“Well, Dale has to start somewhere,” said Riker. “Every good cop needs a shortlist, but your boss never developed one solid suspect.”

If this agent knew anything to the contrary, it did not show in his face, nor did he offer another lame defense of Dale Berman. The boy had a defeated look about him as he walked away. Maybe the boss’s charm was wearing thin among the troops-or, as Riker referred to them, the kiddy cops. Protocol failures were transparent; with the exception of Barry Allen, none of these youngsters had been partnered with a grown-up. Dale had picked them young for good reason: it was harder to con a veteran field agent.

Mallory came up behind Riker and made him jump when she whispered his name. He blamed her foster father for that heart-stopping habit of hers. Lou Markowitz had taught her this creepy game the year that Kathy had lost interest in baseball. Or maybe she had come to understand why other children never wanted to play with her; she frightened them. But Lou had filled the void as her constant playmate, and the two of them had dreamed up new ways to terrify one another in every room of the old house back in Brooklyn. It had been one of the small joys of Lou’s life to come home after a long hard day with murderers-and get scared witless the minute he walked in the door.

“Whatever Dale’s up to, Nahlman’s got no part in it.” Riker recited the highlights of his field report, and then summed it up, saying, “None of Dale’s people have more than a piece of this case.”

“You trust this woman?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Mallory edged a little closer. “Did Nahlman tell you about the little blue pouch?”

Riker shook his head.

“Then you can’t t rust her.”

“Maybe she figured that I’d know what you know. Stupid idea, huh, Mallory? You’re only my damned partner.”

His irritation had no effect on her. Mallory’s e yes were tracking Paul Magritte as the doctor slowly crossed the campground. Magritte came to a sudden stop and rifled his knapsack. Now the old man changed direction to head for his car and privacy.

“Why isn’t he in jail?” asked Mallory.

Riker would prefer to eat the muzzle of his gun than to ask-one more time-what she meant by that. He walked away from her. He was in no mood for games.

Dr. Paul Magritte held a large, old-model cell phone to his ear and listened to the prelude of every conversation with an old acquaintance, the ritual words, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” The old man sat in the back seat of his car with all the windows rolled up, and still he looked over his shoulder, fearful of what might be coming up behind him.

“No,” he said in answer to a question that was also part of their ritual. “I will never betray you.” Following the caller’s instructions, he opened the glove box and pulled out a new stack of photographs taken with a Polaroid camera. He fanned them out. This time it was not a corpse, but candid pictures of Dodie Finn. A living child was a break with tradition-or was she dead? Paul Magritte’s eyes searched the side window for a sign of her.

Dodie, where are you?

One veined hand groped about inside his nylon sack, where, until very recently, he had kept a rusty gun. His hand slowly closed around the hilt of a newly purchased hunting knife. “Dodie Finn is insane,” said Magritte to his caller. “What harm could she do to you?”

He heard a low buzz on the phone and words rising to be heard above the noise. He had the ugly sensation of black flies crawling around in his ear.

“Look at her,” the caller said. “Look to your left, old man. That’s it. You see her now?”

“Yes.” The child was sitting on the edge of a folding chair. Her thin legs were drawn up as she perched there, leaning forward and defying gravity as birds do. She began to rock, and the old man feared that she would fall. Ah, but now her father grabbed her up in his arms and held her close. Joe Finn’s e yes went everywhere, seeking the cause of this upset.

“There. You see it now,” said the voice on the phone. “She rocks, she hums. Dodie’s full of little cues and clues.”

They debated this for another hour. The doctor held a perfectly rational conversation with the devil. All the while, Paul Magritte’s eyes traveled over the dark windows of caravan vehicles. So many newcomers. The FBI agents could no longer keep track of them. Dodie Finn’s stalker had a gift for procuring cars, and there were many here that might harbor him tonight.

“When it’s over,” said his caller, “I give you permission to hand over my photographs to Detective Mallory.”

Of course. Magritte sighed. He should have foreseen this. Now Mallory had been woven into a serial killer’s little story of himself-a legend still in the making. It was the young detective who would explain this wondrous design to the world, for Magritte could not be expected to break his silence after all these years. The old man now saw his only role as the archivist- and suddenly he saw the greater value of the photographs, Polaroids with no negatives.

When it’s over?

What was meant by those words?

Ah, yes, now the elderly psychologist understood it all too clearly. Every legend must have a dramatic finale. But this quest for fame was pathetic, the ploy of a little boy. It was like a letter written to the parents who had run away from him and gone to ground where he could never find them. He would find them now, and it would not matter if he was alive to see their stricken faces. It went beyond revenge-this maniacal communiqué of the abandoned child. And it was possible for the old man to pity a killer of children-even as he plotted to destroy him. With suicidal ideation in the mix, the murderer would become more reckless. The time was right. Dodie must survive.

Magritte looked down at the knife held tight in his right hand. What a fool he had been to believe that he could save a child this way. His best weapon had always been words. “More pictures to burn,” he said to his caller, his torturer.

“What did you say?”

“You didn’t think I kept them, did you?” Magritte waited out the silence for an endless crawling minute. “You never made copies, did you? No, of course not. Well, they’re gone. I burned them all.”

The cell-phone connection was broken, and his usefulness to a psychopath was at an end. He sat bolt upright, the knife clutched in both hands now. Hours passed. The sky was lightening, and every star had been lost when he reached that point where even fear could not keep him awake. His eyes closed, but only for the time it took for the sun to clear the horizon line. The early light was slanting through his windshield when he awoke to the noise of barking dogs. The parents were striking camp and packing vehicles. The caravan would soon be underway. When he turned to the side window, he sucked in his breath. Detective Mallory’s face was inches from his own, and she was staring at the knife in his lap.

She ripped open the car door. “You should be under arrest, old man. What kind of a deal did you do with Agent Nahlman?”