"Till we catch this asshole, I guess."

Pittman looked at his watch. "I better run. I'll check in later."

Tony Mott nodded as Pittman walked away, pulling out his cell phone and placing a call. The county cop walked all the way through the CCU parking lot and into the one next door. Mott noticed this and thought momentarily that it was odd he'd parked that far away when there were plenty of spaces right in front of CCU. But then he started toward the office, thinking of nothing except the case and how, one way or another, he was going to finagle a spot on the dynamic entry team when they kicked in the door to collar Jon Patrick Holloway.

"Ani, Ani, Animorphs," the little girl said.

"What?" Phate asked absently. They were driving in an Acura Legend, which had been recently stolen but was duly registered to one of his identities, en route to the basement of his house in Los Altos, where duct tape, the Ka-bar knife and a digital camera awaited little Samantha Wingate's arrival.

"Ani, Ani, Animorphs. Hey, Uncle Irv, you like Animorphs?"

No, not one fucking little bit, thought Phate. But Uncle Irv said, "You bet I do."

"Why was Mrs. Gitting upset?" Sammie Wingate asked.

"Who?"

"The lady at the front desk."

"I don't know."

"Like, are Mom and Dad in Napa already?"

"That's right."

Phate didn't have a clue where they were. But wherever it was he knew they'd be enjoying the last moments of peace before the storm of horror descended. It was only a matter of minutes before somebody from the Junipero Serra School started calling the Wingates' friends and family and would learn that there'd been no accident.

Phate wondered who'd feel the greatest level of panic: the parents of the missing child or the principal and teachers who'd released her to a killer?

"Ani, Ani, Ani, Ani, Animorphs. Who's your favorite?"

"Favorite what?" Phate asked.

"What do you think?" little Samantha asked – a bit disrespectfully, thought both Phate and Uncle Irv.

The girl said, "Favorite Animorph. I think Rachel's my favorite. She turns into a lion. I made up this story about her. And it was totally cool. What happened was-"

Phate listened to the inane story as the girl continued to drone on and on. The little brat kept up the prattle without the least encouragement from old Uncle Irv, whose only comfort at the moment was the razor-sharp knife at home and the anticipation of Donald Wingate's reaction when the businessman received the plastic bag containing a rather gruesome present later that day. In accordance with the point system in the Access game, Phate himself would be the UPS deliveryman who dropped off the package and got the signature of D. Wingate on the receipt. This would earn him 25 points, the highest for any particular murder.

He reflected on his social engineering at the school. Now thathad been a good hack. Challenging yet clean (even though uncooperative Uncle Irv apparently had shaved off his mustache after his last driver's license photo).

The girl bounced obnoxiously on her seat. "You think we can ride that pony Dad got me? Man, that is so neat.

Billy Tomkins was talking all about this stupid dog he got, like, who doesn't have a dog? I mean, everybody has a dog. But I've got a pony."

Phate glanced at the girl. Her perfectly done hair. The expensive watch whose leather band she'd defaced with indecipherable pictures drawn in ink. The shoes polished by someone else. The cheesy breath.

He decided that Sammie wasn't like Jamie Turner, whom he'd been reluctant to kill because he reminded him so much of himself. No, this kid was like all the other little shits who'd made young Jon Patrick Holloway's life at school pure hell.

Taking some pictures of little Samantha before the trip to the basement and little Samantha after – now, that would give him a great deal of satisfaction.

"You want to ride on Charizard, Uncle Irv?"

"Who?" Phate asked.

"Duh, my pony. The one Dad got me for my birthday. You were, like, there."

"Right. I forgot."

"Dad and me go riding sometimes. Charizard's pretty cool. He knows his way back to the barn all by himself. Or, I know, you could take Dad's horse and we could go around the lake together. If you can keep up."

Phate wondered if he could wait long enough to get the girl into the basement.

Suddenly a loud beeping filled the car and, as the girl continued to prattle on about morphing dogs or lions or whatever, Phate pulled the pager off his belt and scrolled through the display.

His reaction was an audible gasp.

The gist of Shawn's message was that Wyatt Gillette was at CCU headquarters.

Phate felt the shock as if he'd touched a live wire. He had to pull off the road.

Jesus in Heaven… Gillette – Valleyman – was helping the cops! That's why they'd learned so much about him and were so close on his trail. Instantly hundreds of memories from the Knights of Access days came back to him. The incredible hacks. The hours and hours of mad conversations, typing as fast as they could out of fear that an idea might escape. The paranoia. The risks. The exhilaration of going places online where nobody else could go.

And just yesterday he'd been thinking about that article Gillette had written. He remembered the last line: Once you've spent time in the Blue Nowhere, you can never completely return to the Real World.

Valleyman – whose childlike curiosity and dogged nature didn't let him rest until he'd understood everything there was to know about something new to him.

Valleyman – whose brilliance in writing code approached and sometimes surpassed Phate's own.

Valleyman – whose betrayal had destroyed Holloway's life and shattered the Great Social Engineering. And who was alive now only because Phate hadn't yet focused on killing him.

"Uncle Irv, um, how come we're stopped here? I mean, is there something wrong with the car?"

He glanced at the girl. Then looked around the deserted road.

"Well, Sammie, you know what – I think there may be. How 'bout you take a look?"

"Um, me?"

"Yeah."

"I'm not sure what to do."

"Just see if the tire's flat," kindly Uncle Irv said. "Could you do that?"

"I guess. Like, which tire?"

"Right rear."

The girl looked left.

Phate pointed the other way.

"Um, okay, that one. What should I look for?"

"Well, what would the Animorphs look for?"

"I don't know. Maybe if there was a nail in it or something."

"That's good. Why don't you look and see if there's a nail."

"Okay."

Phate unhooked the girl's seat belt.

Then he reached across Sammie for the door handle.

"I can do it myself," she said defiantly. "You don't have to."

"Okay." Phate sat back and watched the girl fumble with the latch then push the door open.

Sammie got out and walked to the back of the car. "It looks okay to me," she called.

"Good," Phate called. And gunned the engine, racing forward. The door slammed shut and the tires sprayed Sammie with dust and gravel. She started to scream, "Wait, Uncle Irv…"

Phate skidded onto the highway.

The sobbing girl ran after the car but she was soon obscured by a huge cloud of dust from the spinning wheels. Phate, for his part, had stopped thinking about little Samantha Wingate the moment the door slammed.