“Mallory, do you know what I see when I look past Dale Berman to the next link in the chain of command?”

“Another incompetent bureaucrat. And you wonder why cops hate feds. Ta k e over. At least, get rid of Berman.”

“What do you expect me to do-shoot him?”

“It’s a start.”

Riker hunkered next to the bedroll of Darwinia Sohlo, alias Miriam Rainard. What passed for her tent was an old canvas tarp anchored to the door handle of her ten-year-old car. The detective took over the chore of making a fire to keep her warm. The wood and the kindling twigs were damp, and the woman was in tears, saying, “It’s no use. No fire tonight.”

“Just you wait.” He held up a road flare he had found in the trunk of the car. “You can set fire to water with one of these.” He torched the kindling.

The fire burned bright. The woman smiled.

“I’ve got some bad news,” he said.

One hand flew up to her mouth. “My daughter?”

“Oh, no. I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s not about your kid.” He settled one more log on the fire. “I was watching the TV coverage. I know you always hide from the cameramen, but one of those bastards got you on film. Your face made national news tonight. If your husband was watching that-”

No need to finish. She was nodding. If the wife beater had seen that news program back in Wisconsin, he would be coming for her soon, coming to collect his runaway property. Riker watched her face by firelight. He had expected fear, but she seemed resigned to this news of a beating in her future. He had come prepared with a six-pack of beer to medicate her jitters, but there was no need for that now. He offered her a bottle more in the spirit of companionship, and, when she was done with it, she told him her story.

“I sent my daughter away with the rescue mission. It’s like an underground railroad for women and children.”

“I know what they do.” Riker was familiar with groups who assisted in the escape from abusive spouses. “But you sent her alone.” And that was not normal.

“Yes, I wanted my husband to believe she’d been kidnapped. I stayed with him for two more years-until I was sure he’d given her up for dead. The police always thought she was dead. They watched my husband for a long time. Well, finally it was my turn to run. I didn’t even take a purse. I had this idea that I could just go out and meet up with my child. But you had to go from one contact to the next. If one link in the chain was gone, the trail was lost.”

“So one of your contacts disappeared?”

She nodded. “I’d waited too long to claim my daughter. So she was really lost-not a lie anymore. It’s been twelve years. I’ll never find her, will I?”

“It was brave to try,” said Riker. “You knew the risks, but you tried.”

“But I wasn’t b rave. The whole purpose of the caravan was publicity- getting attention for our lost kids-lost causes. The most I hoped for was local exposure, a few small-town reporters here and there. I never expected the story to get this big. I was afraid of the cameras, my only chance to find someone who would recognize my little girl. I’m a coward.”

“Well, tonight, her picture was on television from coast to coast- yours, too,” said Riker. “So now you should be thinking about your next move.”

“You mean leave the caravan? Oh, no. I can’t do that.”

Riker shook his head. “Darwinia, I only wish you were a coward. How many times have you left the caravan to paste up your posters?” And, so long as the media was not an option for her, he knew Darwinia would do it again and again. This was the lady’s j o b, going out into the dark, always looking over one shoulder to see if her bone-snapping husband was onto her-him or a serial killer.

Which monster would get to her first?

The elderly psychologist sat in the company of FBI agents. The moles hovered by the door, waiting to see if Nahlman would give them up for failing to keep a close eye on the old man. She had no plans to rat them out; she might find some later use for this leverage if she needed more agents in her own camp.

Special Agent Dale Berman was telling the elderly doctor that he had a lot of explaining to do. The man’s voice was more in the range of chastising a child than interrogating a suspect. “What were you thinking, old man-carrying that thing around?”

“You mean the pouch,” said Dr. Magritte.

“What pouch?” Berman raised his eyes to stare at Agent Nahlman, who had personally escorted the psychologist and ex-priest to this motel room. The doctor had been her prime exhibit while carefully bringing home the point that the background checks on the caravan were not all that they should be.

Berman prompted her now. “What’s he mean, Nahlman? What pouch?”

“I think he means his knapsack,” she said. “That’s where he kept the gun.”

The blue pouch with the tiny bones was locked in the glove compartment of her car. She was the only one to see the astonished look in Paul Magritte’s eyes.

Paul Magritte rode back toward the caravan in Agent Nahlman’s automobile. She played the radio, and he replayed his memories of that tumble-down house back in Illinois. For him, it was no longer springtime. Winter was coming. It was not night anymore, but a long-ago day. It was four weeks following his first encounter with the Egrams.

This was no feat of memory anymore. He was reliving it.

Once more he wore a cassock, and again he traveled down a rural segment of Route 66, returning his young charge to the Egram home. The ten-year-old sat beside him as the car rolled down the road of stark winter trees and overcast sky. The child’s face was still swollen from surgery.

On this Saturday following Thanksgiving, here and there along the way, men on ladders were stringing up long wires of colored light bulbs to line their rooftops for the next holiday. The priest was in a good humor that afternoon, for he was about to deliver a fine Christmas present indeed. Paul Magritte had lost his smile as he pulled over to the side of the road.

The Egram house had a hollowed-out look. Every curtain was gone from the windows, and blank walls could be seen beyond the glass. The child beside him could not fail to understand what this meant. It was the priest who was in denial.

How could they be gone?

“Stay here. I won’t be long.” He saw himself leaving the car and walking down the road to the nearest house, and then the next one and the next. No one had seen the couple depart, nor could anyone say where they had gone. The truck driver and his wife had moved by night-and so stealthy. They had not caused one dog to bark. It was only the matter of the dogs that these people found remarkable, not that the Egrams should leave without a word to neighbors of long acquaintance. That they could accept.

Had the police been wrong to clear the parents of blame for the little girl who was lost and likely dead? Flight spoke to guilt, and this might explain why the father had been quick to sign the consent forms: traveling with a deformed child would have made the fugitives stand out on any road.

And now little Adrian Egram was standing in the road and staring at the empty house. The priest was reaching out to console the youngster when the swollen face lifted to smile at him, and a small voice said, “Forgive me, father, for I have-” And here the ten-year-old paused to compensate for the lisp of a misshapen mouth, taking great care to pronounce the word, “-sinned.”

These were ritual words, but this child had not been raised as a Catholic. The mother alone had come back to the faith. Father Paul Magritte looked up to the second-floor window, and there in that upstairs bedroom he envisioned Sarah Egram inadvertently teaching her child these words, this formal prelude to confession-while she packed a small bag for the youngster’s t rip to a Chicago hospital. In his mind, Paul Magritte could clearly see the woman-even hear her now-repeating the words over and over, though the priest had been waiting downstairs in the front room-unable to hear her confession.