Jenna sighed again. "Oh, Brad. It's not that simple."

He glanced at her sharply before standing up to stare out the window, his hands in his pockets. And even though physically Brad resembled his mother, in that moment he looked so much like Steven that she wanted to start crying all over again. "Do you love him, Dr. Marshall?"

She wouldn't, couldn't lie. "Yes."

"Then it's simple."

"No, Brad, it's not. He doesn't trust me."

Brad made a frustrated noise. "Do you know how many people know about that note? Four. And I'm not even supposed to know. Father Mike knows because Dad told him early on. Then for four years he told no one. Until you." He turned from the window with a frown. "He trusted you with something he didn't even trust with his own family. That's how much he trusts you."

Brad's words echoed in her mind. That's how much he trusts you. But she shook her head, remembering last night. The pain of the boys' fists had been nothing compared to the knowledge that Steven had abandoned her. Because of something she hadn't even done. "It's not enough."

Brad's eyes flashed. "Last night he told Helen he wanted to marry you. She told him you'd come back. She's already planning her trip to the Serengeti." He stared at her with such authority, she wanted to back away. From a seventeen-year-old. "And what about Nicky?" he demanded.

She closed her eyes. And said nothing. What could she say?

"He already thinks of you as his mother," Brad said harshly. "Last night he was awake. Crying. Worrying about you."

Jenna felt the tears come, and damned each one. Her eyes felt like they'd been pounded with a meat tenderizer. "Your father was right. It was wrong for me to let Nicky get too attached to me so fast. He was afraid if it didn't work out…" She let the thought trail away.

"So that's it?" Brad demanded. "You walk away without a word? At least she had the balls to leave a note." He pointed to the ragged page on the table. "I thought more of you, Dr. Marshall."

Jenna looked away. Brad was right. She was wrong about Nicky. But she was right about Steven, not to trust him. But how wrong she'd been to love him.

She drew an unsteady breath and handed him the note. "Then I guess we were both wrong."

Friday, October 14, 4:30 P.M.

Neil's cell phone started ringing as he rounded the corner, headed for Steven's office. Nancy pointed him to the conference room. "Davies," he said into the phone and skidded to a stop in the conference room where Thatcher held a phone in his hand. Thatcher rolled his eyes and hung up.

"It was me," he said. "Good timing."

Neil shook his head. "Uh-uh. Great timing. Look what I found."

Thatcher looked at the bag in his hand and raised a sarcastic brow. "Aluminum foil?"

His mood was too good to let Thatcher spoil it. "No, better." He slid on a pair of gloves and pulled the foil from the bag. "Buttons."

Thatcher looked positively grim. "Buttons."

"Yes. One in particular." He pulled out the pewter button and held it up. "Recognize it?"

Thatcher's eyes flashed. "The tattoo. Where did you find that?"

"The Templetons' cat had a stash of buttons under a chair in a spare room. The pattern on this button is the emblem of a prep school outside Seattle."

Thatcher pulled on his own gloves and held out his hand. An intensity buzzed around the man. Carefully Neil dropped the button into Thatcher's palm.

"I take it William Parker attended this prep school," Thatcher said evenly, staring at the button as if inspecting a diamond.

"He did."

"And did his brother go there too?" Thatcher asked. Dangerously, Neil thought.

"Yes, he did, but-"

"Don't tell me he was slow," Thatcher snapped. "It's the brother, Neil," he said, his voice biting. "Under our noses the whole fucking time."

Neil felt his pulse stutter. "No. He was never even a suspect."

"He is now," Thatcher said acidly, and pointed to the table, where two DNA prints lay edge to edge. One from Seattle, one from the Clary clearing. And next to them Kent Thompson's neatly typed conclusion. Not the same. Blood relatives.

Not the same. Not Parker. Not William Parker. Blood relatives. Josh Parker,

Neil looked down and his heart… just… sank. "Oh, my God," he heard himself whisper.

"And Nancy says the rosters show Josh as absent the day of the Clary clearing. We were after the wrong brother the whole time," Thatcher said, barely controlled fury in his voice. "Dammit!"

Neil couldn't take his eyes off the prints. He'd been chasing the wrong man. All this time.

"Steven."

Neil didn't look up at the voice at the door. Couldn't. He was frozen.

"Lucas," Steven said. "What a coincidence."

Lucas Bondioli, the high school guidance counselor. Neil made his body move, his brain function. Bondioli stood in the doorway, his face pale, holding a blue folder in his shaking hands.

"Steven, I found something today you need to see. Casey's substitute was going through all the themes Casey's class had written on Crime and Punishment. This one was written by Josh Lutz." He held out the folder, which shook like a leaf on a tree in a high wind. "Casey gave him an A."

Thatcher reached for the folder, his face still grim. "Pretty damn good for a kid with an eighty-five IQ, huh?" He skimmed the first few pages, then tossed the theme on the table in disgust. "Under our damn noses all along," he muttered. He marched to the bulletin board where all the girls' pictures were mounted side to side, Kelly Templeton's the newest. "Interesting point of view young Josh has of the killer in the book," Thatcher added, his voice tight. "That the killer was right. That those with superhuman intelligence are above the laws that bind normal men."

A picture flashed in Neil's mind from the night before. Josh Parker, standing over Jenna, then turning. Neil closed his eyes and his stomach seemed to implode. "He was missing a button last night," he said hoarsely.

"Who?" Steven asked, not turning from the board.

"Josh. He was with Jenna. He was there before I was, chasing off those boys before I got to her. I held my weapon on him, made him turn around. And he was missing a button."

Thatcher had gone pale. "Josh was there last night? With Jenna?"

Neil made himself nod. "He slipped away before the po-lice came. Jenna said to let him go, that he'd helped her and she didn't want him scared by the police."

"Why was he there?" Thatcher asked, his voice now raspy, choking.

"He said he didn't want them to hurt her."

"But why was he there! At that particular moment?" Thatcher demanded, his voice shaking. Then he stilled. "Oh, dear God," he murmured. "Neil, look at these girls."

Neil moved on legs shakier than Thatcher's voice. Then he looked at their happy smiling faces. At their long dark hair. And with the exception of Alev Rahrooh, their big dark blue eyes.

"No," Neil whispered as their likeness sank in. He'd dreamed of Jenna and thought he'd escaped the dreams that haunted him. But he'd still been dreaming about the dead girls. He hadn't found peace. Dammit. He'd overlooked the vital link right in front of his eyes, awake and asleep. "No."

Steven barely heard Neil's denial. His own heart was pounding so hard it filled his brain.

"They all look like Jenna," Steven whispered, remembering thinking that little Serena Eggleston could have been Jenna's daughter. Panic filled his throat. "Where's Kent?"

He didn't wait for an answer, just started running for Kent's office in the lab, barely conscious of Davies and Bon-dioli behind him. He found Kent hunched over his microscope, taking neat notes.

"Kent, where's the DNA print from the samples from Jenna's apartment?"