"Musta been that storm I mentioned," wheezed W. O., sizing up the damaged cabin and scratching his head, his breathing labored from the walk. "Place looked bad before but never this bad."

"What a lonely place," I said.

"For me and you, yeah. But not for Thelma. She loved it. Never liked neighbors or seemed to have the need of other folk, just her and the boy. She used to say the best thing about living out here is that no one bothers you. You get to live like youre the only people on earth, with no one but G.o.d to answer to."

David wasnt listening, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the clearing, five acres or more, around the cabin. He was worried. Without cover, we would be easy targets. A gun wasnt Doyle Tylers preferred weapon, but hed used one in Galveston. We could be walking into a trap.

"Wait here," I ordered the old man, as David and I stepped forward.

"Dont worry about me," he said, slipping his hand inside his jacket pocket and retrieving a .38. "I always carry it with me. Snakes."

"If you see the kid, dont shoot unless you have to," David ordered.

"h.e.l.l," scoffed W O., "Im too old to worry about being a hero. Leave that to you two. I see that boy coming at me with anything but an olive branch in his hand, he better have said his prayers, because hes meeting his maker."

With that, David and I warily worked our way toward the cabin. I focused on the woods, scanning the trees, searching for movement, anything that appeared out of place, a futile effort at best. The forest offered abundant opportunities to hide. Behind a tree trunk or with his belly pressed flat against the earth, Doyle would be nearly invisible.

David led the way, holding up his shotgun and keeping his focus on the cabin, as I rotated side to side, aiming my rifle at shadows. Something slithered away from our approaching footsteps, under the thick coat of ferns that covered the ground. A hawk flew silently overhead, the only sound the rhythmic thudding of its muscular wings against a pale blue, nearly cloudless sky.

When we reached the battered log cabin, David nodded toward the front door, and I cautiously took the five steps up onto the porch, its boards ulcerated with rot, the once rust-colored paint buckled and peeling. I positioned myself at the front door, listening intently for any sign someone might be waiting for us inside. Footsteps. A voice. I heard only silence from the cabin and the sounds of the forest around me.

David left me standing guard, as he circled to the back of the house. My heart threatened to drill a hole through my chest as I waited, silent, alert, surveying the woods with my rifle scope as a guide and listening at the cabin door until I heard David shout, "Now."

At that moment, I became instantly calm. I turned the handle; the door was unlocked, and I pushed through into the cabin.

"Police," David shouted. "We have a search warrant. Come out with your hands up."

His only answer was silence.

Once inside, we rushed to the center of the room, then stood back-to-back, shuffling in a circle, our weapons targeting the walls, as if partners in some awful dance. My mind registered snapshots, a spray of light flooding through the jagged opening surrounding the tree limb, a sink black with mildew, battered kitchen cabinets, a table with two ladder-back chairs, and what appeared to be the remains of a broken third chair leaning against a wall. A fireplace and a stack of wood. A television with a shattered screen. A small corner altar had a cross anch.o.r.ed to a post behind it.

I heard a sound and swiveled, aiming my rifle at the tail-end of a cat-size rat vanishing into a hole left by a missing chunk of wall.

Satisfied the main room was clear, we cautiously made our way to a closed door next to the soot-black stone fireplace. David swung the door open and we entered the cabins only bedroom. A scratched and tarnished metal frame held a sagging mattress.

"Look," David said, nodding toward the wall.

Above the bed, another b.l.o.o.d.y cross.

We circulated through the room, guns drawn, my pulse quickening.

Thelma Tylers clothes, housedresses, jeans, and blouses worn to threads, hung on a rusted metal rack. The dresser drawers yawned open, the top one containing a few careworn yet neatly folded negligees and lace undergarments, tools of her trade. I zeroed in on a faded color photograph, on top of the dresser in a black plastic frame, of a plump young woman with an anxious smile, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and a beige cotton dress. Next to her stood a small boy, no more than seven or eight, with an empty expression and a mop of pin-straight blond hair.

The bedroom secured, David nodded toward two doors leading off to the right.

The first was the bathroom, so small the corroded sink, toilet, and shower left barely enough room to stand. Behind the second door we found what could have been a closet, had most of the floor not been consumed by a tattered blue-and-white-striped stained mattress. Abandoned boys clothing and frayed, soiled schoolbooks lay scattered beside it. The low ceiling and sloped walls made it impossible to stand upright once inside.

"I saw a shed around back," David said.

We left through the back door and made our way to the shed, again watching the forest, knowing it was possible we were being observed in return. I saw W. O. Harris in the distance, still clutching his .38.

At the shed door, I put down the rifle and held my .45 in one hand, the doork.n.o.b with the other.

"Ill stay here," David said.

I nodded. With both of us inside, we would have been easy targets, like killing livestock in a pen.

I turned the k.n.o.b and eased inside. The only window was thick with filth and covered by a frayed cotton curtain. Coming out of the bright sunlight, at first I saw only darkness. As my eyes adjusted, I detected a glint of metal. My heart lunged and I swiveled, expecting Doyle Tyler to spring at me, brandishing his knife. Then I realized the glare reflected off the walls, covered with chains, saws, hammers, and a sickle, all dangling from hooks. My eyes swept the shed, not knowing exactly what I was looking for. In one corner I saw the skeleton of a fourth kitchen chair, broken, lying in a heap little bigger than kindling. In another, a large cardboard box. Wiping away layers of grime with a handful of brown leaves I grabbed off the floor, I read the top and sides. The box had once held a twenty-four-inch RCA color television, most likely the one inside the cabin, its screen reduced to shards of gla.s.s, as if someone had kicked it in.

Pushing against the box, I felt weight shift inside.

"I found something," I called out to David.

"What?"

"Probably nothing, but give me a minute."

Someone had tied the box shut with a thin rope, the kind used for hanging laundry. I took out my pocketknife, flipped open the blade, and sliced back and forth twice. The rope, rotted and weak, easily severed. I edged it away, careful not to disturb the two knots that held it together. They could end up in a courtroom someday, evidence in a trial. I felt certain they were the same as the slipknot the killer used around Annmarie Knowless neck.

The rope pushed to the side, four strips of silver duct tape bound the carton shut. I yanked off two, enough to open one side of the box, but an inner flap blocked my way, so I ripped off the remaining two. I eased open the box and uncovered a layer of dried pine straw. The faint smell of something rotting filled the shed. I gingerly pushed the straw aside, uncovering a shiny, black plastic garbage bag. Not wanting to disturb the green wire tie at the top, where fingerprints would most likely be found, I again used my knife, slicing through the bag. With the blades first puncture, the cabin filled with a heavy, unmistakable stench. My stomach roiled, and when I breathed in, it felt as if the noxious odor coated my throat, tongue, and teeth.

A surge of nausea made my body tremble.

Certain I knew what waited inside, I stretched open the black plastic, exposing one fragile, leathery human hand, its fingernails painted the deep blue-red of blood as it makes its way to the heart.

I walked outside, took a deep breath of fresh air, filled my mouth with saliva and spit, and then turned to David.

"My guess is that weve found Thelma Tyler."

Thirty-three.

The body was mummified.

In death, the womans skin had cured translucent amber brown. Decomposition tightened her muscles and tendons, until they pulled as taut as expanded rubber bands, locking her joints. The orbits of her eyes empty hollows, the brown roots of her dyed blond hair still anch.o.r.ed in a cheap plastic barrette. Wearing a silky red camisole and panties, shed been bound at wrists and ankles, cinched together with rope discolored by the seepage of bodily fluids. Inside the box, her body had been neatly folded into a fetal position, knees pulled up and her chin tucked against her chest. From the side, I saw the edge of a gaping wound at the base of her throat.

Minutes after discovering the body, I contacted the captain, who called the department higher-ups. An hour later, DPS helicopters began landing in the field beside the cabin. The scene soon swarmed with FBI agents and my fellow rangers, most pulled off the train searches, and a DPS crime-scene unit there to process the cabin and confiscate evidence. Along with Doyle Tylers discarded schoolbooks, they bagged dishes, clothes, and a hairbrush to send to the lab, in hopes of uncovering clues, including DNA.

While David and I watched, two men readied what remained of the woman for transport. With no local medical examiner capable of handling the examination, the captain made arrangements to send the body to the coroner in Houston. The rest of the unwrapping would take place at the county morgue, where conditions could be controlled. Theyd already sealed the box in sterile, white trace-element sheets, to prevent any evidence from being lost during the trip. I had no doubt wed verify that the corpse was what little remained of Gabriels mother.

Meanwhile, W O. Harris sat back, eyes wide and just a little sad.

"Yeah, Thelma looked great in that red getup," I heard him tell an FBI agent who scrawled his every word into a notebook. "True, that woman wasnt a saint, but I gotta think she deserved better than that. Cant understand how any boy can do that to his very own mother."

At two-thirty that afternoon, the sun hung high overhead and glared relentlessly down upon the scene at the cabin. One team of lab techs concentrated on the house, while another scrutinized the shed, including firewood stacked and leaning against the back wall. This was just the beginning. The lab guys would be here for days, examining, inspecting. Including the woman found at the cabin, we now had six murder cases, plus the probable killings of no one knew how many unfortunate illegals on the trains, hanging in the balance.

As I watched a deputy carefully pull away the first piece of firewood, Sheriff Broussard b.u.mped me on the radio. Id asked him to use his contacts in Bardwell to find out anything else he could about Doyle Tyler, aka Gabriel. Townsfolk, he said, described the boy as a loner, a sullen child who faded into the shadows, easily overlooked. In school, his grades were average, Cs and the rare B, but more than one teacher sensed a keen intelligence. Some said theyd attempted to break through the wall the boy had around his emotions. All eventually gave up, their intentions thwarted by his persistent silence.

From an early age, small and spare, hed been a frequent target for schoolyard bullies. That ended at the age of ten, when he retaliated against one young tyrant. Half the bullys size, Tyler left the playground thug with three broken ribs and a gash from a knife across his cheek. After that, the other boys left Tyler alone. The following year, he virtually disappeared. According to school records, the boy simply stopped showing up. The local sheriff at the time, Broussards predecessor, remembered once traveling out to Thelma Tylers house with the mission of bringing her son back to school.

"The sheriff had a spat with her, told her he didnt care how she made her money, but she was going to educate the kid," said Broussard. "She said she saw no reason the boy needed to know any more than she could teach him and claimed she didnt know where Doyle was anyway, said he spent most of his time in the Thicket. For a few years after that, hardly anyone saw the boy, unless they came upon him unexpectedly in the woods. When someone did, he never talked, just stared at them until they got spooked and left. That point on, its like Doyle Tyler ceased to exist. No drivers license, no work records, nothing. Cant tell you where hes been for the last eight years. Guess he musta lived out there with his momma, but n.o.body I talked to remembers seeing him."

After I thanked the sheriff and hung up, I did something Id wanted to do since I first noticed the photograph on Thelma Tylers dresser. Wearing evidence gloves, I carefully removed it from the frame and scanned it into my laptop. With the photo on the screen, I cropped in around Doyles young face until everything else disappeared. I then moved the image onto the left half of the screen. On the right side, I pulled up the sketch of Gabriel as a boy. My fingers sprinting across the keyboard, I played with the two images until they became similar in size, then I superimposed the sketch over the photo, easing it into place, lining up the corners of the eyes and the unusually high cheekbones. I clicked on the photo two more times, to blow it up, just a bit, until it filled the outline of the sketch. My body shivered, as if chilled by an undetected breeze. The two faces were a close match, their bone structures eerily similar.

Finished, I bagged both the photograph and the frame to turn over to forensics, just as David returned from taking a phone call.

"The captain just got a report from the lab. Some of the fingerprints theyve collected from the house and e-mailed in are consistent with the San Antonio fragment and identical with the one from Dr. Neals back window. Did you notice that the knots on the box and the bindings on this body match those used in the other murders?"

"Yeah, I noticed," I said.

With that, we both sank into silence, watching the activity surrounding us, lost in our own thoughts.

"So this is how you grow a Doyle Tyler?" I finally asked. "Are we supposed to feel sorry for this kid?"

"No," said David. "Were not."

I wasnt willing to leave it at that.

"So from the mattress, we surmise he lived in the closet, slept in there, probably listened to everything going on in the other room while his mother bedded down the locals for money and spouted Bible verses. But is that enough?" I asked. "What transformed the child in the picture into a psychopath, obsessed with torture and murder?"

"You can quote the same studies I can," he said, frowning, his eyes carrying the sadness of having seen too much suffering. "Abuse, physical, s.e.xual, verbal, emotional, usually factor in. But that cant be all. Otherwise, why do some kids live through indescribable h.e.l.l and grow up to be normal, functioning adults? And what about serial killers who arent abused as children? What happens to them? Maybe someday, along with defective genes for cancer and heart disease, theyll identify one that predisposes children to grow into monsters."

"Do you think h.e.l.l come back here?" I asked.

"No," David said. "My guess is hes happy to be rid of this place and all it represents."

"But hes been here, recently," I said.

"How do you know?"

"When I went back into the kitchen, I looked around. I found an empty pint-size milk carton in the trash," I explained. "The expiration date isnt until next week."

Just then, one of the crew dismantling the woodpile called out, "Lieutenant Armstrong. Agent Garrity. Over here. We found something."

A group crowded around the man, but as David and I approached, they opened their ranks, making a path for us to walk through. There, crouched on the ground, was a deputy holding a paper grocery sack in one hand and a fistful of newspaper clips in the other.

"We found them inside the bag, hidden behind the woodpile," he said.

On top was the Galveston County Daily News photo, taken as I left the scene of the Mary Gonzales murder. That wasnt surprising, but as the deputy quickly paged through the pile, he uncovered every article that had run on the killings. The last clip on the stack was Dr. Neals obituary, three columns wide, listing his many affiliations and awards. The only articles missing were those that had just run that morning, the interview Id given to Evan Matthews and the profiles of the victims. Wherever he was now, I was sure Doyle Tyler had already read them. He must be furious, I thought.

"Thats not everything," said the deputy. "Theres one more."

Something about the way the officer looked at me telegraphed that this would not be good news.

"We found this," he said, handing me a soiled sheet of computer paper.

At first, I simply stared at it, trying to understand how I could be holding a copy of the photo and article about Maggie and Strings from the school newspaper. That wasnt possible. Doyle Tyler could never have found it. How could he? It was a school newspaper, handed out only to students in Maggies middle school. Then, my pulse drumming ever harder and a shadow of dread descending upon me, I noticed the school districts Web site address printed across the top. No, I thought. They wouldnt...? But they had. The main office had recycled The Armadillo photo and article, using them in an online newsletter. My hands began to shake when I realized that I must have been distracted the night Maggie showed me the article and the photo. Why hadnt I noticed before that my face was visible in the background?

"Oh, G.o.d, no...." I said, my head reeling, as if Id sustained a hard physical blow. "David, no."

Thirty-four.

Mom would have called if there was a problem. Maggies not due to get out of school for ten minutes. Shes safe there," I said, as David and I ran toward one of the helicopters parked in the clearing. Every word stumbled off my lips. I felt as if I were moving in slow motion, trapped in a bizarre dimension where seconds became minutes, and minutes lingered like hours. All the while, inside my head, a terrified voice screamed "No" over and over, growing louder and louder, until I barely recognized my own, still remarkably calm voice say, "Ill have headquarters connect me with the school, and Mrs. Hansen will keep her until we arrive. Itll be all right, David. Youll see. Itll be all right."

At the chopper, David pulled back the door and we jumped in. My heart pounding, I didnt realize at first that we were the only ones inside. No pilot. I had to keep reminding myself that, as unreal as it felt, this wasnt a movie, where a wild-eyed guy in a leather jacket invariably stood ready to whisk us to Houston in the span of a few frames of celluloid. We had an hours flight ahead of us.

While I struggled to remain calm, David stuck his head out the door and shouted toward the men still milling around the shed, "Wheres the pilot?"

"Sorenson. Now. They need the chopper," someone yelled, and a man loped toward us. The engine geared up and the blades churned, at first slowly and then building speed. We were airborne, on our way to Houston, when David radioed the captain.

"Why does Sarah need to talk to Maggies teacher?" he demanded. "Whats wrong?"

"Not now," David ordered. "Just patch us through."

Seconds later, as the helicopter cut across the sky over the top of the forest, the school receptionists familiar voice crackled through on the speaker.

"This is Mrs. Armstrong, Maggies mother," I explained, shouting over the noise of the engine and the blades sweeping overhead. "I need to talk to Mrs. Hansen. Its an emergency."

"Mrs. Armstrong?"

"Put me through to Mrs. Hansen, now," I shouted, a ragged edge of hysteria creeping into my voice. "This is important."

"Mrs. Armstrong? How nice of you to call. My, its loud wherever you are," said Mrs. Hansen, cheerfully. "Hold on a minute, would you?" Without waiting for an answer, she turned her attention to a student.

"Mrs. Hansen, please..." I yelled into the radio.

She didnt respond. Instead, I heard her say, "Todd, I told you that you had to have that paper in by last Thursday, not this Thursday; now please sit down at your desk and wait. I said wed discuss this after dismissal. Right now, I have a phone call to take care of."

See, everythings all right. Theyre still in session, I thought. Maggies safe.

"Mrs. Armstrong, what can I do for you?" Mrs. Hansen said, rather breathlessly. "Youve caught me at a busy time of the school day."

"The children are still there."