“Hey?” she said softly. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”

He met her eyes, bleak with despair. ‘She didn’t have a pulse earlier, Taylor. I swear it. The EMT who came couldn’t find one, either. Jesus, she’s been lying here dying while I chatted up her mom and figured a way to get the dog to leave her side.”

Ranger sat heavily on Marcus’s feet. He reached down and petted the dog absently.

“Did the mom have any idea what went down this afternoon?”

“No. She’s a single mother, a nurse. Name’s Elissa. She worked late, came home and found Brittany in the den. Brittany’s a scholarship student, I did find that out. Straitlaced, shy. Her mom says there’s no way she was doing drugs voluntarily.”

“There’s no sign of forced entry. Whoever tried to kill her, she let him in.”

“She’s younger than the others, too. I’ve got a patrol canvassing, but this house is set back so far that no one has come forward yet to say they saw anything out of the ordinary.”

“Then we need to start looking for the ordinary. A killer who can disappear into this neighborhood for hours unnoticed,”

“Caucasian, then. Dressed professionally, or in a Halloween costume. It could be anyone.”

“Could be a kid.”

“You think another kid did this?”

“I don’t know. But we need to take that into consideration.”

“If we’d just gotten to her earlier,” he repeated, voice hollow.

She got in his face, forced him to make eye contact.

“Marcus, let’s just focus on the now. Get me a report from the hospital, and let’s take it from there. If the girl lives, post a guard on her room. She’s the only witness we have to this afternoon’s events. I need to get back to Estes-there are still two bodies that Sam hasn’t declared. Take it easy on yourself. Get the patrols to secure this house and we’ll come back to it. This one goes in the win column. Okay?”

“Okay,” he mumbled, misery etched on his handsome features. He wasn’t fooling her. She’d need to talk him off the ledge some more, but right now she needed to attend to the rest of the dead.

“Here, I’ve got something that will distract you. I think our killer may be watching us, waiting to see our reactions. We need to talk to everyone within one hundred yards of these crime scenes that might have a video camera trained our way. Check with the media first. They know to get some crowd shots in the B-roll, and Keri McGee will, too. I’ve noticed some of these homes have a little extra security- they may have cameras that aren’t readily visible. Get through to the security firms in the area, see if any of them service houses near the crime scenes. Can you handle that forme?”

“Of course.” He nodded, putting away the upset, becoming all business again. His eyes shuttered and he snapped open his cell phone, started giving instructions. Taylor squeezed his shoulder and went to join Sam.

She closed the front door and stepped onto the small porch. She stopped for a moment, took a deep breath and blew it out. What a night. Eight kids. Eight.

She started down the steps and caught a flash out of the corner of her eye. She whipped to the side, flat up against the railing, her hand on her Glock. She heard a snap, then the rushing of feet through dry leaves. A mounted spotlight turned on in the backyard.

“Sam, get down,” she stage-whispered, then took off around the corner of the house, yelling, ‘“Police, stop!” The house’s lights were on a motion detector, and the heavily wooded lot was lit up like a Christmas tree. Taylor stopped for a moment, let her eyes adjust to the light, listened to the steps running away from her, stumbling into the darkness.

“Marcus,” she yelled, but he was already next to her, gun drawn.

“I saw the lights go on. What’s up?”

“Someone was on the side of the house, took off running.

They’re headed west, deeper into these trees. What’s on the other side?”

“Hobbs Road. There’s nothing between us and there.”

“Okay, slow and steady. Watch out for yourself. You take the left perimeter, HI take the right. Let’s see if we can’t circle around and catch him before he hits the road.”

“You get a look at him?”

“No. Heavy footsteps though.” Taylor wasn’t an idiot- she wasn’t about to set off without backup. She grabbed her radio. “All units, this is Lieutenant Jackson, in pursuit of an unknown subject running west toward Hobbs Road. We’re at 2135 Warfield Lane. I need a K-9 unit on the scene, repeat, get Simari and Max out here ASAP.”

There were affirmatives, and she stowed the radio. They jogged off at slight right angles into the woods. The fog was heavier here, the leaves on the trees turned so their undersides were showing, aglow in the feeble moonlight. The mist enveloped them-Taylor could hardly see Marcus, though he was running relatively parallel to her, within fifteen feet.

It got darker as they moved away from the Carsons’ backyard, and they slowed. This was no good. This was definitely no good. A small rain started up, spattering against her face. The loamy scent of rotting leaves grew stronger. She could still hear their suspect thrashing in the dark, probably fifty yards ahead of them. The thick haze and lack of light meant he’d slowed, too. That helped. She started off again, at a walk, weapon at her side.

A hard crack made her draw up short and dive behind the nearest tree. Her Glock was tight in her palm, her forefinger alongside the trigger. Her heart hammered in her throat- what was that? She listened, felt her chest rise and fall frantically, inhaling deeply through her nose so she could catch her breath. Another sharp snap went off, then another, a whole string of cherry bombs. A firecracker, definitely not a gun. Son of a bitch.

Something about the fact that the calendar denoted a holiday meant the fine people of Nashville felt it their duty to celebrate, and firecrackers, illegal in Davidson County, were their favorite pastime.

Her heart went back to a manageable pace and she whistled to Marcus, slow and quiet. He answered, a decent imitation of a whip-poor-will, trilling at the end, and they set off again, more cautiously this time.

She could see maybe five to ten feet in front of her. She held up again, heard the whoosh of tires on wet pavement. They were getting close to the road. Throaty, staccato barks bled in from the south. Simari had arrived, and Max, her canine companion, was on the hunt It wouldn’t be long now. Max was nimble and quick, could take down a suspect in a fraction of the time of a human officer during a chase. It was amazing to watch, and Taylor was sorry the visibility was so bad.

It took about a minute before she heard cries to her left. She turned and saw a thin path, jogged up it into a small clearing. Max had done his job and landed the suspect, had his strong jaw clamped around the man’s leg. Officers converged from all sides, Maglites focused on their suspect, weapons drawn. Simari called Max off with a command in German. He whined, but released the suspect’s jeans from his mouth, trotted back to his master with a satisfied air. Simari always fed Max a bloody, raw steak when he had a successful takedown; the German shepherd would be rewarded fully tonight.

Their suspect was moaning, holding his leg like it had been amputated high across his thigh. Taylor approached him carefully, but quickly saw that he was, indeed, down for the count. Blood pooled beneath his torn jeans. Max had taken a decent chunk of flesh out of the man’s leg.

No, it wasn’t a man. The flashlights showed a smooth, round face. This was a boy, Caucasian, no more than thirteen or fourteen. Short for his age, it seemed.

The adrenaline was leaking away; everyone was giddy, joking and laughing. People began to disappear off into the night, back to their cars, back to the multiple crime scenes they’d been pulled away from. ”Hope that was worth it,” she heard one officer grumble. No kidding. Taylor let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding as Marcus snapped cuffs on the boy.