll work, now, Harris, will it?"

"Well, can you hit her from here?" Tomel nodded toward the window.

"Probably," Culbeau said, sighing. He was about to start ragging on Tomel when O'Sarian said in a weirdly normal voice, "But if Rich shoots, then Lucy and th'others'll hear. I think we oughta flank 'em. Go around the side and try and get inside. A shot'd be a lot quieter in there."

Which was just what Culbeau was about to say.

"That'll take a half hour," Tomel snapped, probably pissed at being outthought by O'Sarian.

Who remained at the top of his uncrazy form. The young man clicked the safety off his gun and squinted toward the house. "Well, I'd say we gotta make it take less than half an hour. Whatta you think, Rich?"

Steve Farr led Henry Davett into the lab once again. The businessman thanked Farr, who left, and nodded to Rhyme.

"Henry," Rhyme said, "thank you for coming."

As before, the businessman paid no attention to Rhyme's condition. This time, though, Rhyme took no comfort from his attitude. His concern for Sachs was consuming him. He kept hearing Jim Bell's voice.

You usually have twenty-four hours to find the victim; after that they become dehumanized in the kidnapper's eyes and he doesn't think anything about killing them.

This rule, which had applied to Lydia and Mary Beth, now encompassed Amelia Sachs' fate too. The difference was, Rhyme believed, that Sachs might have far fewer than twenty-four hours.

"I thought you'd caught that boy. That's what I heard."

Ben said, "He got away from us."

"No!" Davett frowned.

"Sure did," Ben offered. "Old-fashioned jailbreak."

Rhyme: "I've got some more evidence but I don't know what to make of it. I was hoping you could help again."

The businessman sat down. "I'll do what I can."

A glance at his WWJD tie bar.

Rhyme nodded toward the chart, said, "Could you look that over? The list on the right."

"The mill – is that where he was? That old mill northeast of town?"

"Right."

"I knew about the place." Davett grimaced angrily. "I should've thought of it."

Criminalists can't let the verb "should have" creep into their vocabulary. Rhyme said, "It's impossible to think of everything in this business. But take a look at the chart. Does anything on it seem familiar to you?"

Davett read carefully.

FOUND AT SECONDARY CRIME SCENE -

MILL

Brown Paint on Pants

Sundew Plant

Clay

Peat Moss

Fruit Juice

Paper Fibers

Stinkball Bait

Sugar

Camphene

Alcohol

Kerosene

Yeast

As he gazed at the list he said in a distracted voice, "It's like a puzzle."

"That's the nature of my job," Rhyme said.

"How much can I speculate?" the businessman asked.

"As much as you'd like," Rhyme said.

"All right," Davett said. He thought for a moment then said, "A Carolina bay."

Rhyme asked, "What's that? A horse?"

Davett glanced at Rhyme to see if he was joking. Then said, "No, it's a geologic structure you see on the Eastern Seaboard. Mostly, though, they're found in the Carolinas. North and South. They're basically oval ponds, about three or four feet deep, freshwater. They could be a half-acre big or a couple of hundred. The bottom of them is mostly clay and peat. Just what's on the chart there."

"But clay and peat – they're pretty common around here," Ben said.

"They are," Davett agreed. "And if you'd found just those two things I wouldn't have a clue where they came from. But you found something else. See, one of the most interesting characteristics about Carolina bays is that insect-killer plants grow around them. You see hundreds of Venus flytraps, sundews and pitcher plants around bays – probably because the ponds promote insects. If you found a sundew along with clay and peat moss then there's no doubt the boy's spent time around a Carolina bay."

"Good," Rhyme said. Then, gazing at the map, asked, "What does 'bay' mean? An inlet of water?"

"No, it refers to bay trees. They grow around the ponds. There're all sorts of myths about them. Settlers used to think they were carved out of the land by sea monsters or witches casting spells. Meteorites were a theory for a few years. But they're really just natural depressions caused by wind and currents of water."

"Are they unique to a particular area around here?" Rhyme asked, hoping that they'd help narrow down the search.

"To some extent." Davett rose and walked to the map. With his finger he circled a large area to the west of Tanner's Corner. Locations B-2 to E-2 and F-13 to B-12. "You'll find them mostly here, in this area, just before you get to the hills."

Rhyme was discouraged. What Davett had circled must have included seventy or eighty square miles.

Davett saw Rhyme's reaction. He said, "Wish I could be more helpful."

"No, no, I appreciate it. It will be helpful. We just need to narrow down more of the clues."

The businessman read, "Sugar, fruit juice, kerosene…" He shook his head, unsmiling. "You have a difficult job, Mr. Rhyme."

"These are the tough cases," Rhyme explained. "When you have no clues you're free to speculate. When you have a lot of them you can usually get the answer pretty quickly. But having a few clues, like this…" Rhyme's voice faded.

"We're hog-tied by the facts," Ben muttered.

Rhyme turned to him. "Exactly, Ben. Exactly."

"I should be getting home," Davett said. "My family's expecting me." He wrote a phone number on a business card. "You can call me anytime."

Rhyme thanked him again and turned his gaze back to the evidence chart.

Hog-tied by the facts…

Rich Culbeau sucked the blood off his arm from where the brambles had scratched it deeply. He spit against a tree.

It had taken them twenty minutes of hard slogging through the brush to get to the side porch of the A-frame vacation house without being seen by the bitch with the sniper gun. Even Harris Tomel, who normally looked like he'd just stepped off a country club patio, was bloody and dust-stained.

The new Sean O'Sarian, quiet and thoughtful and, well, sane,was waiting back on the path, lying on the ground with his black gun like an infantry grunt at Khe Sahn, ready to slow up Lucy and the other Vietcong with a few shots over their heads in case they came up the trail toward the house.

"You ready?" Culbeau asked Tomel, who nodded.

Culbeau eased open the knob of the mudroom door and pushed the door inside, his gun up and ready.

Tomel followed. They were skittish as cats, knowing that the redheaded cop with the deer rifle she surely knew how to use could be waiting for them anywhere in the house.

"You hear anything?" Culbeau whispered.

"Just music." It was soft rock – the sort Culbeau listened to because he hated country-western.

The two men moved slowly down the dim hallway, guns up and cocked. They slowed. Ahead of them was the kitchen, where Culbeau had seen somebody – probably the boy – moving when he'd sighted on the house through the rifle 'scope. He nodded toward the room.

"Don't think they heard us," Tomel said. The music was up pretty high.

"We go in together. Shoot for their legs or knees. Don't kill him – we still gotta get him to tell us where Mary Beth is."

"The woman too?"

Culbeau thought for a moment. "Yeah, why not? We might want to keep her alive for a while. You know what for."