She left her card with Nancy Frasier, saying, “It’s a long shot, but if you should hear his name, I’d appreciate a call.”

The director accepted the card and frowned, asking abruptly, “Is it about that rapist? I know they found one of the women only a few blocks from here.”

Jennifer nodded. “Yeah. This David Robson may have seen something. Probably not, but we’re pursuing every lead.”

With a nod back toward the women’s dormitory, Frasier said, “Our female population has more than doubled in the last few weeks. Lot of scared women out there. And even the men are nervous, I’d say. Look, I’ll ask around, okay? Some of them may talk to me when they wouldn’t say squat to you. If I find out anything, anything at all about this man, I’ll call you.”

“Thank you.” Jennifer made her way back out to her car, depressed as always by the homeless, rootless, or just plain mindless people, most of whom certainly deserved more out of life than a narrow cot in a room full of strangers.

She unlocked her car, gazing absently toward the mission as she watched a couple of bearded men dressed in ancient army jackets standing outside, smoking. She grimaced when one of the men stooped to pick up a discarded cigarette from the sidewalk and then put the filter end between his lips without hesitation.

It was only then that she realized she was rubbing the nape of her neck. She stopped, aware now of the tingling, uneasy sensation. Moving her head no more than necessary, she shifted her gaze to sweep the area, trying to see whatever it was that had put her instincts on alert.

There weren’t many people about, and those were grouped near the mission, unthreatening as far as she could tell. A damp, chilly breeze had sprung up, and she could hear it stirring trash in the gutter on the other side of the street and rattling a loose street sign nearby.

But as far as she could determine, there was nothing else. Nothing to make her feel so uneasy.

“Jumping at shadows, Seaton,” she muttered.

She got into her car, locking the doors immediately, and sat there for a moment. She was tired and more than a little bit unnerved to find her thoughts drifting toward Terry. She glanced at her watch, wavered for just a bit, then swore under her breath and started the car to head back to the station.

Later, she thought. There’d be time later for Terry.

“It sounds like Tara Jameson,” Andy reported. “According to descriptions and the photo we have, she’s very delicate, almost childlike. Dark hair, long and straight; almond-shaped dark eyes; high cheekbones; sensitive mouth.”

“You’re still at the apartment?” John had called Andy on his cell phone.

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“Forensics turned up a few human hairs in the laundry chute, so you two were probably right about that being the way he got her down to the basement. From there, it looks like he took her out of the building through a service door that was supposed to be securely locked; it wasn’t forced but picked by somebody who knew what he was doing. We still don’t know how the bastard managed to avoid getting his picture taken by the security cameras, but I’ve got my people looking at all the tapes and checking out the computer that runs this place’s electronics system. Her door wasn’t forced, the apartment’s security system was deactivated with her own code-all par for the course for this guy.”

“Have you had any luck trying to find whoever sent the ransom note to Mitchell?”

“Not so far.” Andy lowered his voice. “So if your FBI buddy finds anything, let me know pronto.”

“I will.”

When he closed his phone and dropped it into a pocket, Maggie said steadily, “It’s her, isn’t it? The painting is of Tara Jameson?”

John half turned on the couch to look at her where she sat curled up at the opposite end. “From the description Andy gave me, yes.”

She drew a breath and leaned her head back against the couch, looking at him. “I thought it was Samantha.”

“No, it definitely isn’t her. And knowing that, do you still believe Samantha’s dead?”

“Yes.” Maggie didn’t hesitate.

John was trying his best to understand this but couldn’t help wondering if at least some of what he was hearing now was nothing more than symptoms of a mental deterioration Quentin and Kendra had hinted was possible. What if Maggie had simply suffered too much?

“I’m not losing it, John.” Her voice was very quiet, and she smiled faintly when he gave her a startled look. “No, I can’t read your mind. But I do have a sense of how you’re feeling, and I know you’re worried about me. Don’t be, at least not about this. I’m okay.”

“Are you?”

“Yeah. Tired and unnerved, I won’t deny that, but otherwise okay.”

“And the painting? How were you able to paint something that didn’t yet exist?”

She drew a breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t understand it myself. All I know is that if he hasn’t done that to her yet-he will. Unless we stop him.”

“But you can’t see the future?”

“No. I can’t see the future.” She managed a faint smile. “I did ask if you were ready to accept the extraordinary and look for the unexpected.”

“Yeah, but… this? You talk about an evil that won’t die, about balance that has to be restored, and then show me a painting of a tortured dead woman you say you painted even before she was abducted? I don’t know, Maggie. I just don’t know how to make sense of this.”

Maggie couldn’t really blame him.

“And what about your connection to it all? If you can’t see the future, and your psychic ability is… limited… to feelings, then how can you be so certain this bastard we’re after is some kind of eternal evil? Because you feel it?”

“Yes. And because I’ve felt it before.”

“When?”

She hesitated, wondering if there was any chance at all he could accept this. “In 1934.”

After a long moment of silence, John said, “I really wish you had something stronger than coffee in the house.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

He drew a breath and let it out slowly. “You’re saying you lived then? That you were another person-living another life?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“And you knew this… eternal evil then?”

“He was attacking women then the way he is now, I know that. When Andy and the others showed us those pictures of women killed back then, I knew it was him. Not a copycat killer borrowing somebody else’s rituals, but him.”

“Because you felt it.”

She nodded. “I don’t know anything that could help the investigation, nothing that could help us find him, catch him. I don’t know what he looks like, what his name is. I don’t even know why he’s picking women who look like the ones he killed back then. All I know is that the evil inside him has been alive a long, long time. And I know it’s my fault.”

“What?”

“Balance, remember? A positive force intended to oppose a negative one? Somehow, I was supposed to stop him. Back in the beginning, before his evil grew too strong, I was somehow in a position to change whatever happened then. To stop him, destroy him. Or maybe just turn him in a different direction. I don’t know for sure. I don’t remember. I just feel.”

“And if what you feel is wrong?”

“It isn’t.”

“How can you be so damned sure? Maggie, what you’re talking about is… incredible. To say the least. You failed to stop a killer a lifetime ago, and because of that he became some kind of unstoppable evil?”

“He isn’t unstoppable. He just hasn’t been stopped-up to now.”

“And you have to stop him-now?”

She nodded. “I have to stop him. Because I didn’t before. I can’t… move on until I do what I’m supposed to do. And I have a very strong feeling this is my last chance to correct that mistake. Maybe we only get so many chances, I don’t know. Maybe if I fail this time, someone else gets a shot at restoring the balance and I get sent back to learn the lesson a different way. I just… I just know that it’s my responsibility this time around. I have to stop him.”