The question opened a wound he hadn't had time to emotionally cauterize. What kind of family could they have with him unemployed? Jenna taking this job was his chance to have some breathing room. From what Jenna had told him, these production companies offered a considerable signing bonus, and paid all moving expenses.

"Jenna," he said gently, "you are my family. The rest can wait."

"Don't you think about kids?"

"More than you could possibly know," he said, looking over at one of the children sitting cross-legged beneath the nurses' station removing his finger from his nose and placing it in his mouth. Really?! He turned his head in disgust.

"More than I can possibly know? What's that supposed to mean?"

Her tone pulled him back to reality. "I don't know what it means. I guess with all that's happening with Gabe, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a father." It was a half-truth, and for him a half-truth was easier to pull off than a whole lie.

"Do you think about marriage?"

There it was, the mother of all bombs. Jenna knew his feelings on marriage. His childhood had been destroyed by divorce, and he didn't want that destruction in his life anymore. She knew marriage was a sacred inst.i.tution to him, and when he decided he was ready, it would be forever. But he wasn't ready.

This pending job change was obviously rattling her cage for her to bring up the topic of marriage. She knew it was a touchy subject for him, a conversation that never ended well. What she wanted to know was, would he leave if things got tough? So he addressed her insecurities.

"Jenna. You're the only one for me. If you need me to pick up and move, I'll move. If you need me to stay and wait, I'll wait. You don't have to worry about me."

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

"I don't know what you want me to tell you."

"I don't want you to tell me anything. Look," she said, "I have to go. I'll take the job."

"Okay then," he said, happy to move on.

She took in a breath and let it out. "We have forever to talk about the future, right?"

"That's right, and that's how long we're going to be together, okay? Forever."

"Okay," she said, "I'll talk to you tonight and tell you how it goes."

"Okay."

"Bye, Jake."

"Bye."

He wasn't sure, but he was fairly confident that the conversation couldn't have gone much worse. Why was she bombarding him with questions about marriage and children? She was sitting on an opportunity she had been dreaming about for years. Everything she wanted from life was now within her reach. Did she want to be a wife and mother more than pursing her dream job? Had her priorities changed? If so, the bigger question was, what did that mean for him? He was hardly in the position to support a family.

He got up and started walking back toward the nurses' area. Most of the children had taken to running down the hall and back up again, screaming and laughing as they went. The noise bouncing off the confined walls of the hospital corridor hurt his ears, but what could he do? He couldn't exactly scream at them and tell them to be quiet.

"Jake?" He looked down at a messy-haired girl who had reached up and clasped his pinky. Her tiny lips puckered, and her round innocent eyes gazes up at him. "You don' have to be awfwaid, evwy-fing wiwl be awight."

Jake walked her back away from the nurses' station and crouched down. "What will be all right? Gabe?"

"He's awight," she said, over enunciating her words.

"How do you know?"

"I'm naw supoze to tewl. Is agenz da wah."

"Okay. But where is he?"

She shrugged.

"How do you know he's all right if you don't know where he is?"

"Oh! Wook!" she said, pointing to a man walking down the corridor toward the nurses' station.

He stopped and leaned over the counter. "Hi, I'm looking for my wife. She's in 814."

"Yup," said the nurse, "right over there."

"Thanks," said the man. He turned and headed in Jake's direction.

Jake took a step toward him. "You just moved into The Schoolhouse Apartments, right?"

The man slowed. "Yes. Yesterday. Have we met?"

"I'm Jake," he said, offering his hand, "I saw you coming off the elevator with a box. I'm your neighbor across the hall."

"Oh, yes, Jake Paris. I saw your name on the buzzer board. What brings you to the maternity ward?"

"I-ah, have a sister who is pregnant."

He smiled. "Cool. My wife's expecting. What a small world."

"So, is she having the baby today?"

"No, tomorrow. They're inducing her today, and she's going to stay the night in the hospital." He made a subtle shift toward the room.

"Well, I won't keep you."

"It was nice to meet you, Jake. I'm sure we'll run into each other again."

"Oh," said Jake. "Have you decided what you're going to call her?"

The question surprised him. "I'm sorry?"

"The baby. Have you decided what you're going to call her?"

"Oh!" he said. "It's not a girl. It's a boy. We're going to call him Alan."

Jake could scarcely take a breath. He remembered the little boy clinging to his mother's leg. She had looked down and rubbed her belly when she'd introduced him. Her son wasn't next to her, he was in her belly! That left one vastly disturbing question.

If their son was Alan, then whose child was Aiyana?

Chapter 39.

The files on Gary Carter's computer, his schedule, and his e-mail, showed no indication of any suspicious activity. It was cleaner, even, than his home computer. Angela ran a root kit and scanned for recently deleted files. There were some interesting searches that had recently been deleted from the browser's cache, but nothing incriminating. Carter had browsed websites for information on serial killers here at his work, just like he had at home. So if he wasn't the killer, he was certainly curious about him.

Perez pulled the last group of folders out of the filing cabinet and looked up at her. "You might want to take a look at this," he said, reaching for the light on his belt. He stabbed the end of the flashlight with his thumb and a beam lit up the back of the cabinet drawer. Resting there was a small sealed hard plastic cylinder.

"What do you make of that?" said Perez.

"Whatever it is, I don't think it was meant to be found." She slid her hands into a pair of rubber gloves and reached into the cabinet.

Perez stopped her. "Are you sure about this?"

"What?" she said. "You think it's a bomb?"

"I think it's a suspicious item with no markings. Maybe we should get forensics to check it out."

"By the time we get that to happen, this kid could be dead," she said, twisting her arm gently from his grip. "If you're worried, you can always go wait in the hallway and suck your thumb."

His face drooped. "You're going to get me killed one of these days, and my wife is going to hunt you down and beat you like a pinata." The word pinata sounded funny in his Mexican accent.

She smiled. "There are few things that scare me in this life, and your wife is one of them."

"You and me both," he said. His face took on the air of a child that just got caught stealing from the cookie jar.

She reached into the cabinet again, pulled the cylinder from its resting place, and brought it over to the desk. There were no words on the shiny, black surface to indicate what was inside. She gripped the lid and pulled it free.

The container held four small plastic Ziploc bags. She turned the container and let the plastic bags slide out onto the desk. Inside the bags were samples of hair-four samples of hair, two brown and two blond.

She looked up at Perez. "You're kidding me, right?"

"He kept a chunk of each of the kids' hair in the back of his filing cabinet at work?"

She read his expression. "I know. This is too easy. Why would a serial killer who has eluded authorities for four years leave DNA evidence in such an obvious place?"

"Maybe he wanted it in a place he could grab it quickly."

"This is all wrong. I can't put my finger on it but-I don't think he's the guy."

"But you're holding evidence that says he is."

"It doesn't add up. This guy isn't a premeditated murderer. He's a man on the run. As soon as all this started, he disappeared, but left his trophies behind? Trophies that just happen to be hard DNA evidence? I don't think so. And look at his search habits on the internet. He wasn't looking up how to wire listening devices, or how to set up an untraceable IP address. He was searching for information about the Cape murderer. I think he knew something, or stumbled onto something, that brought this killer to Sunbury. I don't think Gary Carter is the guy, but I think he knows who is."

Chapter 40.

Holly opened her apartment door and was immediately greeted by Amber. She noticed the dirt and gra.s.s stains on Holly's shorts, gave her a concerned look, and draped an arm around her.

"You poor thing. Let's get you into some new clothes."

Dan came in behind them and shut the door. She heard her car keys clank on the coffee table. He was probably glad to be rid of the diseased things. They were, after all, the source of his torment for the last thirty minutes.

Amber took Holly past the kitchen, past the place where her pills were hidden, and into the bedroom where her nightmare waited. There was a part of her that wanted to go back for Dan, but the best she could do was take comfort that he was near. The clock was approaching twelve noon when the kidnapper would be calling. No one could know about the call, not Dan, not Amber, no one.

"I appreciate the help, Amber, but I need to be alone for a bit."

"Do you want me to run a bath for you?"

"No," she said, "I'll just rinse off and get changed."

"Is there anything I can do?"

Amber meant well, but Holly resented her motherly attention. She was only five years older than Holly, but she acted much older. It didn't bother Holly most of the time. Usually she appreciated Amber's confident girl-power att.i.tude and secretly hoped it would rub off. But in times of self-loathing, feelings of envy and resentment always managed to boil to the surface. But it wasn't Amber's fault-as always, the blame rested with Holly.

"I just need to be alone right now, okay?"

Amber accepted her answer, though Holly did notice the almost imperceptible slide of Amber's gaze, making one more quick scan of the room, as though she had the ability to detect drugs with the brush of her eyes. "If you need anything, I'll be in the kitchen."

Amber closed the door behind her, and Holly threw herself onto the bed. She wanted to scream into her pillow. She wanted to thrash and kick. Her head was splitting and there was nothing to deaden the pain-nothing to kill the anxiety and numb the hopelessness.

Why? Why was she like this? Was she just a miserable person? What made the contentment that others seemed to have so unattainable? Was she broken inside beyond repair? Was she truly incapable of crawling out of her own filth?

She coiled on the bed in torment. The killer was about to call her, and all she could think about was dropping an Oxy. The relief they offered was temporary and fleeting, yet she longed for it. Her body was being destroyed by them, but she didn't care. Somewhere deep inside there was a desire to be dead, forever separated from the pain of her life.

She ripped herself from the bed. It wasn't just her life anymore. She was responsible for another, one far more precious than her own. He didn't deserve to watch his mother waste away. She owed him more than simply bringing him into this world. If there was one thing the killer had right, it was that she had a responsibility to give her son a home, a good home, and that was going to start today!

She went into the kitchen, opened the cabinet under the sink, and tore the pill package from where it was taped behind the sink drum. Dan stood in the doorway, but said nothing.

She pulled herself to her feet, stomped down the hall past Amber, who had opened the door to her bedroom to find out who was making the noise, and poured the contents of the bag into the toilet. Her hand began slapping the handle on the flush, but the slap turned into a pound, and the pound grew fiercer and fiercer. She beat at it until the bottom of her hand was b.l.o.o.d.y and the handle shattered. Dan s.n.a.t.c.hed her fist as it rose up to strike the jagged plastic left on the broken handle.

She began screaming and kicking, but he gripped her tighter. "I hate them! I hate them! I hate them!" she screamed over and over until finally her body went limp, and her voice dropped to a whisper. "I hate them..."

Dan's voice cut through the dead s.p.a.ce around her. "You got this, Holly. You can kick this thing."

She looked up at him as if for the first time. Who was this guy holding her with his strong arms? No one had ever believed she could do anything. But he did, and it wasn't an act. It wasn't a show of pity. He believed in her. She touched the b.l.o.o.d.y scars on his arm where she had dug him earlier, and she began to cry. "I hurt you, Dan. I'm so sorry." She ran her hand down his forearm, surveying the wounds he had taken.

"It's okay," he said with a weak smile. "It only hurts a lot."

She smeared the tears down her cheek with the back of her hand and let out a half-laugh. How was he able to find humor even in this? She studied his face. This wasn't a joke to him. There was real concern in his eyes, not pity or condemnation, but a genuine concern for her safety. And something else-a vulnerability that made her feel as though they were both wounded animals, helping each other survive. His honesty melted her defenses, and her muscles loosened.