He slipped to the floor next to her, put his arm around her thin shoulders. He loved to feel the bones sliding under her skin, so close to the surface he could practically see their edges.

“I do know that, love. I have to believe that they are being kept away against their will. The spell we did last night was so strong, the only thing that could keep them away is if they were being held somewhere. I should go, actually-see if I can find out what’s happening. It’s been entirely too quiet out there.”

“Where will you go?”

“Back to rny house. I can look into the mirror, see if I can find them.” He stood, and she scrambled to her feet.

“I’ll come with you,” she said.

“No. I must do this alone. You know I need all my concentration to scry, and you’re too much of a distraction, my dear. A good distraction, but one nonetheless.”

He kissed her deeply, running his hands along her body. When she put her arms around his neck and drew her to him, he felt that incredible high that no drug could ever bring him close to. She slipped her hand into his pants and brought him to readiness in an instant, running her tongue along the edge of his collarbone as she wormed her way farther and farther down his body.

He stepped out of his pants and guided her mouth to his cock, let the warm ache begin inside his balls as she suckled. When he started getting close, he reached down and brought her to her feet, face-to-face, and took her mouth. He loved to taste himself on her lips. Kissing her, he slid up her skirt. She was wearing his favorite garters and panties, the blackand-silver striped ones. They were crotch less, and she was wet, ready for him. He lifted her off her feet and onto the bed, pushed into her body with a single thrust, his hands beneath her buttocks so he could get as deep as humanly possible. They writhed together, becoming one, building to a climax quickly. No spells, no potions, just their love, ex-plod ing between them.

He came back to himself, realized he must be crushing Fane, though she didn’t complain. He sat up, stroking the length of her, then smiled.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” he said.

Forty

Northern Virginia

June 17, 2004

Baldwin

Baldwin watched Harold Arlen through the two-way glass. Goldman was going at him hard. Arlen just sat shaking his head, repeating over and over, “It’s not me. I didn’t do this.”

Baldwin watched the nonverbal cues, looking for the lie. Looking for the trail Arlen had left for himself, the winding, narrow path back to reality. Back to the broken body of another little girl.

The cues were all there. It wasn’t the obvious things he usually saw when interviewing child killers: the leering face during the interviews, the preening, the giggles. The dead eyes that got lively only when the crime-scene photos appeared under his nose. No, Arlen was much more subtle than that. It was all but invisible, masterfully contained below the surface.

Arlen talked in rapid-fire denials, getting angrier and angrier the longer he was kept in the interrogation room. Baldwin was utterly shocked that he hadn’t asked for a lawyer. There was something wrong with that.

They still had a young girl missing. There were no signs of her whereabouts found at Aden’s house, no clues where she might be. If he’d stuck to the pattern, she was already dead, though they hadn’t told the parents that. Baldwin thought it was cruel to let them have hope when the whole team knew there was none, but that wasn’t his call, This wasn’t his investigation-he and his team were simply support.

In the meantime, Sparrow was scouring property rolls and tax records, looking for anything that could be tied to Arlen or anyone close to him. So far, she’d come up with nothing. Butler was in the same boat-he hadn’t found any matching cases within a three-hundred-mile radius. Geroux was still working the other potential suspects, but they were all checking out. Arlen was their last real hope of ending this.

Baldwin was trained to get into the mind of a killer, to anticipate based on the previous kills. Arlen was so squeaky clean that another thought started to form.

Could there be two of them?

A motion caught Baldwin’s eye, chasing the vision of a team away. He watched Aden’s hands. He was stroking his index finger with his thumb, over and over. Baldwin leaned closer to the speaker to hear better. Goldman was asking about Kay lie Fields. Aden’s body was completely still except for that repetitive caress. It was almost as if he was fondling.. .Baldwin realized Arlen was mentally masturbating, using the descriptions of the missing girl as fodder for his disgusting imagination. Since he wasn’t physically capable of having sexual reactions, he was using the hand gestures as a surrogate.

“We have exactly nothing, sir.” The voice made Baldwin jump.

He gave Butler a sheepish grin. “You startled me.”

“Sorry, boss. I’ll give you more warning next time.”

Butler was small, only about five foot seven, lithe and wiry. He had a very slight British accent, a leftover vestige of two years in England when he was a child. He didn’t have the usual look for the Bureau-sandy-blond hair a little long, covering a piercing in the upper left flange of his ear, jeans instead of a suit. Baldwin didn’t care what he looked like-the man was a genius with forensics.

“You were saying?”

“The Fairfax County crime-scene techs got nothing. Not a single hair, a minuscule fiber, a shred of mitochondria. Nothing. His house was completely clean. There is no evidence at all to support the theory that any of the girls were kept there. And now the power is out in his neighborhood, so they had to wrap it up. The storm is really bad. Over an inch of rain so far.”

Yes, he’d heard the wind whipping trees against the bricks, saw the torrential downpours. All he could think about was Kaylie, alone in the vicious rain. Baldwin turned back to the window. He’d missed the last exchange. Gold-man was flushed with anger, Arlen grinning slightly. Oh, no. What had just happened?

Goldman came bustling out the interrogation room door.

“Fucking squirrel lawyered up.”

“Now?” Baldwin asked. “It’s been hours. Why now? What did you ask him last?”

“I asked about Evie Kilmeade. He shut down like a freight train ran him over. Smiled that creepy-ass smile and said ‘lawyer.’”

Baldwin looked back through the glass. Arlen had resumed his finger sex, eyes closed, a small smile on his lips. Why now? After hours of being interviewed, after all the games, the denials, why did the name Evie Kilmeade make him put the lid down?

Because he was playing them. And he was doing a damn good job of it.

Forty-One

Nashville

2:30 p.m.

Taylor and McKenzie rolled up to Fane Atilio’s address. Bob Parks was behind them, and another patrol car was on its way. Taylor didn’t anticipate trouble from a fifteen-yearold girl, but if her boyfriend was around… She had to wonder, who was she relying on now? Ariadne’s impression of a couple of teenagers at a rave? Or her own gut, which told her there was more to come?