I glanced down at Bobby who as staring up expectantly. "Okay."

Without waiting, he turned and headed toward the house, wobbling a little with each hurried step.

When I turned back to Kathryn, she was watching me as if I were her greatest prize. I know everyone wants to be wanted, but I couldn't help thinking that something was wrong. That she more than just wanted me. That a mother who'd gone to such lengths to find me would go to even greater lengths to keep me.

She lifted my hand and kissed it. Not once, but three times.

"You're spotless," she said. "A treasure from our loving heavenly Father to take away all the sorrow and grief I have ever known."

The swamp was alive with the unnerving shrieks of insects as dusk settled in. Trees loomed all around us, so thick and tangled that they might as well have been a solid wall.

Kathryn put her arm around me again, and guided me forward, walking carefully, not too rushed, as if leading a wounded soldier from a war.

"You must be starving. I have a ca.s.serole ready. Fresh corn on the cob. I'm going to take care of you, sweetheart. No one's going to hurt a hair on your head ever again." She glanced down my body. "We have to get you out of those filthy clothes and bathe you immediately. I'll trim your nails and scrub your feet. Fix your hair. Would you like that? Hmm?"

Not really. But I didn't say anything.

"Of course you would. You're going to be perfect." She gave me a little squeeze. "Mommy loves you, Eden. My name means pure, did you know that? But I'm not pure. Not without you. It's you who make me pure." She twisted her head down and kissed the top of my head. "I am dead without you."

A shiver raked my spine. I don't know what it was about her words that scared me so much, maybe it was the tone she used. But it was then that I first decided that I was going to leave. And the moment I thought about leaving, I also knew that Kathryn wouldn't let me.

So I had to go on my own, without her knowing.

And I had to go that night.

8.

Day Six

5:54 pm

OLIVIA SAT alone at the close of the sixth long day since Alice's abduction, exhausted, staring blankly at the dozens of photos, notes, and leads pinned to the wall in the conference room that she'd temporarily made her office. They would all be packed up tonight and moved to Columbia in the morning. She would continue working the case from the FBI headquarters. a.s.suming there was any more to work.

The hum of a vacuum moving down the outer hallway had an air of finality. Time to wrap it up. Not just the day, the entire case.

Most of the staff had already gone home to their families and some basic normalcy. Normalcy at least for the night, enjoying the illusion that life was safe, predictable, and manageable within four walls, however untrue that was.

In reality, the world wasn't safe at all-the terrible things that only happened to "other people" eventually found their way to everyone. It was simply the way of a cruel and unfair universe that seemed unimpressed with either the good or the evil that filled it.

She glanced at the digital clock mounted over the door. 5:55. The front doors would be locked at six.

Her head throbbed and the onset of a migraine ached behind her eyes. She'd spent the last two hours digging through the case files one last time before they were packed up for Columbia. Considering every angle, looking at every report again. But all she saw now were snapshots in time where they'd been one step behind, one hour too late, one good idea away from finding Alice.

If only they'd discovered the cell phone sooner.

If only John had come home an hour earlier.

If only the DNA had pointed to someone and given the man a face and a name.

If only the truck had shown up in one of the scores of traffic and gas-station security cameras they'd secured footage from within a hundred-mile radius.

If only they'd found the truck a day earlier.

If only . . . but they hadn't.

CSI had turned the cabin inside out and found nothing particularly useful they didn't already have or know. The bag of trash in a plastic bin behind the cabin contained mostly a mixture of candy-bar wrappers, eggsh.e.l.ls, bacon packaging, empty milk jugs, and an a.s.sortment of other garbage. Upon further a.n.a.lysis of the milk's fermentation rate and the decay rates on several half-eaten pieces of fruit, forensics had determined that the last meal consumed at the cabin had been the night before they'd gone in. They'd missed them by twelve hours. Maybe eighteen, no more.

The truck and cabin had turned up plenty of fingerprint and DNA evidence, but still no match. Whoever had taken Alice didn't have a record.

The K-9 dogs had tracked their scent three-quarters of a mile southwest to a small stony clearing in the middle of the woods. The scent had ended there, presumably where another vehicle had been waiting. A useless collection of multiple tire tracks disappeared down a narrow Jeep trail.

Alice was gone. They had no leads on the vehicle they'd left in. The case was completely stalled. Until or unless they uncovered new evidence, they were dead in the water. That new evidence would likely come only at the hands of whoever had taken Alice. A mistake, carelessness which would lead to a sighting, committing a different crime that resulted in the abductor's fingerprint or DNA being entered into the system and matched to the fingerprints they now had on file.

But whoever had taken Alice, however awkward they might have appeared to Louise during the abduction itself, had enough planning in place to get out clean.

For all practical purposes, the case was dead in the water.

A thick knot of emotion cinched tight in her throat. She'd always invested herself completely in her cases, always taken a personal stake in them. But Alice . . .

Alice was different. There was something about the girl that mattered in a way she couldn't quite explain. Maybe it was because Alice was the age Mich.e.l.le would be if she were still alive. Or maybe she'd just been at this too long and become so mired in her own guilt that she wanted Alice to be different. Maybe it was the private conversation she'd had with Andrew, the enigmatic caretaker who insisted that Alice was singularly unique and perhaps gifted. Dangerous even.

Maybe it was all of those things, or none of them. Either way, the chances of finding Alice alive were now statistically less than one in ten.

She slowly pushed herself back from the table and was about to stand when a soft knock interrupted her.

"Come in."

The door slowly swung open. A stranger stood in the doorframe, staring at her with blue eyes and gentle smile. Not just any stranger, she thought. The man before her was immediately arresting, not in his appearance, but in the way he carried himself, in the surety of his stare, in the fluidity of his walk as he stepped through her door.

Peering around him from behind, Susan, the receptionist, looked fl.u.s.tered.

"I'm sorry, Agent Strauss. I asked him to wait . . ."

"It's okay, Susan." Olivia leaned back in her chair.

The receptionist glanced between them, then nodded and backed out, offering a final apology.

"Can you shut the door, Susan?"

"Of course. Sorry."

She reached in, pulled the door closed, and was gone, leaving Olivia alone with the stranger, who was walking toward the window, staring out at the skyline. He spoke in a gentle voice without turning.

"Quite a view from up here. Amazing how the world looks so different from a new perspective."

"And you are?"

The man turned and faced her, unhurried and at ease, as if it was she who had come to see him and not the other way around.

Shocks of dark hair framed his chiseled face, which had the deep sun patina of someone who rarely spent time indoors. He wore jeans and white T-shirt beneath a black leather jacket. A round medallion hung in the center of his chest, attached to a black leather strap. His boots too were black leather with thick soles, like a biker might wear.

"A friend," he said. "Father Andrew directed me to you. He sends his regards."

"Father Andrew? Andrew DeVoss?"

He slowly dipped his head. "The same."

Her attention was now fully fixed. Over the years, she'd developed the ability to size people up quickly. Intuit their motivations. Read them not just by what they said, but by how they were. A person's presence always spoke more than their words.

But she'd never encountered the kind of presence carried by this man. And looking at him, she knew he was a friend. And one somehow connected to the man who knew of Alice's whitewashed past.

She stood and crossed the office, extending her hand.

"I'm Special Agent Strauss."

"Yes, I know," he said with a twinkle in his eye. He took her hand, firmly but tenderly, and then laid his left hand on top. "Olivia. It's a beautiful name."

His eyes were deep blue flecked with gray, and a strange sense of calm washed through Olivia as she held his gaze.

"And your name is?"

"Call me Stephen."

She withdrew her hand.

"Stephen . . ."

"Just Stephen. Names are like costumes, don't you think? We just make them up. Yours, for instance, symbolizes the olive branch of peace. Did you know that?"

"No."

"And yet it doesn't describe how you are right now, does it?"

He said it with a soothing tone that seemed to reach into her. So he too was a good judge of a person's disposition. Of course she wasn't at peace, but who was these days?

She was more interested in what he could tell her about the case.

"Please, have a seat." She directed him toward a chair in front of her desk and sat down.

"Thank you."

He slid into the chair, withdrew a toothpick from his pocket and slowly twirled it between his thumb and forefinger.

"I've come to help you, Olivia. And maybe you can help me as well."

"Fair enough. What do you know?"

"That no one is ever who they pretend to be. That nothing is as it first appears. Which is what Alice learned in the monastery before she lost her memory."

He was speaking in riddles. But oddly, she wasn't put off by him.

"I don't see how that helps. I have a missing girl on my hands and the trail has gone cold. Please tell me that you can help me find her."

"If Alice could be found right now, I would have already found her. I haven't, which means neither will you. Not until she's ready to be found."

"And with that att.i.tude, she may never be found alive."

"Did I say alive?"

Olivia stared at him, caught off guard.

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning I don't know where or when we will find Alice, nor that she will be alive if or when we do. I do know that she's not what she seems to any who've met her. Her eyes were opened once, they will be opened again if she's willing."

"It's only been six days. She's a thirteen-year-old child who was abducted, not an adult who's fully responsible." She said it, thinking she should be protesting his apparent nonchalance. But he was the kind who didn't offer offense and she wasn't taking any. "She knows nothing about fatalism and frankly, I reject the idea that we are powerless to help her."

"I didn't say we were powerless," he said, tilting his head slightly down. "Locating her would be a great help to me. My reason for finding her is surely as motivated as yours. But Alice's journey is her own, not yours or mine. Do your best to find her, but don't let your search keep you in misery."

His words cut into her soul like a hot knife. She wasn't sure why.

"Is there anything you can tell me about her that will help? What about the other children?"

"I can tell you that you shouldn't worry about them. And that you shouldn't endanger them by speaking to anyone about them. I can also tell you that Alice was almost surely taken by her mother."

"How can you know that?"

"Because I do. No one else would have a reason to take her. Unfortunately, her mother seems to have vanished under the auspices of death. So you see, until Alice makes a way to be found, she won't be. If and when she does make a way to be found, we must be there to find her. Therefore, be diligent, but try not to worry."

She wasn't sure how to respond. The words coming out of Stephen's mouth seemed like nonsense, little more than the philosophical plat.i.tudes of a man who'd spent too much time alone. And yet there was something about his voice, the way he carried himself and spoke, that resonated deeply with her. Spoke to her. Made her want to believe what he was saying, however nave it seemed.

"You came here to tell me not to worry?"