Connie, as promised, is accompanied by Sherona, as well as her Pekingese, Mr. Yap.

“Sorry about that,” she says, embracing me. “I couldn’t leave him at the warehouse. He’s totally unreliable when it comes to food.”

“The dog is fine. Thanks, Connie. Thanks, guys. You didn’t have to do this.”

“Ain’t done nothing yet,” the master pastry chef responds.

“Sherona’s got a plan,” Connie explains. “I’m going to target the administrator’s office and she’s going after the staff.”

“What I’m going after is the colored people,” Sherona says, her ample chin jutting out. “They see me coming, they’re gonna give it up. We’ll find your boy, Mrs. Bickford. You hang in there, honey.”

Fortunately, Connie has brought along a box of tissues, because my eyes are leaking and it’s not the slight allergic reaction I have to the excitable Pekingese. It’s watching these two unlikely warriors march into combat, both of them looking resolute and determined, and risking God-knows-what on my behalf.

I’m waiting in Connie’s Beetle, feeding milk bones to Mr. Yap, when Maria Savalo rings me back. “Don’t tell me where you are,” is the first phrase out of her mouth. “If I knew that, I’d be obliged to inform the authorities.”

“Fine. I’m in Nome, Alaska, selling ice to Eskimos.”

“My God, you’re joking! One o’clock in the morning and you made a joke, after all you’ve been through?”

“What can I say, I’m in a very weird mood. You know when people say they don’t know whether to laugh or cry? I’m doing both.”

“That’s good, I guess.”

“I’ll let you know.”

“You actually went to the kidnapper’s house and talked to his wife? That’s amazing. And truly dangerous. What if he’d been there?”

“He wasn’t. I knew he wasn’t there.”

“How did you know?”

“A feeling. I can’t explain it. Is the FBI going to do something?”

Maria sighs. “Maybe yes and maybe no. I got hold of the local bureau chief in New Haven. Apparently he goes to bed early, but he returned my call and said he would ‘take appropriate action.’ I asked him what that means, exactly, and he said I’d have to wait and find out. So either they’re all over it or they’re not.”

“Great. Wonderful. My tax dollars at work.”

“The thing is, they have agents on the night shift, I assume, but I really don’t know if anything will happen until tomorrow morning, when the boss comes in.”

“Tomorrow morning will be too late. What about the state police? Can they help?”

“We’ll see. I gave them the information, identifying the alleged kidnapper and urging them to respond immediately. They sounded very interested, but the thing is, I’m a defense attorney and they don’t want to let me know what they’re doing, or not doing.”

“So it all boils down to, there could be a dozen FBI agents and a hundred troopers swarming around, searching for the man who took Tommy,” I say. “Or maybe nothing is happening yet. Or somewhere in between.”

“I’d guess in between.”

“Thanks, Maria. I can hear car noises, where are you?”

“On my way to see Randall.”

“He saved my life, you know.”

“That’s what he does.”

“Got the name of the kidnapper, too.”

“And that’s what he lives for,” says my lawyer. “Is there any point urging you to be careful?”

“No,” I tell her quite honestly. “Gotta go.”

My pastry chef is tapping on the window, and I can tell by the look in her eyes that she has important news.

41 forming rank

In a wooded cul-de-sac a half mile from the highway, Stephen Cutter stands under a drooping willow tree and takes his pulse. The night sky is so overcast, and so dark, that he can see only the illuminated dial of his watch. The rest of him, indeed, the rest of the world, might as well be invisible.

A few yards away, the boxy ambulance blends into the darkness, leaving only a faint ghost image, a shadow of a shadow.

According to the timer, his pulse races at ninety-four beats a minute. Impossible. His resting heart normally clocks about fifty beats. Been that way for years. A runner’s heart, a soldier’s heart, sustaining him through trauma and combat and the slow torture of grief and disappointment. He’s never been an excitable boy, even under circumstances that would turn a civilian’s cardiovascular system into a frizzle of sparking nerves and quivering muscles.

Ninety-four? An overdose of caffeine, perhaps. Or a low-grade infection from where his face got opened by the hacksaw blade. Whatever, it can’t be fear making his heart race, because life itself has become such a complicated struggle that he almost welcomes the looming prospect of his own demise. Hello, death. Come on in, take a seat, I’ll be right with you. “Lights out, eternal peace.” What did the old boy say? “For in the sleep of death, what dreams may come?” No dreams, Cutter hopes, most fervently, “for the worm of conscience still begnaws the soul.” Fucking Shakespeare, how did he know these things? What could an itinerant actor know about killing, about murder? Did playing a role somehow impart the grim, pulse-pounding reality? Must have, because there it is, “begnaws the soul” is exactly right, conjures up an image of rats nibbling exposed organs, and that’s how it feels when a man begs for his life and you kill him with your bare hands, his life passing through your fingers like a cool breath.

Up until about three minutes ago the EMT was a nice young guy, trying his best to be to be supportive and cheerful. Snuffing out his lights wasn’t like terminating Hinks and Wald, professional killers, or Rico Vargas, a professional scumbag, or even that empty suit from Family Finders—killing him had been like stepping on a cockroach. But the boy driving the ambulance, he’d been one of the good guys. Right up until the moment his hands closed around the young man’s neck, Cutter had been trying to think of a way to spare his life. Dope him, tie him up, whatever. And then his hands had made the decision. Squeeze and kill. Keep it simple. Do not be dissuaded from your mission by pity or sympathy or the illusion of human connection.

Cutter is keenly aware that his killing chores are far from over. There will be several more retractions from the world of the living, culminating in the boy Tomas. Tomas who lies drugged and unconscious in the ambulance. No more than a foot from the twin brother he has never known, and never will know, except in the most fundamental physical sense, by providing the heart that will return Jesse to the world of normal boys. Boys who run and play and tease their mothers for worrying about them. Boys who smile in their sleep and dream their big-league dreams. Boys whose very existence gives meaning to the lives of hopelessly flawed fathers, fathers willing to sacrifice their souls so their sons might live.

Get a grip, Cutter tells himself. You’re a soldier, not some limp-wristed drama queen quoting the Bard. Suck it up and do your duty, if not for God and country, then for your son. For the boy who loves you without reservation. For Jesse.

You chose this road. No turning back.

Cutter steels himself for the task of stripping the still-warm body of his latest victim. The EMT uniform will soon enough prove useful. As to the racing heart, he knows the reason, knew it all along. Not caffeine, or the simple act of murder. Something much more profound is at work, splashing adrenaline into his system. Something way beyond fear.

In this dark night of his soul, his dead are forming rank.