“You want to see my room?”

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 casserole 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. Assuming 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, eggshells, bacon packaging, empty milk jugs, and an assortment of other garbage. Upon further analysis 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 Michelle 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 flustered.

“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.