But when he called and asked for her room, the operator said that he would have to leave a message with her, as Ms. Taggert was not accepting calls.

He was angry, so he said, “Ask her if she wants more towels,” and hung up.

At about three o’clock, a disturbing thought occurred to him. What if Meghan planned to meet Gabe without ever driving anywhere? What if they were up in her hotel room right now?

But then he thought back to the previous evening’s first fiasco. The reactions of the people at the front desk, the guard who chased him-Meghan had obviously been in touch with hotel security, and now they were keeping an eye on her. Somehow, he doubted she would bring her fugitive brother here under those circumstances.

His uneasiness grew, however, when he considered other possibilities. He decided to drive around the hotel perimeter to better assess the situation. When he used the ticket to exit, he remembered his impatience with the gate the day before and saw that parking in the garage itself might be a bad idea. If Meghan got into her Beemer, he would see her, but if he followed her out, she would very likely see him, and even if she didn’t recognize him, she would notice that a guy who looked a lot like James Dean was following her in a Bronco. And if he waited to follow, by the time he got past the parking gate, he’d lose track of her.

So he put on his shades and looked for a good surveillance spot.

Shortly after he left the garage, he found a wide alley that ran along the back of the hotel. Several dozen floral centerpieces were being delivered at a receiving area. Frederick considered for a time all the ways he could gain entry through the back of the hotel, disguise himself in an employee’s uniform, and work at learning Meghan’s room number. None of these seemed like pleasant undertakings, or even likely to pay off, but he didn’t mind having backup plans.

Driving along the front of the hotel, he saw two taxicabs parked in the shade of the area near the lobby entrance. This made him consider another complication: Taxicabs were another means by which Meghan could evade his watchful eye.

He eventually found a place along the street that would allow him to watch both the front entrance of the hotel and the exit for the parking garage.

About twenty minutes later, just as he had decided he was tired of the confines of the Bronco, that he’d just go home and forget all about Meghan, his attention was caught. A taxicab with a male passenger started to pull into the front drive, then suddenly veered away from the entrance, the passenger gesturing as he spoke to the driver. Frederick tried to get a better look at the passenger but failed. The driver then drove to the alley behind the hotel. Curious, Frederick started the Bronco and then moved it so that he could watch the cab without going down the alley itself or being too easily observed by its occupants.

The passenger did not get out. Frederick began to be sure this was Gabe, waiting for Meghan. He considered going down the alley right now and kidnapping him, or even killing him outright. But he’d have to kill the cabdriver and anyone else who might be around the area, and he had no gun with him. He hadn’t tried to obtain one here, either, an oversight he was regretting. But why should he have to skulk around a strange town arranging in low-life bars to buy untried weapons, when he had perfectly good guns at home? If he’d been able to bring his personal arsenal along with him, he would have had plenty of firepower to accomplish the task. For at least two full minutes, his thoughts were taken up with the injustice of the various measures that impinged upon rights guaranteed to him and every other American by the Second Amendment.

Just then he saw Meghan Taggert, escorted by a hotel security guard, leave the hotel through a service entrance door and walk toward the cab. The guard was carrying a small overnight bag. The cabdriver got out, put the bag in the trunk, and-after she shook hands with the guard-Meghan got into the cab.

Frederick noted the cab number, then moved a little farther down the street.

His heart was beating faster now, the thrill of taking up the hunt in earnest singing through every nerve. The cab came out of the alley and moved down the street, nothing indicating a fear of pursuit.

“That’s where you’re wrong, you fucking idiots. I’m after you now!”

He pulled smoothly and slowly away from the curb, following at a discreet distance. He nearly lost them once, then saw that they were getting on to Interstate 40. It was easier for Frederick to hide the Bronco in the freeway traffic, and there were few taxis on it. He smiled and hummed the William Tell Overture.

The cab exited on Tramway Boulevard. Frederick stayed farther back now but had no difficulty keeping the cab in sight. When it pulled into the Sandia Peak Tramway parking lot, he kept driving. He waited, found a place to park along the road, and pulled out a set of high-powered binoculars.

The cab pulled into a passenger unloading area. As the driver got out to retrieve the bag, both Meghan and the male passenger exited. A burly man with graying sideburns-not Gabe.

The truth was instantly clear to Frederick. Meghan was going up to the mountains to this big dude’s cabin, where he was going to fuck her brains out. Obviously the guy was married and cheating on his wife with Meghan, or they wouldn’t have met behind the hotel. It was really sordid. Frederick had a hard on thinking about it.

He decided that he’d let the man take her up there, let them start to drink a little, let them get naked, and then he’d give the big old dude the last surprise of his life. For Meghan, he had many other surprises in store.

Castillo del Chapulínes Resort

Near Oaxaca, Mexico

Tuesday, May 20, 2:16 P.M.

The heavyset and graying man who called himself Gerald Majors studied the two new arrivals. He watched from the balcony of his room, where their voices had come to him as he lay thumbing through a magazine full of photos of naked young boys.

The men by the pool were German tourists, evidently. He had heard one of them call to the other in that language and receive a quick answer in the same. The young men were having drinks now, carrying on a low-voiced conversation. He thought they were probably in their early twenties. Not young enough to suit his fancy.

Majors would tell anyone who asked that he felt no desire whatsoever for sexual relations with adult males. The occasional fantasies about men were never as frequent or exciting as the ones he had about boys. His adult sexual partners had always been women, and he was, in fact, still legally married, although Regina had filed for divorce.

The problem, if you believed it was a problem-and he no longer did-was that every so often he felt an irresistible hunger come upon him, an appetite that had to be satisfied, he believed, or the appetite itself would eat away at him, would demand his attention until he could think of nothing else, do nothing else.

At first, it was a desire for sexual encounters with male children of a certain age, boys of not more than nine or less than six. As risky as that was, he had managed it. He was self-employed, and in a not-so-exciting line of work-an installer and repairer of commercial heating and air-conditioning systems who offered his services especially cheaply to low-income school districts, orphanages, and the like. He traveled for business purposes and was careful to ensure he never did anything that would make those closer to home suspect his proclivities.

The use of roofies-Rohypnol illegally obtained on occasional trips to Mexico-was a little dangerous with boys of this age, but the drug made them unsure of what had occurred and definitely prevented Majors from being identified. The actual encounter with the boys took place away from the schools. For a time he even made up employees for himself. “We’ll send Mr. Brown there on Tuesday.” If there were any questions, he would say Mr. Brown had quit without notice. But there were never any questions, so he had stopped bothering. Now the false IDs came in handy, though.