But there was no chance for such symmetry now. All his hopes had unraveled. And there was only one answer left. To kill the girl and leave. Flee to the West Coast, New England, maybe overseas.

He’d lost his son, Tate Collier would lose his daughter.

A kind of cure, a kind of justice, a kind of revenge…

He spent a few minutes preparing some things in his house then hurried to his car. He sped out onto the highway, toward the distant humps of mountains, a sensuous dark line above which no stars became stars and the moon showed as a faint, white crescent of frown.

Cleaning the deep wounds was the hardest part.

She’d found a cheap sewing kit in the bedroom and a bottle of rubbing alcohol in the medicine cabinet.

He took the stitches bravely (even though she cringed every time the needle pierced his skin). But when Megan poured a capful of alcohol on the wounds he shivered frantically at the pain.

“Oh, I’m sorry”

‘No, no,” came his garbled voice, “Keep at it, Ms. Beautiful…

Her eyes teared when she heard the nickname he’d used the night he picked her up.

“Even if you get out, you’ll never get past ‘em. The dogs. He’s got four or five of the big flickers.”

“You’re sure you can’t walk?”

“I don’t think so,” he gurgled. “No.”

“Okay, you stay here. I saw a door going to the basement. I think I can break it open. I’m going to see if there’s a door or window down there. Maybe it’ll lead outside.”

He nodded, breathed, “I love…“ and passed out.

She stacked the cinder blocks around him so that if Matthews glanced this way he wouldn’t see the young man.

She listened for a moment to his low, uneven breathing. Then, knife in one hand, she started down the corridor.

Megan was almost to the intersection of the corridors when she heard the creak of a door opening. Then it slammed.

Aaron Matthews had returned.

26

They drove in silence through destitute parts of Prince William County. They passed tilled fields, where the taproots of corn were reaching silently down into the dark, red-tinted earth. Barns long ago abandoned. Decaying tract bungalows, where postwar dreams had withered fast-tiny cubes of vinyl-and aluminum-sided homes. Shacks and cars on blocks.

Through Manassas, where the fearsome Rebel yell was first heard, then through the outlying farms and past the Confederate Cemetery

“It was him, Tate,” Bett said, breaking a long silence.

“Who?”

“A man came to see me. He said he was her therapist but he wasn’t.”

“It was Matthews?”

“He called himself Peters.”

“His son’s name was Peter,” Tate mused. “That must be why he picked it.” Glanced at her. “What happened?”

She shook her head. “He seduced me. Nothing really happened but it was enough…Oh, Tate, he looked right into my soul. He knew what I wanted to hear. He said exactly the right things.”

You can talk your way into somebody’s heart and get them to do whatever you want. Judge or jury, you’re got that skill. Words, Tate. Words. You can’t see them but they’re the most dangerous weapons on earth, Remember that. Be careful, son.

She continued, “He’d called Brad. I think he pretended he was a cop and told him to get to my house. We were together on the couch… I was drunk… Oh, Tate.”

Tate put his hand on her knee, squeezed lightly “There was nothing you could’ve done, Bett. He’s too good. Somehow, he’s done all of this. Dr. Hanson, Konnie… probably Eckhard too, the teacher. Just to get even with me.” They drove on in silence. Then Tate realized something. “You got here too quickly”

“What?“

“You couldn’t have been in Baltimore when you got my message.”

“No, I got as far as Takoma Park and turned back.”

“Why?”

A long pause.

“Because I decided it had to stop.” Instinctively she flipped the mirror down and examined her face. Poked at a wrinkle or two. “I was running after Brad and I should have been going after Megan.” She continued, “I realized something, Tate. How mad I’ve been at her.”

“At Megan? Because of what we heard at the Coffee Shop?”

“Oh, Lord, no. That’s my fault, not hers.” She took a deep breath, flipped the mirror back up. “No, Tate. I’ve been mad at her for years. And I shouldn’t’ve been. It wasn’t her fault. She was born at the wrong time and the wrong place.”

“Yes, she sure was.”

“I neglected her and didn’t do the things I should have… I dated, I left her alone. I did the basics, sure. But kids know. They know where your heart is. Here I was, running after Joe or Dave or Brad and leaving my daughter. Time for that to stop. I’m just praying it’s not too late.”

“We’ll find her.”

The roads were deserted here and the air aromatic with smoke from wood cooking fires, common in this poor part of the county; The Volvo streaked through a stop sign. Tate skidded into a turn and then headed down a bad road.

“We’re in trouble, aren’t we?” she asked.

“We sure are. They don’t put out all-points bulletins anymore. But if they did we’d be the main attraction in one.”

“They don’t know my car,” Bett pointed out.

He laughed. “Oh, that took all of thirty seconds for ‘em to track down. Look, there. That’s his place.”

Matthews’s small bungalow was visible through a stand of trees some distance away. A rusting heating-oil tank sat in the side yard and the stands of uncut grass were outnumbered by patches of red mud. The house was only two miles away from Tate’s farm. A convenient staging point for a break-in and kidnapping, he noted.

“What are we going to do?” Bett asked.

Tate didn’t answer her. Instead he took the gun out of his pocket. “We’re going to get our daughter,” he said.

Thirty yards, twenty, fifteen. Tate paused and listened. Silence from inside Matthews’s house.

He smelled the scent of wood smoke and pictured the kidnapper sitting beside the fireplace with Megan bound and gagged at his feet.

The shabby house chilled his heart. He’d seen places like it often. Too often, When he was a commonwealth’s attorney he’d always- unlike most big-city prosecutors-visited the crime scenes himself. This was what detectives dubbed a section-sixty cottage, referring to the Virginia Penal Code provision for murder. Shotgun killings, domestics, love gone cruel then violent… There were common elements among such houses: they were small, filthy, silent, brimming with unspoken hate.

The Mercedes wasn’t in the drive so it was possible that Matthews hadn’t heard the message from the police. Maybe Megan was here now, lying in the bedroom or the basement. Maybe this would be the end of it. But he moved as silently as he could, taking no chances.

He glanced through the window.

The living room was empty, lit only by the glow of embers in the fireplace. He listened for a long moment. Nothing.

The windows were locked but he tested the handle on the door and found it was open. He pushed inside, thinking only as he did so: Why a fire on a warm night?

Oh, no! He lunged for the doorknob but it was too late; the door knocked over the large pail of gasoline.

“God!”

Instinctively Tate grabbed for the bucket as the pink wave of gas flowed onto the floor and into the fireplace.

‘What?” Bett cried.

The gas ignited and with a whoosh a huge ball of flame exploded through the living room.

“Megan!” Tate cried, turning away from the flames and falling onto the porch. His sleeve was on fire. He slapped out the flames.

“She’s in there? She’s in there?” Bett shouted in panic and ran to the window. Scrabbling away from the flowing gasoline, Tate grabbed Bett and pulled her back. He covered his face with his hand, felt the searing heat take the hairs off the back of his fingers.

“Megan!” Bett cried. She broke the window in with her elbow. She peered inside for a moment but then leapt back as a plume of flame burst through the window at her. If she hadn’t leapt aside the fire would have consumed her face and hair.