94

Jean looked up as the door to the bedroom was pushed open. The Owl was standing in the doorway. In his arms he was carrying a slender figure, dressed in the dark gray uniform of a West Point cadet. With a satisfied smile he walked across the room and lay Meredith at Jean's feet. "Behold, your daughter!" he said triumphantly. "Look into her face. See the features that must be familiar to you. Isn't she beautiful? Aren't you proud?"

Reed, Jean thought, it's Reed! Lily is Reed incarnate! The narrow aquiline nose, the wide-set eyes, the high cheekbones, the pale golden hair. Oh, my God, has he killed her? No, no-she's breathing!

"Don't hurt her! Don't you dare hurt her!" she cried. When she tried to shout, her voice became muffled. From the bed she could hear Laura's frightened sobs.

"I'm not going to hurt her, Jeannie. But I am going to kill her, and you are going to watch. Then it will be Laura's turn. Then yours. By then I think I'll be doing you a favor. I can't imagine you would want to live after watching your daughter die, will you?"

At a deliberately slow pace, The Owl walked across the room, removed the hanger with the plastic bag on which he had written "Lily/Meredith," and carried it back. He knelt beside Meredith's unconscious form and slid the hanger out of the bag. "Do you want to pray, Jean?" he asked. "I think the Twenty-third Psalm is appropriate for you to recite at this time. Go ahead-'The Lord is my shepherd

Stunned and horrified, Jean watched as The Owl began to slide the plastic over Lily's head.

"No, no, no…" Before the plastic reached Lily's nostrils, she tipped the chair, falling forward, protecting her child with her body. The chair hit The Owl on his arm and pinned it. He screeched with pain. As he struggled to pull it loose, he could hear from downstairs the sound of the front door being smashed open.

95

When Sam Deegan got on the phone with Jake after Amy Sachs had explained to him that Jake thought he knew where Laura was being kept, he did not give Jake the chance to deliver the speech he had hastily prepared.

Jake wanted to say, "Mr. Deegan, notwithstanding the fact that you publicly disclaimed my assistance and made me the subject of ridicule, I am being generous enough to help you in your investigation, particularly since I am very concerned about Dr. Sheridan."

He got only as far as "Notwithstanding the fact" when Sam interrupted. "Listen, Jake. Jean Sheridan and Laura are in the hands of a homicidal maniac. Don't waste my time. Do you know where Laura is, or don't you?"

At that, Jake almost tripped over his own tongue as he rushed to tell what he knew.

"Somebody is staying in Laura's old house on Mountain Road, Mr. Deegan, even though it's supposed to be unoccupied. One of the honorees from the reunion has been buying food at the delicatessen down the street from the house almost every day. He just drove by. I think he was on his way to the house." Jake had barely spit out the name of the man before he heard the click of Sam's phone.

That sure got Deegan's attention, Jake thought as he waited on the street near Laura's old house. It wasn't more than six minutes later that Deegan and that other detective, Zarro, were screeching to a stop at the curb, followed by two patrol cars. They hadn't used the sirens to announce their arrival, which Jake had found disappointing, but he supposed they wanted to surprise the guy.

He had told Sam he was sure that whoever was in the house was in the corner front bedroom. Immediately after that, they broke down the front door and rushed in. Sam had yelled to him to stay outside.

Fat chance, Jake thought. He'd given them time to get to the bedroom, then followed, the camera slung over his shoulder. As he got to the top of the stairs, he heard a door slam. The other front bedroom, he thought. Somebody's in there.

Sam Deegan came out of the back corner bedroom, his gun drawn. "Get downstairs, Jake!" he ordered. "There's a killer hiding up here."

Jake pointed down the hall. "He's in there."

Sam and Zarro and a couple of the cops ran past him. Jake rushed to the door of the front bedroom, looked inside, and, after an instant of total shock at what he was seeing, focused his camera and began snapping pictures.

He took a photograph of Laura Wilcox. She was lying on the bed, her gown crumpled, her hair matted. A cop was supporting her head and holding a glass of water to her lips.

Jean Sheridan was sitting on the floor, holding in her arms a young woman dressed in the uniform of a West Point cadet. Jean was crying and whispering, "Lily, Lily, Lily," over and over again. At first Jake thought the girl was dead, but then he saw that she was beginning to stir.

Jake aimed his camera and was able to record for posterity the moment Lily opened her eyes and, for the first time since the day she was born, looked into the eyes of her birth mother.

96

It will be only a matter of seconds before they force open the door, The Owl thought. I came so close to completing the mission. He looked at the pewter owls he had clasped in his hand, the ones he had intended to place with the bodies of Laura and Jean and Meredith.

Now he would never have the chance.

"Give yourself up," Sam Deegan shouted. "It's over. You know you can't escape."

"Oh, but I can," The Owl thought. He sighed and took his mask out of his pocket. He slipped it on and looked into the mirror over the bureau to be sure it was properly in place. He put the pewter owls on the dresser.

"I am an owl, and I live in a tree," he said aloud.

The pistol was in his other pocket. He took it out and held it against his temple. "Nighttime is my time," he whispered. Then he closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.

At the sound of the shot, Sam kicked the door and it flew open. With Eddie Zarro and the cops behind him, he rushed inside.

The body was sprawled on the floor, the gun beside it. He had fallen backward, and the mask was still in place, blood seeping through it.

Sam bent down, pulled off the mask, and looked into the face of the man who had taken the lives of so many innocent people. In death the scars from the plastic surgery were clearly visible, and the features that some surgeon had managed to make so attractive now seemed twisted and repulsive.

"Funny," Sam said. "Gordon Amory was the last one I would have figured to be The Owl."

97

That night Jean had dinner with Charles and Gano Buckley at Craig Michaelson's home. Meredith was already back at West Point. "After the doctor checked her over, she insisted on going back today," General Buckley said. "She was still worried about her physics exam tomorrow morning. She is such a disciplined kid. She'll make a great soldier." He was trying not to show how shaken he had been when he learned how near to death his only child had come.

"Like the goddess, Minerva, she sprang full-fledged from her father's brow," Jean said. "It's exactly what Reed would have done." She lapsed into silence. She could still feel the unspeakable joy of the moment when the cop had cut her loose from the chair and she had been able to put her arms around Lily. She could feel the poignant beauty of the sound of Lily whispering, "Jean-Mother."

They had been taken to the hospital to be checked. There, she and Lily had sat side by side talking, beginning to catch up on nearly twenty years. "I always imagined what you looked like," Lily had said. "I think I pictured you just as you are."

"And I you. I'll have to learn to call you Meredith. It's a beautiful name."