Outside the department’s front door, he stood without a coat, trying to use the cold to redirect his thoughts. He stayed there until he could feel the bite of the wind, letting the discomfort distract him from his failing approach to the investigation.

Then one of the latest photos flashed through his mind. But the image did not last long enough for him to figure out why it had risen out of his subconscious. He hurried back to the desk and pulled the picture up on the screen. After studying every little detail, he still couldn’t see anything. He closed his eyes and then slammed his fist on the desk.

The image was that of a boy, about eleven years old, breaking the tape at the children’s race. There were a number of adults standing on the sidelines looking back up the course, trying to find their children in the onrushing pack. It was crowded, and people were walking in all directions. Vail could see how easy it would be to lure a seven-year-old away without anyone’s noticing. By the race numbers pinned to their chests, Vail could see that some of the adults had competed in the 5K run, while the rest were apparently just observers. Then he saw what he had missed.

One of the adult runners seemed to be looking at the camera as if he were measuring its danger. His arm was in front of his number so it couldn’t be read. Vail couldn’t tell if he was blocking it intentionally. But what he’d initially missed was that there was a smaller square of paper attached to the lower left corner of the man’s race number. It had been safety-pinned on so it could be collected at the end of the 3.1-mile race to document finish place and time. Unfortunately, because of the angle, Vail couldn’t make it out either. The man was dark-complected and burly, not a runner’s build. Most people who would run in the cold air of New Year’s Eve were probably not novices. That the number tag was still there suggested he had not run the adult race. His registering could have been a ruse calculated to get him close to the children without seeming suspicious.

The e-mail tone sounded again, and Vail glanced at the monitor. It was from the race officials. Attached were all of their photos. Still lost in thought, Vail ignored it, trying to find a way to determine if the individual in the photo was involved in the boy’s disappearance. Then it hit him. The photo was taken the moment the race’s winner was crossing the finish line. Logically, the official pictures would cover that moment and then beyond.

Quickly, he opened the e-mail and began studying the images. The first twenty or so were of the adult race. He looked for that same individual, thinking the man might have initially been in that area. Vail couldn’t find him. Then the chronologically sequenced photos started documenting the beginning of the children’s run. Vail carefully searched each of them. He knew what the man was wearing and was hoping for a clear shot of his number, which he could match to the runners’ list. There was another one of the young man winning, but Vail’s suspect was not in it.

A half-dozen photographs later, there was one of a man in the distance who appeared to be the right size and with the same clothing as in the earlier photo. He had his back to the camera and stood next to a van. Vail couldn’t tell whether he was stopped there or walking by. The van’s plate was visible, but it was too distant to make out.

Vail found the computer’s Photoshop program and opened it, pulling up the picture. Because the image had been taken with a quality camera, the pixel density was high and allowed him to blow up the license plate to where it could be read. He made a note of it and then centered the photo on the individual. In the space between the man’s legs, unseen before, was what looked like the leg of a child wearing red pants. Vail called the dispatcher and had her run the van’s plate.

While he waited, he shuffled through the growing stack of pages on the desk until he found the BOLO that had been sent out originally. Joey Walton was last seen wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and red sweatpants. The dispatcher came back on the line and advised that the plate came back to a George Hillstrand with a Herndon, Virginia, address.

Vail found Hillstrand’s name on the adult race roster and then checked him in the Reston PD computer. Four years earlier, he had evidently worked in Reston, because the department had gotten a call about him from the Maryland State Police, who were conducting an investigation of a child who had disappeared in Colesville, Maryland. They had called to see if Reston had had any previous contact with Hillstrand. They hadn’t.

The seven-year-old, Edward Stanton, had disappeared during a party at one of those pizza-and-game places that specialized in letting the kids run all over while the parents drank pitcher beer and doled out tokens to keep them busy. Hillstrand’s name had somehow come up in their investigation, but no specifics were listed.

Vail called the dispatcher again and had her run Edward Stanton’s name to see if the boy, or his body, had ever been found. After a short wait, she told him that the missing-person notice in NCIC was still active. Vail asked for the boy’s description. It was not unusual for serial offenders to seek victims who were physically similar. The two boys’ ages when kidnapped were close. She said, “At the time of incident, he was seven years old, four feet one inch tall, and weighed sixty pounds. Medium-brown hair, blue eyes. Under distinguishing marks, he has a crescent-shaped scar on the crown of his head.” A lot of things were matching up, but Vail had seen it before. “Proof positive” that turned out to be a series of impossible coincidences but were in fact just that.

With time so critical, the lead had to be checked out now. He found the dispatcher’s office and went in. “Hi, I’m Steve Vail. How’re they doing?”

Before she could answer, a request to run a plate came over the air. She turned to the computer to type it in and said, “They’re sitting on three places right now, waiting for this guy to come back. Did you want me to tell them something?”

“No, they’ve got their hands full. I’ll catch up with them later.” Vail also knew that if he waited for them, investigative protocol would have to be followed. First, the Maryland State Police would have to be contacted to see if Hillstrand was actually a suspect in the case or, instead, if his name had come up as the result of some other “shotgun” approach, which was not unusual in that kind of case. Hundreds, even thousands of names could be generated and never be fully investigated because of sheer volume. The fact that the state police had never followed up with a more detailed query indicated that Hillstrand was probably not a strong suspect at the time. And in all likelihood, due to the holiday, specific details from the MSP probably wouldn’t be available until sometime tomorrow at the earliest. Then, if Hillstrand had been a suspect in the Maryland abduction and somehow could be shown to be involved in the Walton boy’s disappearance, a prosecutor would have to be contacted for a search warrant while the police went out to surveil Hillstrand’s residence. And finally, finding an accommodating judge on New Year’s Day might prove to be a small miracle in itself. By then, in all probability, it would be too late.

Or Vail could just go there now and have a look for himself.

He opened the drawers to the desk he’d been working at to see if the detective kept a backup weapon. The only thing he found was an extra badge with a clip-on backing. He snapped it onto his belt and left Kate a note, telling her he’d gone to check out Hillstrand, along with the address and how Hillstrand’s name had surfaced. Although the information should prevent her from accusing him of hiding leads, he knew how she would interpret it. He added a P.S.: “This is a long shot, so I didn’t want to bother you with it.” He reread it and shook his head. The only way that he wasn’t going to be accused of deception was if Hillstrand was one of those false leads in which only Vail’s time had been wasted.