"I think a statement like this makes us look pretty damn naive," Rich Stevens said flatly.

"I want us to look naive," Sam shot back. "I want whoever is out there to think we're a bunch of dopes. If Laura is still alive, I don't want him to panic before we have a chance to save her."

There was a tap at the door. One of the young new investigators on the staff was obviously excited. "Sir, we're going through the student personnel folders of the Stonecroft graduates who attended the reunion and may have something on one of them, Joel Nieman.

"What about him?" Stevens asked.

"When he was a senior, he was questioned about the fact that Alison Kimball's locker was tampered with. The screws had been removed from the hinges so that when she opened the door, it fell on her and knocked her down. She suffered a mild concussion."

"Why was he questioned?" Sam asked.

"Because he was really upset about something she had written in the school newspaper. The senior year school play was Romeo and Juliet. Nieman had the part of Romeo, and Kendall wrote something really nasty about him not being able to remember his lines. He prided himself on memorizing Shakespeare, and went around the school saying what he'd like to do to her. He told everybody the problem had been a couple of seconds of stage fright and was not a case of him forgetting lines. Right after that, she got bowled over by the locker door.

"There's other stuff, too. He has a lousy temper and has been hauled in after a couple of bar fights. He was almost indicted last year for some imaginative accounting practices, and his wife is away most of the time, like right now."

Monsignor Dillon and I both caught the fact that the guy who's contacting Jean about Lily quoted an obscure sonnet from Shakespeare, Sam thought.

He stood up. "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?" As Rich Stevens and the young investigator stared at him, Sam said, "That's exactly what I'm going to find out right now. Then we'll see what other lines from Shakespeare Joel Nieman might be able to quote for us."

48

At six-thirty The Owl returned to the house and crept up the stairs. This time Laura had obviously sensed his presence or had anticipated that he would be visiting, because when he entered the room and turned the flashlight on her, he could see that she was already trembling.

"Hello, Laura," he whispered. "Are you glad I'm back?"

Her breathing was harsh and shallow. He watched as she tried to shrink back against the mattress.

"Laura, you must answer me. Here, let me loosen the tape. Better than that, I'll take it off. I brought you something to eat. Now, are you glad I'm back?"

"Ye-yes, I'm glad," she whispered.

"Laura, you're stuttering. I'm surprised at you. You ridicule people who stutter. Show me how you ridicule them. No, never mind. I can't stay too long. I brought you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a glass of milk. You used to eat that every day in grammar school. Do you remember that?"

"Yes… yes."

"I'm glad you remember. It's important that we don't forget the past. Now I'll allow you to use the bathroom. Then you may eat your sandwich and drink the milk."

With a quick gesture he pulled her to a sitting position and cut the cords on her wrists. The movement was so fast that Laura swayed and reached out her hand. Inadvertently she grasped The Owl's arm.

He gasped with pain and clenched his fist, ready to strike her, but then he stopped. "You couldn't have known that my arm is very sore, so I must not hold it against you. But never touch that arm again. Understand?"

Laura nodded.

"Stand up. After you have visited the bathroom, I will permit you to sit in the chair and eat."

With tentative, unsteady steps, Laura obeyed. The night light in the bathroom made it possible for her to see the taps on the sink and turn them on. With a hurried gesture she splashed water on her face and hands and smoothed back her hair. If I can only stay alive, she thought. They've got to be looking for me. Please God, let them be looking for me.

The handle of the bathroom door turned. "Laura, it's time."

Time! Was he going to kill her now? God… please…

The door opened. The Owl pointed to the chair beside the dresser. Silently, Laura shuffled over to it and sat down.

"Go ahead," he urged. "Start to eat." He picked up the flashlight and directed the light on her neck so that he could watch her expression without blinding her. He was pleased to see that she was crying again.

"Laura, you're so afraid, aren't you? And I bet you're wondering how I knew that you ridiculed me. Let me tell you a story. Twenty years ago this weekend a bunch of us were home from our different colleges and got together one night. There was a party. Now, as you know, I was never part of the crowd, of the inner circle. Far from it, in fact. But for some reason I was invited to that party, and you were there. Lovely Laura. That night you were sitting on the lap of your latest conquest, Dick Gormley, our erstwhile baseball star. I was eating my heart out, Laura, that's how much of a crush I still had on you.

"Alison was at the party, of course. Quite drunk. She came over to me. I never liked her. Frankly, I was afraid of that tongue of hers- razor-sharp when she turned it on you. She reminded me that early in senior year I had had the temerity to ask you to go on a date. 'You…' she said with a sneer and laughed. The owl asking Laura out.' And then Alison demonstrated for me how you mimicked me when we were in the second-grade school play. 'I am annnnnn… ow… owwwlll… and… and… I… live… in… a… a…' "

"Laura, your imitation of me must have been superb. Alison assured me that the girls at your lunch table screamed with laughter every time they thought of it. And then you reminded them that I had been dopey enough to wet my pants onstage before I ran off. You even told them that."

Laura had been taking bites of the sandwich. Now he watched as she dropped it onto her lap. "I'm sorry…"

"Laura, you still don't understand that you have lived twenty years too long. Let me tell you about it. The night of that party, I was drunk, too. I was so drunk that I forgot you had moved. I came here that night to kill you. I knew where your family kept the extra key under that fake rabbit in the backyard. The new people kept it there, too. I came into this house and up to this room. I saw the flow of hair on the pillow and thought it was you. Laura, I made a mistake when I stabbed Karen Sommers. I was killing you, Laura. I was killing you!

"The next morning I woke up vaguely remembering that I'd been here. Then I found out what had happened and realized that I was famous." The Owl's voice became rushed with excitement at the memory. "I didn't know Karen Sommers. No one even dreamed of connecting me to her, but that mistake liberated me. That morning I understood that I have the power of life and death. And I've been exercising it ever since. Ever since, Laura. Women all over the country."

He stood up. Laura's eyes were wide with fear; her mouth hung open; the sandwich lay in her lap. He leaned toward her. "Now I have to go, but think about me, Laura. Think how lucky you have been to have enjoyed a bonus twenty years of life."

In savagely quick movements, he tied her hands, taped her mouth, pulled her up from the chair, pushed her back on the bed, and fastened the long rope over her body.

"It began in this room, and it will end in this room, Laura," he said. "The final stage of the plan is about to unfold. Try to guess what it might be."

He was gone. Outside the moon was rising, and from the bed Laura could see the faint outline of the cell phone on top of the dresser.