Shane is in the jump seat behind me. I hate that they call it a jump seat, but his voice in the headphones is totally calm.

“The local police have been dispatched,” he tells me. “The SWAT team won’t deploy until the situation is accessed. They’ve been informed that the suspect has your son, and that any police presence may set him off.”

“What does it mean ‘until the situation is accessed’?”

“Means they’ll keep out of sight until told otherwise. Nobody wants a hostage situation, Kate. That much is clear.”

At the moment I’ve lost all faith in the ability of the authorities to deal with the man in the mask. I know he’s got a real name, but I can’t seem to lock onto it—he’s still the man in the mask to me. Ski masks, surgical masks, whatever it takes, he’s got a way of making himself invisible when necessary. He managed to slip away from about fifty cops and agents converging on the clinic, all because nobody thought to stop an ambulance with emergency lights flashing. So the idea of a SWAT team doesn’t exactly thrill me. Anxious snipers, a gun battle, hostages down, it all adds up to a nightmare.

Sherona and Connie have been left behind in Scarsdale, not required on this part of the mission, and to be truthful neither seemed all that thrilled about a helicopter flight anyhow. Maria Savalo has promised to rendezvous with us on the ground as soon as she can get there, to handle any legal problems that may arise. My indictment will surely be dropped as they develop new evidence with a new suspect, but I’m not out of the woods yet. Apparently an understanding of what actually happened will take a while to seep into the various bureaucracies, from the Fairfax P.D. to the state prosecutor’s office. I’m no longer killer mom but remain a “person of interest,” whatever that means.

Considering the time of day, we’d be at least two hours away by car, crawling in morning traffic around the urban centers. As the crow flies—or rather as the Bell 407 flies—we’re less than forty minutes from our destination. A rough calculation means there’s a chance we’ll arrive before he does, even though he had a ninety-minute head start. That’s what I’m praying for, to be there when he arrives, before he has a chance to set up whatever sick scenario he has in mind.

The state cops are on the lookout for the stolen ambulance, but my own feeling is, he’ll have new wheels. Something faster, more maneuverable. Van or a pickup. Maybe a station wagon with tinted windows. Whatever he needs to blend in while transporting Tommy to the scene of the standoff. Because that’s where all of this is heading, now that his cover has been blown, his identity shared with every law enforcement agency in the Northeast. As a military man he’ll understand about snipers, he’ll have made preparations. Spider-holes, tunnels, who the hell knows what has taken shape in his sick and desperate imagination?

One thing I know for sure: A man willing to steal a heart from a living boy is capable of anything.

As for Randall Shane, he worries me. The man should be in a hospital bed, under observation, but he insisted on signing himself out, and now he insists on accompanying me. Says he’s fine, no problem, but his eyes have a funny way of going out of focus, and when he walks he looks like a deep-sea diver maneuvering in lead boots.

In my headphones his husky voice says, “You’re convinced he’ll go home. Was it something he said?”

“No. His wife. He left her locked up in the house—or that’s what he thinks. Besides, where else can he go?”

The question is rhetorical, of course. There’s no correct answer, just a gut feeling, and obviously my gut feelings are far from infallible.

As we approach New London, Shane begins to confer with the pilot about strategies for approach. The navigational equipment can direct us to a street address, but it’s not like he can land the thing on a rooftop. Maybe in the movies. In reality there are radio towers and poles and power lines and crosswinds to be taken into account—a wide-open space is required. Plus, if we land too close, the sound of the helicopter will give us away.

“How about there?” Shane asks, pointing. “Would that work?”

“Baseball field,” the pilot says. “Perfect.”

And then the bottom drops out and we’re plummeting. Feels like we must be crashing but the pilot seems calm, so I stifle the shriek in my throat and concentrate on not throwing up. At the last moment we slow down, rising slightly—my stomach suddenly finds me—and then, with a slight bump, we’re down.

Shaking like a leaf, I unbuckle the harness, take Shane’s outstretched hand, and find myself standing in the outfield grass. The ground seems to be moving and Shane has to grab hold to keep me from falling down.

“Take it easy!” Shane shouts as the turbo winds down.

He’s a little rocky himself, and in the end we hold each other up while the pilot grins and shakes his head—amateurs.

“This is a Little League field,” I tell Shane. “I bet he played here.”

“Who?”

“The other boy. Tommy’s brother.”

Spooks me out, thinking about it, so I shove it out of my mind and concentrate on the mission at hand. The authorities are under the impression that I’ll be standing by in case there are hostage negotiations, but that’s not what I have in mind. I intend to be waiting in Lyla’s kitchen when her husband comes marching home. Knowing I can’t be dissuaded, Shane wants to be there, too.

“Which way?” I ask a bit too loudly, my ears still ringing from the helicopter noise.

“Three blocks east.” Shane takes my arm, supposedly to guide me but really to steady himself.

If I knew the Vulcan nerve pinch I’d render him unconscious, leave him sleeping safe and peaceful on the outfield grass. Then again, he’s probably thinking the same about me, although to my way of thinking a collapsed lung isn’t half as serious as a concussion. The cracked ribs hurt like hell, but it’s only physical pain. Nothing compared to the yawning emptiness I’ve been fighting ever since learning that I’d been within a few feet of my son—right there in the ambulance, you fool!—and that I might have blown my last good chance.

Please be alive. That’s my three-word prayer, my mantra, the faint chorus of hope that keeps me going.

We’re on an ordinary sidewalk, the kind with cracks that will break your mother’s back, but the concrete feels spongy under my feet. Shane isn’t faring much better—no words of complaint, but every move is a wince of pain. An observer might suppose we’re an elderly couple shuffling along on our morning walk, holding each other up. The holding-each-other-up part is true enough, and our progress seems agonizingly slow. I suppose we’re moving at a more or less normal rate, but to me it feels like we’re struggling every step of the way. Running in slow motion through deep sand with a tidal wave poised to crash over us.

Three blocks, but it feels like a journey to the end of the earth. At last the trim little house with the white picket fence comes into view. No vehicle in the street or driveway. Looks like we’re going to make it before Papa Bear comes home.

“Don’t turn your head,” Shane cautions. “Can you see that hedge?”

He means the hedge at the other end of the block. I squint, and bring into focus the figure of a man in a blue flak jacket, crouching behind the hedge.

“They’re covering the house from both sides,” Shane says.

When we’re about a hundred feet from the house, the commander of the local SWAT unit steps out from behind a tree and tries to wave us off.

“Do they know who I am?” I ask Shane.

“Not sure,” he says. “They might. Or they might think we’re from the neighborhood.”

“Will they shoot us?”

He shrugs. “I seriously doubt it.”

“Good enough for me,” I say, and steer him around the picket fence, into the yard.