Should he marry her? Stop her from having the abortion, marry her and have the kid? He never saw himself as a father. Of course, he’d never gotten anyone pregnant before, either.

His cell phone started to ring but he ignored it. He struggled to his feet, gritting his teeth. He felt such heaviness surrounding him, the pressure of the case, the chaos of Charlotte’s idiocy, the specter of an unplanned child,..

It was too much. He went into the kitchen, splashed cold water on his face, then went to the living room and turned on the television. A breaking news alert flashed red on the screen, and he felt his heart sink. The anchor had tears in her eyes as she delivered the statement.

⁴The Clockwork Killer has struck again.”

“Son of a bitch!” Baldwin hurled the remote across the room. It crashed against the wall in several pieces, the perfect allegory for his life. Broken pieces. Little girls scattered like seed com in the forest. A suspect with no evidence to tie him to the crimes. And a demented profiler hell-bent on her own personal destruction. His life, turned upside down. How many more disasters could this day bring?

Charlotte

Charlotte sat in her car, white and shaking. She couldn’t believe Baldwin had questioned her. Is it mine? That bastard. How could he think otherwise? He’d been fucking her every chance he got for over two weeks. How dare he be so callous? How dare he? After all she’d given him. After what she’d said.

She did love him, whether he believed it or not. Her love may not manifest itself in the ways others could interpret, but it was love, nonetheless. She’d never given herself so totally to a man before. Look where it had gotten her. Alone and pregnant, in her car, crying.

She wiped her face angrily. Crying would solve nothing.

He was just scared. That’s all. She shouldn’t have told him her plan, not until afterward. She should have eased him into this, told him about the baby, let him be happy first. Then he’d understand her plan was flawless, and the right thing to do.

She put the car into gear. She had so many things to do today. She’d prove herself to him, and he would come back. He would. She would make sure of it.

Fifty-One

Nashville

9:00 p.m.

Taylor was in the conference room at the CJC, getting briefed about a boy named Schuyler Merritt, who Susan Norwood and Juri Edvin called Raven. The pieces were all coming together, fast and furious. They’d sent the Howells home-there was nothing more Theo could help with tonight. The Norwoods had been dismissed, as well. Susan had been escorted to booking after telling Taylor the whole story. About how the four of them had split the crime scenes between them, gone into the homes of their enemies, held guns to their heads, forced them to take the poisoned drugs. About how Raven and Fane had perverted their love and made a movie of their actions. About their practice of witchcraft and vampirism.

Lincoln had worked fast, once he had a name to work with. Schuyler Merritt’s history spilled out onto the table with reckless abandon-somewhere, something inside the words might give a clue to where the boy might be.

“I called the reform school he was attending in Virginia. They say he ran away three weeks ago. His parents were notified-by phone and by mail. They sent back a letter saying they were going to homeschool him. The school happily washed their hands of him. Apparently, he’d been quite a handful.”

The fax machine in the conference room had been whirring for thirty minutes. The school was faxing Schuyler^Js records, including his psych reports. The pages fed out of the machine one after another, regimented as any army, detailing incident after incident in the few short months Schuyler had been a resident with them.

Taylor glanced through those pages, wondering how a boy could end up so troubled. Not that she hadn’t seen it before, many times. But Schuyler Merritt seemed worse than most.

”Any word on the location of the mother, Jackie Atilio, yet?”

“No, and we can’t find Schuyler senior, either.’* Taylor turned to McKenzie. “Think he got the parents out of the way?”

“Unfortunately, yes. A cadaver dog is searching the Atilio house and yard, right?”

“Yeah, I haven’t heard about a hit.”

“Might want to send them over to the father’s place, too.”

“They’ve got instructions to go there next. Has anyone been able to place a last-known on either of the parents?”

“Marcus got through to Atilio^fs husband’s commander. He’s been on a training mission and out of touch for two weeks, at least. There’s no way he could have talked to her.”

“Okay. Keep on it.”

Taylor flipped over the re-creation of Schuyler’s reform school jacket, the faxed pages three-hole punched and put into a binder to keep them from getting lost. The pictures showed a thin boy, vanilla-blond hair cropped short, blue eyes that bristled with anger. His lips were pressed together, the point of his collars resonating with the sharpness of his chin.

The reports from the school were crammed full of incidents, ranging from practicing witchcraft to bullying to homosexual liaisons. The psychologists at the school had no control over him. Regardless of their efforts to reach him he retreated, breaking open now and again to shower them all with righteous sparks of fury- When he’d run away from the facility in the dead of night, there’d been a collective sigh of relief from the schools’ administrators. The records also showed that he was grieving the loss of his sister. Separation from her seemed to be the most difficult part of his life.

The girl was the key, according to Susan and Juri. Everything Raven did, he did for his Fane.

Taylor had reinterviewed Susan and Juri, making sure the details about their fourth were as clear and real as possible. They couldn’t give her information that was helpful. They didn’t know where he was. They didn’t know where he’d go. They didn’t know squat. Taylor knew they were lying; they held some sort of mythical reverence for the boy they called Raven. But she didn’t know how to reach them. She had nothing to dangle, no bait. They were both being charged with murder, and there was no way in hell she was going to let one of them plead.

Fane proved to be of little help, as well. She’d taken up some sort of low chant, was sitting ramrod straight mumbling to herself. It was getting late. Taylor went ahead and had the three of them booked into the jail for the night.

Frustrated, she finally put a call into Ariadne, but there was no answer. She left her a message, asked her to call in. Taylor was wholly unfamiliar with this world, and she had a feeling Ariadne could help. She was sorry she’d sent her away.

She was pacing the conference room when her phone rang.

“Taylor?” a breathless voice, Taylor recognized it as Marcus, though the caller ID wasn’t his.

“What is it, man? You sound all out of breath.”

“I’m at Schuyler Merritt’s house. I think he was here.”

“You do? How recently?”

“Very. The Merritt house is on fire.”